Human Nature

Super Humanity by Robert Sapolsky

Think about it --- hominids have been around for millions  of years, yet only in the past few thousand of years have we developed the sciences to explain the world around us.  What was the catalyst?

Obviously, there have always been risk takers in the hominid species.  The ones who would travel beyond the known world, the ones who tried new tools, the ones who first floated on the waters in a craft must have passed on their genetic traits to make today’s scientists, explorers, and entrepreneurs.

Robert Sapolsky beautifully expressed thoughts that have rumbled around in my brain for a very long time.     I used to love to imbibe my favorite plant, sit in the hot tub, and contemplate “deep thoughts.”  Reading this article elicited several “Yes! Exactly!”  I had to settle for a honey colored beverage instead of a plant, but my sense of appreciation was still immensely sincere.

A few examples that I found especially profound:

You could call it (science) the ultimate expression of humanity’s singular drive to aspire to be better than we are.  Science is one of the strangest, newest domains where we challenge our hominid limits.  It challenges our sense of who we are.  Still, science most asks us to push our limits when it comes to the kinds of questions we ask.  Science pushes our envelope … when we contemplate the likes of quantum mechanics, nanotechnology and particle physics, which ask us to believe in things that we cannot see.

We are unmatched in the animal kingdom when it comes to remembering the distant past, when it comes to having a sense of the future.

I’ve mentioned it before, but one of the most profound things I’ve ever heard concerning evolution if from a SETI scientist who said that humans are the universe’s way of evolving so it could understand itself.  Science is an incredible aspect of our evolution that allows us to contemplate the world we live in.  Other animals have emotions, show compassion, and even understand our language.  But, do they contemplate the future?  No.  They live in the present.  Some days, I wish I didn’t know to be concerned about the future --- it causes lots of anxiety and stress.  But, I wouldn’t trade science for a little less stress.  At least, that’s how I feel about it today.

 

Primate species generally fall into two distinct types:  on one hand, there are pair-bonding species…

“Tournament” species … spend a ridiculous percentage of their time enmeshed in aggressive posturing.

And then there are humans, who by every anatomical, physiological, and even genetic measure … lie stuck and confused somewhere in the middle. 

Much to the chagrin of the men in my life, I have maintained for years that monogamy is not a natural state of being.  It goes against our biological nature to spread our genes around.   Interestingly enough, men have chosen young women to be their partners but as women become increasingly financially independent, they are choosing to have “boy toys.”  So, this seems like it is less a gender quality than originally thought.

We are intensely social…  It paved the way for us to fine-tune our capacities for reading one another’s mental states, to excel at social manipulation, and to adeptly deceive and attract potential mates and supporters.  In other words, the most distinctively primate part of the human brain coevolved with the demands of keeping track of who is not getting along with whom, who is tanking in the dominance hierarchy, and what couple is furtively messing around when they should not be.

If memory serves me right, this sounds just like junior high.  Gossip and cruel comparisons.

My God, we can even look at a picture of someone and feel lust despite not knowing what that person smells like- how weird is that for a mammal?

I wonder if people who meet on social dating sites because they like the pictures ever decide they don’t like each other after all once they smell each other.

The problem is the human propensity toward creating gods in our own image (one fascinating example being that autistic individuals who are religious often have an image of an asocial god, one who is primarily concerned with the likes of keeping atoms from flying apart).  Throughout the history of humans inventing deities, few of these gods had a gargantuan capacity for the abstract.  Instead they had familiar appetites. 

Well, I could write a lengthy paper on this.  Instead, I’ll just say AMEN!

This venture of doing, thinking, caring about science is not for the faint-hearted-we are far better adapted to face saber toothed cats and yet here we are, reinventing the world and striving to improve our lot in life one scientific question at a time.  It’s our human nature.

Well, I always considered myself something of a wimp.  Maybe I’m not a wimp after all --- I love science!