- #THE STORY OF THE HUMAN BODY BY DANIELE E. LIEBERMAN, PUBLISHED 2013 BY PANTHEON BOOKS HOW TO#
- #THE STORY OF THE HUMAN BODY BY DANIELE E. LIEBERMAN, PUBLISHED 2013 BY PANTHEON BOOKS SKIN#
- #THE STORY OF THE HUMAN BODY BY DANIELE E. LIEBERMAN, PUBLISHED 2013 BY PANTHEON BOOKS FULL#
In fact, cultural evolution is taking on such speeds that what was normal to my grand parents and even parents is vastly different from what I consider normal. Humans have a habit of making new habits without even knowing it. Not because I consider something 'normal', it is actually normal. We are further removed from our 'normal' habitat than ever before and without looking at our own biology through an evolutionary lens we are unaware of the possible risks this entails. The author also provides interesting insights in how the modern food industry originated and works. The book goes on to describe the industrial revolution and how new divides between our biology and cultural evolution came to be and how medical advance often spectacularly helped mitigate the effects of many mismatches.
#THE STORY OF THE HUMAN BODY BY DANIELE E. LIEBERMAN, PUBLISHED 2013 BY PANTHEON BOOKS HOW TO#
Through cultural evolution rather than natural selection we have learned how to cope with many of the unfortunate side effects of our new farming life style. In other words, the unfortunate irony of agricultural intensification is that even though farmers produced more food overall, the energy available for each child to grow diminished, probably because they were spending relatively more energy fighting infections, coping with occasional shortages of food, and toiling long hours in the fields.Įver since the agricultural revolution culture has undergone increasingly rapid change to this day. Over time farming exposed people to dangerous situations like famine, living of solely one crop and a much higher rate of infectious disease due to higher population and animal densities. Later on, because of various reasons one of which is population increase, farming was still a boon for the human species as a whole but became a mixed blessing for the individual. Initially height and health of farmers increased. The best way to investigate the effect of past events on the human body is by comparing bodily remains of hunter gatherers and early farmers. Farming is often viewed as an old-fashioned way of life, but from an evolutionary perspective, it is a recent, unique, and comparatively bizarre way to live. This new cultural revolution occurred for good and valid reasons and were mostly beneficial at first.
Agriculture was only invented around 11,000 years ago. Compared to the entire duration of human evolution, the agricultural revolution and later the industrial revolution are merely blinks of the eye.
In short, it's been an interesting last 6 million years and you are the result.
#THE STORY OF THE HUMAN BODY BY DANIELE E. LIEBERMAN, PUBLISHED 2013 BY PANTHEON BOOKS SKIN#
Also notable, and something every human ought to know, is the fact that we are a genetically homogenous species and apparent differences in looks are literally only skin deep. A great quality of his narrative is that he doesn't try to oversell and clearly states what actually can be known by examining the evidence and what are merely hypotheses. For instance, one of the many cool fun facts is that even though Neanderthals have died out, 5% of the DNA we carry has Neanderthal origins due to interbreeding. I will leave the philosophical debates up to you, but if you can't handle the fact that we are bipedal primates the book is not going to be much fun for you. What stood out to me is how seemingly random it all happened and how the evolution of the modern human was not inevitable.
#THE STORY OF THE HUMAN BODY BY DANIELE E. LIEBERMAN, PUBLISHED 2013 BY PANTHEON BOOKS FULL#
I leave it up to you to read the book if you want the full story on that. It also magnificently reveals why we are the way we are and why we move the way we move. Oftentimes it was climate change or some other major event our hominin ancestors managed to survive at the time.
In the first half of the book Lieberman kicks off with a detailed history of how we got to be Homo Sapiens and how every mutation came into being and why. "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution." ,- Theodosius Dobzhansky Each can be read separately according to your interest but of course you are more than welcome to read the entire review. The first half of this article reviews the book from a general perspective while the second half deals with the book's implications to vision care and strabismus in particular.