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Mean GenesBoston HeraldProgrammed to party? Authors
offer advice on reshaping our `Mean Genes' by Rob Mitchell Sunday, September 3, 2000 ``Mean
Genes: From Sex to Money to Food, Taming Our Primal Instincts'' by Terry
Burnham & Jay Phelan (Perseus Publishing, $24.00) Why
do we eat too much, drink too much, and gamble excessively? Why can't we save
even a tiny fraction of our income? Why do we have ridiculously unfair and
arbitrary beauty standards? Terry
Burnham and Jay Phelan say it's because of a mismatch between our genes and
the modern world. We have ``mean genes'' that predispose us to love fatty
foods, spend every penny we earn, crave drugs, and take unreasonable risks. In
their accessible treatise on our harmful primal instincts, Burnham and Phelan
ask, who were your ancestors most likely to be? Fatties, of course - men and
women who were able to pack on the calories, cavemen and cavewomen who could
ram every scrap of an 800-pound elk into their bodies. Evolution favored
humans who could endure periods of scarcity. We still carry those genes,
though, for most of us, the only periods of scarcity we experience are when
dinner is delayed an hour or two. Similarly,
instincts for sound money management have not had time to evolve. Saving
money was not an option for our ancestors. To survive, they consumed
everything in sight, so that's what we're programmed to do. Our ancestors
were also risk-takers. The successful caveman took risks - he left the safety
of the cave, rustled up some food, and returned to procreate and fill the
world with risk-takers. Now those risk-taking genes lead us to casinos and
bungee jumping. ``Mean
Genes'' offers a comprehensive and discursive analysis of several profound
problems of human nature. Guiding the reader through our bad habits and urges
- alcohol, drugs, greed, infidelity - the authors conclude that none of them
is our fault. It's our genes. We're controlled by genetically evolved
impulses that don't make sense today but helped our ancestors survive
thousands of years ago. Fortunately, say Burnham and Phelan, our mean genes don't always have to win. Without excusing our harmful habits, they offer encouragingly helpful strategies for controlling them. They dismiss advice to ``just say no'' as the route most likely to fail, and make realistic suggestions for dealing with the mismatch between our genes and the modern world and for staying alert to those who would seek to profit from the exploitation of our outdated instincts. By being aware and understanding our primal urges, we can predict their influence, even indulge and enjoy them, yet prevent them from controlling us. |