MY BEEF WITH EVOLUTION

The Italian theory of evolution

I was born in the mid-70s in Italy, which means my childhood was spent during the economic boom of the 80s (Alpine vacations in winter AND summer) and my adolescence and young adult years in the cozy and undemanding arms of modern technology. Between a game of Simon, a text message, and a Napster download, I never found the time or reason to question whether my body truly represented the latest model of an evolutionary process started 15 million years ago (I'm talking about human evolution). Given how quickly I could recover from hangover, I just assumed it did.

Everything changed after my pregnancy and the birth of MiniBee, experiences that compelled me to test the process of reproduction, which I believe biology still considers the main goal of human existence. My first stance towards the experience was one of great curiosity and excited anticipation, but after only a year that stance had turned to one of bewilderment. I have to say, human reproduction really doesn't seem as well-planned as popular science wants us to believe. The so-called "miracle of birth" seems more to me like a half-assed experiment, an unconvincing and unconvinced attempt at evolutionary success, a random dart thrown drunkenly at the future in an attempt to somehow cope with the harsh demands of natural selection. Perhaps this shouldn't surprise me, but Mother Nature has revealed herself to be just like any other parent: godlike and omnipotent at first, but ultimately just a mom, tired and overwhelmed, with eyes filled with disillusionment. I can't help but to imagine our confrontation.

ME: "Mom, was this really the best plan your could think of? Stuffing women with a 9-lb meatloaf that has to come out of their vaginas?"
MOTHER NATURE: "Oh, stop it. You have no idea how busy I was, and how hard I had to work. Do you think humans are the only ones I have to take care of? You don't hear the lemmings complain, and I have them jumping off a fucking cliff. And remember, your father is never around."
ME: "My father?!?"
MOTHER NATURE: "You humans call him God, which is frankly kind of rich, given that he left me completely alone to take care of you, the house, and all the animals."
ME: "Are you telling me that God exists?!? Where is He now?"
MOTHER NATURE:"I told you a million times already, but you never, ever listen. He left. He made this world in six days, this wonderful world of whales and gemstones and instincts and quantum particles. That was just one of his projects back in the day. Did you think he was going to just magically settle down and help me raise you all? No, of course not! He's too much of an artist to be a parent. Mr Know-It-All needs to create! And I was stupid enough to support him... Now leave me alone. I need a smoke."
ME: "Do you smoke cigarettes?!?"
MOTHER NATURE: "Are you crazy? With those prices? I'll just inhale some of the carbon dioxide you kids have kindly provided me with. Now leave me alone! It's November, for fuck's sake. Shouldn't you start collecting acorns for you den?"
ME: "Are you talking about squirrels?"
MOTHER NATURE: "Whatever."

But I still have lots of questions! Well, I have three actually.

PREGNANCY DIET

Wooly mammoths needs to be cooked to
a 145F temp for safe consumption.

Right from the bat, women are saddled with a punitively long pregnancy during which they are at increased risk for listeria (18 times more likely than general population, according to this). What is the purpose of this immune weakness? Women are growing another human inside their bodies: bone, muscle, brain tissue and whatever else is there. Shouldn't their immune system be at its strongest? And mostly, shouldn't they be able to eat whatever they want, raw or cooked, especially when their strongest instinct is to eat any and everything they see or even imagine?

GIANT BRAIN, STILL USELESS

The human advantage and a tricky storage problem.

Okay, you know this. We humans have developed massive heads to contain our massive brains, and we are born basically premature otherwise we would never make it out of the birth canal from the neck up. This makes human birth more difficult and painful than for most animals, and results in human newborns who can't literally do anything. A foal will stand and walk right after birth, but babies take weeks just to focus enough to see there's more to our faces than a nose. Still, I have to wonder how a species who has to told their tiny babies for one or two years or more was able to survive this long. How is a woman supposed to gather (as in "hunt and gather") with a child constantly attached to her?

HELLO, TIGER! WE'RE HERE!

First they're screaming and now they're drawing on the walls?
When is this day going to end?

Why do children cry so much, and so loudly? This doesn't make any sense to me. Why on earth would an insignificant, tiny, clawless, non-poisonous being call so much attention on itself? If I were a cave woman, hidden in said cave, freaked out and exhausted after birth and waiting for someone to deliver my Paleo dinner, the last thing I want is for my baby to advertise its juicy presence to all saber-tooth predators for miles around. And babies do not scream only in their infancy. In fact, their loudest and most irrational cries happen in toddlerhood and early childhood, when I would think a mother would want to leave her cave to go back to gathering (as in "hunting and gathering"). Why can't babies simply whimper quietly and adorably like newborn kittens? How great that would be?