Today’s depressing headline is: “More Humans Are Growing an Extra Artery in Our Arms, Showing We’re Still Evolving.”  The author of the article couples the increased artery growth with a relative decrease in wisdom teeth in newborns as yet even more evidence that (wait for it) “humans are still evolving.”  Gasp!
The story appeared in numerous publications, but the one I saw it in had “science” in its name.  That any entity professing to be “scientific” is treating the ongoing evolution of humans (or any other living thing, for that matter) as a newsworthy revelation is not only wrist-slittingly depressing but yet another example of the sort of scientifically impoverished and temporally provincial and myopic horseshit that seems to have taken over all academic discussions this century.  I see things like this, and my jaw drops…this got published in a science magazine?!  Then it gets worse as I realize that the reason it was published is that to the beard-curating Whiteclaw-swilling cretins that comprise this rag’s readership, it’s actually news.  They’re so egocentric as to think that they really are the apex of human evolution.  They’re also convinced that the world’s going to end during their lifetimes (it won’t), and that they are witnessing climate change far worse than anything that’s ever happened before (sorry Kevin, not even close).   It’s tempting to lampoon America’s embarrassing public school system here, but I don’t think it’s their fault…I don’t know.  Maybe.  I figured out continental drift the same year I learned how to tie my shoes.  The difference was someone had to show me how to tie my shoes.  There are some things that should just be rather obvious to anyone who’s spent more than a couple of years on this rotten planet, but I guess not.  Alas.

N.P.: “Gravel Road” – Clutch