I’ve heard enough interviews and stories about how humans will evolve someday to have 6 fingers to type faster (utterly absurd, as if you are more likely to live and procreate if you type faster? on a keyboard that was intentionally designed to slow human typists down for fear of the typewriter keys getting stuck?) or how we’ll evolve to be better with technology or whatever societal trend happens to be hot. Evolution via natural selection is such an easy concept to understand yet people continue to mangle it and perpetuate the same myths. What’s this have to do with finance? A bit, since where humans are headed and what people believe can dictate investments, stocks and other important behaviors. But let’s get back to the point. Aside from the fact that appreciable evolution in the human species has occurred too slowly for any one of us to observe even over the past several centuries of written history, let’s consider the reality that human evolution in terms of favorable traits arising by natural selection has essentially stopped and may actually move in reverse as we progress into the future. How? Continue reading.
In the past, only those with the right mutations were more likely to procreate and further their lineage. After all, that’s how we ended up with all the physical attributes, intelligence, social capabilities and everything else that differentiates us from other primates. Over time, the smarter, stronger, more successful humanoid creatures continued to progress until we have what we have today. Today though, people don’t die prematurely if they are sickly, unintelligent or even belligerent. We have modern healthcare, charity, laws and really, a more humane world. While the human species is certainly diversifying its gene pool rapidly with the advent of domestic flight and interracial marriage, there is no more likelihood that any particular male or female will either survive or perish and/or reproduce based on their physical and mental attributes. A few thousand years ago, a child born with “name your condition” would be less likely to reproduce than their healthier siblings. They either would have died young or lived a very lonely life unlikely to find a mate.
There is an argument to be made that we will actually be moving in reverse. If you consider the argument that IQ is positively correlated with wealth and the fact that wealthy people are likely to have a very low birthrate whereas birthrate increases with poverty, then the case could be made that there will be more humans born in the future with lower IQs than higher IQs, thus pushing the aggregate in the reverse direction. The net effect would probably be negligible and barely noticeable, especially since modern conveniences and technology require a lower burden on IQ in the future, but the reality is, there is no more natural selection for favorable characteristics or mutations any more. Evolution is dead. For humans at least. It’s not a big deal, I mean, we’ve already conquered the world and we won’t notice a thing in our lifetime but I wish the mainstream media and wannabe intellectuals would better understand the concept before creating fantasies about where the human race is headed.
After chewing on that, now consider some real finance articles (OK, with one political one) with the roundup I haven’t done in some time:
- Your Government is Spying On You. Where is the Media?
- US Economy About to Crash?
- How Are Doing with Your Retirement Goals?
- More Reasons Why Ticketmaster Sucks.
- Why is Buffett Buying Utilities?
- Congratulate This PF Blogger on His First Million Pageviews!
- Bye-Bye Penny?
- It’s Cheaper to Use Plastic Dishes. Right?
- 7 Ways to Cut Your Food Budget
- 3 Advanced Stock Market Topics Explained
- Putting Yourself in Position for Your First Home Purchase
- Seemingly Complex Finance Terms Made Simple
And Carnivals:
Carnival of Financial Camaraderie
Carnival of Financial Planning
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Many of my students have a number of challenges, IQ is does not appear to be one of them. I see a lot of potential that is wasted because of poor parenting.
Thanks for the links, I am in good company.
Once we expand into space and encounter more serious challenges, evolution will probably speed up again. All that alpha particles zipping around in space will speed it up quite a bit too.
Thanks for the mention.