The evolutionary masterpiece - opposable thumbs - could be our downfall - Wyn Drabble

Opposable thumbs might disappear as they are one of the two body parts involved in my evolution prediction. The other is the neck, writes Wyn Drabble. Photo / 123RF

Wyn Drabble is a teacher of English, writer, public speaker and musician. He is based in Hawke’s Bay.

OPINION

Human evolution works extremely slowly; after all, homo erectus didn’t stand up overnight. So it’s safe to say evolving is not something mankind has ever attacked with vigour.

If we assume we started out as single-cell organisms, it is reasonable to say it has taken an extremely long time to develop into humans who don’t know how to indicate when going straight through a roundabout.

The time factor means I won’t see the next evolutionary big change in my own lifetime, but I think I’ve seen the beginnings of it and can reasonably predict where we are going next. But because it has taken millions of years to get where we are today, it’s going to be a case of slowly does it.

Evolution is a work in progress and always takes time. Hummingbirds, for example, indicate the time factor, and also that things don’t always go smoothly. Yes, despite having been around for thousands of years, they still don’t know the words.

Our ability to walk on two legs developed more than four million years ago. Our first efforts were probably a little wobbly but we mastered the skill and didn’t ever grumble about the nomenclature - “homo erectus”. Boys didn’t snigger about it behind the bike sheds because bike sheds hadn’t even been invented.

I feel it timely here to share an interesting observation about bipedalism from British rose breeder and writer David C. H. Austin: “The existence of trousers proves that God meant us to be bipeds.”

Other advances – tool use, language, cultural diversity, reality TV, use of leaf blowers - have been more recent, some possibly as late as last Wednesday.

Most of us, as humans, are pretty proud of having opposable thumbs. “Look, I have opposable thumbs,” we can often be heard saying to lesser creatures. Generally, the lesser creatures don’t respond as many of them have not even developed language. Some just scurry away.

Opposable thumbs are one of our defining characteristics. The thumbs are able to move independently of the other fingers and rotate inwards. This enables us to engage in activities such as typing, writing, squeezing toothpaste tubes and scrolling through TikTok.

Watch a lesser creature trying to unscrew a jar of preserved peaches and you’ll see what I mean. We’ve got manual dexterity down to a T. We’re masters of manipulation.

This ability to use our opposable thumbs has been a major shaper of human history; without it, for example, we would never have been able to create and use complex deadly weapons to kill our fellow humans in pointlessly costly wars.

Well, the bad news is this distinguishing ability might disappear, because the thumb is one of the two body parts involved in my evolution prediction. The other is the neck. Astute readers will already have made the connection and know exactly what I’m about to reveal.

The next time you drive to work with your opposable thumbs wrapped around your steering wheel, take a look at the pedestrians on the footpath. Most of them - kids heading to school, adults heading to work, parents with toddlers in tow - will have their head bowed to stare at their phone and their thumbs will be hooked into tight right-angles and jabbing rapidly at their screen.

Some will walk smack into a lamppost or fall down a manhole, indicating slapstick comedy was perhaps a great predictor.

So, if you’re around in a few million years and you read about my predicted neck and thumb evolutionary developments, remember you first learned about them here in this newspaper in 2024. Look out for key words “homo digitalis”.

I could even become famous. Rather posthumously.