Dear Dr K,
Why is it that as the most evolved species on the planet, we are still bothered by some of the least evolved ones? Shouldn’t we have been born with defences against mosquitoes and bacteria and other pests and creatures on the lowest rungs of the evolutionary ladder?
Clime Burr
Dear Clime,
Your question is as astute as my tail is absent: which is to say, absolutely. I am constantly baffled by the continued existence of other species which take a less than friendly (or maybe too friendly) attitude toward us. I have always believed that all other life forms on this planet continue to exist only by our benevolence or with our blessing, or else we see to it that they cease to exist. Look what we did to the dodo, the passenger pigeon, or countless other species — if we don’t like them enough, we simply refuse them permission to survive.
This is different, of course, from having evolved natural defense mechanisms to counter the threats and annoyances that are posed to us by certain creatures. There wouldn’t really be any need to wipe out mosquitoes if we were naturally resistant to both malaria and itching.
And since both the insect and the malaria parasite have been around since before humans, it stands to reason that in becoming the most evolved species on the planet, we should be resilient against them.
But in a way our brains are our main defence mechanism, as we innovate and come up with remedies and strategies to combat life forms that choose to pick a fight with us. In this example, we have pesticides and antimalarial drugs, and yet they have not been effective in completely eradicating the problem. Mosquitoes seem to be resisting our pesticides, and similarly, our drugs are becoming less deadly against the malaria parasite. So we are resorting to more advanced techniques, like genetically engineering mosquitoes to slow down their breeding, researching alternate forms of treatment, and so on.
The reason that we have not been able to outsmart or out-evolve these creatures seems to be that they have been evolving the whole time as well. Most of the pests and diseases that plague us today were not, in all probability, as common or robust as they are now. While the spread of humans across the globe has pushed several species to the brink of extinction and beyond, others have learned to grow along with us, adapting to our societies and landscapes. Aside from the animals we have domesticated for our own purposes, various others like rats, cockroaches, mosquitoes, crows, lice, bedbugs and more have followed us wherever we moved, and have evolved to thrive in our presence.
The only explanation, then, is that we are not the most evolved species on the planet — if every species is evolving continuously, then all species that are alive today are the most evolved; they are all at the top rung of the ladder. It’s just that some have adapted better than others to the change we have inflicted on the planet, and these are the ones who seem to annoy us the most.
Yours questionably,
Dr K