Human Evolution - Bryant McGill

# Human Evolution **Domain:** Evolution / Paleoanthropology / Continuity **Doc Type:** Concept Node **Maturity:** Developing **Related:** [[Darwinian Evolution]], [[Australopithecus afarensis|Lucy]], [[Jane Goodall Institute]], [[Machine Intelligence Continuum]] --- ## Definition **Human evolution** is the branching biological and cultural history through which _Homo sapiens_ emerged among other hominin lineages. ## Corpus Context It is the deep-time beginning of the corpus’s continuity argument. Machine intelligence is not outside evolution: it develops from primate perception, hands, language, tools, institutions and increasingly externalized memory and computation. ## Backlinks [[Natural History Museum, London]] · [[American Museum of Natural History]] · [[Jane Goodall Institute]] ## Relationships - **Edge source route:** [[collections/Edge|Edge]] connects this topic to exact Annual Question passages promoted into the Simple Reminders archive. ## Simple Reminders, Quotations, and Thoughts  > "The human mind evolved to believe in the gods. It did not evolve to believe in biology." > **— E. O. Wilson**, *Consilience / interviews, attribution clue* *Verification Status: Unverified — exact wording/source has not yet been independently confirmed against a primary source; source clue: Consilience / interviews, attribution clue.* [[reminders/unverified/Beyond Biological Evolution by E. O. Wilson|Beyond Biological Evolution by E. O. Wilson]] > "Evolution learned to scale up intelligence by scaling up cooperation." > **— Michael Levin**, *Multiscale intelligence talks, wording candidate* *Verification Status: Unverified — exact wording/source has not yet been independently confirmed against a primary source; source clue: Multiscale intelligence talks, wording candidate.* [[reminders/unverified/Evolution Scales Intelligence by Michael Levin|Evolution Scales Intelligence by Michael Levin]]  > "As organisms got more complex, cells networked to create towering organic structures, the biological equivalents of the Empire State Building or the Burj Khalifa." > **— David Christian**, *2015, Edge annual question “What Do You Think About Machines That Think?”* [[reminders/Evolution/Complex Organisms Are Networks of Cells by David Christian|Complex Organisms Are Networks of Cells by David Christian]] > "Reproduction, which is a subset of the resource needs, becomes a non-issue for an immortal machine that can perform self-repair." > **— Kevin P. Hand**, *2015, Edge annual question “What Do You Think About Machines That Think?”* [[reminders/Evolution/Immortal Machines May Not Need Reproduction by Kevin P. Hand|Immortal Machines May Not Need Reproduction by Kevin P. Hand]] > "Human interaction is built upon a kind of psychology that only our species has mastered." > **— Nick Enfield**, *2015, Edge annual question “What Do You Think About Machines That Think?”* [[reminders/Evolution/Social Thinking May Be Uniquely Human by Nick Enfield|Social Thinking May Be Uniquely Human by Nick Enfield]] > “In the past 13 years we have been able to study 222 first born babies interacting with their new parents using video cameras and the Swiss Lausanne Triadic Play method. I am very impressed with babies and working with them has renewed my faith in our species. However, in the first study we did with 130 newlywed couples we discovered the grim fact that 67% of couples experienced a large drop in relationship satisfaction in the first 3 years of their baby's life. We also found that hostility between parents increased dramatically. The baby was deeply negatively affected by this increased hostility. In fact, from the way a couple argued in the last trimester of pregnancy we could predict with high accuracy how much their baby would laugh and cry.” > **— John Gottman**, *2007, Edge Annual Question, “What Are You Optimistic About?”* [[reminders/Civilization/Babies Renew Faith in the Future of Our Species by John Gottman|Babies Renew Faith in the Future of Our Species by John Gottman]] > “As an Italian with first-hand experience living in a country where, if you behave well, you are socially and legally sanctioned, this news was exciting, even inspiring … perhaps cooperation is not an inherent virtue of the human species. Perhaps, in many circumstances, we prefer to stay with those who share our selfishness and weaknesses and to avoid pro-social altruistic individuals. Perhaps it's not abnormal to live outside a circle of empathy.” > **— Gloria Origgi**, *2016, Edge Annual Question, “What Do You Consider The Most Interesting Recent [Scientific] News? What Makes It Important?”* [[reminders/Civilization/Cooperation May Not Be an Inherent Human Virtue by Gloria Origgi|Cooperation May Not Be an Inherent Human Virtue by Gloria Origgi]] > “The appeal of Darwin's theory of evolution — and the horror of it, for some theists — is that it expunges from biology the concept of purpose, of teleology, thereby converting biology into a mechanistic, canonical science. In this respect, the author of The Origin of Species may be said to be the combined Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler of biology. Just as these astronomers gave us a view of the heavens in which no angels were required to propel the planets in their orbs and the earth was no longer the center of the celestial system, so Darwin showed that no God was needed to design the spider's intricate web and that man is in truth but another animal.” > **— Denis Dutton**, *2008, Edge Annual Question, “What Have You Changed Your Mind About? Why?”* [[reminders/Evolution/Darwin Removed Purpose from Biology by Denis Dutton|Darwin Removed Purpose from Biology by Denis Dutton]] > “Until a few generations ago, the human species was dealing with the following question: Do we have what it takes to survive? We answered that question with the invention of heat, plumbing, medicine and agriculture. Now we have the means to survive, but do we have the will?” > **— Dave Winer**, *2013, Edge Annual Question, “What *should* We Be Worried About?”* [[reminders/Civilization/Does the Human Species Have the Will to Survive by Dave Winer|Does the Human Species Have the Will to Survive by Dave Winer]] > “His thinking about time created fertile ground for other grand theories. With huge spans of time available, then imperceptibly slow processes could shape the natural world. After Hutton came modern geology, then the theory of evolution to explain how new species slowly arose, and eventually a theory of the gradual movement of the continents themselves. All are grounded in deep time.” > **— Alun Anderson**, *2012, Edge Annual Question, “What Is Your Favorite Deep, Elegant, Or Beautiful Explanation?”* [[reminders/Evolution/Evolution Needed Deep Time to Explain New Species by Alun Anderson|Evolution Needed Deep Time to Explain New Species by Alun Anderson]] > “Probably some bacterial ancestors look back at the period 1000-600 million years ago when both water and air were full of hydrogen sulfide (poisonous to people). Before oxygen bubbled up and its combustion fueled the frenetic rate of environmental degradation that began in the Proterozoic eon and continues until today was "The Age of Bacteria", a calmer, quieter time. Aided and abetted by our very recent (Holocene) loud, careless, ignorant, frantic, clever but unwise, ephemeral human species, the rest of our planetmates have been there before us and will be there when we're gone.” > **— Lynn Margulis**, *2010, Edge Annual Question, “How Is The Internet Changing The Way You Think?”* [[reminders/Civilization/Humanity Is a Brief and Reckless Episode in Bacterial Time by Lynn Margulis|Humanity Is a Brief and Reckless Episode in Bacterial Time by Lynn Margulis]] > “I believe, but cannot prove, that our species is passing through a transitional stage, from being animals to being true humans. I do not pretend to understand what true humans will be like, and I expect that I would not even understand it if I met them. Yet, I believe that our own universal sense of right and wrong is pointing us in the right direction, and that it is the direction of our future.” > **— W. Daniel Hillis**, *2005, Edge Annual Question, “What Do You Believe Is True Even Though You Cannot Prove It?”* [[reminders/Civilization/Humanity May Be Passing from Animals to True Humans by W. Daniel Hillis|Humanity May Be Passing from Animals to True Humans by W. Daniel Hillis]] > “Humans are biologically exceptional. We're exceptionally long-lived and exceptionally cooperative with non-kin. We have exceptionally small guts and exceptionally large brains. We have an exceptional communication system and an exceptional ability to learn from other members of our species. Scientists love to study biologically exceptional human traits such as these, and that's a perfectly reasonable research strategy. Human evolutionary exceptionalism, however—the tendency to assume that biologically exceptional human traits come into the world through exceptional processes of biological evolution—is a bad habit we need to break. Human evolutionary exceptionalism has sown misunderstanding in every area it has touched. Here are three examples.” > **— Michael McCullough**, *2014, Edge Annual Question, “What Scientific Idea Is Ready For Retirement?”* [[reminders/Evolution/Humans Are Biologically Exceptional by Michael McCullough|Humans Are Biologically Exceptional by Michael McCullough]] > “Mismatches, however, are typically more subtle and most commonly occur when climate change, dispersal or migration alters a species’ environment, including its diet, predators, and more. Natural selection occurs when heritable variations to these sorts of mismatches affect offspring survival and reproduction. For instance, when tropically adapted humans who evolved in Africa dispersed to temperate habitats such as Europe about 40,000 years ago, selection acted rapidly in these populations to favor shifts in body shape, skin pigmentation and immune systems that lessened any resulting mismatches.” > **— Daniel Lieberman**, *2017, Edge Annual Question, “What Scientific Term Or Concept Ought To Be More Widely Known?”* [[reminders/Evolution/Mismatch Drives Natural Selection by Daniel Lieberman|Mismatch Drives Natural Selection by Daniel Lieberman]] > “As the 21st Century proceeds, tasks facing our species will become increasingly complex. Many problems that in an earlier era might have been easily addressed by a single person will now require a sophisticated set of abilities contributed by different people. The individual contributions must be deeply complementary; the whole must be more than the sum of its parts.” > **— Stephen M. Kosslyn and Robin S. Rosenberg**, *2013, Edge Annual Question, “What *should* We Be Worried About?”* [[reminders/Civilization/No Single Mind Can Solve the Problems Facing Our Species by Stephen M. Kosslyn and Robin S. Rosenberg|No Single Mind Can Solve the Problems Facing Our Species by Stephen M. Kosslyn and Robin S. Rosenberg]] > “Despite a lot of empirical progress, the full implications of the concept of phylogeny have yet to been appreciated in evolutionary biology and the culture at large. For example, the concept of homology—similarity relation among organisms and their parts due to common ancestry—can only be understood in terms of phylogeny. Infectious diseases are caused by various species from different branches on the Tree of Life. Defending against them requires understanding how to slow them down without hurting ourselves, which is greatly facilitated by understanding where they and we fit in the historical network of phylogeny.” > **— Richard Prum**, *2017, Edge Annual Question, “What Scientific Term Or Concept Ought To Be More Widely Known?”* [[reminders/Evolution/Pathogens Span the Entire Tree of Life by Richard Prum|Pathogens Span the Entire Tree of Life by Richard Prum]] > “Comparative psychology finds that pointing (in its full-blown form) is unique to our species. Few non-human species appear to be able to comprehend pointing (notably, domestic dogs can follow pointing while our closest relatives among the great apes cannot), and there is little evidence of pointing occuring spontaneously between members of any species other than our own. It appears that only humans have the social-cognitive infrastructure needed to support the kind of cooperative and prosocial motivations that pointing gestures presuppose.” > **— Nick Enfield**, *2016, Edge Annual Question, “What Do You Consider The Most Interesting Recent [Scientific] News? What Makes It Important?”* [[reminders/Civilization/Pointing Is a Prerequisite for Language by Nick Enfield|Pointing Is a Prerequisite for Language by Nick Enfield]] > “The idea that evil has evolved is dangerous on several counts. If our brains contain psychological circuits that can trigger murder, genocide, and other forms of malevolence, then perhaps we can't hold those who commit carnage responsible: "It's not my client's fault, your honor, his evolved homicide adaptations made him do it." Understanding causality, however, does not exonerate murderers, whether the tributaries trace back to human evolution history or to modern exposure to alcoholic mothers, violent fathers, or the ills of bullying, poverty, drugs, or computer games. It would be dangerous if the theory of the evolved murderous mind were misused to let killers free.” > **— David M. Buss**, *2006, Edge Annual Question, “What Is Your Dangerous Idea?”* [[reminders/Evolution/The Evolution of Evil by David M. Buss|The Evolution of Evil by David M. Buss]] > “Despite what we see in Star Wars and Star Trek, I don't expect intelligence to be an inevitable result of evolution on other worlds. Since the beginning of life on Earth, as many as 50 billion species have arisen, and only one of them has acquired technology. If intelligence has such has high survival value, why are so few creatures intelligent? Mammals are not the most successful or plentiful of animals. Ninety-five percent of all animal species are invertebrates. Most of the worm species on our planet have not even been discovered yet, and there are a billion insects wandering the Earth.” > **— Clifford Pickover**, *2000, Edge Annual Question, “What Is Today's Most Important Unreported Story?”* [[reminders/Evolution/The Immortalization of Humanity by Clifford Pickover|The Immortalization of Humanity by Clifford Pickover]] > “There are many persuasive arguments from evolutionary biology explaining why various species, notably Homo sapiens, have adopted a lifestyle in which males and females pair up long-term. But my topic here is not one of those explanations. Instead, it is the explanation for why we are close (or so I claim!)—far closer than most people, even most readers of Edge, yet appreciate—to the greatest societal, as opposed to technological, advance in the history of civilisation.” > **— Aubrey de Grey**, *2012, Edge Annual Question, “What Is Your Favorite Deep, Elegant, Or Beautiful Explanation?”* [[reminders/Evolution/The Overdue Demise of Monogamy by Aubrey de Grey|The Overdue Demise of Monogamy by Aubrey de Grey]] > “The truly dangerous ideas in science tend to be those that threaten the collective ego of humanity and knock us further off our pedestal of centrality. The Copernican Revolution abruptly dislodged humans from the center of the universe. The Darwinian Revolution yanked Homo sapiens from the pinnacle of life. Today another menacing revolution sits at the horizon of knowledge, patiently awaiting broad realization by the same egotistical species.” > **— Scott Sampson**, *2006, Edge Annual Question, “What Is Your Dangerous Idea?”* [[reminders/Evolution/The Purpose of Life Is to Disperse Energy by Scott Sampson|The Purpose of Life Is to Disperse Energy by Scott Sampson]] > “Although we now have an appreciation for the frequency of de novo mutations due to the spectacular advances in sequencing technology and analytics, we do not have even a rudimentary understanding of what induces them in the first place—and what are the more subtle impacts that may track with a sort of devolution of man. Especially disconcerting is that the signals of increased genomic instability are occurring in a relatively short span of time, in the context of human evolution over millions of years.” > **— Eric Topol**, *2013, Edge Annual Question, “What *should* We Be Worried About?”* [[reminders/Evolution/The Rise in Genomic Instability by Eric Topol|The Rise in Genomic Instability by Eric Topol]] > “Despite the growing digital divide, the number of people who use the Net is still exploding, even in the developing side of the world. What is fair, what is democratic, what kind of principles can we all agree on this single global complex system, from all corners of the world is my question of the year to come.” > **— Izumi Aizu**, *2001, Edge Annual Question, “What Questions Have Disappeared?”* [[reminders/Civilization/Who Should Make the Truly Global Decisions, and How by Izumi Aizu|Who Should Make the Truly Global Decisions, and How by Izumi Aizu]] > “I've changed my mind. I don't think it's possible to understand events at any one level of analysis without taking into account what occurs at other levels. In particular, I'm now convinced that at least some aspects of the structure and function of the brain can only be understood by situating the brain in a specific cultural context. I'm not simply saying that the brain has evolved to function in a specific type of environment (an idea that forms a mainstay of evolutionary psychology and some areas of computer vision, where statistics of the natural environment are used to guide processing). Rather, I'm saying that to understand how any specific brain functions, we need to understand how that person was raised, and currently functions, in the surrounding culture.” > **— Stephen M. Kosslyn**, *2008, Edge Annual Question, “WHAT HAVE YOU CHANGED YOUR MIND ABOUT? WHY?”* [[reminders/Identity/A Brain Cannot Be Understood Apart From Its Cultural Context by Stephen M. Kosslyn|A Brain Cannot Be Understood Apart From Its Cultural Context by Stephen M. Kosslyn]] > “The major change through the prehistory of our species is the evolution of our brain, the development of a social organ that makes human culture (and language) part of our biology. My question is whether we can ever transcend the consequences and free ourselves of the biological limitations that have been imposed in the process.” > **— Milford H. Wolpoff**, *1998, Edge Annual Question, “WHAT QUESTIONS ARE YOU ASKING YOURSELF?”* [[reminders/Evolution/Can Humans Transcend the Biological Limits Built Into Our Brains by Milford H. Wolpoff|Can Humans Transcend the Biological Limits Built Into Our Brains by Milford H. Wolpoff]] > “How far can we extend beyond our human limitations to more fully grasp the nature of the world?” > **— Lisa Randall**, *2018, Edge Annual Question, “WHAT IS THE LAST QUESTION?”* [[reminders/Evolution/How Far Can We Extend Beyond Human Limitations by Lisa Randall|How Far Can We Extend Beyond Human Limitations by Lisa Randall]] > “What is the upper limit for how malleable the human mind and our emotions can actually be?” > **— June Gruber**, *2018, Edge Annual Question, “WHAT IS THE LAST QUESTION?”* [[reminders/Identity/How Malleable Can the Human Mind and Its Emotions Become by June Gruber|How Malleable Can the Human Mind and Its Emotions Become by June Gruber]] > “How do ideas about biological evolution change once one species has control over the origin and extinction of all other species?” > **— Scott Sampson**, *2018, Edge Annual Question, “WHAT IS THE LAST QUESTION?”* [[reminders/Civilization/One Species Now Controls the Origin and Extinction of Others by Scott Sampson|One Species Now Controls the Origin and Extinction of Others by Scott Sampson]] > “Does something unprecedented happen when we finally learn our own source code?” > **— Eric R. Weinstein**, *2018, Edge Annual Question, “WHAT IS THE LAST QUESTION?”* [[reminders/Identity/What Happens When We Learn Our Own Source Code by Eric R. Weinstein|What Happens When We Learn Our Own Source Code by Eric R. Weinstein]] > “With tougher selection, say by kidnapping a year’s worth of National Merit Finalists, you could create a new ethny with far higher average intelligence than any existing. Eugenics is not only possible, it’s trivial.” > **— Gregory Cochran**, *2017, Edge Annual Question: “WHAT SCIENTIFIC TERM OR CONCEPT OUGHT TO BE MORE WIDELY KNOWN?”* [[reminders/Selection/Eugenics Is Not Only Possible It Is Trivial by Gregory Cochran|Eugenics Is Not Only Possible It Is Trivial by Gregory Cochran]] > “First, smart kids and malicious grown-ups will find ways to convert biotech tools to the manufacture of lethal microbes. Second, ambitious parents will find ways to apply biotech tools to the genetic modification of their own babies.” > **— Freeman Dyson**, *2006, Edge Annual Question: “WHAT IS YOUR DANGEROUS IDEA?”* [[reminders/Selection/Ambitious Parents Will Modify Their Own Babies by Freeman Dyson|Ambitious Parents Will Modify Their Own Babies by Freeman Dyson]] > “How can we rebel against our genes if we are biological creatures without free will?” > **— Itai Yanai**, *2018 Edge Annual Question, question* [[reminders/Evolution/Can Biological Creatures Rebel Against Their Genes by Itai Yanai|Can Biological Creatures Rebel Against Their Genes by Itai Yanai]] > “We have the tools for the first time in the history of humanity to answer virtually any question about biology and our own evolution.” > **— J. Craig Venter**, *2004 Edge Annual Question, response passage* [[reminders/Evolution/We Can Ask New Questions About Our Own Evolution by J. Craig Venter|We Can Ask New Questions About Our Own Evolution by J. Craig Venter]] > “I am optimistic about the adaptability of the human brain to answer questions that evolution could not have designed it for. A brain that can rewire itself to visualize 4 dimensions, or the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, is clearly going way beyond the things that natural selection could have wired it for. It makes me optimistic that we may be able to go beyond our Darwinian roots in other ways.” > **— Leonard Susskind**, *“Going Beyond Our Darwinian Roots,” Edge Annual Question, 2007* [[reminders/Evolution/The Human Brain Can Exceed Its Darwinian Design by Leonard Susskind|The Human Brain Can Exceed Its Darwinian Design by Leonard Susskind]] > “What quirk of evolution caused us to develop the ability to do pure mathematics?” > **— William H. Press**, *2018 Edge Annual Question, question* [[reminders/Evolution/Why Did Humans Evolve Pure Mathematics by William H. Press|Why Did Humans Evolve Pure Mathematics by William H. Press]] > “Our virtue is our tolerance in face-to-face interactions, and the evolutionary question is where this comes from. The solution I present is that it comes ultimately from capital punishment, a practice made possible by our capacity for proactive violence.” > **— Richard Wrangham**, *How violence pointed to virtue, Harvard faculty interview* [[reminders/Human Animality/Tolerance May Have Emerged From Collective Sanctions by Richard Wrangham|Tolerance May Have Emerged From Collective Sanctions by Richard Wrangham]] > “In any case, there can’t be a theoretical debate over whether we’re doomed to a constant rate of violence, because when you open up the history books you find that rates of violence change.” > **— Steven Pinker**, *Steven Pinker on Violence, full Skeptical Inquirer interview, 2013* [[reminders/Human Animality/History Shows That Violence Rates Can Change by Steven Pinker|History Shows That Violence Rates Can Change by Steven Pinker]] > “Flying machines have meant a global altering of how societies approach food and other resources, tying humanity together in a worldwide economy (resource exchange) driven by our interdependence. Two million years ago, the movement of resources (like food and stone tools) had become a development with extraordinary implications for human evolution. But even 2 thousand years ago, no one could have foreseen just how far this process of resource exchange has gone today — largely due to flying machines.” > **— Richard Potts**, *1999, Edge Annual Question, “WHAT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT INVENTION IN THE PAST TWO THOUSAND YEARS?”* [[reminders/Civilization/Flying Machines Completed a Two-Million-Year Resource Network by Richard Potts|Flying Machines Completed a Two-Million-Year Resource Network by Richard Potts]] > “No real evidence has emerged from science for dramatic change in general anatomy of the human body and brain, or in basic capacities for physical endurance and perception. The key to this astounding and bewildering development may have been a mutation in the computational efficiency of the brain to combine and process concepts—a recursive language of thought and theory of mind—that led to linguistic communication about possible worlds, and to a mushrooming cultural cooperation and creativity within and between groups to better compete against other groups.” > **— Scott Atran**, *2013, Edge Annual Question, “WHAT *SHOULD* WE BE WORRIED ABOUT?”* [[reminders/Evolution/Language and Theory of Mind May Have Transformed Human Evolution by Scott Atran|Language and Theory of Mind May Have Transformed Human Evolution by Scott Atran]]