For example our hands become wrinkly after getting wet so our ancestors could grip onto trees better after swimming.
Would we really go extinct as a species if we didn’t develop that extremely specific trait at one point?
Same for crying as an emotional response, or eyebrows keeping sweat out of our eyes, or goosebumps making our hair stand to be more intimidating to predators.
I understand why these would be helpful, but I don’t see why these were so necessary to the human race’s continuation that nearly every human has these traits.
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>Would we really go extinct as a species if we didn’t develop that extremely specific trait at one point?
No, it’s more subtle than that. All it takes for a “very mildly advantageous” gene to spread is that it doesn’t cost much, and that it saves the lives of a few people. What you’re missing is the insane *scale* of it. Sure, saving 1 person out of 100 000 in some extreme scenario doesn’t sound like much… But consider if the population is 100 million and we’re looking at 1000 people where this gene meant life or death. And then you let time do its thing over maybe a few hundred thousand years where this extremely unlikely situation keeps repeating. Suddenly it doesn’t seem so far fetched that the genes start drifting after a while.
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