Humanity as an Evolutionary Prism

The Homo sapien is a remarkable testament to the process of evolution and simultaneously a causative factor for the process itself. The human species is a biological machine made up of adapted traits that enable it to exert influence in every dimension it occupies. The human brain alone is an exquisite feat of selective, cumulative biological engineering. Examining the intricacies of mankind’s cerebral cortex lays bare the culminating manifestations of highly evolved, interconnected functions of communication, emotion, memory, and sensory capabilities unique to its species. The most remarkable contribution the human brain has made to the scope of evolutionary biology, however, is not the brain itself but the vast results of its evolved function. The effects of the Homo sapien cerebrum’s fine design are multidimensional and exponential. The level at which human cognition actualizes behavior consequently actualizes worlds encompassing every terrestrial sense and system. The human brain, born of the processes that define evolution, gained the ability to define evolution itself.

Because humanity can think and turn thought into material, its existence has become integral in determining the conditions responsible for both conspecific and extraspecific traits. The total environment within which the terms of fitness are established is not isolated from human participation; on the contrary, they are intimately, disproportionately intertwined. While ecological conditions are a determinant of natural selectivity, humans have not only erected physical worlds that redesign habitats and ecosystems, dictating the dimensions of survival conspecifically and extraspecifically navigated but, in doing so, have also managed to infiltrate the macrocosmic functions of the entire biosphere. The evolutionary arrival of the human brain is, therefore, an immense evolutionary event because now humans are molding the evolutionary outcomes of their own species and every other species on the planet by participating directly in shaping the planet itself.  

Deconstructing even one human-specific enterprise until it is reduced to the extent of its implications positions humanity as a prism in evolution. Take, for example, the written language. Writing systems are exclusive to the Homo sapien species, first emerging between 3500-2900 BCE in ancient Sumer. The emergence of writing systems is the result of dual evolutionary influencing factors. From a purely biological perspective, cortical capacity for communication derives from baser processes of interspecies communication; however, the manifestation of communication in a systematic written practice is one facilitated by the reciprocal forces of human biology and social organization. The biological underpinnings of the existence of writing systems are attributed to the unique development of Wernicke’s and Broca’s areas of the cerebral cortex. Homologous areas are present in other primates but exhibit distinct structural differences. From a sociological standpoint, writing emerged as a tool intended to extend the dynamics of hierarchical complex social organization. This form of social organization itself, and thus its corresponding inventions, resulted from the evolutionary journey of the genus Homo from communities capable of rudimentary executions of toolmaking, speaking, etc., to ones capable of agricultural and animal domestication and its consequential social implications of surplus, property, industrial technology, and resultant social stratification. Proto-cuneiform, the world’s first writing system, was initially developed directly as a practical extension of the Sumerian infrastructures of trade, commerce, and agricultural economy that dominated the shape of this early complex society. Because of the combined biological and social origins of the incipience of writing, its existence is the result of both factors.

Because of the impact writing systems have on human conditions, their introduction leads to the manipulation of human traits, other species, and overall biospheric ecology. Writing systems play a role in fostering hierarchical human social structures because they serve to document property, stratify knowledge and opportunity, and shape what information is disseminated and integrated into human consciousness. Disparities in literacy and monopoly on information dissemination affect the shape of society. Humans encompass a variety of demographics determined by socioeconomic criteria, which is itself derivative of constructs enabled by the evolution of human social organization. Some groups are disproportionately disadvantaged in the context of these constructs and, therefore, more affected by disease, malnutrition, and other issues preventative of thriving, which establishes a systemically affected social environment for what is considered fittest. In this sense, humans are subjected to species-imposed discrepancies in survival that correlate to financial, educational, and social practices.

On top of this anthropological evolutionary facet, writing systems as synchronous to industrialization and stratified social organization also encapsulate the growth of institutions such as libraries, schools, and the enterprises of businesses and material demand and consumption that undergird ecological and ecospheric alteration. Deforestation is encouraged by printing practices that disperse writing systems in the forms of literature, packaging, and marketing, as well as the industries these promote and occupy, such as buildings, furnishings, and any other given material product. Activities such as deforestation alter habitats for other species by displacing them and minimizing their sources of food and shelter. So, as humans have evolved, they have vastly reordered the terms upon which their own and other species' survival is deemed fittest. Finally, changes in ecosystems such as this amount to the transformation of the entire biosystem, as is apparent in the case of climate change. What is traceable to an origin of a single seemingly benign human construct, thus ultimately bursts into the splintering magnitude of anthropogenic processes responsible for planetary decline, which in turn dictates the nature of all inhabiting the planet, from plant, to air, to animal, to parasite.  

Through this lens of methodical deconstruction, the genesis of Homo sapiens and their respective evolved traits of higher cognitive abilities coupled with their ability to execute these conceptions of consciousness equates to a significant, kaleidoscopic prism of cause and effect in the world of evolution.