If Charles Darwin was alive, he’d be the most active 209-year-old Twitter follower Dorsa Amir. Dorsa, a devoted evolutionary anthropologist, regularly shares fascinating scientific content, and her latest posts are no exception. She revealed that “evolutionary leftovers” still exist in some of our bodies despite no longer having any present purpose, and the research quickly went viral.
“My interests and my research are all rooted in a deep curiosity about who we are as a species,” Dorsa told Bored Panda. “I think we are remarkable organisms for many reasons. One of the most interesting features of our story is that we are primates that evolved for millennia for a life of foraging, just living out in the wild, and incredibly in the last 10,000 years or so we’ve gone from that world to a world of supermarkets and spaceships. It’s stranger than science fiction. I’m tremendously lucky to have had the opportunity to turn this curiosity into a career, exploring who we are, where we came from, and how our rapidly changing environments and less-rapidly changing genes are functioning (or malfunctioning) in the present day. It’s the best job in the world.”
“For a trait to fully disappear, there usually needs to be active selection against it,” the scientist added. “That is, having that trait should be harmful enough that it negatively affects your ability to survive and reproduce. If it doesn’t, then it just kind of tags along for the ride longer than it’s useful. And it sometimes even learns new tricks. Given that there doesn’t appear to be active selection against these traits, I don’t think they’re going away any time soon. For example, whether or not you have this extra muscle in your arm doesn’t seem to affect how successful you will be at surviving or reproducing, so it’s kind of just… still there.”
With each of these tweets generating thousands of likes, people have even started inspecting themselves in an attempt to find these “reflections” of our former selves. And their children will probably be doing the same. “Natural selection is not a system geared toward perfect efficiency, and our technological and medical advances have weakened the force of selection quite a lot. So, for instance, lots of things that would have been death sentences in the past like influenza or Type I diabetes are manageable now and don’t necessarily reduce your ability to survive and have kids.”
The scientist strives towards helping everyone realize that evolution isn’t just “a chapter in their biology textbook or a fossil they saw at a museum.” According to her, it is a deep and fundamental part of who we all are, shaping us from the very beginning. Both our bodies and our minds. Continue scrolling to learn about its signatures and tell us what you think in the comments!
More info: Twitter
Image credits: DorsaAmir
Image credits: DorsaAmir
Image credits: DorsaAmir
People were eager to comment on these ‘leftovers’
I agree on the one about the third eyelid. One could call it an EYE-opening post. I’ll get my coat
The human body and its development are spect-ocular
Eye see what you did there lol
I agree, it might be useful to see underwater!
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This comment has been deleted.
A tail might be handy. It could hold your beer while you were welding gas tanks or chainsawing the branch you're standing on or other cool stuff.
Or the tail could give you balance after drinking that beer and help you in the tree while you cut it down.
Unluckily african and asian primates, like us, dont have a prensil tail, only the american ones. So if we would still have a tail probably it couldnt be able to hold our beers...
errr, there are no american primates, only lesser monkeys. and as for monkeys, there are also tailed monkeys in africa (e.g. baboon) and asia (e.g. macaques)
NS the primates are divided into Old world primates (african and asian) and New wold primates (american). They are plenty of american primates, as capuchin, tamarins or spider monkeys. Hovewer they are not american apes (orangutan, gorilla, chimpanzee, gibon and human), maybe thats what you ment. Most primates (also called monkeys) have tails but only the tails of the american monkeys can be used to grab things. So if you see a monkey hanging from the tail it is an american one. African and asian primates (like baboons) can have tails, but they cant use them to grab things.
ok, i think i did get apes and primates confused. interesting info regarding tails.
Your pinkie toe is for stabilization it's very important
the big toe actually plays the most important role in balance
big toe and pinky cooperate. whwn you do yoga you learn that a firm standing proper posture relies on those two bases
Have to disagree, my pinkie toe doesn't even touch the ground and I walk just fine.
Well, you can balance on any toe of course(matter of habit) but you will have a more solid stance if you learn to also stand on your pinkie toe
Damn, it's too bad I lost in 'nam
My daughter's pinkie toes are practically vestigial. They do seem to be phasing out.
All of your toes are very important in providing balance
I agree on the one about the third eyelid. One could call it an EYE-opening post. I’ll get my coat
The human body and its development are spect-ocular
Eye see what you did there lol
I agree, it might be useful to see underwater!
This comment has been deleted.
This comment has been deleted.
A tail might be handy. It could hold your beer while you were welding gas tanks or chainsawing the branch you're standing on or other cool stuff.
Or the tail could give you balance after drinking that beer and help you in the tree while you cut it down.
Unluckily african and asian primates, like us, dont have a prensil tail, only the american ones. So if we would still have a tail probably it couldnt be able to hold our beers...
errr, there are no american primates, only lesser monkeys. and as for monkeys, there are also tailed monkeys in africa (e.g. baboon) and asia (e.g. macaques)
NS the primates are divided into Old world primates (african and asian) and New wold primates (american). They are plenty of american primates, as capuchin, tamarins or spider monkeys. Hovewer they are not american apes (orangutan, gorilla, chimpanzee, gibon and human), maybe thats what you ment. Most primates (also called monkeys) have tails but only the tails of the american monkeys can be used to grab things. So if you see a monkey hanging from the tail it is an american one. African and asian primates (like baboons) can have tails, but they cant use them to grab things.
ok, i think i did get apes and primates confused. interesting info regarding tails.
Your pinkie toe is for stabilization it's very important
the big toe actually plays the most important role in balance
big toe and pinky cooperate. whwn you do yoga you learn that a firm standing proper posture relies on those two bases
Have to disagree, my pinkie toe doesn't even touch the ground and I walk just fine.
Well, you can balance on any toe of course(matter of habit) but you will have a more solid stance if you learn to also stand on your pinkie toe
Damn, it's too bad I lost in 'nam
My daughter's pinkie toes are practically vestigial. They do seem to be phasing out.
All of your toes are very important in providing balance