10 Quirks Of Evolution That Are Ruining Your Life

Evolution is pretty amazing. In the words of the great Carl Sagan, everything you see around you is a result "of the things that hydrogen atoms do, given 15 billion years of cosmic evolution."

Without evolution, you'd be less than pond slime and you certainly wouldn't have those handy opposable thumbs that let you do everything from peel bananas to do up your fly. The sheer majesty of the natural world around us is testament to its awe-inspiring power.

So if evolution is such a good thing, then why does you back hurt like bloody murder all the time, why has your waistline ballooned and what exactly is the deal with childbirth?

Surely, if anything was going to dissuade you from the idea that you're the pinnacle of human evolution, it's a long hard look in the mirror.

Well, contrary to popular belief, evolution isn't a perfect process. Evolution isn't a designer, always striving for perfection, it's more like a mad scientist trying to make a device on the fly for an unknown purpose whilst blindfolded.

As a result, the end product is a bit of a jumbled mess. It works, but in a bit of a roundabout way and there are definitely a few features that would be taken out in beta testing.

Nobody likes getting injections (or "shots" as you hip Americans call them) and it is estimated that as much as 20% of the population have a fear of needles, with up to half of those having developed into a full blown phobia. Seeing as, really, they don't actually hurt that much, why are so many people bugging out about it?

Well, the answer is most likely just that: Bugs.

Back in the good old days (before we started doing absurd things like injecting ourselves with pathogens) when humans were still living in trees, one of the biggest risks to our health that we faced was being bitten or stung by the creepy crawlies who were also living in those trees.

The bites from the little critters weren't painful in themselves, in much the same way as injections, but the potential deadly effects of their venom spelt a whole load of trouble for early man and we came to identify the sensation of being bitten as a Bad Thing.

This is why getting an injection is such a deeply unpleasant experience, beyond any superficial pain you might feel. Believe it or not, there's just something not quite right about pumping a foreign substance directly into one's flesh. Who knew?