Unfit For Purpose

Adam Hart Bloomsbury Sigma £16.99

Do you find life stressful? You’re not alone. Even in normal times there’s no end of things to worry about – money, work, health, etc – and during a global pandemic everything seems that much worse. Is stress a natural part of the human condition, or does it arise from how we lead our lives?

These are some of the questions scientist and broadcaster Adam Hart contemplates in t his examination of how evolution has left us ill-equipped to deal with the modern world. Our brains and our bodies, and our emotional responses, developed in environments where food was scarce and mortal dangers lurked round every corner. Nowadays we don’t have too many man-eating predators to worry about, and if we feel peckish we can pop out to the supermarket, but we are still lumbered with the mental baggage of our caveman ancestors. And that includes how we deal with stress.

Stress has an evolutionary purpose. If we bump into a bear or a tiger, the brain triggers a massive burst of adrenaline and we have a split second to decide between ‘fight’ or ‘flight’. These days the bears and tigers are behind bars in the zoo, but the adrenaline floods in whenever we become anxious. The unhealthy levels of stress we suffer result in what Hart identifies as a ‘mismatch’ between our evolutionary history and the modern world.

Similar mismatches affect our responses to alcohol and gambling. The ‘drunken monkey’ theory suggests that our ancestors’ bodies adapted to digest fermented fruit because food was scarce. Taking risks also had evolutionary benefits because of the potential rewards (caveman shorthand for food and sex). But our brains can’t easily cope with the temptations of excess alcohol or slot machines.

This book is a gripping and sobering reminder of how much we are all governed by our genetic inheritance. So much for free will.