It’s no surprise humans today look different than members of the same species who lived as hunter-gatherers before the agricultural revolution. Food access and lifestyle alone could account for much of the difference.
This article lays out three way humans are still evolving.
Core temperature is going down, from 98.6 degrees to 97.9 degrees, according to a recent study. This has led to a decrease in caloric requirements to heat our bodies.
Lactose intolerance has decreased. In the past, a humans ability to handle the sugar stopped after adolescence. Now, many people are able to drink milk and eat ice cream.
Bone density has decreased. This is a result of lifestyle, with modern humans not needing to perform as much physical activity on a daily basis.
This got me thinking. What are the other ways humans are evolving? More importantly, when coming up with story ideas, what ways could humans still evolve?
Could the prevalence of screens cause a decrease in the ability to see far away? This wouldn’t be hard to detect, and could point to a future when humans no longer have the ability to see what isn’t right in front of them
More impactful, what if humans evolve to have different memory capabilities than we do now? The memorization of facts is useless, since all information is a quick search away. Likewise, with the ability to take pictures coupled with the lack of danger in modern society, there is no reason to observe the surroundings. What kind of children, and adults, would these traits produce?
Putting this into a story, there could be a future world where humans are similar to lambs for slaughter, ready for attack. Think Mongols, outsiders, barbarians, and politicians in this world offer protection in exchange for the ability to stay connected to screens in blissful ignorance. The story could focus on two young men/women, one inside and one outside. The one inside rejects the screens and is able to help protect the weaker humans, and the one outside (the barbarian) dreams of a life attached to a screen, unhappy with the physical nature of his culture. At the end of the book there could be an alliance OR books one and two could focus on each character and in book three the strike an alliance.
