if I may mention the elephant in the room - ambition to achieve high status is surely part of the EEA for males but not obviously for females - what are the consequences of that? In any event, until recent decades there was an automaticity toward pairing and then mothering and fathering. That much hardly needed to be decided. Of course, now girls hardly know what they are for - with predicatable consequences. Best wishes to Michael in ameliorating at school changes originating elsewhere - I don't however think schooling is a source of the problems - it may fix some.
IF (capitals) conformity is a female trait (the Longhouse) that would explain why women thrive in the modern, mass school but lagged in the "classical" one.
Fascinating! I'm a parent to two young sons and have have done so much thinking, since they've come along, about education and what the heck it's really for..as well as the massive topic of meaning and the sometimes daunting task of helping to foster bits of it for them and with them. As this piece points out, it's a great big culture-wide issue, one that the grown-ups are feeling at times, too. Thank you for this thoughtful piece.
As a teacher with a decade in the classroom, schools are most certainly mismatched to the human faculty of learning. Take academic standards: When learning becomes policy, you have a fully prescriptive legislated theory of mind. Some are so committed to dead-level abstractions here, that if you mention breathing isn't a standard, I'm sure they'd asphyxiate on the spot. (As another anecdote, if the DOE passed measures on respiratory rates, we'd run out of oxygen.)
No, from a philosophical standpoint, schools should care about the nature of learning. From a scientific standpoint, schools should care about methods with empirical evidence. But they don't. Not one bit. Instead, they demand blind obedience and teach appeal to authority. Reality is forced to fit policy, no matter how much evidence you have to the contrary.
As a public school teacher, if I speak out too much, I can imagine being attacked like a wild pathogen. As John Taylor Gatto once observed, public schools are a religion.
I'm concerned that your description of the EEA is begging the question. It feels like a recapitulation of Durkheimian mechanical solidarity in the language of evolutionary biology. Which is fine.
The thing that's missing is the capacity for human behavioral variation. With the elephant example--the young elephants going wild might be a totally adaptive behavior in certain circumstances! Looking at my limited knowledge of the human past, it seems like there's a great deal of behavioral plasticity with regards to how gender and age cohorts integrate with the main group. There are lots of examples of young men e.g. forming age-cohort groups, splitting from the main group, and going to find their way elsewhere, e.g. the proto Indo European Kóryos, often with w a lot of violence. (And often never reintegrating with the main group!)
The question then is the nature of this behavioral plasticity. We're obviously somewhere along the continuum from having a number of predetermined stereotypical behaviors to choose from and being a blank slate where anything goes. But maybe contemporary schooling is less a huge mismatch nad instead just an optimization problem?
The reason why this argument is less persuasive, to me at least, is that--like the Durkheimian critique!--you could just extend it to the entirety of modern society. EVERYTHING from work, to family formation, etc. is outside of EEA bounds of variation. That's less than satisfying for two reasons:
1) It suggests that the only option is wholesale radical change, which is like, a nice idea, man, but it kinda shuts down the possibility of more pragmatic interventions that are more interesting
2) It goes against the fact that for all the problems of the modern world, people do seem to be thriving--they are forming families, eating food, enjoying themselves, etc. There are, obviously, less than optimal things about this thriving (we'd probably be better off if we swapped every minute of screen time for like group dance or discussing philosophy or whatever) but it seems like we're doing ok, broadly speaking
There are metrics against the idea that "people do seem to be thriving" including increasing rates of chronic diseases, mental health issues, substance abuse issues, and suicide. Chronic diseases are largely lifestyle dependent, which usually means evolutionary mismatch. An estimated 75% of health care costs are now chronic diseases (heart disease, stroke, diabetes, etc.) If one were to include substance abuse and accidents (drunk driving, in particular) the figure would be higher.
And behavioral health disorders (mental health and substance abuse) are now the leading cause of disability globally:
"Behavioral health has become a public health crisis. No other public health crises are as widespread or contribute as much to the burden of illness in the U.S. as do behavioral health disorders. By 2020, mental and substance use disorders will surpass all physical diseases worldwide as major causes of disability."
So we are not all thriving, and in particular many of us are not thriving due to evolutionary mismatches.
I agree that we don't know exactly what degree of behavioral plasticity we have - I doubt we have to go full on paleolithic lifestyle. But I also predict that both the physical and behavioral health issues will continue to become more serious unless we improve our ability to reduce behavioral mismatches.
I love the conveniences of modernity, and would never suggest giving them up. That said, I do see innovations with respect to education, community formation, workplace styles, etc. as important directions to consider. Without "wholesale radical change" we can incrementally address ways to infuse more connection, community, meaning, and purpose throughout our lives (along with healthier diets and more physical activity). And, indeed, there are many movements already going in this direction. As it becomes more widely understood that if we don't address the evolutionary mismatch foundations somehow the problems will continue to grow then I predict we'll see more focused initiatives working on addressing these issues.
Thus innovation is the solution, but cultural, social, and institutional innovation more than just tech innovation.
I agree 1000% with the conclusion. Particularly around cultural, social and institutional innovation. Particularly concerned about education.
I worry that "evolutionary mismatch" is the best metaphor to understand the problem, and thus to identify the set of potential solutions. Love the attempt, and read the article eager to be convinced of it.
But I am left concerned that however appealing, the evolutionary mismatch metaphor isn less useful. E.G. -- one reason why chronic diseases are a huge killer is that there's not a ton of selective pressure for them. If you're going to reproduce, then it's likely going to happen before a chronic disease gets you. And some behaviors that are net negatives for health outcomes are positives for evolutionary fitness to the extent they result in more children.
My deeper worry is that the evolutionary mismatch line of argument may be prone to the same kind of back-to-nature Edenic theory of social change that's been imho pretty intellectually exhausted at this point.
But the longing for Eden too infrequently takes seriously the problems with Eden. My training is as an 18th Century cultural historian of Britain. When we look at people who had a choice between traditional and modern social lives--e.g. workers at the turn of the industrial revolution--a lot of people ran away from the close-knit comforts of agricultural life. Sure, they may have been pushed (enclosure movement, agricultural immiseration, blah blah blah) but they were also pulled by the freedom, relative prosperity, individualism, choice of modernity.
I expect you would agree that some diets are healthier than others, and in particular a diet high in carbs that results in frequent insulin spikes is not optimal. Likewise I expect you would agree that social isolation is not optimal. There is nothing inherently "back-to-nature Edenic theory of social change" about either "Hey, let's eat less high fructose corn syrup" or "Let's have healthy relationships."
Maybe you don't see these principles going much farther than that.
But I am definitely interested in exploring how to combine the gifts of modernity with healthier lifestyles, and I believe that attention to evolutionary conditions is a worthwhile direction to consider.
if I may mention the elephant in the room - ambition to achieve high status is surely part of the EEA for males but not obviously for females - what are the consequences of that? In any event, until recent decades there was an automaticity toward pairing and then mothering and fathering. That much hardly needed to be decided. Of course, now girls hardly know what they are for - with predicatable consequences. Best wishes to Michael in ameliorating at school changes originating elsewhere - I don't however think schooling is a source of the problems - it may fix some.
IF (capitals) conformity is a female trait (the Longhouse) that would explain why women thrive in the modern, mass school but lagged in the "classical" one.
Fascinating! I'm a parent to two young sons and have have done so much thinking, since they've come along, about education and what the heck it's really for..as well as the massive topic of meaning and the sometimes daunting task of helping to foster bits of it for them and with them. As this piece points out, it's a great big culture-wide issue, one that the grown-ups are feeling at times, too. Thank you for this thoughtful piece.
The elephant story reminds me of “Lord of the Flies”. Those boys had almost everything you advocate except adult influence.
Good to see a UATX author writing here. I support their (and your) mission wholeheartedly.
As a teacher with a decade in the classroom, schools are most certainly mismatched to the human faculty of learning. Take academic standards: When learning becomes policy, you have a fully prescriptive legislated theory of mind. Some are so committed to dead-level abstractions here, that if you mention breathing isn't a standard, I'm sure they'd asphyxiate on the spot. (As another anecdote, if the DOE passed measures on respiratory rates, we'd run out of oxygen.)
No, from a philosophical standpoint, schools should care about the nature of learning. From a scientific standpoint, schools should care about methods with empirical evidence. But they don't. Not one bit. Instead, they demand blind obedience and teach appeal to authority. Reality is forced to fit policy, no matter how much evidence you have to the contrary.
As a public school teacher, if I speak out too much, I can imagine being attacked like a wild pathogen. As John Taylor Gatto once observed, public schools are a religion.
I'm concerned that your description of the EEA is begging the question. It feels like a recapitulation of Durkheimian mechanical solidarity in the language of evolutionary biology. Which is fine.
The thing that's missing is the capacity for human behavioral variation. With the elephant example--the young elephants going wild might be a totally adaptive behavior in certain circumstances! Looking at my limited knowledge of the human past, it seems like there's a great deal of behavioral plasticity with regards to how gender and age cohorts integrate with the main group. There are lots of examples of young men e.g. forming age-cohort groups, splitting from the main group, and going to find their way elsewhere, e.g. the proto Indo European Kóryos, often with w a lot of violence. (And often never reintegrating with the main group!)
The question then is the nature of this behavioral plasticity. We're obviously somewhere along the continuum from having a number of predetermined stereotypical behaviors to choose from and being a blank slate where anything goes. But maybe contemporary schooling is less a huge mismatch nad instead just an optimization problem?
The reason why this argument is less persuasive, to me at least, is that--like the Durkheimian critique!--you could just extend it to the entirety of modern society. EVERYTHING from work, to family formation, etc. is outside of EEA bounds of variation. That's less than satisfying for two reasons:
1) It suggests that the only option is wholesale radical change, which is like, a nice idea, man, but it kinda shuts down the possibility of more pragmatic interventions that are more interesting
2) It goes against the fact that for all the problems of the modern world, people do seem to be thriving--they are forming families, eating food, enjoying themselves, etc. There are, obviously, less than optimal things about this thriving (we'd probably be better off if we swapped every minute of screen time for like group dance or discussing philosophy or whatever) but it seems like we're doing ok, broadly speaking
There are metrics against the idea that "people do seem to be thriving" including increasing rates of chronic diseases, mental health issues, substance abuse issues, and suicide. Chronic diseases are largely lifestyle dependent, which usually means evolutionary mismatch. An estimated 75% of health care costs are now chronic diseases (heart disease, stroke, diabetes, etc.) If one were to include substance abuse and accidents (drunk driving, in particular) the figure would be higher.
And behavioral health disorders (mental health and substance abuse) are now the leading cause of disability globally:
"Behavioral health has become a public health crisis. No other public health crises are as widespread or contribute as much to the burden of illness in the U.S. as do behavioral health disorders. By 2020, mental and substance use disorders will surpass all physical diseases worldwide as major causes of disability."
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22201033/
So we are not all thriving, and in particular many of us are not thriving due to evolutionary mismatches.
I agree that we don't know exactly what degree of behavioral plasticity we have - I doubt we have to go full on paleolithic lifestyle. But I also predict that both the physical and behavioral health issues will continue to become more serious unless we improve our ability to reduce behavioral mismatches.
I love the conveniences of modernity, and would never suggest giving them up. That said, I do see innovations with respect to education, community formation, workplace styles, etc. as important directions to consider. Without "wholesale radical change" we can incrementally address ways to infuse more connection, community, meaning, and purpose throughout our lives (along with healthier diets and more physical activity). And, indeed, there are many movements already going in this direction. As it becomes more widely understood that if we don't address the evolutionary mismatch foundations somehow the problems will continue to grow then I predict we'll see more focused initiatives working on addressing these issues.
Thus innovation is the solution, but cultural, social, and institutional innovation more than just tech innovation.
I agree 1000% with the conclusion. Particularly around cultural, social and institutional innovation. Particularly concerned about education.
I worry that "evolutionary mismatch" is the best metaphor to understand the problem, and thus to identify the set of potential solutions. Love the attempt, and read the article eager to be convinced of it.
But I am left concerned that however appealing, the evolutionary mismatch metaphor isn less useful. E.G. -- one reason why chronic diseases are a huge killer is that there's not a ton of selective pressure for them. If you're going to reproduce, then it's likely going to happen before a chronic disease gets you. And some behaviors that are net negatives for health outcomes are positives for evolutionary fitness to the extent they result in more children.
My deeper worry is that the evolutionary mismatch line of argument may be prone to the same kind of back-to-nature Edenic theory of social change that's been imho pretty intellectually exhausted at this point.
But the longing for Eden too infrequently takes seriously the problems with Eden. My training is as an 18th Century cultural historian of Britain. When we look at people who had a choice between traditional and modern social lives--e.g. workers at the turn of the industrial revolution--a lot of people ran away from the close-knit comforts of agricultural life. Sure, they may have been pushed (enclosure movement, agricultural immiseration, blah blah blah) but they were also pulled by the freedom, relative prosperity, individualism, choice of modernity.
I expect you would agree that some diets are healthier than others, and in particular a diet high in carbs that results in frequent insulin spikes is not optimal. Likewise I expect you would agree that social isolation is not optimal. There is nothing inherently "back-to-nature Edenic theory of social change" about either "Hey, let's eat less high fructose corn syrup" or "Let's have healthy relationships."
Maybe you don't see these principles going much farther than that.
But I am definitely interested in exploring how to combine the gifts of modernity with healthier lifestyles, and I believe that attention to evolutionary conditions is a worthwhile direction to consider.