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Are humans putting so
much pressure on the
planet that even the
fittest may not survive?
Image: Georgie_Grrl,
provided by Flickr

Disease, competition for resources and natural disasters were the natural selection factors driving evolution in Darwin’s day. Yet, as covered in Part One, it appears humans have managed to cheat their way past these factors using modern technology.

However, the human species still has challenges to face. Ironically, the biggest obstacle to our survival now is something Darwin may not have taken into account – ourselves. I don’t think he could have predicted the impact we’ve had on the planet and our spectacular population growth.

We can wipe out a species’ habitat in a day, pollute their food supply over the course of a week and, in a few years, alter the temperature to the point they can no longer survive. There are most likely plenty of mutations arising that will help certain species survive one or two of these pressures – but not all of them at once. Estimations are that one species becomes extinct every hour.

Our rampant population isn’t only damaging plants and animals; we’re also becoming a hazard to ourselves as we guzzle available resources. By 2050 we need to produce at least four times more food in order to sustain ourselves, but with global warming, drought and a lack of land, this is looking harder every day.

Chances are we’ll barely be able to
feed a quarter of the world’s
population by 2050.
Image: Wikipedia

Already one in six people around the world are going hungry and it’s predicted that within our lifetime food prices will soar even higher, worsening the problem.

In addition to starvation, we’re also facing an increase in conflict over our dwindling water, land and food supplies. People already fight over oil and diamonds – when the essentials become just as scarce as these precious commodities violence is bound to follow. This is where a few other ‘natural selectors’ that Darwin may not have thought about could shape our species – machine guns, biowarfare and nuclear weapons.

Despite the changes to society over the past 150 years, it seems Darwin’s theory of evolution is still very much in effect; in fact humans may be evolving faster than ever before. There is no doubt in my mind that in the face of these coming obstacles only the fittest will survive.

Could war over food and
land be the ‘natural
selector’ of the future?
Image: Wikipedia

But just like the pressures that shape our species have changed, perhaps so has the definition of ‘fittest’. With our world shifting so rapidly, it doesn’t seem likely that a gene which allows us to survive eating dust (no matter how handy that would be!) is suddenly going to crop up and save us.

I think money will define who’s the ‘fittest’ in the future. The rich alone will be able to afford the exorbitant price of food and land, escape wars in hi-tech bunkers and run private desalination plants to top up their fresh water supplies.

This may not seem to fit in too well with Darwin’s idea that genes would decide which individuals survive and which don’t, but perhaps there are genes we don’t know about yet that indicate whether a person will be wealthy or not. Either way, no one ever said evolution was fair. In Darwin’s own words, it is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.

See Part One of this opinion here. See more about the Darwin celebrations events here and here.