You're Not Highly Evolved
Flickr/spidermandragon5 As humans, it’s tempting to think of ourselves as the pinnacle of evolutionary progress. But evolution can only work with what’s available, resulting in a body that’s a bundle of compromises. FEET Our ankles and feet started out as flexible tree-climbing tools made of many small bones. But all of those tiny pieces amount to lots of opportunities to tear or twist something. And the way our shinbones and ankles are oriented to meet the demands of walking means that we can’t land on the sides of our feet safely, making sprained ankles a human specialty. IMMUNE SYSTEM Humans have a long history of living with parasites, such as hookworms, which have themselves evolved to tamp down our immune responses to protect themselves. But in the developed world, these kinds of infections aren’t as common as they used to be. The absence of parasitic infections may be one...