Humans are the most successful primates on the planet, but our bodies wouldn’t win many awards for good design. That was the consensus of a panel of anthropologists who described in often-painful detail using props and examples from the fossil record, the scientists showed how the very adaptations that have made humans so successful, such as upright walking and our big, complex brains, have been the result of constant remodeling of an ancient ape body plan that was originally used for life in the trees. “This anatomy isn’t what you’d design from scratch,” said anthropologist Jeremy DeSilva of Boston University. “Evolution works with duct tape and paper clips.”