Hi Everyone,
Here’s a great article from our friend Glenn Geher, Ph.D. of State University of New York at New Paltz that we would like to share:
Teaching kids about the importance of evolutionary mismatch in life!
Evolution and Human Behavior – Thoughts for 6th Graders
In late 2011, my daughter Megan, then 11, was taking an awesome social studies class in 6th grade. Her teacher, Ms. Naclerio, was very interested in evolution and human origins – so Megan chimed in and and was like “hey, my dad sort of studies that kind of stuff – maybe he can come in and talk about it with the class.” So the deal was done before I even got home that day!
Hmm – I’m an evolutionary psychologist – not a fossil guy who’s done fieldwork in the African Savanna. What ideas from my field could I talk about that would explicate some important ideas related to their curriculum on human origins?
As luck would have it, this all was right around the time that we were planning a visit to campus with the iconic Robb Wolf (author of The Paleo Solution), as part of SUNY New Paltz’s Evolutionary Studies (EvoS) Seminar Series. Robb’s work (encapsulated in Robb’s talk at New Paltz, found here) focuses largely on an idea that’s basic in evolutionary psychology – Evolutionary Mismatch – or the idea that problems emerge when an organism happens to exist in an environment currently that mismatches important features of the environment that was typical during the evolutionary history of that organism. According to Robb and others in the Paleo field, people in “advanced” societies like ours have many major health problems, such as obesity, because our modern environments (which include things like McDonald’s) have historically unprecedented amounts of unnatural, processed foods (milkshakes, high-fat meat, foods densely loaded with carbs, etc.).
Evolutionary Psychology (as addressed in my newest work; Geher & Kaufman, 2013) largely focuses on this idea of mismatch – our family structures mismatch ancestral structures (which included a higher proportion of kin who were local; see Hrdy, 2009), our educational structures mismatch ancestral educational “structures” (which were not really “structured” at all; see Gray, 2011), and so forth. I figured that this general idea, of evolutionary mismatch, would be accessible and provocative for the 6th graders to think about.
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To read the rest of this great article, check out the full post here http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/darwins-subterranean-world/201302/evolutionary-psychology-kids-part-1
Glenn Geher, Ph.D.
Glenn Geher, Ph.D., is professor and chair of psychology at the State University of New York at New Paltz. In addition to teaching courses at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, and conducting research in various areas related to evolutionary psychology, Glenn is founding director of the campus’ Evolutionary Studies (EvoS) program, one of the most successful, noteworthy, and vibrant features of a campus that prides itself (rightfully) on academic vibrance. And he has published several books, including Mating Intelligence Unleashed: The Role of the Mind in Sex, Dating, and Love (co-authored with Scott Barry Kaufman and published by Oxford University Press). In Darwin’s Subterranean World: Evolution, Mind, and Mating Intelligence, Glenn addresses various topics related to evolutionary psychology and the nature of human mating intelligence – a core feature of human psychology writ large. Many of the posts here originate from Glenn’s blog for the Evolutionary Studies Consortium – Building Darwin’s Bridges, funded with monies from the National Science Foundation. Glenn is a founding member of this consortium which is dedicated to helping expand Darwin’s reach across the entire world of higher education.
I got lost at high fat meat too. Maybe he meant “wrong fat meat” – too much omega-6, not enough omega-3 and processed to eliminate non-inflammatory saturated fat. That would be consistent with his complaint about processed foods.
Not sure what Kiran means by high fat meat being an invention of agriculture. I thought rabbit starvation had to do with rabbits not having enough fat at the end of winter for humans to eat them without ill effect on the digestive system.
All – thanks for engaging the conversation.
I was a little broad with the brush with my comment on fatty meats. Some folks here are pointing out the important health-related distinction between saturated and unsaturated fats – I agree this is an important distinction – and I think that it importantly relates to the relationship between evolved human taste preferences and agricultural products.
Before the advent of agriculture, which included the domestication of animals raised for meat, all meat came from wild game. And we know some things about wild game animals. They have way less fat than average compared with typical animals raised on farms – and the ratio of good-to-saturated fat in meat from wild game (again, typically) is much healthier for humans compared with the ratio in typical farm-raised (grain-fed) animals (see Rule et al., 2002). Much higher in Omega 3s – healthy fats. I think we’re all on the same page here – I just wanted to clarify this point.
My broader point in the context of evolutionary mismatch is this – the reason we like foods high in unsaturated fat is precisely because meat with a high proportion of this kind of fat was rare under ancestral conditions – this is a very significant evolutionary irony in regard to understanding human health. And having a liking for such rare meats (high in saturated fats) would have led our ancestors to seek it out – and, thus, on average, out-survive their conspecifics during times of famine. This stuff was adaptive when it was a scarcity. And it’s no longer a scarcity – as a result of how modern agriculture has taken form. That’s my point about evolutionary mismatch. And it’s exactly this evolved taste-related preference that is now exploited by so many modern food manufacturers and suppliers.
REFERENCE:
Rule, D. C., K. S. Brought on, S. M. Shellito, and G. Maiorano. “Comparison of Muscle Fatty Acid Profiles and Cholesterol Concentrations of Bison, Beef Cattle, Elk, and Chicken.” J Anim Sci 80, no. 5 (2002): 1202-11.