A new study suggests that many modern health challenges may stem from a deep evolutionary mismatch between our ancient biology and today’s industrialized environments.
A new study by evolutionary anthropologists Colin Shaw (University of Zurich) and Daniel Longman (Loughborough University) argues that the pace of modern living has moved faster than human evolution can follow. According to their work, many chronic stress problems and a wide range of contemporary health concerns may stem from a mismatch between biology shaped in natural settings and the highly industrialized world people occupy today.
A species out of sync with its environment
For hundreds of thousands of years, humans adjusted to the conditions of hunter-gatherer life, which involved constant movement, brief periods of danger, and regular contact with natural landscapes. In contrast, industrialization has rapidly reshaped human surroundings within just a few centuries.
This shift has brought noise, air and light pollution, microplastics, pesticides, continuous sensory input, artificial lighting, processed diets, and far more sedentary behavior.
“In our ancestral environments, we were well adapted to deal with acute stress to evade or confront predators,” explains Colin Shaw, who leads the Human Evolutionary EcoPhysiology (HEEP) research group together with Daniel Longman. “The lion would come around occasionally, and you had to be ready to defend yourself – or run. The key is that the lion goes away again.”
Modern pressures – traffic, workplace strain, social media, and constant noise among them – activate the same internal stress pathways, but without offering the recovery that once followed short-lived threats.
“Our body reacts as though all these stressors were lions,” says Longman. “Whether it’s a difficult discussion with your boss or traffic noise, your stress response system is still the same as if you were facing lion after lion. As a result, you have a very powerful response from your nervous system, but no recovery.”
Health and reproduction under pressure
In their review, Shaw and Longman synthesize research indicating that industrialization and the growth of cities may be reducing overall human evolutionary fitness. In evolutionary terms, a species thrives when its members are able to survive and reproduce. The authors argue that both of these fundamental measures have been negatively influenced since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.
They point to declining global fertility rates and rising levels of chronic inflammatory conditions such as autoimmune diseases as signs that industrial environments are taking a biological toll. “There’s a paradox where, on the one hand, we’ve created tremendous wealth, comfort and healthcare for a lot of people on the planet,” Shaw says, “but on the other hand, some of these industrial achievements are having detrimental effects on our immune, cognitive, physical, and reproductive functions.”
One well-documented example is the global decline in sperm count and motility observed since the 1950s, which Shaw links to environmental factors. “This is believed to be tied to pesticides and herbicides in food, but also to microplastics,” he notes.
Designing environments for well-being
Given the pace of technological and environmental change, biological evolution cannot keep up. “Biological adaptation is very slow. Longer-term genetic adaptations are multigenerational – tens to hundreds of thousands of years,” Shaw says.
That means the mismatch between our evolved physiology and modern conditions is unlikely to resolve itself naturally. Instead, the researchers argue, societies need to mitigate these effects by rethinking their relationship with nature and designing healthier, more sustainable environments.
According to Shaw, addressing the mismatch requires both cultural and environmental solutions. “One approach is to fundamentally rethink our relationship with nature – treating it as a key health factor and protecting or regenerating spaces that resemble those from our hunter-gatherer past,” he says. Another is to design healthier, more resilient cities that take human physiology into account.
“Our research can identify which stimuli most affect blood pressure, heart rate, or immune function, for example, and pass that knowledge on to decision-makers,” Shaw explains. “We need to get our cities right – and at the same time regenerate, value, and spend more time in natural spaces.”
Reference: “Homo sapiens, industrialisation and the environmental mismatch hypothesis” by Daniel P. Longman and Colin N. Shaw, 7 November 2025, Biological Reviews.
DOI: 10.1111/brv.70094
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4 Comments
Why do you think our culture is overrun with soy boys who think they are g_y now?
Human are not doing what they were created for and using their bodies the way nature and God intended.
The seeming mal adaption recognized in this study may represent a transitional period of evolution, in preparation for the transformation of the human species into a space-faring and multi-planetary organism.
Unless, of course, the transformation results in the breakdown of protective cultural values, such that there is a reversion to archaic forms practiced by our ancestors, and a hiatus in human development.
Having worked with people living in Harmony with Mother Nature and indeed are well fit for it, I am convinced that living in Harmony with Western Civilisation offers more chances of living a long and healthy life, assuming that the psycopathic leaders of the world don’t choose to exterminate us by assorted weaponry.
the way forward is obvious. genetically engineer humans more fit for civilization. fuck nature