Thought for the Day
Good Morning Scotland
Radio Scotland
Wednesday, October 8th, 2008

Professor Steve Jones from University College, London was to speak there yesterday afternoon on his idea that human evolution has slowed down In fact, this is as good as it gets.

No matter how much better we do medicine we'll only ever add a couple of years to the human lifespan - at least in New York's upper west side, Notting Hill or Edinburgh's Morningside. Untimely death was a great improver of the human gene pool. Once we've blunted its ability to knock out average young people before they pass on their average genes pretty well anybody can raise a flock of average children. That’s no way to improve a species

The globe is a much smaller place. Members of normally isolated communities now meet at Uni, book airline tickets, marry and reproduce. No more healthy competing teams storing different types of genetic material around the world in valuable reservoirs.

It's what professor Jones has not looked at which screams out the loudest for a little attention.

Wasn't it rather a long time ago that we humans stopped relying entirely on our genetic makeup as our only engine of improvement. Most of what differentiates us from our flint-chipping ancestors of yore is not actually contained in our genes. It’s contained in our culture. It’s Schopenhauer and Bach, Isaiah and Shakespeare. The prophets of the Old Testament knew how societies rose and fell and mocked their great men who believed their generation to embody the zenith of history. The sands of the world’s deserts cover their ruins but life goes on.

Danger does abound but of a more recent kind – one which has been lurking for mere tens of thousands of years: the thread which ties us to who we have been and therefore who we are now is only a generation long or is written down in books that might not be picked up by those who follow us.

Our weakness is probably not found in our genes but in the fragility of everything else which makes us truly human.