3. We’re More Lactose Intolerant Than Ever

Lactose intolerance isn’t a serious condition. Apologies to everyone lactose intolerant who’s had a nasty run-in with a cheese pizza. However, this condition did likely have a strong impact on people in past eras when digestive health wasn’t as easy to treat. Supplements like Lactaid were not available to make milk digestive. When food diversity was far lesser than today, the inability to consume valuable calcium, fat and other nutrients in milk products may have been a serious issue. This is especially true in impoverished populations. Babies born with lactose intolerance would have been at particular risk if their mothers couldn’t nurse.

Compare that to today, when not only is lactose intolerance incredibly easy to treat, but there are countless healthy alternatives available to dairy products. People make kinds of milk from the seeds of flowers to ground nuts to oats. They can make cheese and yogurts from soy and almond milk and several other alternatives. Not only is it possible to live with lactose intolerance, but it’s also relatively easy to thrive. It should come as no surprise then that lactose intolerance is proliferating, including in cultures where milk has historically been consumed. The easier it is to find alternatives and treatments for a condition, the more prevalent they could become.

2. Surgeries Are Less Invasive and More Survivable

The invention of laparoscopic technology made a vast array of medical procedures incredibly less invasive and, therefore, less likely to have complications that lead to death. Before may have required cracking the chest open, it can now be handled through the insertion of a small catheter. Surgeries in the abdomen, in particular, have become safer due to the reduced risk of damaging an intestine and causing sepsis. While still risky, brain surgeries have also become safer thanks to the creation of specialized tools that minimize invasiveness. As surgeons themselves become better trained and used to this technology, surgeries continue to evolve safer.

Safer surgery for such a wide range of conditions means that illnesses and congenital disabilities that may have killed people in their youth are now treatable at a much lower risk. More people can survive heart defects, cancers, and more thanks to laparoscopy. Furthermore, they are far less likely ever to develop complications. These people being able to survive thanks to modern medicine will, like many other advances, allow a more diverse crop of genetic material to be passed on to future generations. It also means that we will continue to narrow the list of illnesses that are certain death.

1. Fixing Our Own Genes

The concept of altering our own genes is still incredibly controversial, but it’s on the horizon nonetheless. Scientific missions like the Human Genome Project, overseen by the Human Genome Organization, continue to map the incredible complexity of the human genome, finding more and more genetic causes for a wide range of illnesses and disabilities from ADHD to diabetes. As we discover the role of genetics in more and more diseases, we may someday find a way to treat those diseases before they ever even develop by altering the genes of the person affected. Genetic testing kits are also allowing people unprecedented access to their own genetic information.

If it becomes possible to treat genetic illnesses before they ever develop symptoms, it is entirely possible that genetic conditions will cease to trouble humanity. There are also fears that we may use such science to edit specific genes. Why? To stop their ever expressing or, at the worst, stop certain people from reproducing to wipe genes out entirely. While these procedures and medical guidelines will be the earnest debates of medical ethicists and scientists alike, what is clear is that molecular and genetic medicine has the potential to vastly impact natural selection and health in humans in the not-too-distant future.

Where Did We Find This Stuff? Here Are Our Sources:

“10 Ways Modern Technology Is Destroying Natural Selection,” by Oliver Taylor. Listverse. July 13, 2019.

“The Real Effects of Technology on Your Health.” Everyday Health. November 15, 2017.

“How Do Genetically Modified Foods Affect Your Health?” by Rachel Mount. O Magazine.

“7 Ways GMOs Affect Your Health,” by Alana Marie Burke. Newsmax. February 9, 2015.

“Japan’s birth rate hits another record low” by Emiko Jozuka, Jessie Yeung, Jake Kwon, CNN December 29, 2019.

“The Impact of Technology on the Human Body” by Jet Khasriya. Apetogentleman.com

“Technology’s Effect on Our Health the Good the Bad and the Ugly” by Brandon Swenson University of Arkansas, December 30, 2020

“7 Ways Modern Technology May Be Affecting Human Evolution” by Joe McGauley, Thrillist August 19, 2015