6 “Evolutionary Leftovers” That are Pointless for Our Bodies Today

"The tree of life was always there. Evolution just fills in the gaps" - Simon Conway Morris

Edmund

• Published in Funny
• February 1, 2019

Charles Darwin is a well known and well documented English naturalist, geologist and biologist who made significant contributions to the science of evolution.

Similarly, Dorsa Amir is a evolutionary anthropologist as well as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow Boston College Department of Psychology.

She revealed that “Evolutionary Leftovers” still exist despite no longer serving any purpose. This discovery quickly went viral. Here are some examples of these leftovers that still exist today (as shared by Dorsa Amir on Twitter).

“My interests and my research are all rooted in a deep curiosity about who we are as a species,” Dorsa said. “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.”

The thread

This is fascinating.

Remnants of tails.

Another eyelid.

the evolutionary purpose of goosebumps.

Babies grasping on.

Conclusion

Addendums

These are incredibly fascinating evolutionary facts. It's absolutely brilliant to see the things we used to need that our bodies to do that still partially remain today.

Edmund