In a earlier blog I talked about the extended period of dependence seen in our millennials. Many are living in our basements, having failed to find work, marry, buy homes, have their own families. Here I am wondering out loud, whether this extended period of adolescence might not turn out to be all bad. If we act wisely this extended childhood may be parlayed into a period of increased information transfer and training. The 25 or 30-year-old who stays in his room, should be made to acquire new skills. Hopefully, millennials will not be wasting their time, and extended childhood, their failure to launch, may put off the closing of their minds.

A single animal species survives an average of  2 million years. Over large intervals of time the climates and other factors, maybe the presence of other organisms that a species depends on to make its living, like bamboo for pandas, change, so that if a type of animal is to survive, it must contain among individuals enough variation to have adapted into the an  ever-changing environment. Many species are so specialized that while they may have been marvelously fit under certain conditions, even a slight change in environment, perhaps a decrease of yearly rain by a few inches, will end in their rapid extinction.

Anthropologists tell us that humans evolved and distinguished themselves from related species roughly 6 million years ago as a form of adaptation to climatological change. Two or three humanoid species at least are known to have developed separately and likely competed until one form dominated by conquest but also possibly genetic mixing. I am not an anthropologist but my best understanding is that the early evolution of humankind resulted from the rapid replacement of heavy jungles and forested lands with savannah, grassy plains as the climate cooled. Our forebears were adapted less to trees than monkeys and to a greater extent to a ground based existence. Certain closely related apes, such as gorillas and chimpanzees as opposed to monkeys, live a hybrid of tree and ground existence. Still later in our evolution came the glaciers and we all know how we adapted to the cold using our minds, caves and clothing to keep warm as well as growing longer hair and becoming stouter and the invention of fire, and the hearth which turned our kind into tool producers and at first itinerant hunter gatherers,  later settling down cultivating home makers.

Well before the glaciers, our forebears walked on two legs in Africa, from where they radiated out northward into India, and Asia and Europe  and even Pacific Islands and Australia eventually, so goes the party line of anthropology though there is still some dissent from this view and radiation of humankind out of Africa with a single locus of development is far from a settled matter. For anthropoids first and foremost, the legs adapted for long periods of bipedalism, something which allowed for better seeing over the grass, and the freed of the hands for manipulation (meaning literally using the hands.) Bipedalism is necessary but not sufficient for development of intelligence as can easily be seen in dinosaurs and birds which have a reputation for being relatively dumb. Primates hands were composed of movable fingers unlike vestigial wings or small appendages of birds and reptiles allowing for the addition of an opposable thumb thus making the hand into a tool. An early hominid was Homo habilis, the handy man.  The advance of the hand with opposable thumb required greater computational power necessitating the sensory feedback from the back of the brain, and the rapid enlargement of the frontal lobe implicated in  advanced planning of motor movements. (The most basic thing about the brain is that while the back of the brain is sensory, the front of the brain is for motor function, the back of the frontal lobe subserves simple basic movements, and the further forward you go, the more abstract and composite movement generation is, the furthest forward parts are for motor plans, and tribulations. Man is so different from other animals by virtue of his giant frontal lobe.)  The evolution of high motor skills of the right hand and motor planning was in turn intimately associated with the development of language as can be seen by close anatomical proximity of dominant hand motor and language areas of brain. We are all Italians talking with our hands. All of this seemed consequent to climatological changes which took certain primates out of trees and onto grass. Recent data implies that with our forebear’s adaptation out of the trees, less brain needed for vision in three dimensions which is extremely complex with in a forest canopy. In moving out onto a more two dimensional flatter plane and not trapezing one’s way through trees.  We humans navigate on an x,y Cartesian plane for the most part, ignoring the z-axis. Much as been made of the lunate gyrus demarking vision from the rest of the brain, which moved backward, in anthropoids,  decreasing the size of the occipital lobe, freeing more brain capacity for non visual tasks. One may speculate further that moving out of the trees shifted visual exigencies from distant to close vision, that is shifting interest from far off targets, to close social interactions and toolmaking, accounting for the relatively recent appearance of (myopia) near sightedness. Myopia is a sign of high intelligence.

All of this ended in the development of the human brain. For the largest primates this has grown in size from the chimpanzees approximately 350 CC brain to the human’s 1300 CC. Though the brain myelinated and grows considerably after birth, the female pelvis had to enlarge and alter shape to accommodate the much larger human skull at birth. The change in the pelvis, both to provide bipedal existence and allow for the birthing of larger skulls is one of the most reliable means of distinguishing humanoids from other primates.

Inevitably, no matter what the cause, over long time intervals, humans, like all other living things, will have to adapt to changes in the their environment. There is no doubt that our climate examined over long eras is changing as it always has changed throughout our planet’s history, no matter what the cause.  Men shall have to adapt to this change unless we figure out a way to keep the climate exactly as it is, though that seems highly improbable. It should be relatively easy for us as we already live in a more widespread area than any other single species. That includes global warming that has been noted by our scientists. It is as I say inevitable that climate will change, and I am personally convinced of it if from nothing else, seeing with my own eyes, even in mu own  not very extensive travels,  shrinking of glaciers and mountain snow coverings almost everywhere, in the Andes, In Switzerland, Alaska, Canada, Europe, Scandinavia and Russia, near the north and south poles everywhere glaciers are becoming smaller, ice is less. Much adaptation will have to occur due to many problems of human’s making, the rapid extinction of species that surround us, development of technologies capable of annihilating us, the spread of disease, overpopulation, rise of dictatorial societies.

I’m thinking just possibly, the combination of two factors, extension of childhood in our millennials and living in an age of rapid change, will combine to make another revolutionary change in ourselves leading to the next big leap forward for humankind. True i won’t be here for to see it, but I look forward to it anyway.  This time change will not be brought about by genetic biological adaptation but by a post biological alteration in how we think, a mental adaptation. I can’t help but think that further extension of immaturity in our millennials may someday serve us well, as long as we can encourage them to be sponges for learning, to maintain an open mind and the creativity that comes with extended childhood.