Human Errors: A Panorama of Our Glitches, from Pointless Bones to Broken Genes

by Nathan H. Lents

there would be no consequence of losing the ability to make vitamin C since she already ate foods that contained it. (What foods contain a lot of vitamin C? Citrus fruits. And where do citrus fruits mostly grow? Tropical rainforests. And where do most primates live? Bingo.) The reason that the ancestors of primates could tolerate a mutation in the GULO gene was that, with plenty of vitamin C in their diets anyway, scurvy wasn’t an issue. Since that time, primates—with the exception of humans—have pretty much stuck to rainforest climates.

The entire human reproductive system is littered with inefficiencies and poor design. To recap: Humans mature late, conceal female ovulation, have trouble making healthy sperm and eggs, create embryos that don’t implant or that have missing or extra chromosomes, initiate pregnancies that aren’t successful—and even when everything goes right, both babies and mothers die in childbirth at shockingly high rates.

Ultimately, this intelligence allowed us to overcome the limits of biology. Modern medicine has tamed many of the beasts that killed our ancestors so early and so often. Accordingly, as medical standards of care began improving in the mid-nineteenth century, the human population exploded. Along with this explosion came the sinister handmaidens of success: resource scarcity, war, and environmental degradation unlike any our species has ever seen. So we now have the opposite problem: too many people, rather than too few. Nothing says “poor design” quite like uncontrolled and unsustainable population growth. So maybe all those reproductive limitations weren’t so bad after all?

It seems to me that cancer is the ultimate biological manifestation of the devil. Cancer is not the result of a bacterial or viral attack, and it’s not that our bodies become damaged by some outside force. It’s us. Our own cells, as if seduced by some evil force, forget their proper place in our bodies and begin to live solely for themselves. They become the embodiment of selfishness, taking everything for themselves, sparing nothing for the rest. Never satisfied, they grow more and more and spread to other areas to continue growing and taking and killing. The only way we know to fight these corrupted cells makes us very sick because in attacking the cancer, we attack ourselves. There is no other way to fight the demon that has taken over our very flesh. This is why I have always held oncologists and cancer researchers in the highest regard. You are dedicated to the fight against evil.

“The capacity to blunder slightly is the real marvel of DNA. Without this special attribute, we would still be anaerobic bacteria, and there would be no music.”

1) You have a great need for other people to like and admire you. 2) You have a tendency to be critical of yourself. 3) You have a great deal of unused capacity, which you have not turned to your advantage. 4) While you have some personality weaknesses, you are generally able to compensate for them. 5) Your sexual adjustment has presented problems for you. 6) Disciplined and self-controlled outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure inside. 7) At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing. 8) You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations. 9) You pride yourself as an independent thinker and do not accept others’ statements without satisfactory proof. 10) You have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to others. 11) At times you are extroverted, affable, sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, reserved. 12) Some of your aspirations tend to be pretty unrealistic. 13) Security is one of your major goals in life. Here’s the thing: All of the students received the same personality description, though they didn’t know it. Their ignorance was key to the experiment. Once they all received their “personal” and “tailored” personality descriptions, they were asked to rate its accuracy on a scale of 1 to 5. The average score was 4.26. If you’re like me, you probably thought the report above described you pretty accu...

The duality of human nature is the hallmark of the human experience. We can switch from boundless love and great self-sacrifice to cold-blooded murder, even genocide, in a heartbeat. Just a few generations ago, the United States of America and many other countries were populated by men who were loving fathers and doting husbands and who made their fortunes by brutally enslaving other human beings. By all accounts, Adolf Hitler was a generous and gentle partner to Eva Braun even as he ordered the senseless slaughter of millions.