Leonid Alexandrovich, Dan Brown in the book "Origin", reflecting in which direction the vector of evolution is directed, suggests that in the coming decades a person will be increasingly integrated with technical devices, and such a species as Homosapiens will disappear. Do you share this point of view?
There is a curve that expresses the ratio of the number of individuals of a certain species to body weight. According to these calculations, there should be several hundred thousand people on the globe. And we are seven billion! How did man manage to break this pattern and win in evolution? A lot of hypotheses are being discussed in scientific circles, but the essence of most of them boils down to a simple formula: people have learned to predict the future better than other animals. It was thanks to the ability to foresee the course of events that primitive man, relatively speaking, "ate" the leopard, and not vice versa: he studied his habits, knew which path he would take to the watering place, and dug a hole there. And what is science? A body of knowledge that not only describes processes and gives us a deeper understanding of them, but also predicts new, still unknown facts. Prediction is the ultimate goal of knowledge. Intuitive foresight has become a science - and now we have lived to create artificial intelligence. Which has two main functions: pattern recognition, primarily sound and visual, and a prediction of how different objects will behave. The rapid development of AI technologies has been going on for three years already - and now everything just flies into space: the number of algorithms, their complexity, the accuracy of predictions. The machine already recognizes faces better than a live operator, and is able to predict the most complex, multidimensional processes, create mathematical models for the development of the universe.
Mankind is constantly improving various technologies - primarily to make life easier for people. We really began to do many things faster and easier. But are we any happier because of it?
If we fast forward thousands of years ago and reflect on whether we have become happier than primitive man? I think no. It does not seem that progress has given us universal grace, but I am sure that human evolution is driven by the desire for happiness and everyone has their own. For example, in the view of children, this is the fulfillment of desires. It came true that he made a wish - this is true happiness. In fact, adults are not so far gone from this. I remember when my parents bought the first car. Happiness! Life is good! If you look at life from this angle, then artificial intelligence today is able to predict and fulfill desires, even if they are not fully conscious. It's not difficult at all: we leave a lot of traces. Phones, bracelets and other gadgets that collect a lot of data about a person's behavior, habits, and preferences around the clock. Imagine you woke up in the morning, just opened your eyes, and artificial intelligence has already predicted that now you want to turn on the TV, and right away on your favorite channel. In the evening they came home from work - the refrigerator had already ordered the products by itself, predicting what you would like to eat for dinner tonight, depending on your well-being and mood. By the way, a huge number of applications have already appeared on the software market that teach you to think positively, breathe correctly, monitor your heart rate and mood swings. They are based on a scientific base, consisting of numerous studies in the field of psychology.
British economist William Davies gave this phenomenon a definition - "industry of happiness". In the bestseller of the same name, he argues that such gadgets can collect information and suggest what should be done to improve mood, but they are not able to make a person truly happy.
I agree with this opinion, but now we are not talking about the features of the worldview (mentality), but about tools that can support us at the right time. No gadget will solve the problems of a higher, spiritual level, for example, a broken heart. However, artificial intelligence is able to predict that you need an emotional shake-up to be completely happy before you yourself realize it and get bored with life. A push message will arrive with an invitation to a concert, personal growth training or an extreme tour - depending on your preferences. From the point of view of our today's mentality, such predictability is bad. Elon Musk said that artificial intelligence poses almost a greater danger to humanity than nuclear weapons, to which Mark Zuckerberg friendly advised him not to escalate drama. I am a supporter of the second camp. What's wrong with being able to foresee the future and influence it? In particular, many people have problems when making decisions. At the same time, if you read a person, it turns out that he subconsciously made a choice a long time ago, and the machine will prompt him.
Do you personally make decisions easily, never doubt?
I live by the principle: a task has arrived - go and do it! Go where it's scary. This is my path to development.
Doesn't the simplification of life, which gives technology, artificial intelligence, harm us? Will the machines take over, and the man himself will become unnecessary?
Artificial intelligence is such a thing that neither the five principles of robotics nor the ten commandments can be entered into. There is no such line. This is a program that seeks to most accurately satisfy your desires: all the time throws up different options, analyzes and the second time is no longer mistaken. But what is completely absent in artificial intelligence is aggression! Yes, humanity is now experiencing not one technical revolution, but a whole cascade of them. Already today it is possible to discard some of the professions as unnecessary. As sociologists rightly say, what is happening at the moment is not a crisis of employment, but a crisis of the meaning of work. Having dealt with the latter, we will solve the problem of our own significance and find our niche in life. Remember, not so long ago, most of the population of Russia was engaged in agriculture, as it was necessary to solve the problem of hunger. But with the advent of machines, labor productivity increased, and the need for workers in subsistence farming became less relevant. More and more people, instead of plowing the land, are working in offices. Physical labor was replaced by intellectual labor. The same thing happens in the creative field. People adapt to modern technologies: artists draw in graphic editors, and musicians create arrangements in special programs. Professions that have never been heard of before appear: professional dormouse, iceberg cleaner, toilet guide, brain extractor. At Google, for example, they officially created a position - "pretty good guy." It is now occupied by one of the earliest engineers of the corporation, Chade-Men Tan. His duties include "the enlightenment of minds, the emancipation of hearts and the creation of world peace." I think that self-improvement and a genuine interest in life will not let anyone get lost even in the world of the most advanced technologies. You can always find a use for yourself.
And if people still rebel against the dominance of technology?
I doubt… (long pause) Doesn't it occur to anyone today to organize rallies against smartphones or social networks? On the globe, the number of Internet users is already greater than the number of water toilets. It is hard to believe that rebels will sit in underground bunkers and plan subversive operations. But there will also be no single control center - the conditional "Great Google", which would lead the entire globe. On the contrary, the trend is becoming more and more obvious that the World Wide Web is divided into national segments, and that boundaries in the virtual world are still needed. The Internet has become a platform where more and more politics is technological, investment-intensive, where money turns into another currency - the impact on the audience. Some countries have moved a little further in this direction, some are still lagging behind, and therefore are forced to take a defensive position. But there is no doubt that the Chinese fire-wall will gradually spread to all BRICS countries and create barriers to information.
Are the technical developments of your company able to guide human emotions?
Artificial intelligence that programs human behavior is not our topic. Although we do not stay away from technologies that allow us to predict certain things. So, by the end of the year we plan to roll out a project, the essence of which is to predict accidents. Today, millions of pieces of equipment are included in our network, the monitoring system monitors certain parameters, in the event of an accident, a signal is sent to the operator, and he already finds out what is the cause of the malfunction. The new project is that the algorithm, that is, the robot, constantly monitors the entire network, and long before a breakdown predicts the moment when the equipment starts to behave in a strange way. It is useless for a person to try to understand all this, a huge amount of data flows in a continuous stream, no specialist will analyze them in a lifetime. And at the level of artificial intelligence, this thing is solved instantly! An explosion of the brain, it is hard to believe that it is possible to predict an accident on the network in advance, but the first results are already there. The robot constantly learns from real life examples by downloading huge amounts of data on how different equipment behaved before the breakdown.
Do you see Interconnection as part of a global structure?
Are you talking about offers to sell the business? They do, and with enviable regularity for ten years now. But no. Otherwise it will be boring. There will be no happiness (laughs). Happiness, of course, is not in going to work every day, but in having challenges. To overcome, to invent, to invent.
What is the main challenge you face this year?
Get another plus three percent of the market.
It's a lot?
Yes. We now have more than seventy, and plus three is cool. This can be achieved only due to the fact that in partnership with our company it will be easier, more convenient and more comfortable to live. This is quite a fine tuning, but we constantly measure this level of convenience and try to make it higher. We strive so that a person is not distracted by everyday trifles, but finds time to be in harmony with himself, to hear himself, and then even such trifles as reading an interesting book, walking in the park, good music, meeting friends ... They say that the world responds to your mood. It's time to take care of happiness, and robots will take care of everyday chores.
There were upright posture, an increase in the volume of the brain and the complication of its organization, the development of the hand, the lengthening of the period of growth and development. A developed hand with a well-pronounced grasping function allowed a person to successfully use and then make tools. This gave him advantages in, although in his purely physical qualities he was significantly inferior to animals. The most important milestone in human development was the acquisition of the ability to first use and maintain, and then make fire. The complex activity of making tools, obtaining and maintaining fire could not be provided by innate behavior, but required individual behavior. Therefore, there was a need for a significant expansion of the possibility of signal exchange and a speech factor appeared that fundamentally distinguishes humans from other animals. The emergence of new functions, in turn, contributes to accelerated development. Thus, the use of hands for hunting and protection and eating food softened on fire made it unnecessary to have powerful jaws, which made it possible to increase the volume of the cerebral part of the skull due to its facial part and ensure the further development of human mental abilities. The emergence of speech contributed to the development of a more perfect structure of society, the division of responsibilities between its members, which also gave advantages in the struggle for existence. Thus, the factors of anthropogenesis can be divided into biological and social.
Biological factors - hereditary variability, as well as the mutation process, isolation - are applicable to. Under their influence, in the process of biological evolution, morphological changes occurred in the ape-like ancestor - anthropomorphosis. The decisive step on the way from ape to man was bipedalism. This led to the release of the hand from the functions of movement. The hand begins to be used to perform various functions - grabbing, holding, throwing.
No less important prerequisites for anthropogenesis were the features of the biology of human ancestors: a herd way of life, an increase in brain volume in relation to the general proportions of the body, binocular vision.
The social factors of anthropogenesis include labor activity, social lifestyle, development of speech and thinking. Social factors began to play a leading role in anthropogenesis. However, the life of each individual is subject to biological laws: mutations are preserved as a source of variability, stabilizing selection acts, eliminating sharp deviations from the norm.
Factors of anthropogenesis
1) Biological
natural selection against the backdrop of the struggle for existence
genetic drift
insulation
hereditary variability
2) Social
public life
consciousness
speech
labor activity
At the first stages of human evolution, biological factors played a dominant role, and at the last stages, social ones. Labor, speech, consciousness are most closely related to each other. In the process of labor, the members of society were united and the method of communication between them, which is speech, was rapidly developing.
The common ancestors of humans and great apes - small arboreal insectivorous placental mammals lived in the Mesozoic. In the Paleogene of the Cenozoic era, a branch separated from them, which led to the ancestors of modern great apes - parapithecus.
Parapithecus Dryopithecus Pithecanthropus Sinanthropus Neanderthal Cro-Magnon modern man.
The analysis of paleontological finds makes it possible to identify the main stages and directions of the historical development of man and great apes. Modern science gives the following answer: man and modern great apes had a common ancestor. Further, their development followed the path of divergence (divergence of features, accumulation of differences) in connection with specific and different conditions of existence.
human pedigree
Insectivorous mammals parapithecus:
Propliopithecine, Orangutan
Dryopithecus Chimpanzee, Australopithecus Ancient people (Pithecanthropus, Sinanthropus, Heidelberg man) Ancient people (Neanderthals) New people (Cro-Magnon, modern man
We emphasize that the human genealogy presented above is hypothetical. We also recall that if the name of the ancestral form ends in "pithek", then we are talking about a still monkey. If at the end of the name is “anthrope”, then we have a person in front of us. True, this does not mean that signs of an ape are necessarily absent in its biological organization. It must be understood that the signs of a person in this case prevail. From the name "Pithecanthropus" it follows that this organism has a combination of signs of ape and man, and in approximately equal proportions. Let us give a brief description of some of the alleged ancestral forms of man.
DRIOPITEK
He lived about 25 million years ago.
Characteristic features of development:
much smaller than a person (height is about 110 cm);
led a predominantly arboreal lifestyle;
probably manipulated objects;
tools are missing.
australopithecines
Lived about 9 million years ago
Characteristic features of development:
height 150–155 cm, weight up to 70 kg;
skull volume - about 600 cm3;
probably used objects as tools for food and protection;
upright posture is characteristic;
the jaws are more massive than in humans;
strongly developed superciliary arches;
joint hunting, herd way of life;
often ate the remains of the prey of predators
Pithecanthrope
Lived approximately 1 million years ago
Characteristic features of development:
height 165–170 cm;
brain volume about 1100 cm3;
constant upright posture; speech formation;
mastery of fire
SINANTROP
Lived probably 1-2 million years ago
Characteristic features of development:
height about 150 cm;
upright posture;
making primitive stone tools;
maintaining the fire;
public lifestyle; cannibalism
NEANDERTHAL
Lived 200–500 thousand years ago
Characteristic signs:
Biological:
height 165–170 cm;
brain volume 1200–1400 cm3;
the lower limbs are shorter than in modern humans;
the femur is strongly curved;
low sloping forehead;
strongly developed brow ridges
Social:
lived in groups of 50–100 individuals;
used fire;
made a variety of tools;
built hearths and dwellings;
carried out the first burials of the dead brothers;
speech is probably more perfect than that of Pithecanthropus;
perhaps the emergence of the first religious ideas; skilled hunters;
cannibalism persisted
Cro-Magnon
Lived 30–40 thousand years ago
Characteristic signs:
Biological:
height up to 180 cm;
brain volume about 1600 cm3;
there is no continuous supraorbital ridge;
dense physique;
developed muscles
Social:
lived in a tribal community;
built settlements;
made complex tools of labor from bone and stone;
knew how to grind, drill;
deliberately buried the dead brothers;
rudimentary religious ideas appear;
developed articulate speech;
wore clothes made of skins;
purposeful transfer of experience to descendants;
sacrificed himself in the name of the tribe or family;
cared for the elderly;
the emergence of art;
domestication of animals;
first steps in farming
MODERN MAN
Lives on all continents
Characteristic signs:
Biological:
height 160–190 cm;
brain volume about 1600 cm3;
having different races
Social:
sophisticated tools;
high achievements in science, technology, art, education
Ch. Darwin is reduced to a line of logical, confirmed by experiments and other studies, provisions. So, he proved that all types of living organisms are characterized by individual hereditary variability in any way; they all multiply exponentially; within the species there is a struggle for existence due to the limitation of vital resources; in this struggle, only adapted individuals survive and continue to reproduce.
3. Natural selection - identifies the mechanism of survival of units with the necessary hereditary changes and their further reproduction. Selection is the result of the struggle for existence. The following mechanisms are distinguished:
a) the formation of hereditary changes;
b) survival and conservation of individuals with these changes in the appropriate habitat;
c) the reproduction of these units, the growth of their numbers and the spread of useful hereditary changes.
The driving forces of evolution, interacting with each other, make it possible to explain the formation of other species in nature. Materials accumulated in different branches of biology have a logical conclusion only when they correspond to the principle of evolution.
The great merit of Charles Darwin lies in explaining the process of development and formation of species. It was this fact that made Darwin's evolutionary theory the accepted theory.
Incredible Facts
This project was launched two years ago, when several hundred scientists were interviewed, who were asked one question: what do you consider the greatest secret of nature and science?
Here's what they said.
What drives evolution?
You have probably heard the answer to this question: natural selection is accepted by scientists as the main engine of the vital functions of organisms and their very functioning. This is one of the most well-tested theories in science. But evolution through natural selection is the only explanation for the complexity of organisms?
"I believe that one of the great mysteries of biology today is whether natural selection is the only explanation for the process of evolution, and therefore the only way to generate the complexity of organisms, or are there other properties of matter that also play an important role," says Massimo Pigliucci, Chair of Ecology and Evolution at Stony Brook University in New York.
What happens inside an earthquake?
In fact, it is very strange that we do not know the processes that are taking place on our planet right under our feet. Experts can tell you exactly where an earthquake is, what type of earthquake it is, and how long the tremors will last. But they are completely unsure of what is happening inside the planet during this natural disaster. The character and nature of the forces involved in this process is not yet completely clear.
"The issue of plate displacement during earthquakes is not yet fully understood and is one of the fundamental problems in all of earth science," says geophysicist Tom Heaton (Tom Heaton). "To this day, the nature of earthquakes remains a great mystery to physicists around the world."
Who you are?
The nature of consciousness has long puzzled psychologists and cognitive scientists. Part of the answer to this question, however, is surprisingly simple: most of our actions depend on the functioning of neural circuits. This opinion is shared by Joseph LeDoux, a neurologist at New York University.
"The intuitive idea that things are banal, like 'I'm in control of my behavior' is just as wrong as the idea that the Earth is flat," explains LeDoux. While we often think of ourselves as independent beings, this is actually not the case. Everything we do is influenced by unconscious environmental processes.
How did life appear on Earth?
The earliest evidence of microbial life on Earth dates back to 3 billion years ago. How it came about, no one knows. Ideas range from the development of chemical reactions on the seafloor to the origin of corresponding reactions in rock formations.
"There are many theories about the origin of life on Earth, but since none of them can be either confirmed or disproved, there is no officially accepted theory," summed up the biologist Diana Northup (Diana Northup).
How does our brain work?
Of course, today we know much more about the activity of the brain than a few decades ago. But still, billions of neurons, each with thousands of connections, is a very complex topic. "We all think we understand the brain, at least our own, through experience. But our own subjective experience serves us very poorly in matters of how our brain works," said Scott Huettel (Scott Huettel), specialist Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at Duke University.
"We still don't have a good way to study how groups of neurons form functional networks when we learn, remember something, or do anything else, including watching movies, listening to music, etc.," says the university neuroscientist. California Norman Weinberger. "If we fully understand our brain, we can understand both its potential and its limits for thinking, emotions, reasoning, love and everything else."
Where is the rest of the universe?
"I call it the dark side of the universe," says University of Chicago cosmologist Michael Turner, referring to the great mysteries of dark matter and dark energy.
In fact, only 4 percent of the matter and energy in the universe has been discovered. The other 96 percent remain elusive, but scientists continue to search the furthest corners and deepest bowels of the Earth in order to solve two dark mysteries.
Why does gravity exist?
You might think that this concept has long been understood, because Newton explained it many years ago. But in reality, everything is much more complicated. Gravity is the most poorly understood force in the universe, and it cannot be explained using the standard laws of physics.
Theorists believe it's all about tiny, massless particles called gravitons, which are the brainchild of gravitational fields. "Gravity is completely different from other forces that are described in a standard way, because when you do some small calculations of gravitational interactions, you get stupid answers, because the math just doesn't work in this case," says theoretical physicist Mark Jackson (Mark Jackson).
Is there a "theory of everything"?
There is a good "standard model" in physics that breaks the universe as we know it into particles in order to describe every detail, from magnetism to what atoms are made of and how they stay in a stable state. The Standard Model considers particles to be small points that perform certain functions, some of which carry certain forces.
But the standard model has two serious shortcomings: it does not explain the process of gravity, and all the information loses its relevance when it comes to high energy levels.
If, after all, a theory can be developed (many scientists say it will never happen) that explains gravity and can withstand the incredible energy forces of the early universe, then a universal theory of physics will become a reality.
Does alien life exist?
Life is everywhere, at least on this planet. Therefore, it is logical to assume that it exists in the entire universe. But so far we've only been able to scrutinize one world.
We know that solar systems like ours exist beyond. "We're here, made of stardust. So it's likely that there are other forms of life in the universe," says Jill Tarter, director of the Space Research Center in California.
Moreover, it is very likely that life forms that are outside our planet are very smart. "Humanity has made scientific and technological advances in just the last 200 years of the approximately 4.5 billion years of life on Earth," said Frank Wilczek, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "Therefore, it is likely that there are many scientific and technological civilizations that have existed and developed for many millions or even billions of years."
How did the universe begin?
This question is perhaps the most exciting. Simply put, all other secrets lie below this question, because it is paramount. Yes, the theory says it all started with the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago. In the blink of an eye, the explosion grew to cosmic proportions. The idea, it would seem, is not bad, but there is only one bad thing: this statement cannot be believed in any way.
"The big bang theory is an extremely powerful idea, but it's still unclear what caused the explosion," says Eric Agol, an astrophysicist at the University of Washington.
Scientists argue that modern man did not originate from modern anthropoid apes, which are characterized by a narrow specialization (adaptation to a strictly defined lifestyle in tropical forests), but from highly organized animals that died out several million years ago - driopithecus. The process of human evolution is very long, its main stages are presented in the diagram.
The main stages of anthropogenesis (the evolution of human ancestors)
According to paleontological finds (fossils), about 30 million years ago, ancient parapithecus primates appeared on Earth, living in open spaces and on trees. Their jaws and teeth were similar to those of great apes. Parapithecus gave rise to modern gibbons and orangutans, as well as an extinct branch of driopithecus. The latter in their development were divided into three lines: one of them led to the modern gorilla, the other to the chimpanzee, and the third to Australopithecus, and from him to man. The relationship of driopithecus with man was established on the basis of a study of the structure of his jaw and teeth, discovered in 1856 in France.
The most important step in the transformation of ape-like animals into the most ancient people was the appearance of bipedal locomotion. In connection with climate change and the thinning of forests, there has been a transition from an arboreal to a terrestrial way of life; in order to better view the area where the ancestors of man had many enemies, they had to stand on their hind limbs. Subsequently, natural selection developed and fixed upright posture, and, as a result of this, the hands were freed from the functions of support and movement. This is how australopithecines arose - the genus to which hominids belong (a family of people).
australopithecines
Australopithecus - highly developed bipedal primates that used natural objects as tools (hence, australopithecines cannot yet be considered people). Bony remains of Australopithecus were first discovered in 1924 in South Africa. They were as tall as chimpanzees and weighed about 50 kg, the brain volume reached 500 cm 3 - on this basis, Australopithecus is closer to humans than any of the fossil and modern monkeys.
The structure of the pelvic bones and the position of the head were similar to those of a person, which indicates a straightened position of the body. They lived about 9 million years ago in open steppes and fed on plant and animal food. The tools of their labor were stones, bones, sticks, jaws without traces of artificial processing.
skillful man
Not possessing a narrow specialization of the general structure, Australopithecus gave rise to a more progressive form, called Homo habilis - a skilled man. Its bone remains were discovered in 1959 in Tanzania. Their age is determined at about 2 million years. The growth of this creature reached 150 cm. The volume of the brain was 100 cm 3 larger than that of Australopithecus, the teeth of a human type, the phalanges of the fingers, like those of a person, are flattened.
Although it combined signs of both monkeys and humans, the transition of this creature to the manufacture of pebble tools (well-made stone ones) indicates the appearance of labor activity in it. They could catch animals, throw stones, and perform other activities. The heaps of bones found along with the fossils of Homo sapiens testify to the fact that meat has become a permanent part of their diet. These hominids used rough stone tools.
Homo erectus
Homo erectus - Homo erectus. the species from which modern man is believed to have descended. Its age is 1.5 million years. His jaws, teeth, and brow ridges were still massive, but the brain volume of some individuals was the same as that of modern man.
Some bones of Homo erectus have been found in caves, suggesting a permanent home. In addition to animal bones and rather well-made stone tools, heaps of charcoal and burnt bones were found in some caves, so that, apparently, at this time Australopithecus had already learned how to make fire.
This stage of hominin evolution coincides with the colonization of other colder regions by Africans. It would be impossible to survive the cold winters without developing complex behaviors or technical skills. Scientists suggest that the prehuman brain of Homo erectus was able to find social and technical solutions (fire, clothing, food supply and cohabitation in caves) to the problems associated with the need to survive in the cold of winter.
Thus, all fossil hominids, especially Australopithecus, are considered to be the precursors of humans.
The evolution of the physical features of the first humans, including modern humans, spans three stages: ancient people, or archanthropes; ancient people, or paleoanthropes; modern people, or neoanthropes.
archanthropes
The first representative of the archanthropes is Pithecanthropus (Japanese man) - an ape-man, upright. His bones were found on about. Java (Indonesia) in 1891. Initially, its age was determined to be 1 million years, but, according to a more accurate modern estimate, it is a little over 400 thousand years old. The height of Pithecanthropus was about 170 cm, the volume of the cranium was 900 cm 3 .
Somewhat later, there was Sinanthropus (Chinese people). Numerous remains of it were found in the period 1927 to 1963. in a cave near Beijing. This creature used fire and made stone tools. This group of ancient people also includes the Heidelberg man.
Paleoanthropes
Paleoanthropes - Neanderthals appeared to replace the archanthropes. 250-100 thousand years ago they were widely settled in Europe. Africa. Front and South Asia. Neanderthals made a variety of stone tools: hand axes, side-scrapers, sharp-pointed ones; used fire, coarse clothing. The volume of their brain grew 1400 cm 3 .
Features of the structure of the lower jaw show that they had rudimentary speech. They lived in groups of 50-100 individuals and during the onset of glaciers they used caves, driving wild animals out of them.
Neoanthropes and Homo sapiens
Neanderthals were replaced by people of the modern type - Cro-Magnons - or neoanthropes. They appeared about 50 thousand years ago (their bone remains were found in 1868 in France). Cro-Magnons form the only genus and species of Homo Sapiens - Homo sapiens. Their monkey features were completely smoothed out, there was a characteristic chin protrusion on the lower jaw, indicating their ability to articulate speech, and in the art of making various tools from stone, bone and horn, the Cro-Magnons had gone far ahead compared to the Neanderthals.
They tamed animals and began to master agriculture, which made it possible to get rid of hunger and get a variety of food. Unlike their predecessors, the evolution of the Cro-Magnon people took place under the great influence of social factors (team building, mutual support, improvement of work activity, a higher level of thinking).
The emergence of Cro-Magnons is the final stage in the formation of a modern type of person. The primitive human herd was replaced by the first tribal system, which completed the formation of human society, the further progress of which began to be determined by socio-economic laws.
human races
Humanity living today is divided into a number of groups called races.
human races
- these are historically established territorial communities of people that have a unity of origin and similarity of morphological features, as well as hereditary physical features: facial structure, body proportions, skin color, hair shape and color.
According to these features, modern humanity is divided into three main races: Caucasoid, Negroid and Mongoloid. Each of them has its own morphological features, but all these are external, secondary features.
The features that make up the human essence, such as consciousness, labor activity, speech, the ability to cognize and subdue nature, are the same for all races, which refutes the assertions of racist ideologues about "higher" nations and races.
The children of the Negroes, brought up together with the Europeans, were not inferior to them in intelligence and talent. It is known that the centers of civilization 3-2 thousand years BC were in Asia and Africa, and Europe at that time was in a state of barbarism. Consequently, the level of culture does not depend on biological characteristics, but on the socio-economic conditions in which peoples live.
Thus, the statements of reactionary scientists about the superiority of some races and the inferiority of others are groundless and pseudoscientific. They were created to justify wars of conquest, plunder of colonies and racial discrimination.
Human races must not be confused with such social associations as nationality and nation, which were formed not according to a biological principle, but on the basis of the stability of a common speech, territory, economic and cultural life, formed historically.
Man in the history of his development has come out of submission to the biological laws of natural selection, his adaptation to life in different conditions occurs through their active alteration. However, these conditions to some extent still have a certain effect on the human body.
The results of such an influence can be seen in a number of examples: in the peculiarities of the digestive processes of reindeer herders in the Arctic, who consume a lot of meat, in residents of Southeast Asia, whose diet consists mainly of rice; in the increased number of erythrocytes in the blood of the highlanders compared with the blood of the inhabitants of the plains; in the pigmentation of the skin of the inhabitants of the tropics, which distinguishes them from the whiteness of the integument of the northerners, etc.
After the completion of the formation of modern man, the action of natural selection did not stop completely. As a result, in a number of regions of the globe, humans have developed resistance to certain diseases. Thus, measles among Europeans is much easier than among the peoples of Polynesia, who encountered this infection only after the colonization of their islands by immigrants from Europe.
In Central Asia, blood group 0 is rare in humans, but the frequency of group B is higher. It turned out that this is due to the plague epidemic that took place in the past. All these facts prove that in human society there is biological selection, on the basis of which human races, nationalities, nations were formed. But the ever-increasing independence of man from the environment has almost suspended biological evolution.
