De-volution

The Humans are Dead.



According to an an article on the Discovery Channel's website, human evolution is speeding up at a rate far faster than expected. The article states "Rapid population growth has been coupled with vast changes in cultures and ecology, creating new opportunities for adaptation. The past 10,000 years have seen rapid skeletal and dental evolution in human populations, as well as the appearance of many new genetic responses to diet and disease." Not only do I find this fascinating, but I also find it surprising. Vast advances in dental evolution? Have these people seen Kirsten Dunst's teeth?













Kirsten Dunst in Spiderman 3


You see, I've long had a theory that we are actually fucking up the evolutionary process. Have you ever stopped to consider this fact: millions of people breed each and every year that would not have reached breeding age 50-100 years ago.

Take myself for instance. I never knew it until fairly recently, but I have Celiac Sprue disease. An auto-immune disease whose unfortunate by-product is an inability to process gluten. All in all if I had to pick an auto-immune disease I'd probably pick Celiac. But for not being able to drink a Harp or eat soup in a bread bowl, it's bearable and if you follow a strict gluten free diet you'll live and long happy life. (Weird aside, I'm watching the Celtics right now and as I typed that Tommy Heinsohn asked Mike Gorman if he was a Harp or Guiness guy, to which Mike replied "Harp, but a little Guiness now and then". Screw you and your perfect digestive system Mike Gorman. Now can I get a damned Tommy Point??)

But even 100 years ago my life would have been shortened considerably due to my disease. For a couple of reasons. One is it weakens your immune system. I've had two serious infections in my leg (never go in a hot tub in Vegas). If not for todays powerful antibiotics I would probably be dead. And if that didn't get me the disease itself would have eventually stopped my body from absorbing nutrients and I would have either starved to death, gone mad, or developed cancer by the age of 50.

My point is that I'm going to produce offspring that probably wouldn't have existed generations ago and that's just from Celiacs. What about peanut allergies? Bee stings? Genetic defects that get fixed in childhood? So many more people these days get to pass on genes that long ago would have been trimmed off the genetic vine. So how could we possibly be evolving in a positive way? Shouldn't we be de-volving?

Fortunately, it looks like I'm wrong and we can all go on spreading our soiled seed without fear of pissing in our collective gene pool.

I've got creationitis

I'm not the first person to invent a word. President Bush. Jesse Jackson. Don King. Just a few of the legendary names in the word generation business. In fact most of us have come up with a word at some time or another that served a purpose of which no other word existed that would suffice. Some of these words stick and some don't. I'm guessing it ultimately depends on how likely you are to insert them in every day conversation. My friend Tyler made up the word "adjectifluous" meaning, "the process of using too many adjectives". It's a perfectly cromulent word. Only problem is, I can't remember the last time I was chatting on my shiny new cell phone and drinking a hot pumpkin spice coffee while driving my luxurious brown Honda and needed a word like that. Over adjectivizing is not a real problem as far as I can see.

My word is far more useful. Padiculous. Something that is both pathetic and ridiculous. As in,
I spend hours making my own detailed maps on Far Cry 2. Assembling bridges, erecting fences, building temples...right down to the bushes that encircle my sniper tower. That is both pathetic and ridiculous. It's padiculous.