This is chapter 5 of “The Construction of Reality”, one of the rewards of our 2023 fundraiser.
Human at Dawn
We humans adapt to the world in two ways: thru biological evolution and thru changes in culture: where culture is everything from tools and technology to language and philosophy. We are still evolving physically, and it can be seen in different human groups. Northern Europeans are more likely to be able to digest milk properly than those of African descent, for example, while whites have less melanin due to spending time in areas with less sunlight, and so on.
But cultural evolution is far faster and it is how we have done most of our adaptation since we started making stone tools.