Cultural Adaptation: The Vaccine
An example of how cultural adaptation has bypassed natural selection is vaccination. Vaccines have been used for decades to protect the human body from contracting diseases such as chicken pox, measles, and other possibly fatal diseases. Without the creation of the vaccine, these diseases would have likely continued to spread causes large casualties, as a result of the human population, today would not be as large. As diseases decimate most of the population, those who are immune will survive. Those who are immune will pass on that gene that makes them immune to their offspring and the population begins growing again. Vaccination has protected us from diseases that, if left unchecked could be fatal, the large human population today can be attributed to the introduction of the vaccine.
