It was the best of times. The year was 1963, John Kennedy was the Commander in Chief, and all was right with the world. The economy was great, and Americans were popping out babies faster than Betty Crocker could make cookies.  

It wasn't a coincidence that Superman was one of the most popular shows on TV because even middle-class Americans felt just a little bit like Superman. We had beaten the Nazis, split the atom, cracked the sound barrier, and were planning to land a man on the moon. We lived in a country where we knew that anything and everything was possible.

Jack and Jackie Kennedy were the embodiment of the American dream. Beautiful, massively intelligent, powerful, charismatic, and socially elegant. They were the ultimate power couple. To many, Jack and Jackie represented the best of humanity, the ultimate expression of evolution, the Superman and Superwoman of that, or perhaps any era.

And it wasn't just the Kennedys…it was a time of superhumans of all types. Leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr., incredible athletes like Mohammed Ali, Johnny Unitas, and Jim Brown, and astronauts like John Glen were ever present to show us all that we had the right stuff!

It was a time when Elvis, the “King of Rock and Roll,” converted his sex appeal and immense talent into a full-fledged musical revolution. He, along with The Beatles, Bob Dylan, The Beach Boys, Smokey Robinson, Ray Charles, and Joni Mitchell, took music to heights that we’ve never seen before and may never see again. 

And the same was true for arts and design. Dali and Picasso expanded our consciousness into new realms, while Andy Warhol combined artistic painting with pop culture. And in 1963, Chevrolet introduced the Corvette Stingray, one of the most beautiful pieces of design that America ever produced.

Even literature was at the peak of its creativity. While no-nonsense books by Ayn Rand and Ernest Hemingway were still popular, Jack Kerouac inspired a new generation. Ray Bradbury and Isaac Asimov's fantastic science fiction novels captured the dream of a future in the stars. 

It was, after all, the Space Age, and that was reflected in everything from the taillights of Cadillacs to the futuristic architecture of the buildings being constructed for the New York World’s Fair. Of course, the most obvious manifestation of the space age was the premiere of the Jetsons in September 1962.

The ‘60s was the definition of cool. It was the time of Sinatra, the Rat Pack, James Dean, Paul Newman, and Brando. Marilyn Monroe, Bridgette Bardot, and Sophia Loren added an undercurrent of smoldering sexuality to the times. Sean Connery shook (not stirred) this elegant cool and sexuality together to an even higher level in the James Bond movies. 

Hugh Hefner converted this latent sexuality into a commercial business in his Playboy empire, which not only made him a fortune but also became a cultural institution. While the titillating pictures gave the magazine its start, people actually did read the articles.

Ironically, those articles may have planted the seeds of not only the sexual revolution but also Gloria Steinem's feminist Ms. Magazine. Hefner even combined the Rat Pack cool of the ‘60s with sexuality to open a series of sophisticated Playboy Clubs whose primary feature was scantily clad bunnies. No matter who you were, these clubs became the “in” place to go. Plenty of paunchy middle-aged men felt just a little like James Bond when they used that secret Playboy key on Saturday night dates with their wives.

As good as the people, the arts, and the culture were back in the ‘60s, it was science that really stood out. As a kid, I figured that if Superman happened to be busy, the scientists in the white lab coats would swoop in and save us. Back then, we all thought it was a given that we would live to be 120, drive flying cars, and communicate with each other through video screens (well, at least that last one came true).

It was the Space Age, and the scientific breakthroughs were coming fast and furious. Our space technology had started to bring earthly results with the introduction of the Telstar satellite, which made global communication a reality. In 1961 the invention of the integrated circuit (a.k.a. the chip) made the digital world possible. The "chip" is the core element in computers, smartphones, GPS, streaming video, and all the other enabling technologies we have today. More than any other piece of technology, the "chip" changed the world.

Of course, once we developed computer technologies, we needed to program them. The ‘60s marked the debut of the legendary Basic computer language that allowed everyday humans to leverage the power of these incredible machines. These days, of course, even your car has millions of lines of computer code. 

Look at any photograph from the 1960s... you'll see beautiful, well-groomed men and women working industriously and starting families in an upwardly mobile environment. This environment embodied everything we now think of as the American dream. Houses in the suburbs, white picket fences, kids playing in the yard, and the handsome hero husband coming home at the end of the workday to the impeccably dressed wife with dinner on the table. Ozzie and Harriet, Father Knows Best, and Donna Read all typified the happy American family. The title to the show Happy Days pretty much said it all – and what more could anyone ask for?

After World War II, the United States and its allies thrived. By the '60s, most of the western world had started to peak intellectually, athletically, militarily, economically, culturally, sexually, and scientifically.

The 1960s may have been the peak of human evolution

These days we take medical technology for granted. But it’s easy to forget that life was extremely fragile before modern medicine. Any small cut could lead to a massive fatal infection. Mold, fungi, and bacteria easily infested people’s lungs, causing them to die at an early age. A simple abscessed tooth or gum disease could cause a person to starve to death. Tetanus was rampant, causing people’s jaws to lock up, rendering them unable to eat. Simple broken bones often would not heal properly, limiting a person's mobility and ability to hunt, farm, or work. People went blind from swimming in polluted rivers. Impure water and cholera killed thousands every year, and then, of course, there were plagues and smallpox. Even childhood diseases like measles and mumps took lives because people had no means of reducing fever.

Many babies and mothers didn't make it through childbirth. Before modern medicine, you had to be either very lucky or very tough to survive. Those born with genetic advantages, such as immunity to the black plague or malaria, typically lived long enough to pass their genes down to their offspring. This was evolution at work.

The '60s also saw an explosion in medical technology. Watson and Crick discovered DNA in the late '50s, which laid the groundwork for so much of what we call medicine today. Blood transfusions became commonplace, allowing long, complex surgeries to be performed with high survival rates. It also brought the beginnings of many lifesaving technologies, such as pacemakers. While Penicillin was developed in the late ‘40s, the '60s was the peak of antibiotic development. The Sabin sugar cube vaccine administered to all school children in 1961 assured that no one in the United States would be crippled by Polio ever again. Since then, there have been hundreds of medical breakthroughs, from bone marrow transplants to gene therapies to the COVID vaccines. Science has even been able to mitigate many debilitating mental illnesses like bipolar disorder. For the first time in history, these medical breakthroughs allowed even those with severe medical conditions to survive to reproductive age, mate, and produce offspring.

The FDA approval of the birth control pill on May 11th, 1960, made contraception convenient, unobtrusive and reliable for the first time in history. This breakthrough helped make reproduction a matter of conscious choice rather than random chance or divine intervention. The release of “the pill” dramatically changed reproductive dynamics. Together these reproductive and medical interventions marked a huge inflection point in evolution's ability to continue forward. 

Was May 11th, 1960, the beginning of the end of evolution?

In later years, new reproductive technologies allowed people not just to stop procreating at will but to start breeding practically whenever they wanted. Technologies like egg harvesting, in vitro fertilization, and surrogate motherhood allowed anyone, regardless of age, sex, or medical condition to procreate and pass their DNA to subsequent generations.

Biological evolution is all about survival and reproduction. It works simply because the animals with the best survival characteristics live long enough to reproduce and pass on that enhanced survivability to their offspring. Over time the most survivable factors become prevalent while those less survivable traits (and individuals) become extinct.

With a car and the grocery store down the street, you no longer have to be a great hunter or skilled farmer to ensure the family can eat. In modern homes, you don't need to be proficient at making a fire to avoid freezing at night. As our technology and social safety nets continued to develop, we no longer need to be strong, smart, or even sexy to survive. In this new world of technological miracles, almost anyone could make it to reproductive age and reproduce.

But Toto, I don’t think we’re in the ‘60s anymore. If you were a follower of science fiction back then, you might have expected humans to evolve extra-large brains by now. This was portrayed most dramatically in the 1963 Outer Limits episode, which features David McCallum evolving an extra-large brain that grotesquely expands his cranium. Obviously, that didn't happen. Look at any group photo from the ‘‘60s and then at any group photo taken in the last few years. Do the people in the newer picture look more evolved? Instead of enlarged brains, we seem to have evolved enlarged bellies.

If the ‘60s were the young Elvis, we are now the old Elvis. Bloated, drugged, mentally and physically fragile, and sliding downhill at an ever-increasing rate.

 Men and women today are, on average, 16 pounds heavier than they were in the ‘60s. Diabetes (which would have been fatal a century ago) is at epic proportions. The Jane Fonda Workout, Step Class, and Jazzercize are relegated to the nostalgia channel. Many of those Peloton bikes have become expensive clothes racks. Any trip to Walmart or Disney will reveal that much of the population can barely walk and that electric scooters are many people’s first choice for locomotion.

The two-parent model evolved over the eons because it was the most successful way to produce survivable children. But, the Ozzie and Harriet family unit from the ‘60s is practically gone. Lower marriage rates, higher divorce rates, and mass incarcerations in minority communities have made single parenthood the rule rather than the exception. It has become so mainstream that many people are now actively choosing single parenthood over the traditional family unit. While being a single parent is currently all the rage, there are repercussions for both the children and society. Four out of five incarcerated people did not have a father present during the bulk of their childhood.

With parents often absent, role models become even more critical. But these days, there are few good role models that children (or adults) can use to guide their lives. Those public figures we used to hold in high esteem are tragically flawed with alcohol, drug, sexual, legal, psychological, or other serious problems. Most political leaders are seen as self-serving or dismissed as bellicose bullies. Hollywood stars are more likely to be in rehab than on the film set. Even sports heroes like Simone Biles and Mikaela Shiffrin are suffering from severe cases of performance anxiety.

As a society, we have gone from Mission Impossible to This is Us

While the parents of the 60s didn’t give a thought to having their children play outside all day long, parents these days are afraid to let their kids out of the house. Adding to the already horrendous crime rate in the streets, there is a mass shooting in one of our schools almost every day. Gun violence is now the most significant cause of death for young people. Then, of course, there is Fentanyl, the equal opportunity taker of young lives. It's no wonder that most inner-city kids don’t believe they will make it to 30.

Evolution depends on survival and successful mating, and both are in trouble. We live in a world where gender identities are fluid. A 2020 Gallup poll says that the number of people identifying as LGBTQ+ has almost doubled since 2012, with 16% of Gen Z now identifying themselves that way.   Even “straight” people are embracing gender neutrality with androgynous clothing and unisex haircuts. Sometimes, we can only tell the difference by the pronouns so conveniently included in their signature blocks. We firmly believe that each individual should proudly express their sexuality however they want. However, on a mass scale, it does change the reproductive dynamics.

Today people meet on dating sites rather than feeling sexual attraction in real life. The majority of people in this century may never get married, and those that do are likely to become divorced. The birth rate in first-world countries has been cut in half since the ‘60s to well below the replacement rate.  

Even our Superman, science, is no longer respected.  Facts of any kind are considered meaningless by much of the population, and conspiracy theories abound. Noted scientists like Dr. Anthony Fauci are ridiculed and now regarded as just ordinary folks whose opinion isn't as valid as a quick Google search. Even evolution itself is disputed by a very high percentage of Americans. 

During the COVID epidemic, much of the population rejected the concept of lifesaving vaccines which just a few decades earlier saved the world from diseases like Polio and Smallpox. The anti-vax movement became so prevalent that over 100 million Americans chose not to be vaccinated. Many citizens in trusted professions like teachers, police officers, and firefighters decided they'd rather lose their jobs than take a vaccine with impeccable safety statistics. Televised stories showing body bags in refrigerated tractor trailers and death bed pleas from former anti-vaxxers didn't seem to make much difference.

Does this sound like a species that is trying to survive?

Talk to practically anybody these days, and they'll tell you the same thing – we're going backward. An AP-NORC survey released on June 29, 2022, revealed that 85% of Americans say the country is going in the wrong direction. Physically, socially, intellectually, sexually, and in almost every metric you can mention, we are not the society we used to be. You can blame it on politicians, modern medicine, processed food, technology, TV, or the Internet, and to some extent, all of that is true. But no matter what you blame it on, the current conditions are no longer conducive to us advancing as a species.