It seems that Mr. Hawks, the critic toward the end, is somewhat confused about evolution, expecting traits to disappear once they become no longer useful.
His second assertion, from the finding that toe length does not affect walking, strikes me as completely nonsensical even considering the above confusion.
I thought that was strange too. But even more strange is his job description: "researches the acceleration of human evolution since the advent of agriculture".
Acceleration? I was under the impression that once the food problem was solved, evolution slowed dramatically. In fact I thought it had basically stopped thousands of years ago, apart from obvious things like "impotence is selected against", or "luxury evolution" like selecting against extreme ugliness.
It makes no sense. Tools and farming remove selection pressure per se, and if that's gone we just stay as we are, not slowly "revert", or whatever he's imagining.
His second assertion, from the finding that toe length does not affect walking, strikes me as completely nonsensical even considering the above confusion.