Backward evolution

"He who rejects with scorn the belief that the shape of his canines, and their occasional great development in other men, are due to our early forefathers having been provided with these formidable weapons, will probably reveal, by sneering, the line of his own descent."

That's a quite hilarious jibe from someone I thought was a serious dude. Guess who. The quote is via a New Scientist article (subscription-only) on evolution running backwards (i.e, supposing it had a direction, which it doesn't). The propensity for organisms to go backwards on their evolutionary path is also known as Atavism.

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