Survival of the Not-That-Fit

As Mike spoke with us last week about the lives of the tribesmen of the Five Nations, I couldn’t help but try to imagine myself as part of such a group – what I would do, what role I would play. I quickly realized however, that the answer is that I would never have been there in the first place. My vision is awful (it’s illegal for me to drive without my glasses or contacts), so I would have been a pretty useless gatherer. In any case, my scoliosis would have made any kind of food collection difficult anyway, and I wouldn’t have had any orthotics to keep my wonky feet from hurting. My curly hair would have been a permanent nest of plant and animal life, and without braces and oral surgeries, I would still look like an ogress who had a tendency to get into bar fights (tribe conflicts?). Needless to say that even if I survived infancy, I would never have attracted a mate. Not to mention that my delicate digestive system would have rejected the majority of the available diet. I doubt anyone was producing almond milk in northern New York in the 17^th century.

I’ve thought about this a surprising amount actually, and Professor Bailey’s discussion of exponential population growth only reinforced what I already believed to be true. Our species has circumvented natural selection; we have adapted and redesigned our societies to constantly outlive each subsequent generation. This has sealed our fate as a species, but has simultaneously bred the complex and diverse range of individuals that currently occupy this planet. Part of me is always somewhat irrationally stressed about the rate of human reproduction, but I am also aware that these circumstances are the only ones that allow for my genetically unfavorable existence.