Daniel Lieberman
As the famous Theodesius Dobzhansky quote goes, “Nothing in biology
makes sense except in the light of evolution.” However, many health-related fields nowadays have taken this philosophy to the extreme,
promoting and justifying methods and theories by calling on the idea
that “we were healthier before we started doing X, and therefore
we should go back to how we did it before!” despite the absence of
actual evidence in favour of the specific remedies being suggested.
Even evolutionary psychology often leans dangerously close to truism
instead of science. In The Story of the Human Body, Harvard
professor Daniel Lieberman aims to better elucidate the relationship
between the past and present. He calls upon information from biology,
anthropology, pathology, and sociology to chronicle how the changing
lifestyles of the human race have generated a new type of pathology
he calls “mismatch diseases.” These are the health concerns that
evolutionary health gurus refer to, having arisen from the crafting
of an environment that we are not evolutionarily well-adapted for.
According to Lieberman, we then perpetuate a vicious circle by
treating their symptoms, instead of addressing their root causes by
changing those environments.
I've already mentioned the multidisciplinary approach Lieberman takes
to justify this narrative, but it bears repeating. He is remarkably
thorough in breaking down the transitions that have carried us from
the humble beginnings of the genus Australopithecus, to our first,
striding steps as Homo Erectus, all the way through to Homo
Neanderthalensis' mysterious disappearance, the birth of culture, and
both the agricultural and industrial revolutions. Lieberman's most
impressive feat, however, is his detailing of how each of
these different mechanisms have influenced the health of the human
race. Longer legs with forward facing hip-socket joints cost us less
energy travelling a certain distance, but it also made us
significantly less capable at climbing trees. The butterfly effect of
this was that humans became adapted for running long distances
for the purposes of “persistence hunting”--a form of hunting
where hunters will chase an animal until it literally drops dead of
exhaustion. In hunting larger prey, humans then being able to
communicate hunting strategy to a younger generation through the
means of socialization and culture meant that we were able to outlast
the less conceptually adept Neanderthals.
The Story of the Human Body constructs a long, complex chain of
events, and Lieberman's intense scrutiny and research ensures that
there is not a weak link in the bunch. As a result, when he reaches
the point in the book where he begins prescribing solutions to our
modern day morbidity problems, his recommendations, backed up by a
good 300 pages of well-sourced evidence,are all the more sound. It is
an amazing, fascinating read, and one of the few books to
successfully amalgamate findings from so many different fields into a
solid thesis on how we might improve our health going forward. I
won't be surprised if The Story of the Human Body ends up sharing
the same bookshelves with such legendary works as Dawkins' The Selfish Gene, and as such, I couldn't recommend it more.
Vincent Smith is a taoist, aspiring writer, and dyed-in-the-wool psychology geek at the University of Gueh. You can find his writing on video games, comics, movies, and all things geek over at The Rogue's Gallery.
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