People horrifically fucking up facts about evolution and genetics too support their stupid beliefs or to seem smart and “rational” is probably one of my big pet peeves
Yeah. An enormous number of racists, misogynists, homophobes and transphobes I’ve met eventually whip out something about evolutionary biology and they never, ever, ever, ever have the slightest shadow of even a half-right idea what any of it means or ever cite a claim ever actually made by a scientific study.
Here’s a quick handy reference list or anyone who isn’t sure:
Homosexuality does exist in almost all social species.
“Alpha males” are not a real phenomenon and in fact the most aggressive males tend to be the least reproductively successful.
“Survival of the fittest” simply means that the success of a species hinges on how well it “fits” its environment. It does not mean that stronger or smarter individuals are supposed to succeed. Those things can even be a detriment in nature by wasting too many resources.
“Race” is not a biological concept. Someone who looks different from you has the same human genes, just a different grab-bag of dominant traits.
Evolution is not a march towards higher complexity, more intelligence or even more adaptability. It’s just a fluctuation of characteristics dictated by environmental pressures and mutation. A slime mold isn’t “less evolved” than a hawk, just adapted for success under different parameters.
People didn’t evolve “from apes.” It’s more complicated than that. We are a category of ape, sharing a common ancestor with the other apes.
No human on Earth is “closer” to an evolutionary ancestor than any other. We all descended from the same one.
Neanderthals were also a “sibling” species of ours. We didn’t evolve from them.
Some of us did, however, cross-breed with Neandethal man. It is exclusively non-African races, such as white people, who still carry hybrid human/Neanderthal genes. Whoops, sorry “white purity” skinheads, you’re actually mixed with a whole other species.
Regarding homosexuality in the wild: Not only is homosexuality super common, in some cases it has been found that offspring raised by gay parents have a significantly higher survival rate, such as is the case with cygnets and baby flamingoes.
A small correction on the Neanderthal genes thing: Neanderthals weren’t another species, they were humans too. They were a subspecies but not a wholly different species.
Saying that Neanderthals were another species would be like saying grey wolves, Arabian wolves, and domesticated dogs are different species from each other. They’re clearly distinct, but still very much wolves.
For most of human history, there have been several subspecies of humans existing at the same time.
And another common misconception is that Neanderthals were stupid. They weren’t. They were very very clever. One of the examples of their intelligence is how they made tar to stick their arrowheads to the shafts. Scientists have been trying to recreate the process for years and have yet to figure out how to do it in the necessary quantities, meaning the process was either very complex or Neanderthals created industrial lines way back when. The trick, you see, is that the tar has to be at just the right temperature – too hot and it’s too brittle, too cold and it won’t stick properly.
Neanderthals are generally regarded as a separate species from 'modern' humans but are in the same genus (Homo, which are all generally considered 'human'), and are more a sister species than the ancestors. And yeah, probably equally as intelligent as humans - and they show a decent amount of similar cultural practices too, from what we've been able to uncover.
