How Poison Helped Us Procreate

Evolution is going on all around you. It might not be so clearly defined as something you’d ever notice. By its very nature evolution shouldn’t be noticed. Random genetic mutation is natural you see, how many people ponder how they’re able to walk on two legs instead of four? We do not think about such things, of course others might notice that an adolescent is smarter or faster than the average, but rarely is it cause enough to destroy that adolescent, thus removing that mutation from the population. Thus what has come about via genetic mutation (generated by the gene pairing contribution from each parent’s genetic code) is beneficial to that adolescent increasing chances of survival, so much that indeed that adolescent might very well have more children on average in comparison to his or her fellow adolescents. Give this new capability a few generations of propagation within the population and voila the average member of that society could be faster or smarter.  Now on to the actual post!

Think about this just for a minute, our lips are a highly sensitized and specialized trait of our species. What the increase in sensitivity to external stimuli that our lips give us is the ability to know which foods are poisonous and what is edible. This increase in lip sensitivity, being sensitized to stimulation might also increase the period of human mating events and thus further increasing the chances of a successful impregnation. Not only this but kissing also increases the affection one person has for another, increasing the chances that each person might be willing to take their interactions further, more towards a full mating event.

Thus one genetic mutation which helped us to avoid poisonous foods might also have created a kind of secondary successful trait allowing homo sapiens to have an increased chance of producing offspring at each mating event.

Without the pleasurable benefits of kissing, who knows how great the human population (ie: birth date) would be affected. Not to mention how the lack of sensitive lips might also adversely affect the longevity of the average person as more individuals would become infected by various toxins or bacteria.

Of course this also brings me to our tongues, which of course is also highly sensitive, indeed even more so than the lips. The sensitivity of the tongue is probably older than that of the lips, most animals seem capable of knowing when a potential food source is bad for them by tasting it. Everyone who has French kissed before knows full well that it is indeed an enjoyable experience. So again we have a situation of what came first survival or pleasure? At a basic level most living systems seek their own safety first before all other considerations or needs are met.

I could easily keep going on, but this post is already long enough. Oh yeah, humans really cannot detect pheromones. Well that’s not entirely true, but other factors now seem to guide human mating patterns. So if we cannot smell & taste fertility and maturity levels in the air perhaps we and our ancestors had no other choice but to get closer.  Thus the ability to detect a potential mate via scent might be less valuable than being able to draw in a mate through touch enticement; well we’re talking about females here since males rarely say no (regardless of the species). So perhaps physical closeness works in man’s favour along with the perpetuation of the species. Ok I’m done for now

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