News article: Why We Are All Insane

What do you think?
~inky
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Why We Are All Insane

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

By Robin Nixon

Natural selection wants us to be crazy — at least a little bit. While true debilitating insanity is not nature's intention, many mental health issues may be byproducts of the over-functional human brain, some researchers claim.

As humans improved their gathering, hunting and cooking techniques, population size increased and resources became more limited (in part because we hunted or ate some species to extinction). As a result, not everyone could get enough to eat. Cooperative relationships were critical to ensuring access to food, whether through farming or more strategic hunting, and those with blunt social skills were unlikely to survive, explained David C. Geary, author of "The Origin of Mind" (APA, 2004), and a researcher at the University of Missouri.

And thus, a diversity of new mental abilities, and disabilities, unfurled.

The nature of joy

It might seem as though modern man should have evolved to be happy and harmonious. But nature cares about genes, not joy, Geary said.

Mental illnesses hinder one in every four adults in America every year, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. And this doesn’t count those of us with more moderate mood swings.

To explain our susceptibility to poor mental health, Randolph Nesse in "The Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology" (Wiley, 2005) compares the human brain with race horses: Just as horse breeding has selected for long thin legs that increase speed but are prone to fracture, cognitive advances also increase fitness — to a point.

Let's take common mental conditions one-by-one.

People with aggressive and narcissistic personalities are the easiest to understand evolutionarily; they look out for number one. But even if 16 million men today can trace their genes to Genghis Khan (nature's definition of uber-success can be measured by his prolific paternity), very few potential despots achieve such heights. Perhaps to check selfish urges, in favor of more probable means to biological success, social lubricants such as empathy, guilt and mild anxiety arose.

For example, the first of our ancestors to empathize and read facial expressions had a striking advantage. They could confirm their own social status and convince others to share food and shelter. But too much emotional acuity — when individuals overanalyze every grimace — can cause a motivational nervousness about one's social value to morph into a relentless handicapping anxiety.

Pondering the future

Another cognitive innovation made it possible to compare potential futures. While other animals focus on the present, only humans, said Geary, "sit and worry about what will happen three years from now if I do that or this." Our ability to think things over, and over, can be counterproductive and lead to obsessive tendencies.

Certain types of depression, however, Geary continued, may be advantageous. The lethargy and disrupted mental state can help us disengage from unattainable goals — whether it is an unrequited love or an exalted social position. Evolution likely favored individuals who pause and reassess ambitions, instead of wasting energy being blindly optimistic.

Natural selection also likely held the door open for disorders such as attention deficit. Quickly abandoning a low stimulus situation was more helpful for male hunters than female gatherers, writes Nesse, which may explain why boys are five times more likely than girls to be hyperactive.

Similarly, in its mildest form, bipolar disorder can increase productivity and creativity. Bipolar individuals (and their relatives) also often have more sex than average people, Geary noted.

Sex, and survival of one's kids, is the whole point — as far as nature is concerned. Sometimes unpleasant mental states lead to greater reproductive success, said Geary, "so these genes stay in the gene pool."

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,410721,00.html

Very interesting points to ponder.......some certainly make sense to me. I know that as time has gone by just the mere fact that our choices have blossomed to be almost endless in this life, has made me feel more confused, feeling smaller and scared to death to make the wrong decisions as to what choice to make at times. Very interesting thoughts. Thanks for sharing ((((((( inky ))))))))


sabby

Good stuff. I want to comment particularly on:

> the first of our ancestors to empathize and read facial expressions had a striking advantage.

This is a point made in a lot of detail in the book "A General Theory of Love" by three San Francisco psychiatrists. But humans are not the only animals to have developed this ability! I think the authors claim it arose with mammals in general. I know my cats can perceive and react to the emotional states of other cats -- and of humans! Actually, birds send out distress signals too. Other examples?

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
Another cognitive innovation made it possible to compare potential futures. While other animals focus on the present, only humans, said Geary, "sit and worry about what will happen three years from now if I do that or this." Our ability to think things over, and over, can be counterproductive and lead to obsessive tendencies.

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What is healthy here? I try to focus on today and sometimes doubt there will be a tomorrow for me since I came so close to death. This has caused problems for me like overspending. Should I worry about three years from now?

I think it's good to acknowledge future living but important to keep focus on today. (I disagree about the natural selection stuff and all that though.) Mindfulness does not mean you reduce the future to non-existence.

i think bullies try to make think we are insane.. ty for the article

Good article!

I read many years ago that Pysch-professionals actually expect all of us on personality tests to have a few abnormal personality traits.

The article went on to say that someone who had no abnormal personality traits on the tests were actually a cause for great concern.

thanks for posting this

TJ

this article came from foxnews. them calling us nuts is the pot calling the kettle black. I had no idea that fox news believed in evolution much less that crazziness is some sort of darwinian advantage.
i will grant that boys with attention deficit disorder are a lot more sexually active then ordinary boys. in a darwinian world i doubt their progeny would prosper but in modern society we will all be outbred by idiots.
mke judge who wrote bevis and butthead produced a very funny movie about a dumb guy who travels into the future filled with idiots who see him as some sort of genius and they make him president of the united states. this movie was two or three years ago, very funny. it sounds like the basis of this article about sexualy hyperactive bipolars.
-pi

It just goes to show that anyone, especially a journalist such as Robin Nixon, can throw in a couple of citations and make it sound real. I wonder what she was paid for this article.