As I typed out the next sentence that my brain formed, I knew I was diving in to nerdom deeper than I had ever ventured:

(06:11:38 AM) Ryan Hadley: I wonder what a constant zombie presence would do for natural selection
(06:11:52 AM) Ryan Hadley: holy shit I’m a dork

Before I get in to my thoughts on this and dive even deeper in to this nerdery, I must admit some major faults of mine on this subject:

1. I am not an expert in any kind of way on evolutionary biology.  I do feel I have a better understanding of it than your average Joe in the USA.  But, this is only because I understand that it is real, a fact, and not random.  Three things it seems we often get quite wrong.  So my guesses on what a constant zombie presence would do are quite limited by the fact that I am not a scientist.
2. I am not an expert in any kind of way on zombie mythology.  There are quite a lot of details and opinions out there on zombies.  I have not looked in to it far at all.  95% of my knowledge on zombies comes from Shaun of the Dead.  The other 5% comes from various other means of hearing about zombies:  video games, word of mouth, movie reviews, etc.

I’m thinking only of the case where zombies have flourished over a long period of time.  Many human generations.  Many years, decades, of a constant, never ceasing and highly dangerous human predator.  The humans lost the war and the zombies are prospering.

First, some thoughts on the changes to the environment:

1. Society as we know it would not be able to survive.
2. Sustenance would be rare and dangerous to find.
3. Life expectancy would drastically plummet.
4. Communication/contact with other humans would be rare.  I’m thinking multiple groups of survivors would just have to do their best on their own.

If my assumptions are correct, there would be multiple pools of people quite possibly evolving in vastly different directions.  What directions would be likely?  Let’s take a look at the predator:

1. Extremely hard to kill.
2. Usually hunts in large packs.
3. Never sleeps, always hungers for your flesh and braiiiiiiinz.
4. Very slow.
5. Very dumb.
6. Main method of attack: powerful bite that breaks the skin.  One successful bite and you’re lost.

So, keeping in mind the other environmental changes, what are some human traits that could offer a higher chance of surviving?

Quickness/Endurance

Being slow will just get you eaten.  You have got to be able to move quickly and not stop too much to catch your breath.  I can imagine it helping in more than one way:

1. Escaping a surprise zombie ambush.
2. Being able to get to resources needed for sustenance/protection and get back to safety without being ambushed.
3. Being able to get to resources needed and safe areas before other humans do.

Obviously, most of the old and crippled would not survive long during the early years of the initial outbreak.   The overweight are typically slow and have little endurance, so they too would be easy targets in the first years.  After the first years, most of the survivors would most likely be the younger, quicker and more physically fit of our species.

After the first couple of years there would have to be a trade off.  Sure, the quicker/fitter are now the ones breeding, but resources would be scarce.  If you need more fuel for your body than someone else, you would probably have a harder time surviving.  There would have to be an equilibrium of fuel needed to physical agility.  In areas where sustenance might be easier to find, those groups of survivors would probably also be more evolved in quickness and endurance.

Reproduction

With a drastically shorter life span, the women and men who become parents will be younger and younger.  The age at which women reach sexual maturity would start to drop.  Having kids young would be preferred, since you most likely won’t be alive past 30 to help raise and train your kids with your zombie surviving knowledge.

Also, possibly the amount of time of gestation could start to shorten.  Mothers who give birth to smaller, but still healthy, babies earlier than 9 months would probably find it easier to survive.  The births would be less complicated if the baby is smaller, and getting around (fleeing zombies) would be quite difficult for a 9 month pregnant woman.

Maturity

In our society now, kids aren’t considered “ready” to be on their own until around age 18.  And even then many kids still rely on their parents through college.  This would not do in a long term zombie outbreak.  Babies would have to be born early in the mother’s life (as mentioned above), and the babies would need to be self sustainable much earlier than 18.

Our rate of maturity would most likely increase.  We would go through puberty at younger ages and we would finish “growing” at younger ages.  All to be a contributing member to the tribe faster, instead of requiring more effort from the tribe to raise you.

Natural Zombie Defenses

What if you happened to be ambushed by a zombie and survived a close encounter?  Maybe the zombie actually tried to bite you, but wasn’t able to break your skin?  I could imagine skin thickness possibly being good for surviving zombie attacks.  Maybe not quite to the extent of being able to flee though.  So maybe not.  But just a thought, perhaps enough quick survivors who also  happen to be able to survive some zombie bites would nudge natural selection in the direction of increasing skin thickness.

Immunity

What is it about a zombie bite that kills?  Is it possible that some day in the long zombie infestation someone has just the right genetic mutations to be able to not die from one bite?  This would be huge.  Their tribe clearly would have much greater chances of surviving.  They would have more options open to them for places to travel to, places to find sustenance, and — they would be the perfect evolved group to start staging a counter attack on the zombies.

Zombies wouldn’t be harmless.  I mean, they’d still be damn hard to kill and the right bite in the right place could be quite fatal.  But they wouldn’t be feared nearly as much by these people.  They wouldn’t be “one bite you lose”.  Which is huge.

In Conclusion

We would be alive, there would be survivors.  Multiple independent groups.  We would be reproducing and natural selection would be continuing to make us properly fit our environment.

Zombies would be dead.  They are the walking dead and are damn hard to stop.  They would survive by “infecting” our weak and because of their insanely long “life” expectancy.

We’d have the advantage, because of natural selection.  We would be near powerless at first, but because we are alive we would adapt.  Eventually the tides would turn and we would be able to best the zombies, who are dead and don’t adapt, who once bested our distant ancestors.

In the case of a zombie apocalypse, natural selection would be our only hope.

I set up two web based tests and had as many people as I could find try one or the other.

Here is test 1: http://subprocess.net/number_test

Eight out of the nine people I got to try it got it wrong.  Only one person got it right.  Examples of wrong answers I got:

• Each number has to be +2 the previous number
• All numbers have to be even and in order from low to high
• All numbers have to be + or – 2 of another number in the set, they can be in any order
• All numbers have to be even, order doesn’t matter

The answer?  If you haven’t figured it out yet: any three numbers makes a valid set.

So now I was curious… maybe it was just too hard to come to that conclusion?  So I made a second test: http://subprocess.net/number_test2.  Notice the only difference is the lack of examples of “valid sets”.

I only managed to find 4 people who hadn’t already been exposed to my first test.  All 4 of these people got the answer right.  Most said “all sets are valid”, which I took to mean “any set of three numbers is valid.”

I thought it was quite interesting.  The same exact script with the same exact instructions… but such amazing differences in results.  The only difference between the two: the first test pushes a bias on you with the “example valid sets”.

And this is an example of a bias being imposed on you.  Think of all the things you might be getting wrong because of a bias you yourself impose on you.

Send the first link to some friends, then send the second link to other friends.  See if you find the same thing and let me know.

So, a quick refresher for you: Like cures like. This is called the “The Law of Similars”. Yes, you may have laughed out loud at that part, and I don’t blame you. Much like we have the law of gravity, this too is a law. What does it mean? Well… say you have a massive headache. To cure said headache, according to this “law”, you need to take something that is natural and causes a massive headache.

I know, I know… that’s just stupid! If it causes a massive headache it will just make your headache worse!

And you’re right! If you don’t dilute it first!

“The Law of Similars” only works if you dilute the agent in water. And when I say dilute… holy crap… not just like the dilution you do to concentrated frozen orange juice. Imagine dropping that frozen orange juice in one of Michigan’s Great Lakes and then you’ll be closer to just HOW diluted homeopathy requires.

You see, once you dilute it to the point that not even 1 atom of the original agent is left in the water, then you get to the true power of the agent! Yes, once you remove all of it, you have it’s essence! And essence is what homeopathy is all about. Essence and like cures like.

But! This can’t only work in the one direction. If you take the essence of snake poison to cure a bite from a poisonous snake, then surely if you take the essence of something that is good for you, you can do great harm. GREAT harm.

And this is the dark side of Homeopathy! *dun dun duuuuuuuuuuuuuun*

These possibilities are so frightening. Since it’s diluted to the point that no science can detect that it’s anything more than water, it’s impossible to know exactly what is safe and what is not. And it’s impossible to use as evidence!

Date rape water

Warn your daughters: do not drink any untrusted water! The recipe for this drug is horribly easy: 1 small shaving of a caffeine pill to 10 gallons of water. The smaller the shaving the better! Make sure you dilute that shaving evenly amongst all 10 gallons of water.

Caffeine is known for causing alertness and for “waking” you up in the morning. So obviously the essence of caffeine will put you in to a deep deep sleep.

Feverish DEATH water

Again… the ingredients and steps used to mix up this horrific poison are far too easy to get a hold of. Ingredients: 1 small shaving of an asperin to 10 gallons of water. Again, the smaller the shaving the better.

This is a horrific way to go. Asperin is known to ease pain and reduce fevers. 1 full cup of this horrific poison and you will die a painful, feverish death.

Walk on Water water

Perhaps this is the way Jesus did it? Ingredients: 1 very small rock to 10 gallons of water.

You’re probably screaming: “very small rock!?” Well, hear me out on this. What floats on water? A Duck. Right. But what else did we learn from that brilliant medieval logic? VERY SMALL ROCKS were not the answer. Therefore the essence of very small rocks will bestow the power to float on water! Drink a cup, then amaze your friends.

FLYING potion

This one is a bit harder to make. You have to find a really heavy rock. One near your own weight. Then you’ll need to crunch this rock up (maybe with a sledge hammer? or a jackhammer?) in to a dust. Then dissolve this dust in enough water that not a single atom is actually present in the water any longer.

Since rocks fall the same way that you fall when you step off a cliff… Then taking the essence of these rocks should bestow upon you the power to fly!

Homeopathy: this is exciting and dangerous stuff!