Our Devolution

But if a difficult existence for a specific species causes them to evolve, then what would be the result of our easy lives on the human race?  Will we continue to evolve regaurdless of our overly simplistic lives, will we simply stop evolving, or will we devolve into a more primitive form.  There is much controversy over this issue, and there is a substancial amount of evidence supporting the theory that we humans are devolving.  I feel that we are devolving, evolution is more of a cyclic phenomenon that takes the span of thousands of years.

In Sum

We humans have come so very far with the technological advancements of our own devise, but it isn’t clear whether we are still in control of the machines or if we are reliant on them and so we worship machines so that they will remain to provide us with our false luxuries without any enlightenment.  Reason may be discernibly superior to instinct, but instinct is part of our mind and accounts for a huge part of our personality.  In short, the evidence is out there and all around us that we as a species are devolving and some course of action must be taken.

Opposition

Michael Dougherty disagrees with the theory of devolution, stating that “there is no such thing as devolution”.  He states that it is wrong to think that humans are the best that a species can hope to become.  This statement is agreeable, evolution may continue, but ONLY if the right conditions for evolution are met, which they are not.  He may state that extinction is common and that harsh living conditions don’t influence evolution, but there is no evidence as to whether the species had time to evolve or that the species’ that are alive today would be extinct if they didn’t evolve so his statement is very flawed.  He also states one more “misconception” that evolution does not make a species more complex (Dougherty, 1998).  Devolution as defined in “Webster’s New College Dictionary”, is the “evolution of structures toward greater simplicity or to the point of disappearance; degeneration”, which means that his statement ironically supports devolution in that humans are becoming less diverse, intricate and “complex” (Webster, 2010).

Idiocracy

One prime supporter for the theory that we are devolving is the movie “Idiocracy”.  It most clearly and amazingly supplies all of the evidence that humans are devolving in the beginning of the movie.  It starts with an over voice stating that natural selection, the most essential part of evolution, selected intelligence as favorable aspect for survival and was enhanced upon.  But now other traits are favored, such as the physical strength, attractiveness, and the ability to reproduce.  In the movie the voice says “Evolution does not necessarily reward intelligence.  With no natural predators to thin the herd, it began to simply reward those who reproduce the most and left the intelligent to become an endangered species.”  One solution posed in the movie was for people to read books and learn as much as they can for knowledge’s sake.  Though it isn’t necessarily true that because we use our minds that they will expand over time and keep us from devolving, rather we have to have a need to expand our minds then nature will provide the change.  But yet we still get some small feeling of accomplishment for finishing a book.  This is true in the sense that we most of all want to be considered smart (or avoid being classified as ignorant) and by reading we achieve that feeling, but the notion that we actually accomplished anything by doing so is mere fallacy.  That being said reading still has much more importance to our individual intellect.

The "Struggle" of Reading

People in modern times disapprove of long books thinking it’s not worth their time and watching a movie instead.  People seem to be more boastful of the number of books they’ve read rather than what was in the books themselves.  This makes books seem more like some kind of enduring punishment to be proud of, rather than a source of entertainment and information.  In fact, it wouldn’t be too far off to say that reading a book in this modern day society for entertainment is unusual and abnormal thanks to modern day cinema.  In this field of reading it should be more centered on quality of the book than the quantity.  Aristotle says that a part of thinking is suffering, and few people are actually truly suffering in this modern day society.  Unconsciously we gradually become reliant on others approval.  People also use social networking to confirm the reality of an event or just to get others approval.  Many of the children of the modern age prefer to talk to each other online than in person. 

Technology is our Downfall

One who doesn’t understand himself cannot understand what it means to be human.  If we can’t form real emotions then we will create false ones through entertainment.  Though with cell phones, televisions, cars, and the internet, entertainment is all around us so many will chose false feelings of gratification over real ones.  It is all the rewards we receive without earning it that make this true.  Consider the social network “facebook”, when the user finds a notification they will feel a sense of pleasure even though not having done anything to deserve it.  Individuals need the feeling that there is something going on, even more so that he is a part of something.  In earlier times we had much less stimulants making our earned feeling of gratification not so often, well earned and much more satisfying.

Old Thech is Obsolete Including out Minds

Everything we as the modern people perceive to be leisure are pointless.  When new technology emerges and society takes possession of it, its individuals quickly become dependent on it.  As we learn to use the new technology we forget how we performed the tasks taken over by said new technology.  For example, in the past to communicate with each other, we wrote letters to each other.  But compared to the instant text message sending and calling, writing letters seems inferior so after spending enough time in a society where almost everyone uses cell phones, people will start to forget the option of writing letters as an alternative method of communication.  In turn, if all of the cell phone companies failed, not many people would know how to communicate with others living far away.  Thereby decreasing our use of writing as a means of communication.