Well, this is an interesting one that goes against all the common theories. It is often suggested that people are getting smarter over time as they have to access more of their brain, in better ways due to education and all that.
Now a scientist comes across and suggests that we have been getting thicker for maybe longer than 2000 years!
This is something I have commented on the past - especially the idea of "devolution" - what if over time instead of improving, we would be getting worse?
Today I have come across a Slashdot story in a similar vein:
Okay, so I am currently reading a book called 'Evolution and Healing' by Randolph Nesse and George Williams.
I always read the Preface first.
SO they begin by talking about the fact that Ageing has an evolutionary explanation. And they question why anxiety does not have a similiar explanation as well as disorders like Schizophrenia.
Okay so moving on from the Preface, Chapter 1 has the heading 'The Mystery Of Disease'.
And the first paragraph starts:
Why, in a body of such exquisite design, are there thousands flaws and frailties that make us vulnerable to disease?
The second sentence says:
Richard Dawkins, even since writing a book titled "The Selfish Gene" has been a proponent of memes as a form of social evolution.
A meme has no physical existence and is just ideas, practices or symbols transmitted in some sort of viral manner from person to person, community to community.
It is a clever idea that through interaction with others societies adapt, evolve and change, exchanging ideas, transmitting knowledge and adapting to other changes. And on paper it all sounds great.
From Wikipedia:
