Mismatch / Technology Influences on our Biology

Question 1

Culture

Answer 1

transmission of information through external cellular means

Question 2

Instinct

Answer 2

behavior coded into us to have us behave in a certain way that our genes have learned to adapt to in order to increase our fitness / chance of survival in our EEA

Question 3

Fundamental reproductive equation (cultures impact)

Answer 3

sex = pregnancy = babies = maternal child care = loss of female economic power = loss of female political power

• our culture created…
  - rubber
  - abortion
  - baby bottle / day care
  - maternal leave
  - voting
• culture can free us from biology

Question 4

Constrained learning

Answer 4

• biological limitation on an animal’s ability to learn or be conditioned

example :

• we are better at learning languages when we are younger then when we are older
• associating stomachache with food eaten than sitting position
• rodents learn to stop drinking when water –> noise/light –> electric shock and not water–> noise/light –> nausea

Question 5

EEA

Answer 5

• environment evolutionary adaptiveness
• environment where individuals of a population are adapted to overtime
• their instincts have the most optimal outcome
• our instincts are unreliable and inappropriate when we are not in our EEA

Question 6

EEA is different from our current environment due to…

Answer 6

• the environment is changing faster than populations can adapt
• individuals are quickly transported to a different environment

Question 7

Species having a different EEA than current environment

Answer 7

• polar bears : adapted to cold environment, but climate change is making their habitat becoming warmer
• humans : we are adapted to the hunter-gatherer environment, not the current industrialized environment
• fly / mosquito : adapted to see solid, non-transparent objects, which makes them bump into windows
• lab mice / zoo animals : adapted to hunt for food, their new environment just have food fed to them

Question 8

Mismatch

Answer 8

• when our current environment is different from our EEA
• out instinct are not producing the most optimal result

Question 9

Why is it hard to be a teenager

Answer 9

• our EEA is differen from our current environment
• evolved to be reproductively mature at 12/13/14
• culture decided that we should have kids later in life

Question 10

Examples of conflicts for humans due to mismatch

Answer 10

• teenager conflict
• our food are relatively easier to get compare to what we are adapted to. We had evolved to eat fatty food to prepare us for the uncertain future / famine, even though we could now just go to a supermarket to buy food.
• we want to seek dopamine, so we would try drugs that would stimulate dopamine; however, these drugs would make us do worse culturally
• we want to use our resource as soon as we got them to avoid running out of resources later, making us bad at managing money