Marlene Zuk -- Paleofantasy: what evolution really tells us about sex, diet, and how we live
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Some of this book is just good fun: (1) Who would have thought that
cave persons could give us intelligent advice on how to eat and
exercise.  (2) Who knew that we needed cave persons to advise us
that we should exercise more and should eat less junk food.

But you can also take a reading of the book as a start off point for
thinking about your own life and your life style, including your
diet, exercise, and drinking habits (remember that most cave men
were not able to call their cave wife on her cell phone on her way
home from work and ask her to stop and buy a bottle of white wine;
actually, real cave men drank beer, or *red* wine at least, surely).

But, seriously, wrapped around a little be of humor about paleo
diets and paleo exercise and paleo clothing, there is a good deal of
seriousness about evolution and about how it works and about how
quickly evolution can work, even in the case of humans.  But, don't
try to "out evolve" viruses.  They're way faster than you are.

If you enjoy Zuk's explanations and descriptions of evolution, then
you might also want to look at "Spillover", by David Quammen.  It
has lots about viruses and bacteria and pathogens in general, about
how they progress through and hide within different (host)
populations, and about the detective work that is being done to find
them, defend against them, stop them from spreading, etc.

And, there is quite a bit that can be learned from Zuk's book about
genetics and evolutionary theory.  You will get an introduction to
how scientists think and reason about evolution.  For me, this
thinking about genes and the prevalence of those genes in a
population is a valuable learning experience.  I'm especially
impressed with ideas that might be summed up with two claims: (1)
Evolution tinkers; it is constantly trying new genetic combinations,
features, etc.  (2) Nature/evolution is not goal directed; it is
not value oriented, and is not trying to invent something *better*.

One important and interesting question that Zuk attempts to answer
is whether humans are still continuing to evolve.  If so, why, since
we've eliminated many selective factors (diseases and health
problems, for example, that remove humans from the gene pool before
they can reproduce)?  And, if so, in what ways are we continuing to
evolve?

The question of whether, how, and what we can learn from earlier
species and societies is worth thinking about for its own sake.  One
of Zuk's criticism of this kind of thinking is that it is
susceptible to cherry picking.  She believes (and I do to) that we
often decide what we want to believe, then go looking for its
occurrence in a society that supports our existing belief.  We're
effectively saying, "See; I'm right; they do it, too."  And, if that
particular society did not do it, then we look for someone who did.

Another of Zuk's points is that they, that earlier society, that
earlier hominid species were different from us and lived in a
different environment and under different conditions.  So, what was
good for them is not necessarily good for us.  Well then, which of
their practices would be good for us, and how do we know which would
transfer well to our lives and which not?  We have to choose,
sometimes wisely, sometimes not so wisely, but basically we end up
picking what we wanted anyway.  And, that leads back to Zuk's
criticism of cherry picking.

Here is a specific example -- I have a lot to learn from my cat
Sylvia.  She sleeps most of the day, gets lots of rest, leads a very
relaxing lifestyle.  I should do more of that.  On the other hand,
you might argue that I'm lazy enough already, and that I need to
work more, not less.  What is good for Sylvia is not necessarily
good for me.  We can each pick what we want to learn from someone
else, from some other species, from another society.

If you read "The world until yesterday", by Jared Diamond, you will
see lots of thinking that smells of this kind of selective research.
Jared Diamond is way too smart to do this in any simple minded way,
but still ...  Diamond is trying to learn and to teach us based on a
currently existing "pre-modern" society.  But, do we really want to
live that way.  And, if we are going to learn from existing
societies (and why restrict our learning to "pre-modern" societies),
which one do we learn from, and how to we select which one to learn
from?

A good test might be -- Would I teach my children to live like that?
And, how much of their lifestyle would I have to ignore and throw
out before I would teach my children to be like that?

But, another lesson that Zuk may be trying to teach is that we
should not be trying to learn from other species and other societies
based on a POV (point of view) that gives us a privileged position.
If, for example, our POV is from that of a more intelligent and
wiser species/society, how could they (that other society) have
anything to teach us at all?  This is an especially difficult
problem for me, because I am so impressed by the ability of modern
humans to invent tools and technologies, to create music and art, to
learn new ways of doing things and to communicate and pass on those
new ways, etc.  It's hard for me to view other societies (especially
pre-modern ones without allowing that superior attitude to color my
own value judgments.

It's a stimulating book, and a fascinating one, too.

There is also an interesting review at Scientific American:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=why-paleo-diet-half-baked-how-hunter-gatherer-really-eat

06/21/2013

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