When looking back upon the evolution that brought the first living cells from their primitive stage to the one of Homo Sapiens as we are a part of, you cannot get around thefact that our civilization has been shaped more and more by the accelerating influence of the human intellect, one of the most striking questions must concern the evolution of our brains.

The human brain consists of three parts, that have been added one by one since the first brain structure appeared about 500 million years ago, and the thing that makes these three parts interesting when put together into building the human brain, is that they have preserved their original functions, even though new ones have been added. The oldest part, that first appeared in its fully developed state with the reptiles, is the mid- and hindbrain. Simple functions as breathing, keeping the heart beating, walking while keeping the balance, seeking food and warning the organism about danger from the outside world, is all that reptiles are equiped with intellectually. Actually it is not possessing the parts that gives emotional reactions. This brain structure and its functions has followed through the evolution of the species without any major changes, and therefore Homo sapiens contains these ways of percieving and acting as well.
About 250 million year followed before a new brain structure was added, the limbic system, that appeared with the first mammals. This part of the brain controls a long row of bodily functions as body temperature, blood pressure, the frequency between asleep and awake, but most significantly of all the new structure brought the simplified emotional reactions tied to the limbic system. This is the emotions as love, agression, fear or joy that cats, dogs and a row of other mammals are able to percieve and express to a certain degree, emotions that the human being shares with these animals. And even though our emotions are more complex than their, we our basic reactions are similar, as they all derive from the limbic system.
The part of the brain that followed 200 million years ago was the large cerebrum, with the grey and white matter and the folded cortex. The surface of the brain is much larger than the scull could hold, if the surface of the brain was smooth, because of the foldings that enables the brain to have the largest area of the 3 mm thick layer of grey brain cells as possible. All higher thinking processes take place on this surface of the brain structure, that characterizes the higher species, the conscious and self-aware beings we are a part of. The cerebrum is split in two symetrical halves (hemispheres) that works together, but only a million years ago this structure became even more complex, as the hemisphere specialization appeared and parted the one species with this physical advantage, Homo sapiens, from the rest of the animal kingdom, to start creating the beginning of the world as we know it today.
But we can still discuss whether we are to see the human being placed outside of nature now, if mankind should be elevated above the nature that it derives or if it still is being effected by the mechanisms of evolution through mutation. The theory of the evolution as set up by Darwin makes it possible to understand almost every evolutionary step that has been made so far, but it has no chance of predicting the direction of what to come, because it operates with mutations, small spontaneous changes happening all the time, to explain how variations are established. When appearing by accidence the variations are sorted out through the natural selection: The ones that reduce the chances of reproduction are rejected, and the ones that lead to an increase in the chances of reproduction become permanent.
The reason why the natural selection had such an influence on our ancestors is that many of them died childless, and it was only the ones with skills, that could give them a small advantage in surviving, who had a chance of carrying on their family and their genetic specificity. But this is not how things work in our civilized society of today. The idea of a "survival of the fittest" is no longer based on biochemical conditions but rather on social conditions, such as if you are born in one of the richer parts of the world with the better health services and plenty of food. These are welfare societies where you do not have to fight for your survival, as the society has a responsibility of taking care of even the weakest individuals, a social conscience stating that everybody has equal rights to live and carry on the race, no matter if they are able to contribute to an improvement of neurological or otherwise physical state of Homo sapiens. These societies are opposing the functions of the natural selection, and might prevent the arrival of the next evolutionary step of the human race: Homo superior.