No. 20 Evolution in Action

The day well known free-thinker, scientific gadabout town and outrageous beard-wearer, Charlie Darwin, risked damnation and hellfire by publishing his renowned airport novel On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life; he could not have foreseen just how far the human race would evolve in the intervening time.

True, we may still be land-bound bipeds, no closer to flying, breathing under water, or speaking without opening our gobs than we were 149 years ago, but take a look around and you’ll see the spoils of evolution everywhere.

Tis true, I tell thee. You only have to switch on your TV set to be greeted by upstanding members of the evolutionary scale. Those fine individuals that result from generations of predecessors fighting hammer and indeed claw to eliminate weakness and brain defects from the gene pool, ensuring that not just they, but all of us, are blessed by their almost superhumanly talented legacies.

Such shining examples of natural selection in action that deserve a mention for their sterling contributions to the furtherment of the human race – and in no particular order of supremacy – are Jade Goody, Piers Morgan, The Cheeky Girls, Peter Andre, The Royal Family, Colleen Rooney, Simon Cowell, Peaches Geldof, Jordan, Calum Best, anybody that uses the terms ‘bling’ or ‘totally random’, the cast of Hollyoaks… The list goes on.

Why nobody has thought to make Goody a Dame, or at least offered her the chance to turn down an MBE, perpetually baffles me to the point that it has caused many a good night’s sleep.

But evolution isn’t just upheld by the calibre of individual that we choose to make rich and famous. It is evident from the very moment we wake up, after – for example – a night on the sauce. You show me the Gorilla, Chimp, or Monkey that can get itself rat-arsed on watered down lager and chemically suspect alcopops; pull a rough looking bird that you wouldn’t even take home to meet her own mother; get a swift knee-trembler at the back of the pub; spew down said lady’s dress at said moment of intimacy; recover in time for a punch-up on the carpark; get carted off to the nick; get released in time for last orders; and still wake up the next morning gasping for a fry-up. All in the relatively short space of a Saturday night. They can’t do it. They’ve neither the attention span nor the willpower that evolution has blessed us far more advanced individuals with.

Nor can they iron whilst drunk. What further proof of man’s advancement does one need? Why the Olympic association hasn’t taken drunken ironing up as an event is anybody’s guess. I should maybe begin a petition to get it included in the 2012 Olympics.

And then there’s law and order. In old Charlie’s day they were hanging people for offences such as being poor, or tucking one’s trousers into one’s socks. But those draconian times have thankfully passed. Nowadays you can inject a turnip, nonce your granny, burgle a ferret, stab a cabbage patch doll and expose yourself to the Eastwood Collieries Male Voice Choir, all in the space of one Sherbet binge, and not expect anything worse than a withering look from the Judge and maybe a couple of hours painting a fence.

Our demand for more crime on the streets has been met by evolution producing more criminals.

But evolution can be best summed up in those success stories that we all aspire to. The cases where the real cream rises to the top. Evolution ensures the undeserving are kept down in the gutter where they belong. And so with this in mind I present the Evolutionary Roll Of Honour (pat. Pending). Those that natural selection has deemed fit to place at the top of pile:

Royal Families the world over; George Bush; Gordon Brown; Richard Branson; Wayne Rooney; Ernest Saunders and fellow Guinness magnates; Robert Mugabe; Kerry Katona; Sharon Osbourne; Naomi Campbell; Trinny and Susannah; Lord Thackery Fotheringay-Fanshawe; Victoria Beckham; Tony Blair; Maggie Thatcher; John Major; Tara Palmer-Tomkinson; Yoko Ono; Heather Mills-McCartney; Jeremy Clarkson; Boris Johnson; Paris Hilton… There are many more deserving of mention but we could be here all day.

Proof, if proof is needed, that we are indeed deserved of our place at the summit of the food chain and evolutionary scale.

But I think perhaps this may highlight the one point where Darwin’s theory falls down. For with such eminent characters leading the pack, how much more of a finely tuned specimen can the human race possibly become?

You have been warned.

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