The Ulas family in Turkey has attracted intense scientific attention for years. Because five members of the family walk on all fours, one scientist concluded more than a decade ago that the condition was a sign of reverse evolution. Self-proclaimed health futurist Jeffrey Charles Hardy argues that after millions of years, human evolution has stopped.
A scientific debate about a family in Turkey has been going on for years, all because many of its members walk on all fours. One scientist infamously dubbed the condition “reverse evolution,” which was met with scorn by other members of the scientific community. The syndrome was established based on the multiple members of the Turkish family. However, many other scientists, including the father of the family, hold a different opinion.
IFL Science recently brought the debate back into the light, highlighting a discussion between a scientist in Turkey and scientists in England (and now around the world). The two factions discussed the potential for reverse evolution due to the five family members walking on all fours like a crawling bear, reminiscent of Homo sapiens before bipedalism became the norm.
Five of the 19 children in the Ulas family have been walking on all fours since infancy. But the affected siblings have intellectual disabilities and balance problems, suggesting their way of moving was more of a way for them to navigate the world more easily.
Uner Tan of Cukurova University School of Medicine in Adana, Turkey, sadly described the family’s walking style as a result of reverse evolution in 2006, using the term “Uner Tan syndrome”. This prompted British scientists Nicholas Humphrey and John Skoyles, as well as Professor Roger Keynsto, to take part in the study, along with a film crew.
Rather than agree with Tan, the British scientists noted that balance problems and a congenital hereditary disorder made it difficult for the children to walk upright, so the five children continued to walk on all fours to get around better.
Since then, researchers have continued to debate the issue, with many saying there is no reverse evolution involved, but rather a potentially complex gene disorder. Tan may have unwittingly drawn scientists’ attention to one family, but he has also kept the research on the subject pure.
Self-proclaimed health futurist Jeffrey Charles Hardy argues that after millions of years, human evolution has stalled. He believes we are in a state of arrested evolution before the second stage begins. Hardy wants humanity to plan its own evolution.
Humanity’s dominance over nature has ended millions of years of human evolution, says self-proclaimed health futurist Jeffrey Charles Hardy. And now that the first stage of human evolution is over, he believes we have entered a limbo and are entering the second stage of evolution. It is in our power to shape.
“At this point,” Hardy said in a statement, “we are re-evaluating and moving away from the unsustainable practices of unlimited growth and waste that we have inherited from the first human evolution. We are in a state of searching for a new way forward.”
This new path forward, he says, must focus on peace. The veteran healthcare professional believes that human evolution occurs in three distinct stages.
The initial phase, which he calls the first human evolution, began more than two million years ago and was defined by humanity’s growing desire to conquer nature. But this phase finally came to an end in the mid-1950s when humans discovered the ultimate weapon to destroy the very Earth they were using: nuclear weapons. He believes that humanity’s complete dominance over nature and each other marked the end of the phase, sending us into a second phase, putting human evolution on hold. That’s where we are now, before the second human evolution begins at some point in the future.
“This is yet to be determined, and we have to imagine, discuss, plan, design and implement,” Hardy said in a statement about the second phase. Instead of a plan focused on controlling nature, Hardy believes the second human evolution should offer solutions to our past ills and strive for peace.
Hardy, who founded the Care for Peace Foundation, wants caring for others to define the second stage of human evolution, and that his time in healthcare has shown him that caring for and sustaining the world through compassionate action is something that many people share.
Using four key patterns is key to both understanding and planning, Hardy says. He wants people to focus on individual values and responsibilities, cultivate peace in relationships, promote holistic well-being in cultural contexts, and connect their efforts across individuals and organizations.