Evolutionary Mismatch and Social Inequality
How understanding evolution can help us fight the machine.
Earlier this week, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to give the Darwin Day Lecture for the SUNY New Paltz Evolutionary Studies (EvoS) Seminar Series.
My talk was titled Darwin’s Technological Nightmare: An evolutionary perspective on the downside of social media (and the upside of wilderness experiences).
The video/audio of the talk is here.
The slides for the talk are here.
photo credit: aamiraimer/Pixabay
One of the main points of this talk speaks to how understanding evolutionary psychology can help shed extraordinary new light on issues of social and fiscal inequality, which permeate the United States and several other nations around the world. In short, I present data suggesting that the ability to live a natural life, consistent with the Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness (EEA) for humans (i.e., the environmental conditions that our minds and bodies evolved for), is, in many ways, reserved for the wealthy.
And this is a problem. Understanding concepts such as evolutionary mismatch (which exists when an organism finds itself in conditions that are very mismatched from the ancestral conditions that surrounded its ancestors’ evolution), across a broad array of fields, will certainly be part of the solution moving forward. Or, at least, based on the work I presented the other night, understanding these concepts should be part of the solution to help address problems of social and fiscal inequality.
As I present this issue in my slide presentation from the talk:
If you care about social inequality, you should care about evolutionary mismatch.
Huge irony: In the industrialized world, the “haves” are more able to live a “natural life” relative to the “have-nots.”
More than 60% of food eaten in US is processed (see Guitar, 2017); this is especially true for those living in poverty
Exercise offerings such as completing a marathon or belonging to a CrossFit gym are predominantly reserved for the wealthy. (average family income of recreational runners is just about 100K; Cousineau, 2017)
Private education based on the idea of evolutionary mismatch (e.g., The Sudbury School) has been proven to be both effective and expensive (see Gray, 2013). Tuition is about 10K a year.
Want to be healthy and educated? Get rich … or fight the machine …
For a more elaborate treatment of this issue, check out my 2021 Psychology Today article the dives more deeply in the weeds on this one. As I write therein:
“If you care about fixing the systemic problem of income inequality, which sits as an elephant in the room in places like the United States, take some the time to learn about evolutionary mismatch. Understanding our evolutionary roots is critical to solving any and all modern human problems” (Geher, 2021).
References
Cousineau, K. C. (2017). Why do you run? Master’s thesis submitted in partial completion of the master’s degree in psychology at the State University of New York at New Paltz.
Gray, P. (2013). Free to learn. New York, NY: Basic Books.