The average normal temperature for a human being is supposed to be 37°C (or 98.6°F) but did you know that figure is based on 150-year-old data? In 1868 Carl Reinhold August Wunderlich popularized that figure based on his study of one million temperature readings taken from 25,000 patients.

But now, as The Wall Street Journal’s Jo Craven McGinty reported, a new study of 189,338 individuals, and 677,423 temperatures – taken from the Civil War era until today – suggests that humans’ average temperature has been steadily dropping. According to Dr. Julie Parsonnet and her research partners, the new norm seems to be 36.4°C or 97.5°F – a drop of one degree Fahrenheit. A 2017 study in England, analyzing 250,000 temperature readings, noted a similar, though slightly smaller, drop of approximately 0.75°F.

So why might mankind be cooling off? “We as human beings have evolved over time – physiologically changed,” Parsonnet told Live Science.

Is she attributing it to evolution? Well, yes, though this is the kind of change over time that creationists also think regularly happens. We know, for example, that the many different dog species we have today came from just one, or maybe a few, dog “kinds” on Noah’s Ark. To get Chihuahuas, Saint Bernards, and everything in between involved a lot of change over time, though, like this temperature drop, it never involved one species turning into another.

As Parsonnet noted we are taller, and heavier, living longer, and have less infectious diseases than we did 150 years ago, so it really wouldn’t be that surprising if mankind’s average temperature has changed. Evolution, yes, but not the molecules-to-man type that Darwin proposed. This is more like the adaptability inherent in a special creation that has been fearfully and wonderfully made (Ps. 139:44).