Madrid
Updated:05/08/2022 13:22h
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“When we talk about our species we always highlight achievements, perfection, triumph… and we forget that this success story is also written with crooked lines,” says María Martinón (Orense, 1974), director of the National Center for Research on Human Evolution (CENIEH) and member of the team that studies that ‘time machine’ that is the Atapuerca site in Burgos. The paleoanthropologist has written ‘Homo imperfectus’ (Destiny), a book in which she explains that many of the diseases and disorders that afflict us as individuals are part of our species’ strategy for survival. Although it may seem paradoxical, natural selection has its own way of understanding the old saying ‘there is no harm in the world’.