Connected

Connected

Connected, connected
we all are connected!
Like God has a net
like the earth has a web
we all are connected in the vast fabric
of the biosphere of our planet

In Africa, thousands of years ago,
a tribe exhibiting the human adaptation
for cutting down rainforests
moved into an area of rainforest
inhabited by malaria carrying mosquitoes. 

The tribe cut down the rainforest. 
The change in the environment
allowed previously less successful
malaria parasites
and malaria carrying mosquitoes
to vastly increase in number.  

Since many animals that inhabited the rainforest
had to leave when it was cut down,
and since more humans
now lived in the area
due to their greater food production
more humans were both reproduced
and killed by malaria. 

Humans in the area were then put under selective pressure
by natural selection to select for the sickle-cell genes.
because sickle-cell genes carry a strong resistance
to malaria
In a few generations, 
a significant portion of the human population
in the area
carried the sickle-cell gene.  

The reasons for the malaria
and the sickle-cell gene remained unknown
for many generations
until another human culture
from across the Atlantic ocean
holding other culturally evolved points of view
noticed that the incidence
of both a resistance to malaria
and the sickle-cell gene coincided
in a certain area of Africa. 

All humans are naturally curious beings
because our habit of using cultural adaptation ensures
that natural, sexual and kin selection all likely to select
for curiosity in humans.
So, the sickle-cell data represented a mystery
for naturally curious humans to solve.

Investigating the mystery
caused humans to increase our knowledge base
thereby increasing our ability to adapt. 
So, the complex interactions between several features
of the world including rainforest trees,
mosquitoes, parasites, and humans across many generations
all combined by means of phenotypical adaptation,
natural selection, sexual selection, and kin selection
to result in (among many other things)
an increase in human adaptability
and this poem....

And that, my friends
is a good example of how interconnected
our biosphere actually is.
God has a net
The earth has a web

Dewey Dirks