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Summary
Summary
In this landmark book of popular science, Daniel E. Lieberman--chair of the department of human evolutionary biology at Harvard University and a leader in the field--gives us a lucid and engaging account of how the human body evolved over millions of years, even as it shows how the increasing disparity between the jumble of adaptations in our Stone Age bodies and advancements in the modern world is occasioning this paradox: greater longevity but increased chronic disease.
The Story of the Human Body brilliantly illuminates as never before the major transformations that contributed key adaptations to the body: the rise of bipedalism; the shift to a non-fruit-based diet; the advent of hunting and gathering, leading to our superlative endurance athleticism; the development of a very large brain; and the incipience of cultural proficiencies. Lieberman also elucidates how cultural evolution differs from biological evolution, and how our bodies were further transformed during the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions.
While these ongoing changes have brought about many benefits, they have also created conditions to which our bodies are not entirely adapted, Lieberman argues, resulting in the growing incidence of obesity and new but avoidable diseases, such as type 2 diabetes. Lieberman proposes that many of these chronic illnesses persist and in some cases are intensifying because of "dysevolution," a pernicious dynamic whereby only the symptoms rather than the causes of these maladies are treated. And finally--provocatively--he advocates the use of evolutionary information to help nudge, push, and sometimes even compel us to create a more salubrious environment.
(With charts and line drawings throughout.)
Author Notes
Daniel Lieberman is the Chair of the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard and a leader in the field. He has wpublished nearly 100 articles, many appearing in the journals Nature and Science . His research and discoveries have been highlighted in newspapers and magazines including The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Discover, and National Geographic . He has frequently appeared on Nova, the BBC, and Charlie Rose , among other programs.
Reviews (6)
Publisher's Weekly Review
In thoroughly enjoyable and edifying prose, Lieberman, professor of human evolution at Harvard, leads a fascinating journey through human evolution. He comprehensively explains how evolutionary forces have shaped the human species as we know it, from the move to bipedalism, and the changes in body parts-from hands to feet and spine-that such a change entailed, to the creation of agrarian societies, and much more. He balances a historical perspective with a contemporary one-examining traits of our ancestors as carefully as he looks to the future-while asking how we might control the destiny of our species. He argues persuasively that "cultural evolution is now the dominant force of evolutionary change acting on the human body," and focuses on what he calls "mismatch diseases" that are caused by lack of congruence between genes and environment. Since the pace of cultural evolution has outstripped that of biological evolution, mismatch diseases have increased to the point where most of us are likely to die of such causes. Lieberman's discussion of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and breast cancer are as clear as any yet published, and he offers a well-articulated case for why an evolutionary perspective can greatly enrich the practice of medicine. Agent: Max Brockman, Brockman Inc. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
Like it or not, we are slightly fat, furless, bipedal primates who crave sugar, salt, fat, and starch. Harvard professor Lieberman holds nothing back in his plea that people listen to the story of human evolution consisting of five biological transformations (walking upright, eating a variety of different foods, accumulating physical traits aligned to hunting and gathering, gaining bigger brains with larger bodies, and developing unique capacities for cooperation and language) and two cultural ones (farming and reliance on machines). Unfortunately, human beings now create environments and presently practice lifestyles that are clearly out of sync with the bodies they've inherited. This mismatch results in myriad problems, including Type 2 diabetes, myopia, flat feet, and cavities. Lieberman cleverly and comprehensively points out the perils of possessing Paleolithic anatomy and physiology in a modern world and bemoans just how out of touch we have become with our bodies. Natural selection nudges all life-forms toward optimality rather than a state of perfection. If we want to continue our phenomenal run as a species, it is essential to understand (and embrace) our evolutionary legacy.--Miksanek, Tony Copyright 2010 Booklist
Choice Review
Biology professor Lieberman (Harvard) has written a comprehensive, compelling book about the human body's dynamic evolution. The author carefully explores human form and function development along with health and concomitant diseases over millions of years, including humankind's continuing modifications. He provides scholarly research data from related disciplines, particularly fossil aspects and molecular levels of development. The book consists of three evolutionary components: "Apes and Humans," "Farming and the Industrial Revolution," and "The Present, the Future." Lieberman raises analytical questions about earlier relatives and the first Homo sapiens, dietary (metabolic) variations, and global migrations. He distinguishes between human and concomitant cultural evolution. For example, scientific/technological advances prompted the development of modern affluences and conveniences and assisted expanding world populations to live longer. Widespread human health issues, such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart ailments, and cancers became prevalent in the past few hundred years. Lieberman also describes "mismatch" disorders and "dysevolution." The concluding chapter offers approaches for the human body's evolution in the future. Preventative, intelligent, individual, societal, and governmental modifications in modern lifestyles, including physical exercise and dietary changes, might offset impending deleterious patterns. Graphics and extensive chapter notes enhance this outstanding single-volume treatment of a complex topic. Summing Up: Essential. All levels/libraries. J. N. Muzio emeritus, CUNY Kingsborough Community College
Guardian Review
The effect the modern western diet has had on our health and wellbeing has been a rumbling issue for decades; it has become more controversial recently thanks to the influential evolutionary perspective on the subject. When the organic food movement began, the premise was that traditional farming practices were the norm, from which we have departed by adopting intensive techniques to produce highly processed food. This could be dubbed the Prince Charles Line. But seen in the light of evolution, as Daniel Lieberman considers it, farming itself was the Great Unnatural Practice. At the extreme, the evolutionary perspective has given rise to the Paleo lifestyle, an attempt to return to the way we lived before the invention of farming 10,000 years ago: to live "as evolution intended". Lieberman is far from endorsing such crass simplifications. Evolution, as he stresses, intends nothing. What actually evolves is due to many competing tendencies, and the result is always a work in progress with no destination. Notable figures including David Attenborough and the geneticist Steve Jones have remarked that human evolution has now ceased. Lieberman says this cannot be true: human beings continue to show a great degree of heritable variation, and reproductive success is also variable; so evolution of some kind must still be active. He goes further by regretting that for most of his career as a professor of human evolutionary biology he taught the old line that human biology has hardly changed since the Ice Age. The question is: if human evolution is ongoing, what factors are influencing it now, as opposed to in the distant past? Genomic studies show that more than 100 genes indicate positive selection since farming began 10,000 years ago. Beyond the best-known example the lactose tolerance gene, which has gone from almost zero to nearly 100% in northern Europe most of them have not yet been characterised, but many almost certainly relate to the infectious diseases that accompanied hugely expanded human populations living hugger-mugger with domestic animals. Lieberman is good at explaining why simplistic nostrums aren't appropriate for considering creatures such as human beings. We are not designed specifically to do one thing, but to be adaptable to many. Thus dark skin protects against UV radiation in equatorial regions but is gradually lost in northern climates probably because the weaker sunlight found there would generate inadequate levels of vitamin D in heavily pigmented skin. The body is designed to be good enough to do many things, but not to be especially good at any one of them. It doesn't have a large margin of error, unlike engineered structures such as bridges and aeroplanes, designed to withstand several times the stresses they will actually experience. Thus specialised animals out-compete us in speed, strength and visual or aural acuity, which was a problem when humans lived more or less in a state of nature. Essentially, Lieberman's message is that modern life has created mismatches between our abilities and adaptations and the stresses we place on the body by often living thousands of miles from our family's origins, sitting down all day long rather than actively gaining a livelihood by physical work, and snatching at quick, high-energy foods. The evolutionary approach produces some counterintuitive surprises. Fresh fruit juices are as much junk food as a cola drink they produce a sugar rush, so it's better to eat fresh fruit with its additional fibre; chewing gum as a child is a healthy pastime, if the gum is sugar-free (teeth and jaws need the exercise that modern diets fail to provide). Without going the whole Paleo wild boar, Lieberman suggests we can learn something from the hunter-gatherer lifestyle. He is a celebrated advocate of barefoot running, for example. Since his book is all about trade-offs between incompatible attributes, it is only right to point out that, while his message is sound, it could have been made at half the length. In discussing the human plague of obesity he seems unable to resist the textual bloat that is equally a trait of our times. But given the vast outpouring in recent years of crank diets and earnest attempts to correct western lifestyle ills by some kind of Rousseauist regression, The Story of the Human Body is a reliable guide to a problem that is going to get worse before it gets better. Peter Forbes is the author of Dazzled and Deceived: Mimicry and Camouflage.
Kirkus Review
Six million years of biological evolution have produced a human body ill-adapted to the diets and lifestyles that cultural evolution has wrought since modern humans emerged. That is the core message of this massive review of where we came from and what ails us now. Lieberman (Human Evolutionary Biology/Harvard Univ.; The Evolution of the Human Head, 2011, etc.) writes authoritatively about the fossil record, crediting bipedalism as the driver that freed hands to learn new skills, enabled foraging for diverse diets and chasing prey, and ultimately built bigger brains. In time, humans spread across the globe in hunter-gatherer groups. Thus we remained until the agricultural and industrial revolutions spurred population growth, changed diets, and introduced new infectious and chronic diseases--while little altering our hunter-gatherer anatomy and physiology. Lieberman examines energy balance--calories taken in vs. calories expended--and good shape. Analyzing today's creature comforts, processed food (with addictive amounts of sugar, salt and fat) and lack of exercise, it is no wonder we are seeing rises in obesity and risks for heart disease, diabetes, osteoporosis and the like. Lieberman calls these diseases of "mismatch" (of biological evolution and culture) and medicine's emphasis on treating symptoms, "dysevolution," which means perpetuating the diseases instead of preventing them. The repeated emphasis on all the bad things humans do is wearying. By no means does Lieberman discount all the good that modern society has achieved, but that message is nearly drowned by the constant admonition to do right by your body. Alas, he is the first to admit that changing human behavior is notoriously hard. At best, he offers a "soft paternalism"--e.g., government controls of children's environments (more physical education and better lunches) and taxing the unhealthy choices of adults. Readers have likely heard this song before but perhaps not so exhaustively and well-referenced as in Lieberman's opus. Would that industry and governments take heed.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
Lieberman (biology, Harvard; The Evolution of the Human Head) here traces the physical and social evolution of human beings, arguing that the rapid changes brought about by the Agricultural and Industrial revolutions have created environmental conditions for which our bodies are not ideally adapted. Contending that humans have become ill suited for the world in which we live-one of plentiful, highly processed food and labor-saving devices that reduce the need for strenuous physical activity-Lieberman proposes that these circumstances have led to chronic but avoidable diseases such as type 2 diabetes. While the book makes its points powerfully and convincingly, it is occasionally numbingly redundant and, indeed, sometimes seems to chide humans for being human. Seasoned narrator Sean Runnette gives a solid and engaging performance. VERDICT Optional; for public libraries where there is demand.-Forrest E. Link, Coll. of New Jersey, Ewing Twp. (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Excerpts
Excerpts
Preface Like most people, I am fascinated by the human body, but unlike most folks, who sensibly relegate their interest in people's bodies to evenings and weekends, I have made the human body the focus of my career. In fact, I am extremely lucky to be a professor at Harvard University, where I teach and study how and why the human body is the way it is. My job and my interests allow me to be a jack-of-all trades. In addition to working with students, I study fossils, I travel to interesting corners of the earth to see how people use their bodies, and I do experiments in the lab on how human and animal bodies work. Like most professors, I also love to talk, and I enjoy people's questions. But of all the questions I am commonly asked, the one I used to dread the most was "What will human beings look like in the future?" I hated this question! I am a professor of human evolutionary biology, which means I study the past, not what lies ahead. I am not a soothsayer, and the question made me think of tawdry science fiction movies that depict humans of the distant future as having enormous brains, pale and tiny bodies, and shiny clothing. My reflexive answer was always something along the lines of: "Human beings aren't evolving very much because of culture." This response is a variant of the standard answer that many of my colleagues give when asked the same question. I have since changed my mind about this question and now consider the human body's future to be one of the most important issues we can think about. We live in paradoxical times for our bodies. On the one hand, this era is probably the healthiest in human history. If you live in a developed country, you can reasonably expect all your offspring to survive childhood, to live to their dotage, and to become parents and grandparents. We have conquered or quelled many diseases that used to kill people in droves: smallpox, measles, polio, and the plague. People are taller, and formerly life-threatening conditions like appendicitis, dysentery, a broken leg, or anemia are easily remedied. To be sure, there is still too much malnutrition and disease in some countries, but these evils are often the result of bad government and social inequality, not a lack of food or medical know-how. On the other hand, we could be doing better, much better. A wave of obesity and chronic, preventable illnesses and disabilities is sweeping across the globe. These preventable diseases include certain cancers, type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis, heart disease, strokes, kidney disease, some allergies, dementia, depression, anxiety, insomnia, and other illnesses. Billions of people are also suffering from ailments like lower back pain, fallen arches, plantar fasciitis, myopia, arthritis, constipation, acid reflux, and irritable bowel syndrome. Some of these troubles are ancient, but many are novel or have recently exploded in prevalence and intensity. To some extent, these diseases are on the rise because people are living longer, but most of them are showing up in middle-aged people. This epidemiological transition is causing not just misery but also economic woe. As baby boomers retire, their chronic illnesses are straining health-care systems and stifling economies. Moreover, the image in the crystal ball looks bad because these diseases are also growing in prevalence as development spreads across the planet. The health challenges we face are causing an intense worldwide conversation among parents, doctors, patients, politicians, journalists, researchers, and others. Much of the focus has been on obesity. Why are people getting fatter? How do we lose weight and change our diets? How do we prevent our children from becoming overweight? How can we encourage them to exercise? Because of the urgent necessity to help people who are sick, there is also an intense focus on devising new cures for increasingly common noninfectious diseases. How do we treat and cure cancer, heart disease, diabetes, osteoporosis, and the other illnesses most likely to kill us and the people we love? As doctors, patients, researchers, and parents debate and investigate these questions, I suspect that few of them cast their thoughts back to the ancient forests of Africa, where our ancestors diverged from the apes and stood upright. They rarely think about Lucy or Neanderthals, and if they do consider evolution it is usually to acknowledge the obvious fact that we used to be cavemen (whatever that means), which perhaps implies that our bodies are not well adapted to modern lifestyles. A patient with a heart attack needs immediate medical care, not a lesson in human evolution. If I ever suffer a heart attack, I too want my doctor to focus on the exigencies of my care rather than on human evolution. This book, however, argues that our society's general failure to think about human evolution is a major reason we fail to prevent preventable diseases. Our bodies have a story--an evolutionary story--that matters intensely. For one, evolution explains why our bodies are the way they are, and thus yields clues on how to avoid getting sick. Why are we so liable to become fat? Why do we sometimes choke on our food? Why do we have arches in our feet that flatten? Why do we have backs that ache? A related reason to consider the human body's evolutionary story is to help understand what our bodies are and are not adapted for. The answers to this question are tricky and unintuitive but have profound implications for making sense of what promotes health and disease and for comprehending why our bodies sometimes naturally make us sick. Finally, I think the most pressing reason to study the human body's story is that it isn't over. We are still evolving. Right now, however, the most potent form of evolution is not biological evolution of the sort described by Darwin, but cultural evolution, in which we develop and pass on new ideas and behaviors to our children, friends, and others. Some of these novel behaviors, especially the foods we eat and the activities we do (or don't do), make us sick. Human evolution is fun, interesting, and illuminating, and much of this book explores the amazing journey that created our bodies. I also try to highlight the progress achieved by farming, industrialization, medical science, and other professions that have made this era the best of all times so far to be a human. But I am no Pangloss, and since our challenge is to do better, the last few chapters focus on how and why we get sick. If Tolstoy were writing this book, perhaps he might write that "all healthy bodies are alike; each unhealthy body is unhealthy in its own way." The core subjects of this book--human evolution, health, and disease--are enormous and complex. I have done my best to try to keep the facts, explanations, and arguments simple and clear without dumbing them down or avoiding essential issues, especially for serious diseases such as breast cancer and diabetes. I have also included many references, including websites, where you can investigate further. Another struggle was to find the right balance between breadth and depth. Why our bodies are the way they are is simply too large a topic to cover because bodies are so complex. I have therefore focused on just a few aspects of our bodies' evolution that relate to diet and physical activity, and for every topic I cover, there are at least ten I don't. The same caveat applies to the final chapters, which focus on just a few diseases that I chose as exemplars of larger problems. Moreover, research in these fields is changing fast. Inevitably some of what I include will become out of date. I apologize. Finally, I have rashly concluded the book with my thoughts about how to apply the lessons of the human body's past story to its future. I'll spill the beans right now and summarize the core of my argument. We didn't evolve to be healthy, but instead we were selected to have as many offspring as possible under diverse, challenging conditions. As a consequence, we never evolved to make rational choices about what to eat or how to exercise in conditions of abundance and comfort. What's more, interactions between the bodies we inherited, the environments we create, and the decisions we sometimes make have set in motion an insidious feedback loop. We get sick from chronic diseases by doing what we evolved to do but under conditions for which our bodies are poorly adapted, and we then pass on those same conditions to our children, who also then get sick. If we wish to halt this vicious circle then we need to figure out how to respectfully and sensibly nudge, push, and sometimes oblige ourselves to eat foods that promote health and to be more physically active. That, too, is what we evolved to do. Excerpted from The Story of the Human Body: Evolution, Health, and Disease by Daniel E. Lieberman All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
