In an evolutionary sense, humans are by far the most successful primate on the planet, with the world population close to 7 billion. We owe this success to a number of well-known adaptations that contribute to human uniqueness: bipedalism; large, complex brains and cognitive adaptations permitting abstract thought; slow life histories coupled with high fertility and longer lifespan; and scores of other adaptations that constitute our evolutionary legacy. There are, however, costs to this inheritance; many of our adaptations have produced negative consequences that affect our quality of life today. Some of these affect only a small portion of the population; others affect most of us at some time in our lives. In 1951, in a Scientific American article by the same name, Wilton Krogman referred to these negative outcomes as "the scars of human evolution." This research has important consequences for understanding present-day health. This symposium focuses on negative consequences of our evolutionary legacy. We examine the scars of human evolution in a number of areas, including orthopedics, obstetrics, dentistry, gerontology, diet, and nutrition. Far from a product of intelligent design, it is clear that human biology and behavior is the consequence of an evolutionary process that involved a number of trade-offs, which result in many of the problems associated with the current human condition.