I am not a soothsayer, and the question made me think of Used to dread the most was “What will human beings look like in theįuture?” I hated this question! I am a professor of humanĮvolutionary biology, which means I study the past, not what liesĪhead. But of all the questions I am commonly asked, the one I Like most professors, I also love to talk, and I enjoy people’s To interesting corners of the earth to see how people use their bodies,Īnd I do experiments in the lab on how human and animal bodies In addition to working with students, I study fossils, I travel My job and my interests allow me to be a jack-of-all University, where I teach and study how and why the human body is In fact, I am extremely lucky to be a professor at Harvard Most folks, who sensibly relegate their interest in people’s bodies toĮvenings and weekends, I have made the human body the focus of Like most people, I am fascinated by the human body, but unlike The Paradox of Human Health in the Industrial Eraġ2 | The Hidden Dangers of Novelty and ComfortĬan Evolut ionary Logic Help Cultivate a Better Future for the The Fruits and Follies of Becoming Farmers The Consequences-Good and Bad-of Having Paleolithic PART II Farming and the Industrial Revolution How Modern Humans Colonized the World with a Combination How We Evolved Big Brains Along with Large, Fat, Gradually How Nearly Modern Bodies Evolved in the Human Genus How the Australopiths Partly Weaned Us Off Fruit Jacket design and illustration by Matt Dorfman Includes bibliographical references and index.ġ. The story of the hum an body : ev olution, health, and disease / Daniel Lieberm an. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Pantheon Books and colophon are registered tradem arks of Random House, LLC. Toronto, Penguin Random House Com panies. Random House, LLC, New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Lim ited, Published in the United States by Pantheon Books, a div ision of 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.Ĭopy right © 2 01 3 by Daniel E. 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. 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 also elucidates how cultural evolution differs from biological evolution, and how our bodies were further transformed during the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions. 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-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. In this landmark book of popular science, Daniel E.
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