Another fabulous lecture by Sapolsky: if our genome is startlingly like that of chimpanzees, what makes the difference? Our brain is 3x the size, and out of that quantity emergence a different quality: a capacity to create symphonies and ideologies, as Sapolsky puts it. But one part stands out indelibly: when the aggressive male baboons died after eating TB-infected meat, the culture of the surviving chimps changed toward more gentleness and caring. Males started carrying baby chimps, which was never observed before. Individuals sat closer to each other without fear. And a newly introduced male would gradually acquire the new culture. Hence, toward the end, Sapolskys joke that the way to improve humanity would be to feed TB-infected meat to aggressive males. And that reminds me of other studies where bullies were removed from animal or human groups, and the improvement in health and sociability that followed. Fear is not good for us; unconditional love is.
Posted on: Sat, 13 Dec 2014 19:51:08 +0000
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