12 Things That Prove That Evolution Straight-Up Hates You

Couldn't you have put a bit more effort into designing nostrils, evolution?

1. Breathing and swallowing

21st Century Fox / Via giphy.com

"Hey," said evolution. "You humans are going to have to use language. So let's move your larynx a bit further down your throat! You'll be able to make much more complicated noises."

Great, we said. Let's do it.

"Fine! All done. Oh one thing. If you try to breathe at the same time as eating, there's a small but non-negligible chance that you'll choke to death. Look, it was all right there in the terms and conditions, it's no use coming whining to me now."

2. Nostrils

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Here's an idea: Let's design a social creature that relies heavily on its face as a sort of advertising board. One study found that people with beautiful faces are more likely to get elected; another that competent-looking (but not necessarily competent) people are more likely to be CEOs. In general, attractive people are both judged and treated more positively by others.

It's pretty important that our faces look good. So you'd think any well-designed version of the human body wouldn't have a pair of holes in the middle of that face which leak mucus, and which have clumps of hair in them which catch that mucus, so that when you're having dinner with your in-laws you have a big lump of snot just sitting there and you have no idea.

3. Earworms

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If human brains were put together by someone who cared about the user experience, I wouldn't have had the theme to Blockbusters stuck in my head for the last four days. According to one study, about 91% of us get an earworm at least once a week, and no one really knows why. But the answer will be basically "because our brains are bodged together by evolution".

4. Buttock hair

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If anywhere on the human body really needed to be wipe-clean, surely this is it? Apparently evolution had other ideas. Thank you, the process of natural selection working on variation in the population, for the tagnuts.

(Note: No one wants to see a picture of a hairy arse, so here's a picture of a hairy ass.)

5. Smelly feet

21st Century Fox / Via giphy.com

True fact: That stinky cheesy foot smell is caused by the same bacterium, Brevibacterium linens, that makes actual cheese smell like that. Another true fact: That smell attracts malaria-carrying mosquitoes. Thanks, evolution.

6. The various species of arachnid living on your skin right now

"Crab louse (251 23) Female, from a human host" by Doc. RNDr. Josef Reischig, CSc. - Author's archive. Licensed under CC BY-SA http://3.0 via Wikimedia Commons / Via commons.wikimedia.org

There are, probably, at least two species of arachnid on your face: Demodex folliculorum and Demodex brevis. Demodex comes from the Greek for "fat" and "burrowing worm": As in, these are little worms which burrow into the fat on your face. Except they're not worms, they're mites, related to spiders; "the adult roughly resembles an eight-legged alligator", according to the author of a 1967 study.

Oh, and they don't have anuses. They just store all the stuff they eat throughout their lives, and when they die, they just sort of burst and let all that stuff out onto the skin of your face (and ear canal, nipple, groin etc), which in some people causes an irritating skin condition called rosacea.

That's before we start on all the crab lice, scabies lice, bed bugs, and various other things that nibble away at you.

7. All those diseases

"Scanning electron micrograph of Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and a dead Human neutrophil - NIAID" by NIAID_Flickr - Micrograph of Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). Licensed under CC BY http://2.0 via Wikimedia Comm / Via commons.wikimedia.org

It's not funny, but it's true. Also, the diseases which are caused by microorganisms keep evolving, so our medicines don't work on them any more. Screw you, evolution.

8. Dying

Brightlight Pictures / Via youtube.com

Did you know that dying is entirely optional? Not for us, of course. We don't get to make the choice: Evolution made it for us. But the jellyfish Turritopsis dohrnii lives forever. After reproducing, it reverts to its juvenile state, and starts its lifecycle all over again. It will never die of old age.

We, on the other hand, will get old and die, because evolution has found that getting old and dying works best for us. Which is nice.

9. Male genitalia

Pete Harlow / Wikimedia Commons / Via en.wikipedia.org

"That's the best design they can come up with?" says Kryten in Red Dwarf. "The last-chicken-in-the-shop look?"

Also, male genitalia are conveniently located at kicking height, vulnerable outside the body, and exquisitely sensitive to pain. There are good evolutionary reasons for all this, which is just another reminder that evolution is a complete bastard who hates you.

10. Back pain

"Male gorilla in SF zoo" by Brocken Inaglory - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA http://3.0 via Wikimedia Commons / Via commons.wikimedia.org

This bipedalism is a mug's game. We've taken a four-legged mammal's frame, something that worked reasonably well for 160 million years or so, and given it a huge structural reworking so it walks on two legs, possibly so we can free up our hands for tool use. Unfortunately that's buggered up our spines quite a lot and placed loads more weight on our legs and back, so lots of us end up with crippling lower-back pain, arthritis, and dodgy knees.

11. Periods

NBC / Via giphy.com

If you were designing a reproductive system, would you make it give you cramps, bloating, bleeding, and pain for several days a month? Probably not. But you're not evolution, and evolution is a bitch.

12. And the goblin shark

YouTube / The Science Channel / Via youtube.com

It doesn't live on your body and it doesn't make fill your face with mucus or make your knees go pop, but holy hell, look at that thing. Evolution came up with that. Evolution cares nothing for your human feelings.