Evolution has spun off some extreme oddities, as an article in Cracked pointed out this week.

The article, titled 7 Species That Got Screwed Over by Mother Nature, is bawdy and indiscrete, so let the reader be warned (typical territory for Cracked). 

 I was sucked in because #5 on their list happens to be my beloved kakapo. They mention its lack of a 'fight or flight' response, although they fail to cite its propensity for gleefully skirt-chasing random zoologists and their cranial anatomy.

(I still haven't been able to get in any wet-work on my Last Chance to See project- the temperatures seems to be taking a nose dive into the single digits every time I've got a couple days to work. I really need to insulate and heat my studio space).

Other misfits on the list include the tunicate worm (essentially consumes its own brain as it matures from a mobile larva to a sessile adult form), and the Kiwi bird (lays an egg that’s 1/2 of its own body length and mass), as well as spotted hyenas, black vultures, termites and honeybees.

It’s a pretty funny article… but there’s always a snarky superiority in write-ups like this that gets under my skin. For one thing, it’s easy to forget how utterly odd and superficially dysfunctional human beings are.

Forget the fact that we have mediocre eyesight, an abysmal sense of smell, and the auditory sensitivity of a turnip. There doesn’t seem to be a single environment- terrestrial, arboreal, aquatic- where we move with any fluidity or grace (ignoring the bar-stool, recliner and golf cart, of course).

The standard narrative in evolutionary biology frames the human animal as an atrophying, generalist platform for a hyper-advanced brain and a nimble, manipulating hand.  In learning to use our brains and fingers, we lost the need for any focused physicality. We’re somewhere along the pathway to this…

I’d always bought into this idea… but then I read Born to Run by Christopher McDougall.

Born to Run is one of the most joyful, paradigm-shifting works of non-fiction I’ve read in ages. On the surface, it’s one man’s exploration of the global ‘natural born running’ community. Along the way, however, the author touches on…

• An indigenous people- the Tarahumara-  who subsist in remote, desiccated Mexico (Copper Canyon) and appear to be the best long distance runners on the face of the planet.
  
• The reasons why cushioned running shoes are not only useless for running, but actually promote injury in runners. 50+ years of global marketing and billions of dollars in sales based on a lie.
  
• The weird, unlikely histories of long distance runners across recent history.
  

Actually, I can’t stress this last point enough. The book is front loaded with some of the most quirky, gloriously non-conformist characters ever to traverse the written page, and they’re all real. Just as one example, McDougall’s point of entry into Tarahumara culture was a Chris McCandless-type character known regionally as Caballo Blanco (the White Horse)- a  gringo ex-pat and ex-prize fighter who vanished into Copper Canyon and travels between its dusty towns like a dreadlocked ghost.

It’s McDougall’s commentary on human evolution that really fascinated me, however.

In a nutshell, McDougall claims (and it’s supported by a front page article in Nature) that human beings are not atrophied, squishy brain-baskets with hands. We're sophisticated physical engines designed for one specific purpose- succeeding at the long-distance pursuit of cursorial mammals on the high plains.

I won’t break down the argument in too much detail- read the book. However, there are some wonderful sidelines the book explores in the process of making its case. Just a few examples…

This was a glorious revision on my whole perspective on humans as physical animals. We may have lost our way, bogged down in high fructose corn syrup and wed to the barcalounger, but we’re finely honed to a specific purpose, if only we can remember.

It makes me think about how little we understand the role that other organisms play in the ecological web. How little we comprehend the eons of natural selection, cataclysm, competition and niche adaptation that have produced a kakapo or spotted hyena.

So- while I found the Cracked article amusing, I don’t see Kiwis, termites, honeybees, or Spotted Hyenas as creatures that have been ‘screwed over’.  I love every one one of these fellow travelers. Whether you see them as avatars of a profound creative Providence or as miracles of some stochastic calculus, they’re neither accidents nor failures.

Not saying that I want to lay a 36-inch egg, mind you…