Darwinians Find Evolutionary Magic in Lead Poisoning

Having the right mutation
led to language, art, and
science, Darwinians imply

This news item illustrates how no amount of lab work can overcome bad reasoning. A team asserts in the news today that modern humans got a lucky mutation that reduced their susceptibility to lead poisoning. That freed them up to outcompete other hominids and evolve upward to our current heights of intellectual achievement and artistic expressiveness.

Study finds ancient lead exposure shaped evolution of human brain (Arizona State, 15 Oct 2025). Did toxic lead shape our mental prowess? That headline should trigger the barf reflex. First, the surprise: scientists had thought that lead toxicity was a recent problem, exacerbated by lead mining during the industrial revolution (although lead may have been a factor in the decline of ancient Rome, some historians think). We know that lead in pipes and paint exposes humans to damaging effects. In Chicago, Eos reported today, “Researchers combined soil measurements and public health data to identify areas where children may be exposed to unsafe levels of lead in the dirt.” Lead is bad for brains.

Now, the new international study by a team from California, Arizona and Australia found unexpected evidence of lead exposure in teeth of Neanderthals and other hominids. In addition to that lab work, the team also grew brain organoids to see the effects of lead exposure on FOXP2 genes (involved in language function). Neanderthals and modern humans differ in their form of NOVA1 genes, and our version appears to afford FOXP2 more protection against lead toxicity. Conclusion: Neanderthals lost the competition for evolutionary survival, and we “modern” humans rose to champion intellectual achievement, along with terrorism, crime, drug addiction, and illogical scientific papers.

In an article published in Science Advances, researchers have revealed our human ancestors were periodically exposed to lead for over 2 million years, and the toxic metal may have influenced the evolution of hominid brains, behavior and even the development of language.

The study also adds a new piece to the puzzle of how humans outcompeted their Neanderthal cousins. Brain organoid models grown with Neanderthal gene variants were more susceptible to the impacts of lead than human brains, suggesting that lead exposure was more harmful to Neanderthals.

But why did it take two million Darwin Years for Neanderthals and other assumed human ancestors to lose the Evolution Series? That’s a pretty long running contest.

Impact of intermittent lead exposure on hominid brain evolution (Joannes-Boyau et al, Science Advances, 15 Oct 2025). This is the formal paper on the hypothesis. As usual, the journal paper under peer review scrutiny is more cautious about the notion that lead made humans what we are today. It’s filled with disclaimers, has a high  perhapsimaybecouldness index, and warns that more research is needed in the promised land of Futureware.

Selective pressures from changing environmental conditions left genetic signatures throughout hominid evolution, which may drive modern human vulnerability to the effects of environmental stressors today. Exposure to toxic chemicals may also contribute to hominin evolution by affecting group behaviors, but limited data are available on this topic. The prevailing paradigm is that lead (Pb) exposure is a modern phenomenon that only emerged with increased anthropogenic lead released into the environment from human activities, such as mining and smelting, beginning in classical antiquity and medieval societies and then intensifying markedly during the Industrial Revolution. Contrary to this hypothesis, we show that lead exposure was not confined to postanthropogenic lead release but was pervasive throughout hominid evolution, extending as far back as 2 million years.

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Nevertheless, this team of 30 Darwinians put their names on this paper, alleging unknown influences of unknown behaviors of unknown individuals living for millions of unobserved years made humans what we are today.

The genomic sequences of Neanderthals and Denisovans—our closest extinct hominin relatives—offer valuable insights into human evolution. Among the 61 unique protein-coding genes distinguishing modern humans, the neuro-oncological ventral antigen 1 (NOVA1) plays a crucial role in early brain development. NOVA1 is implicated under conditions such as autism and schizophrenia. Previous work has shown that the archaic NOVA1 variant influences alternative splicing, synaptic protein interactions, and neural connectivity when reintroduced into human brain organoids. Thus, the exclusive NOVA1 single-nucleotide alteration, which became nearly fixed in modern humans, might have had functional consequences for our species’ evolution. However, the selective evolutionary pressures to select this genetic variant among modern human populations remain unknown.

Despite the unknowns the evolutionists allege positive selection was at work—not just “negative selection pressure, potentially due to deficits in social or other survival-related advantages.”

While these outcomes suggest a potential association between lead exposure and decreased social cohesion, they are likely influenced by environmental and socioeconomic factors.

Humans were charging up the fitness landscape to outcompete the Neanderthals who were eating lead.

The origins and refinement of language have been vital for human social cohesion and survival. Genes such as FOXP2 would likely have undergone strong positive selection to aid these processes. The existence of archaic genetic variants such as NOVA1ar/ar offers a compelling avenue for investigating the coevolution of these genes with human neurodevelopment.

Darwin explains his TOE (Theory of Everything) in a junkyard. (Grok/XI)

And how do lucky genetic variations arise, class? Mutations. Random, chance mutations: the Stuff Happens Law. Mutations are the lottery drawings for winning Darwinian fitness. These scientists know that deleterious mutations to FOXP2 cause speech impediments, but somehow, somewhere, the “right” variant that reduces lead toxicity must have emerged by chance in the dim dark past – to say nothing of the chance events that originated FOXP2 in the first place.

Update 16 Oct 2025: The University of California, San Diego, added its press release to this tale, claiming that Neanderthals and other less-evolved humans got lead-headed while living in caves and drinking cave water that contains lead. One team member claims that our Neanderthal brethren did not have language or social cohesion (even though they survived for 150,000 Darwin Years, made tools and migrated long distances. But did he interview any Neanderthals and get their opinion? Spoken words don’t fossilize.

Update 16 Oct 2025: Science Magazine also reported on this tale. Reporter Michael Price interviewed other scientists who were not entirely sold on the lead-to-numbskull idea. Shara Bailey at New York University called it a bold and creative hypothesis, but worried that “there are a ton of limitations” to the study.

Bailey isn’t sold. “At this stage, the evidence doesn’t really convince me,” she says. For one thing, “We don’t know [at what age] these individuals were exposed to lead”—which is critical because children might have had different diets from adults. And strangely, the lead appeared to be concentrated in the ancient teeth’s dentine, a calcified layer below the enamel, but not the enamel itself.

It’s also not clear that exposing organoids to lead truly reflects what happens in the exposed brain during development, adds Takashi Namba, a neuroscientist at the University of Helsinki. Even so, the paper “is absolutely interesting,” Namba says. “Not many studies have experimentally addressed environmental factors affecting human evolution.”

This is the first article that expressed any doubts about the hypothesis, which came to Alysson Muotri at UCSD when he first heard about lead exposure to Neanderthals. He rounded up dozens of other scientists to work on the paper. None of the critics, however, expressed any doubt about Darwinian evolution.

How many questions did you come up with when you read the headline “lead exposure shaped evolution of the human brain”? Let’s list a few.

• • Why didn’t all animals die from lead toxicity? Did the scientists check animal teeth?
  • Why didn’t Neanderthals farther from lead-exposed environments outcompete their brethren?
  • What took so long for the NOVA1 variant to emerge?
  • Why are modern humans still susceptible to lead toxicity?
  • Why didn’t evolution produce an antidote to lead toxicity long before hominids appeared?
  • Why did Neanderthals continue to show social cohesion and survival for over a million years with lead in their diet?
  • What quantity of lead would have prevented a Neanderthal from social cohesion and survival?
  • Which influences were more important: lead in the diet, or other “environmental and socioeconomic factors”?
  • What quantity of lead prevents a modern human from social cohesion and survival?
  • With more lead pollution in modern times, why do so many humans live full lifetimes in good control of their behavior and language?
  • Why didn’t evolution innovate healthy uses for lead, like it supposedly did with zinc, copper, and cobalt?
  • How do scientists measure selection pressure without an instrument or units?
  • Is selection an occult force? Who is the selector?
  • The paper speaks of “evolutionary pressures that selected” something. How can pressure act as an agent?
  • Why did the peer reviewers let mere “suggestions” and “potential associations” get published as “science advances”?
  • Do you really believe that lead exposure shaped the human brain?
  • Do you believe that the human brain is the result of a long series of random mutations?
  • Did you honestly consider the design alternative, that the brain cannot be the product of mindless material processes?

Help us add to this list. We may grow this list as we think of more. Let’s bombard the Darwinists with unasked questions to shame them for suggesting that “lead exposure shaped the evolution of the human brain.”