The general scientific consensus is that species evolve to better live and thrive in their environment. Over the centuries, birds will grow longer beaks to reach the grubs inside trees, snakes develop ways of moving through the hot desert that protect their skin, frogs adapt to hibernate through dry seasons. Nature is a wonderful and clever thing, and you’d expect the same to be true of our species too. Granted, we’ve moved on from our days swinging through the trees or learning how to create fire, but somewhere in the middle of the digital age, our evolution seems to have stopped and started moving backward. From signs that really shouldn’t have to exist, to ridiculous questions, we’ve rounded up 50 of the strongest hints that humanity might be devolving, or that some people just didn’t pay enough attention in school.
The incredible shrinking penny
We’ve all fallen for an embarrassing practical joke, or been gullible enough to believe an obscure fact that one of our friends has told us. No-one can be awake and on the ball 100% of the time. In my post-newborn haze, if someone had told me that there was no such word as gullible in the dictionary, I probably would have believed them.
There are limits to how much gullibility can be ascribed to just not paying attention. The girl who believed this joke Twitter post, and then decided to try it out for herself, can’t blame it on not paying attention. How stupid do you have to be to forget that metal in the microwave is a terrible idea?