1
00:00:00,080 --> 00:00:05,440
Uh I don't know why there's so many very I don't know why there's so many there the need to

2
00:00:05,840 --> 00:00:07,040
There's so many ways to fuck up.

3
00:00:07,280 --> 00:00:10,320
We've we're exploring the possibility space of ways to fuck up.

4
00:00:10,640 --> 00:00:15,520
It's incredible how small what a small number of words this is and how many times we've

5
00:00:15,520 --> 00:00:16,080
screwed up.

6
00:00:16,320 --> 00:00:18,160
So David, what is this podcast?

7
00:00:18,480 --> 00:00:20,560
Uh Evolutionary Psychology the Podcast.

8
00:00:20,880 --> 00:00:25,360
And the tagline is uh actual evolutionary psychology by actual evolutionary psychologist.

9
00:00:25,770 --> 00:00:27,290
Yep, that's the thing you're listening to.

10
00:00:27,450 --> 00:00:28,010
Keep listening.

11
00:00:28,410 --> 00:00:28,730
Okay.

12
00:00:29,290 --> 00:00:30,090
That was great.

13
00:00:30,730 --> 00:00:31,210
All right.

14
00:00:42,650 --> 00:00:48,580
David, I uh I make it a practice to um actually listen

15
00:00:48,580 --> 00:00:49,940
to our episodes.

16
00:00:50,180 --> 00:00:56,100
Um and um this one I I learned a lot and in fact I learned so much

17
00:00:56,100 --> 00:01:00,500
that I I had to listen to it I think a second time to pick everything up because today

18
00:01:00,500 --> 00:01:06,420
we're we're talking to Ed Hagan and uh there was just so much in this episode about

19
00:01:06,660 --> 00:01:08,580
um what was in this episode.

20
00:01:08,950 --> 00:01:14,390
I mean, w we got into depression, mental illness, delusions, uh

21
00:01:14,630 --> 00:01:20,630
drugs getting high, whether animals get high, uh uh, we got into

22
00:01:20,630 --> 00:01:22,950
leadership and intelligence.

23
00:01:23,190 --> 00:01:25,830
Uh Ed Hagan is absolutely brilliant.

24
00:01:25,990 --> 00:01:31,510
Um, uh really uh fierce intellect, wide-ranging knowledge.

25
00:01:31,670 --> 00:01:34,560
Um I always have such a blast talking to Ed.

26
00:01:34,720 --> 00:01:37,520
Um, you could kind of hear me fanboying out a bit in the interview.

27
00:01:38,000 --> 00:01:39,200
Did I sound like a fanboy?

28
00:01:39,520 --> 00:01:41,600
Um, I don't know what that word means exactly.

29
00:01:41,680 --> 00:01:45,440
So uh because I'm just a Luddite, but uh I'm a linguistic Luddite.

30
00:01:45,680 --> 00:01:49,840
But um uh you were you were you we you were wonderfully uh inappropriately

31
00:01:51,440 --> 00:01:53,840
appreciative of Ed and how wonderful Ed is.

32
00:01:54,000 --> 00:01:58,630
And my favorite part of this episode is is also Ed's origin story.

33
00:01:58,710 --> 00:02:01,030
It's it's one of the funniest origin stories.

34
00:02:01,110 --> 00:02:03,030
I kind of don't want to spoil it.

35
00:02:03,190 --> 00:02:07,910
Um, but just you will I really think this is probably the funniest origin story we've had

36
00:02:07,910 --> 00:02:08,470
so far.

37
00:02:08,710 --> 00:02:10,230
I I would second that, yeah.

38
00:02:10,630 --> 00:02:10,870
Yeah.

39
00:02:11,030 --> 00:02:12,790
Uh just a quick spoiler alert.

40
00:02:12,870 --> 00:02:15,750
There's like uh drinking beer with Napoleon Shagnon.

41
00:02:15,830 --> 00:02:18,950
If you don't know who that is, you you can we'll find out um as we go.

42
00:02:19,110 --> 00:02:19,740
So but yeah.

43
00:02:20,060 --> 00:02:25,900
Without further ado, here is Ed Hagen talking about drugs and

44
00:02:25,900 --> 00:02:31,820
delusions and uh drinking uh with uh Napoleon Chagnon and how

45
00:02:31,820 --> 00:02:35,180
he got interested in evolutionary psychology.

46
00:02:38,780 --> 00:02:42,220
All right, so we have Ed Hagen on uh today.

47
00:02:42,380 --> 00:02:47,020
And Ed, you are um in the Department of Anthropology at Washington State University,

48
00:02:47,100 --> 00:02:52,810
Vancouver, And you were there after being at working with Peter Hammerstein,

49
00:02:52,890 --> 00:02:54,330
yeah, in in Berlin.

50
00:02:55,290 --> 00:02:58,810
And um and before that was UCSB, is that right?

51
00:02:59,210 --> 00:02:59,690
That's right.

52
00:03:00,170 --> 00:03:01,530
And who were you a student of?

53
00:03:01,850 --> 00:03:03,130
I was John Toby student.

54
00:03:03,370 --> 00:03:04,410
You were John Toby student.

55
00:03:04,490 --> 00:03:04,650
Okay.

56
00:03:04,730 --> 00:03:08,330
But your committee was sort of a who's who of sort of anthropology.

57
00:03:08,890 --> 00:03:09,210
Yeah.

58
00:03:09,370 --> 00:03:14,010
So actually, my master's, the chair of my master's committee was Knap Shagnan.

59
00:03:14,920 --> 00:03:20,920
And then for my PhD, I switched to John, but also had um Don

60
00:03:20,920 --> 00:03:24,120
Simons on there and Phil Walker on my company as well.

61
00:03:24,440 --> 00:03:28,120
Yeah, we talked about uh Don Brown, Human Universals, and Don Simons a bit.

62
00:03:28,280 --> 00:03:31,880
We haven't really talked much about, and we just have Brenda Bowser on who was alluding to

63
00:03:31,880 --> 00:03:33,000
Nap Shagnon.

64
00:03:33,160 --> 00:03:37,010
So these people have sort of been brought up, but we haven't really talked about who they

65
00:03:37,010 --> 00:03:40,130
are or what, and maybe maybe we'll get into that um today.

66
00:03:40,290 --> 00:03:44,530
Um, Ed, when I think about sort of whenever we have somebody on, I sort of think about like

67
00:03:44,610 --> 00:03:47,570
what do I think about them or like what to say when when we start.

68
00:03:47,810 --> 00:03:51,010
And I have an adjective for you which is encyclopedic.

69
00:03:51,170 --> 00:03:56,930
Um so so Ed is like I know, for example, you have you made you at one point

70
00:03:57,300 --> 00:04:02,660
when you were at UCSB came up when you sort of core you tell me if I'm wrong, but like you

71
00:04:02,660 --> 00:04:08,260
basically like um you collated and sort of um uh what is that thing when

72
00:04:08,260 --> 00:04:09,220
museums collect things?

73
00:04:09,380 --> 00:04:11,220
Curated, curated is the word I'm looking for.

74
00:04:11,380 --> 00:04:17,300
You curated all the criticisms of EvSec into a very long, lengthy

75
00:04:17,300 --> 00:04:17,780
document.

76
00:04:17,940 --> 00:04:19,140
Does that still exist?

77
00:04:19,550 --> 00:04:19,950
It does.

78
00:04:20,110 --> 00:04:20,910
It's on GitHub.

79
00:04:20,990 --> 00:04:21,870
So if you want to do it.

80
00:04:22,030 --> 00:04:23,390
We can we can link to that then on the show.

81
00:04:23,630 --> 00:04:25,550
Is that the evolutionary psychology FAQ?

82
00:04:25,630 --> 00:04:26,750
Is that what you're thinking of?

83
00:04:26,990 --> 00:04:27,470
Yes.

84
00:04:27,710 --> 00:04:27,950
Yes.

85
00:04:28,110 --> 00:04:28,350
Okay.

86
00:04:28,430 --> 00:04:28,670
Yes.

87
00:04:28,750 --> 00:04:29,230
I remember that.

88
00:04:29,310 --> 00:04:30,750
It's it's a very good uh document.

89
00:04:30,830 --> 00:04:31,550
I I like it a lot.

90
00:04:31,790 --> 00:04:32,030
Yeah.

91
00:04:32,110 --> 00:04:36,510
Um, but just I wanted to go over because Ed, like I I almost feel like we have so little

92
00:04:36,510 --> 00:04:42,430
time because so um information warfare, plant neurotoxins and the paradox of drug reward.

93
00:04:42,510 --> 00:04:48,300
I I mean, I remember you seeing I s a a talk by you talking about cigarette smoking and the

94
00:04:48,460 --> 00:04:49,500
worldwide deaths.

95
00:04:49,580 --> 00:04:52,620
I want to cover that because it's just incredible.

96
00:04:53,180 --> 00:04:55,580
Evolution of music and dance, evolution of leadership.

97
00:04:55,660 --> 00:04:57,580
I'm going in reverse alphabetical order for some reason.

98
00:04:57,740 --> 00:05:02,860
Evolution of knowledge specialization, depression, which is also something we should talk

99
00:05:02,860 --> 00:05:08,460
about in other mental health issues, child nutrition and growth, parental investment,

100
00:05:08,940 --> 00:05:09,980
and yeah.

101
00:05:10,060 --> 00:05:13,100
So I mean just so many things to talk about.

102
00:05:13,830 --> 00:05:18,870
So I think we should start with something completely besides the point, maybe.

103
00:05:19,590 --> 00:05:19,990
Sure.

104
00:05:20,710 --> 00:05:24,710
But actually, maybe this is not beside the point, but one thing we do often ask people is

105
00:05:24,710 --> 00:05:30,390
sort of um how they discovered uh evolutionary behavioral sciences, the quote

106
00:05:30,470 --> 00:05:31,590
unquote origin story.

107
00:05:31,670 --> 00:05:34,630
Do you have a a sort of Yeah, my my villain origin story?

108
00:05:34,790 --> 00:05:35,030
Yeah.

109
00:05:35,190 --> 00:05:38,390
Um Yeah, it's a long one.

110
00:05:38,710 --> 00:05:44,540
Um so I started out as an undergrad in physics

111
00:05:44,540 --> 00:05:45,500
and math.

112
00:05:45,900 --> 00:05:50,620
And actually, that was kind of my first career, was in a polymer lab in

113
00:05:51,660 --> 00:05:53,260
UC Berkeley.

114
00:05:55,180 --> 00:06:01,100
But I realized I didn't want to be a polymer chemist, but I didn't really know what

115
00:06:01,100 --> 00:06:03,100
the heck I wanted to do with my life.

116
00:06:03,260 --> 00:06:08,890
And I had no introduction or experience at all with any of the social sciences.

117
00:06:09,450 --> 00:06:13,850
I'd taken a Western Civ class, you know, as a breath requirement as an undergrad, but

118
00:06:13,850 --> 00:06:18,650
almost all my classes were physics and math courses, with the occasional, you know, history

119
00:06:18,650 --> 00:06:23,610
of Mesopotamia and philosophy course here and there.

120
00:06:23,770 --> 00:06:28,680
And it was actually the history of Mesopotamia class.

121
00:06:29,240 --> 00:06:34,760
Part of it was the Neolithic Revolution and the origins of agriculture about

122
00:06:34,760 --> 00:06:38,680
10,000 years ago in the Middle East in Mesopotamia.

123
00:06:38,920 --> 00:06:43,400
And that was as, you know, uh however old I was at that point, 18 or 19 or something.

124
00:06:43,480 --> 00:06:49,480
That was a shock that we hadn't always lived via agriculture, but that we had this hunter

125
00:06:49,480 --> 00:06:50,280
or gatherer past.

126
00:06:50,520 --> 00:06:53,080
That was actually most of our evolutionary history.

127
00:06:53,560 --> 00:06:59,230
And at the same time, I was um, you know, in

128
00:06:59,230 --> 00:07:01,550
college and you have all these kind of close relationships.

129
00:07:01,630 --> 00:07:07,470
And I really um, as I was pretty miserable realizing I didn't want to

130
00:07:07,470 --> 00:07:12,830
do what I had been trained to do, but didn't have any idea what the heck I did want, uh, I

131
00:07:12,830 --> 00:07:18,660
just started talking to people, and um I realized that you know some folks had real

132
00:07:18,820 --> 00:07:21,780
had real problems, unlike my I see.

133
00:07:21,940 --> 00:07:25,220
So like there were there were like tales of distribution on mental health.

134
00:07:25,780 --> 00:07:26,180
That's right.

135
00:07:26,340 --> 00:07:30,260
And so I was at one end where I'm kind of miserable, and then there were other people that

136
00:07:30,260 --> 00:07:31,540
were suicidal.

137
00:07:31,700 --> 00:07:37,610
Um and at the time, this was in the you know early 1980s, And

138
00:07:37,690 --> 00:07:40,330
um, this was the rise of biological psychiatry.

139
00:07:40,410 --> 00:07:45,130
It was in all the you know, Newsweek, Prozac, ProZac Nation.

140
00:07:45,530 --> 00:07:51,530
And it was this biopsych model of depression that it's all chemical imbalances that we

141
00:07:51,530 --> 00:07:53,610
can correct with antidepressants.

142
00:07:54,010 --> 00:07:59,450
So biological and sort of like the biochemical, yeah, biochemical, low level

143
00:07:59,530 --> 00:08:00,970
neurotransmitter level.

144
00:08:01,770 --> 00:08:07,660
Um but in talking to all my friends, I saw very

145
00:08:07,660 --> 00:08:12,140
clearly that their you know levels of distress and depression were really linked to real

146
00:08:12,140 --> 00:08:18,140
life problems, huge conflicts with their family, sexual abuse, other kinds of you know,

147
00:08:18,300 --> 00:08:19,340
serious life problems.

148
00:08:19,420 --> 00:08:25,100
And so I I just didn't buy this, you know, chemical imbalance story.

149
00:08:25,580 --> 00:08:30,270
It'd be quite a coincidence if these chemical imbalances just happened to occur right when

150
00:08:30,270 --> 00:08:31,710
these huge conflicts were taking place.

151
00:08:32,030 --> 00:08:32,750
Exactly.

152
00:08:33,310 --> 00:08:39,230
So uh I didn't know how to think about it, um, but uh I knew I didn't want to be a polymer

153
00:08:39,230 --> 00:08:40,110
chemist either.

154
00:08:40,190 --> 00:08:44,270
And so I said, you know what, I'm gonna kind of devote my life to figuring out what is

155
00:08:44,270 --> 00:08:46,350
actually going on here.

156
00:08:46,430 --> 00:08:49,310
Um and so I just started reading voraciously.

157
00:08:49,470 --> 00:08:53,310
Uh I just go to the library and any book that looked interesting, I would check it out and

158
00:08:53,310 --> 00:08:53,870
read it.

159
00:08:54,030 --> 00:09:00,020
Um and I was still working in the Polymer Lab at UC Berkeley, but I was

160
00:09:00,020 --> 00:09:05,300
sneaking off to classes by George Lakoff and John Cyril and Berlin.

161
00:09:07,540 --> 00:09:12,820
And really realized in combination with this new fact I had learned from Mesopotamian, my

162
00:09:13,060 --> 00:09:18,820
Mesopotamian history course, that we had basically evolved as hunter gatherers, even though

163
00:09:18,820 --> 00:09:19,860
they hadn't phrased it that way.

164
00:09:19,940 --> 00:09:25,460
And so I began to put together my own very, very crude version of

165
00:09:25,770 --> 00:09:28,490
evolutionary, what we now call evolutionary psychology.

166
00:09:28,730 --> 00:09:30,250
So you invented evolutionary psychology.

167
00:09:30,890 --> 00:09:32,650
I invented a very crude version.

168
00:09:33,290 --> 00:09:37,690
Somehow the structure of our brains is due to this long evolutionary history as

169
00:09:37,690 --> 00:09:41,210
hunter-gatherer, so depression somehow is coming out of that.

170
00:09:41,370 --> 00:09:42,970
I don't know how yet.

171
00:09:44,810 --> 00:09:45,210
That's cool.

172
00:09:45,530 --> 00:09:51,320
But I realized that if I really wanted to pursue this, I should probably do research in

173
00:09:51,320 --> 00:09:52,840
with hunter gatherers.

174
00:09:53,080 --> 00:09:53,960
And who does that?

175
00:09:54,200 --> 00:09:55,800
Anthropology does that.

176
00:09:57,240 --> 00:09:59,800
So at that time, we didn't really have the internet.

177
00:10:00,040 --> 00:10:06,040
There was this huge volume of put out by the AAA, the American Anthropology Association,

178
00:10:06,120 --> 00:10:08,760
of all the programs in the country.

179
00:10:09,080 --> 00:10:14,810
And this was somewhere around January or February of whatever

180
00:10:14,970 --> 00:10:17,050
1989 or 1990 or something.

181
00:10:17,210 --> 00:10:20,730
And I was flipping through there and I was seeing that I had missed every single

182
00:10:20,730 --> 00:10:24,490
application deadline, except for one school.

183
00:10:25,930 --> 00:10:31,130
I had no idea who was there or anything, but I just like, you know, I want to do this now,

184
00:10:31,210 --> 00:10:33,210
and I have not missed their deadline.

185
00:10:34,090 --> 00:10:39,690
Um and so, you know, I quickly took the GREs, or maybe I'd already done it, I can't

186
00:10:39,690 --> 00:10:45,220
remember now, and um got my fellow lab mates to write me letters as if they were my

187
00:10:45,460 --> 00:10:46,180
supervisor.

188
00:10:46,340 --> 00:10:49,780
So they all kind of faked some letters for me because I didn't really have any.

189
00:10:50,180 --> 00:10:51,620
We'll we'll edit that out later.

190
00:10:52,020 --> 00:10:53,220
Yeah, you can edit that out later.

191
00:10:53,300 --> 00:10:55,220
And I said, send this all in.

192
00:10:55,380 --> 00:10:56,820
Uh and I got in.

193
00:10:56,980 --> 00:11:02,500
Uh, and I had no idea that this was the center for evolutionary studies of human behavior.

194
00:11:02,580 --> 00:11:06,260
I had no idea who Tubi was, who Cosmides was, who Don Simons was, Don.

195
00:11:06,500 --> 00:11:06,740
Nothing.

196
00:11:06,820 --> 00:11:07,860
I knew nothing about that.

197
00:11:08,020 --> 00:11:11,990
So I came in as a actually as a sociocultural anthropologist.

198
00:11:12,150 --> 00:11:16,950
Um and and then of course the rest is is history.

199
00:11:17,110 --> 00:11:18,790
I began to see what was going on there.

200
00:11:19,030 --> 00:11:23,110
That's such a different most people, you know, they like they can't, they don't arrive at

201
00:11:23,110 --> 00:11:28,230
evolutionary psychology, but they they're they they have this, they're not satisfied with

202
00:11:28,230 --> 00:11:28,950
what they find.

203
00:11:29,110 --> 00:11:32,870
And then they discover it and they go somewhere that has it.

204
00:11:33,190 --> 00:11:38,480
You you somehow discovered it on your own and randomly ended up somewhere where it was

205
00:11:38,480 --> 00:11:38,960
happening.

206
00:11:39,280 --> 00:11:39,760
Exactly.

207
00:11:40,000 --> 00:11:41,600
It was totally random.

208
00:11:41,760 --> 00:11:42,080
Wow.

209
00:11:42,320 --> 00:11:43,520
Totally random.

210
00:11:43,760 --> 00:11:45,520
Um good thing about that deadline.

211
00:11:45,680 --> 00:11:48,480
Whoever did that, well done, because we need Edda Higgins.

212
00:11:48,560 --> 00:11:48,960
So thank you.

213
00:11:49,120 --> 00:11:52,320
Whoever's whoever was like, we should just extend the deadline.

214
00:11:52,400 --> 00:11:52,640
Yeah.

215
00:11:53,120 --> 00:11:54,640
Uh who admitted me.

216
00:11:54,720 --> 00:11:56,800
So he was always kind of sort of my guardian angel.

217
00:11:57,040 --> 00:11:57,360
That's great.

218
00:11:57,680 --> 00:12:00,480
He was on the on the uh admissions committee, I guess.

219
00:12:00,640 --> 00:12:06,130
So uh Don Brown, Don Simons, and Nap Shagnan, these were people that um

220
00:12:06,370 --> 00:12:08,450
preceded at least me.

221
00:12:08,850 --> 00:12:10,210
Um, what was that?

222
00:12:10,370 --> 00:12:13,010
What was it like when you got to UCSB?

223
00:12:13,250 --> 00:12:18,690
Well, yeah, like how did you I mean, we can continue this, like so you're in you just

224
00:12:18,690 --> 00:12:20,050
randomly show up.

225
00:12:20,450 --> 00:12:21,810
How do you find out?

226
00:12:21,890 --> 00:12:27,410
Did you yeah, I randomly show up and um and I

227
00:12:27,410 --> 00:12:33,020
actually uh the only thing I knew about Shagnon is that in my kind of

228
00:12:33,020 --> 00:12:38,540
reading quest earlier, I had come across this book by Ken Good, who was

229
00:12:38,540 --> 00:12:43,740
extremely harshly critical of Shagnon and really portrayed him as you know almost a

230
00:12:43,740 --> 00:12:44,060
monster.

231
00:12:44,220 --> 00:12:48,940
And so all I knew about Knapp was that he's this really notorious figure, and of course, he

232
00:12:48,940 --> 00:12:50,540
is my advisor now.

233
00:12:51,100 --> 00:12:53,180
Uh, and I go to meet with him.

234
00:12:53,350 --> 00:12:58,150
Uh it was kind of later in the afternoon or early evening, and I knock on his office door,

235
00:12:58,470 --> 00:13:00,230
and there's this huge, massive barking.

236
00:13:00,310 --> 00:13:02,950
And it was he had these two huge dogs in there.

237
00:13:03,190 --> 00:13:04,790
He's like, eh, come on in.

238
00:13:05,270 --> 00:13:10,790
And um he um opened up the fridge and he had two

239
00:13:10,790 --> 00:13:12,230
six-packs of beer.

240
00:13:12,470 --> 00:13:12,950
Yeah.

241
00:13:13,190 --> 00:13:16,700
He had uh Miller and it was probably uh PBR or something.

242
00:13:16,780 --> 00:13:17,980
He said, I'll give you the good stuff.

243
00:13:18,060 --> 00:13:18,940
You can have the Miller.

244
00:13:19,420 --> 00:13:24,300
And uh so we just sat down and started drinking beers and talking.

245
00:13:24,620 --> 00:13:30,060
And um it was one of the most incredible, you know, conversations I've really had as an

246
00:13:30,060 --> 00:13:30,700
anthropologist.

247
00:13:30,780 --> 00:13:36,460
We just covered because I had been reading on my own heavily into anthropology and

248
00:13:36,460 --> 00:13:37,820
hunter-gatherer studies.

249
00:13:37,900 --> 00:13:42,810
So I was able to kind of talk about all this stuff and yeah, give nap all my naive ideas

250
00:13:42,890 --> 00:13:48,410
and um but what what what what made it uh remarkable was it that he knew so much or he had

251
00:13:48,410 --> 00:13:53,610
a different experience because he was well he he was very uh kind of open to letting me

252
00:13:53,610 --> 00:13:58,810
spout off on all the on my crazy ideas but he knew all the anthropologists that I had been

253
00:13:58,810 --> 00:14:04,650
reading personally he knew Colin Turnbull and Robert Bailey and Irv Devor and all

254
00:14:04,650 --> 00:14:09,320
these guys So he was kind of able to give me all these kind of personal background and

255
00:14:09,320 --> 00:14:12,360
personal stories and more perspective on everything.

256
00:14:12,520 --> 00:14:18,360
And um and so it was just this wide-ranging conversation fueled by two

257
00:14:18,360 --> 00:14:21,320
six packs of uh of beer.

258
00:14:21,480 --> 00:14:26,520
And then when I kind of walked out of there reeling, okay, this is gonna be a wild ride.

259
00:14:27,160 --> 00:14:32,990
Um, and it was, And but at that point, I still I was still very

260
00:14:32,990 --> 00:14:35,550
much in the sociocultural side of things.

261
00:14:35,630 --> 00:14:41,630
And I realized pretty quickly that when I had gone into anthropology,

262
00:14:41,710 --> 00:14:47,070
I thought it was a science, to be blunt.

263
00:14:48,670 --> 00:14:54,640
And I thought it was very much, you know, what, you know, sort of the program like

264
00:14:54,640 --> 00:15:00,400
Murdoch's program of trying to understand, you know, scientific models of

265
00:15:00,720 --> 00:15:02,640
human cultural diversity.

266
00:15:03,840 --> 00:15:09,360
And what I realized very quickly in my seminars was that

267
00:15:10,240 --> 00:15:14,730
many, many anthropologists were not really interested in understanding the world.

268
00:15:15,130 --> 00:15:16,570
They wanted to change the world.

269
00:15:17,530 --> 00:15:20,330
And so I had kind of a crisis early on.

270
00:15:20,490 --> 00:15:25,530
Do I really want to stick with this discipline that is much more focused on

271
00:15:25,530 --> 00:15:28,170
advocacy than science?

272
00:15:28,730 --> 00:15:32,730
And I realized, you know, I'm pretty late in my, I'm about 30 years old at this point.

273
00:15:32,810 --> 00:15:35,610
It's gonna be hard to have yet another career switch.

274
00:15:36,090 --> 00:15:41,860
And at this point, I hadn't taken uh I can't remember if I took into uh taken Tubi seminar.

275
00:15:42,020 --> 00:15:46,020
I know I was pretty skeptical of John's stuff even after taking his seminar.

276
00:15:46,180 --> 00:15:52,180
Um somehow John later became a really close personal friend, but was really rubbed me the

277
00:15:52,180 --> 00:15:52,580
wrong way.

278
00:15:53,300 --> 00:15:57,140
Do you remember what rubbed you the wrong way, what you took issue with as a young naive

279
00:15:57,220 --> 00:15:57,460
man?

280
00:15:57,780 --> 00:15:59,460
I don't know exactly.

281
00:15:59,700 --> 00:16:03,940
Uh there was I didn't see the logic of his approach yet.

282
00:16:04,020 --> 00:16:05,620
And I'll tell you how I got there.

283
00:16:05,780 --> 00:16:08,690
Um Once I saw it, I'm like, okay, now I get it.

284
00:16:08,850 --> 00:16:10,290
But I didn't get it at first.

285
00:16:10,450 --> 00:16:15,810
Even though I knew I was really excited to take his seminar at first, because the flyer had

286
00:16:15,810 --> 00:16:19,570
all the stuff that I exactly I was interested in: evolution of the human mind, cognition,

287
00:16:19,730 --> 00:16:23,490
hunter-gatherers, uh, ancestral environments, emotions.

288
00:16:23,650 --> 00:16:24,850
I was like, yes, this is it.

289
00:16:24,930 --> 00:16:28,610
And then I took the seminar and I was like, this is not it.

290
00:16:28,690 --> 00:16:30,290
Um, at least at first.

291
00:16:30,770 --> 00:16:36,540
Um, But at the same time, taking all I was going as a sociocultural anthropologist

292
00:16:36,940 --> 00:16:42,060
and really having to decide do I want to stay in this field, which is really focused on

293
00:16:42,380 --> 00:16:45,180
advocacy more than science in many ways.

294
00:16:45,340 --> 00:16:46,780
And I did decide to stick with it.

295
00:16:46,940 --> 00:16:48,140
I'm glad I did.

296
00:16:49,740 --> 00:16:55,710
But what uh what really got me to understand uh to be in cosmic

297
00:16:56,110 --> 00:17:01,390
perspective was I was having to study for my comprehensive exams in sociocultural

298
00:17:01,470 --> 00:17:02,190
anthropology.

299
00:17:02,750 --> 00:17:04,510
Comprehensive is like second year, is that right?

300
00:17:04,670 --> 00:17:05,550
Yeah, it was like second year.

301
00:17:05,710 --> 00:17:08,830
So it's for your at Santa Barbara, maybe it's still this way, I'm not sure.

302
00:17:08,990 --> 00:17:14,430
But um it was basically if you pass your comps, you get your MA, right, your master's, and

303
00:17:14,430 --> 00:17:16,510
then you can go on and sort of do your dissertation.

304
00:17:16,590 --> 00:17:21,660
So it's sort of like a um it's sort of like a hoop to catch people who may not be able to

305
00:17:21,660 --> 00:17:25,660
kind of sort of continue on in the program and make sure that you've got sort of enough uh

306
00:17:25,660 --> 00:17:30,220
conceptual knowledge before doing something like really in detail actual research.

307
00:17:30,540 --> 00:17:30,860
That's right.

308
00:17:30,940 --> 00:17:32,060
So it's a filter.

309
00:17:32,220 --> 00:17:38,060
And um I was sure I was going to get filtered because it was just tons

310
00:17:38,060 --> 00:17:42,060
of postmodernist theory and Marxist theory.

311
00:17:42,780 --> 00:17:45,630
And um it's hard to keep organized.

312
00:17:45,710 --> 00:17:49,790
Like even though it was really if there's not a lot of principles, it's hard to cut the

313
00:17:49,790 --> 00:17:49,790
organization.

314
00:17:49,950 --> 00:17:50,590
There wasn't a lot of principles.

315
00:17:51,150 --> 00:17:51,790
And so I was panicked.

316
00:17:51,870 --> 00:17:53,550
And so I said, you know what, I'm gonna do mine.

317
00:17:53,710 --> 00:17:57,950
At that point, they didn't have the separate, um, I don't know what they call it now, but

318
00:17:58,030 --> 00:18:01,710
you know, um evolutionary anthropology program that didn't exist.

319
00:18:02,270 --> 00:18:04,670
So, but you could do it as a specialization.

320
00:18:04,830 --> 00:18:07,150
So I said, you know what, this stuff is really easy.

321
00:18:07,310 --> 00:18:09,100
It's I can understand it.

322
00:18:09,180 --> 00:18:13,340
So I'm gonna just do my you could pick like two or three topics that you were gonna be your

323
00:18:13,340 --> 00:18:14,220
specialties for the conference.

324
00:18:14,540 --> 00:18:16,780
So I'm gonna pick that as one of them.

325
00:18:17,420 --> 00:18:20,780
And um just because I think it's easy to pass.

326
00:18:21,260 --> 00:18:26,060
And so you chose it not because you found it inherently promising or instead of No, I I

327
00:18:26,060 --> 00:18:26,220
didn't.

328
00:18:26,380 --> 00:18:28,060
I was actually inherently skeptical of it.

329
00:18:28,140 --> 00:18:29,820
I was like, this is okay, it's not the way to go.

330
00:18:30,140 --> 00:18:33,580
This is so funny, and because I think if you like I think you have the most knowledgeable

331
00:18:33,580 --> 00:18:37,310
person in the heavily behavior sites, and everything in your story is like, oh, there was a

332
00:18:37,310 --> 00:18:37,870
late deadline.

333
00:18:38,030 --> 00:18:40,910
I thought I was worried about sneaking in.

334
00:18:41,230 --> 00:18:42,670
Somehow you've you've really, yes.

335
00:18:43,230 --> 00:18:45,870
You've got to make up from the exactly.

336
00:18:45,950 --> 00:18:46,670
Yes, exactly.

337
00:18:46,910 --> 00:18:52,750
Um, but yeah, so I went to Don Simons and asked him, you know, what should I read for

338
00:18:52,750 --> 00:18:54,830
the the Evo comps here?

339
00:18:55,470 --> 00:19:00,270
Um and he said you should read blah blah blah, you should read George Williams, 1966.

340
00:19:00,430 --> 00:19:02,940
Um Adaptation National Soil Selection.

341
00:19:03,180 --> 00:19:03,980
Yeah, yeah, in course.

342
00:19:04,140 --> 00:19:05,260
And I'm like, it was 1963.

343
00:19:05,420 --> 00:19:06,940
Oh, come on, Don, isn't there something more recent?

344
00:19:07,020 --> 00:19:07,820
Do I really have to read this?

345
00:19:07,900 --> 00:19:09,500
You know, he's like, well, it's a classic.

346
00:19:09,580 --> 00:19:11,020
I'm like, okay, okay, I'll read it.

347
00:19:11,180 --> 00:19:14,060
And then once I read Williams, I'm like, now I get it.

348
00:19:14,380 --> 00:19:17,740
Tubi is applying Williams to the brain.

349
00:19:18,300 --> 00:19:19,500
And it all clicked.

350
00:19:19,580 --> 00:19:24,940
And then it just clicked, and now I'm, you know, my wife refers to me as as Tubi's Bulldog.

351
00:19:25,100 --> 00:19:25,740
So yeah.

352
00:19:26,380 --> 00:19:27,980
That's kind of how I see myself too.

353
00:19:28,140 --> 00:19:29,980
Yeah, that's a good, that's a good way of putting it.

354
00:19:30,060 --> 00:19:30,700
Yeah.

355
00:19:31,170 --> 00:19:32,770
So that's my that's my villain origin.

356
00:19:33,250 --> 00:19:34,610
Yeah, that's that's really cool.

357
00:19:34,850 --> 00:19:39,570
Um what what what do you have an idea of what clicked for Williams?

358
00:19:39,970 --> 00:19:45,730
Yeah, so I was in the heart, you know, I was in the natural sciences, and as a kid,

359
00:19:45,890 --> 00:19:51,170
I was your typical nerd, your geek into model rockets and robots and computers, you know,

360
00:19:51,250 --> 00:19:53,570
building my own computers from scratch.

361
00:19:53,810 --> 00:19:59,460
Um, it was all you know the the the stereotypical male adolescent

362
00:19:59,700 --> 00:20:02,340
into things and technology.

363
00:20:03,140 --> 00:20:09,140
And early on, I really recognized that

364
00:20:09,140 --> 00:20:12,980
human engineering pales in comparison to nature's engineering.

365
00:20:13,300 --> 00:20:16,900
That was just once you try to build anything and actually have to make something work.

366
00:20:17,220 --> 00:20:21,780
So I was trying to build electronic circuits and just all the challenges of controlling

367
00:20:21,780 --> 00:20:24,580
noise and timing and feedback loops and blah blah blah.

368
00:20:24,740 --> 00:20:26,180
You know, it just drives you nuts.

369
00:20:26,270 --> 00:20:28,030
Uh, or even just building simple things.

370
00:20:28,110 --> 00:20:32,030
Even earlier when I was younger, I would build, you know, these go-karts and you know, just

371
00:20:32,030 --> 00:20:35,710
getting getting them to work uh very, very hard.

372
00:20:35,870 --> 00:20:40,430
So and then you look at a mosquito and you're like, we can't even come close uh as humans

373
00:20:40,510 --> 00:20:41,070
to building some.

374
00:20:41,310 --> 00:20:43,230
So I recognize that was early on.

375
00:20:43,310 --> 00:20:49,150
I just had a kind of an appreciation for the engineering in nature, and that really came

376
00:20:49,150 --> 00:20:52,990
through in Williams, um, the adaptation part, the design part.

377
00:20:53,390 --> 00:20:59,280
Yeah, And so that's where I clicked with tubies, you know, cognitive design and tubian

378
00:20:59,440 --> 00:21:00,400
cosmeties.

379
00:21:00,640 --> 00:21:05,840
Um, and so that's still, I would say, what drives my underlying intuition about all this

380
00:21:06,000 --> 00:21:11,440
stuff is is um just kind of the uh nature's engineering genius.

381
00:21:11,920 --> 00:21:17,710
When I first met John uh after he and Lita and I had lunch, Uh

382
00:21:18,030 --> 00:21:24,030
he uh he and I had a moment after lunch uh and we were sitting together and he used

383
00:21:24,030 --> 00:21:25,950
that moment to be like, What does your dad do?

384
00:21:26,110 --> 00:21:30,830
And I was like, Well, he sort of like does process like he worked like basically he was a

385
00:21:30,830 --> 00:21:34,670
mechanical engineer, and he sort of smiled, you know, and he was like, 'What is your you

386
00:21:34,670 --> 00:21:36,750
know, like do you have siblings?' And I was like, Yeah, she's a chemical engineer.

387
00:21:36,910 --> 00:21:41,560
And he sort of smiled and he said, it's not everyone, but a lot of people in this have sort

388
00:21:41,560 --> 00:21:44,760
of an engineering thing in their background or in their family.

389
00:21:44,920 --> 00:21:48,200
Um my dad had a full machine shop, a full shop.

390
00:21:48,520 --> 00:21:49,400
Mine too, yeah.

391
00:21:49,720 --> 00:21:54,440
Uh we rebuilt all our cars, you know, from the ground up.

392
00:21:54,680 --> 00:21:58,760
And so it was just a thorough appreciation of of that.

393
00:21:59,160 --> 00:21:59,800
Yeah.

394
00:22:00,760 --> 00:22:01,400
Yeah.

395
00:22:02,950 --> 00:22:03,830
All right then.

396
00:22:03,990 --> 00:22:09,990
Well, uh so your first topic of study was that mental health stuff or

397
00:22:09,990 --> 00:22:10,950
or was it something else?

398
00:22:11,270 --> 00:22:12,550
It was meant to be, yes.

399
00:22:12,950 --> 00:22:16,870
Um so my master's was actually on delusional disorder.

400
00:22:16,950 --> 00:22:17,990
Um okay, yes.

401
00:22:18,070 --> 00:22:18,630
I remember that.

402
00:22:18,710 --> 00:22:21,590
It's I by the way, I think that's one of the most underrated papers.

403
00:22:21,670 --> 00:22:24,390
Your your paper on um on delusions.

404
00:22:24,550 --> 00:22:30,230
Um could you could you give us a quick uh synopsis of what the the main hypothesis there

405
00:22:30,390 --> 00:22:31,510
on on delusions?

406
00:22:31,820 --> 00:22:32,060
Yeah.

407
00:22:32,140 --> 00:22:37,260
And this is it's kind of part of the of the villain origin story here that some of my

408
00:22:38,060 --> 00:22:43,660
uh one of my best buddies girlfriends was clearly, you know, delusional.

409
00:22:43,900 --> 00:22:49,420
Um and it was just trying to understand her delusions,

410
00:22:49,820 --> 00:22:54,140
uh, just being you know the amateur ethnographer at that point.

411
00:22:54,620 --> 00:23:00,300
And um, she had this horrific background of sexual abuse, um,

412
00:23:01,450 --> 00:23:07,290
and so trying to understand, and then her delusions were all paranoid delusions that

413
00:23:07,290 --> 00:23:09,690
her stepfather was trying to assassinate her.

414
00:23:09,930 --> 00:23:15,930
And her stepfather was the super, super famous lawyer, basically was on the board of Brown

415
00:23:16,090 --> 00:23:20,890
uh Brown versus Board of Education case, was instrumental in the civil rights movement, but

416
00:23:20,890 --> 00:23:26,490
had this really dark backstory, and his son was sexually abusing his

417
00:23:26,490 --> 00:23:28,410
stepdaughter, this girlfriend.

418
00:23:30,800 --> 00:23:36,400
And so the basic idea is when you're really facing

419
00:23:36,400 --> 00:23:40,000
severe ostracism, humans we cannot survive without a group.

420
00:23:40,400 --> 00:23:43,040
We are obligatorily social.

421
00:23:44,160 --> 00:23:49,840
And yet, there's lots of reasons why we might get ostracized from a group,

422
00:23:50,080 --> 00:23:52,800
transgressions, conflicts.

423
00:23:53,200 --> 00:23:55,360
And that's basically a death sentence.

424
00:23:55,870 --> 00:23:59,390
And what are you gonna do if you if people aren't gonna cooperate with you?

425
00:23:59,470 --> 00:24:01,230
Um, you're screwed.

426
00:24:01,470 --> 00:24:05,550
And so my idea was that um you lie.

427
00:24:06,430 --> 00:24:12,190
Uh and you you you tell the biggest, most effective lies you possibly can in

428
00:24:12,190 --> 00:24:15,790
order to convince people that they still need you around.

429
00:24:16,030 --> 00:24:20,270
Maybe you have special information, you have special powers, uh, you have special

430
00:24:20,270 --> 00:24:22,110
connections to powerful people.

431
00:24:22,270 --> 00:24:28,260
And when you look at the themes of delusions, they match these powerful

432
00:24:28,260 --> 00:24:31,620
social themes of somebody's trying to assassinate you.

433
00:24:31,700 --> 00:24:34,340
So some powerful an external enemy.

434
00:24:34,660 --> 00:24:39,780
And as David, you know from your work, what really motivates in-group versus out-group,

435
00:24:39,940 --> 00:24:45,620
in-group solidarity is going to be really heightened by out-group hostility.

436
00:24:45,700 --> 00:24:51,630
So if you're being threatened by some powerful external force that could potentially uh

437
00:24:51,630 --> 00:24:53,710
solidify your position in the in-group.

438
00:24:53,790 --> 00:24:59,470
You have information about um these this powerful external threat or you have

439
00:24:59,790 --> 00:25:04,830
incredibly important information that everybody needs or you have special powers that would

440
00:25:04,830 --> 00:25:10,590
be useful to others or you have a sexual relationship with some powerful person.

441
00:25:10,670 --> 00:25:13,150
So people wouldn't would be afraid to cross you.

442
00:25:13,310 --> 00:25:18,180
And these are all things that are kind of difficult to verify, but it might be enough to

443
00:25:18,180 --> 00:25:23,940
tip the balance um in these really extreme cases of of um potentially

444
00:25:23,940 --> 00:25:29,380
lethal threats of ostracism so that's the basic idea and the idea is not yeah and the idea

445
00:25:29,380 --> 00:25:33,220
is not just to clarify for people listening because you know it's the range of people

446
00:25:33,220 --> 00:25:38,980
listening and and correct me if I'm wrong but it's not that a person is sort of de nouveau

447
00:25:39,990 --> 00:25:41,750
rationalizing this all out.

448
00:25:41,830 --> 00:25:47,270
It's that this is there's an evolved design that contingently is sort of looking for

449
00:25:47,830 --> 00:25:49,670
am I in this class of situation?

450
00:25:49,750 --> 00:25:51,110
It's this desperate situation.

451
00:25:51,270 --> 00:25:52,950
I don't have any other bargaining power.

452
00:25:53,110 --> 00:25:54,710
I'm about to be ostracized.

453
00:25:54,950 --> 00:26:00,550
And that the that sort of trips this thing, and then there's sort of the activation of

454
00:26:00,550 --> 00:26:03,830
these frames for whatever reason or whichever narrative is picked.

455
00:26:03,990 --> 00:26:08,440
Um, so it's not something that's sort of like quote unquote the person is coming up with,

456
00:26:08,520 --> 00:26:11,560
but it's the expression of this evolved design that was selected for.

457
00:26:11,880 --> 00:26:14,200
Yeah, there's not some underlying manipulative mode in the case.

458
00:26:14,360 --> 00:26:14,600
Exactly.

459
00:26:14,680 --> 00:26:20,120
That's yeah, it's it's a mechanism that triggers you, the the person uh the that's

460
00:26:20,120 --> 00:26:23,480
suffering these delusions, genuinely believes them.

461
00:26:23,640 --> 00:26:23,960
Right.

462
00:26:24,040 --> 00:26:29,800
Um, and is actually uh very good at getting evidence to back them up

463
00:26:29,960 --> 00:26:34,920
um and uh make very convincing case for their story.

464
00:26:35,240 --> 00:26:40,930
Um and so uh yes exactly it's it's it's not uh a

465
00:26:40,930 --> 00:26:46,050
secretively it is a manipulative strategy but not with some underlying

466
00:26:46,050 --> 00:26:51,250
manipulative motive uh underneath it um so that was the first idea um not

467
00:26:51,410 --> 00:26:57,250
surprisingly no uh I'm curious do you do you still uh having been in

468
00:26:57,250 --> 00:27:02,850
this field for a long time now how how has that hypothesis fared do you do you still

469
00:27:02,850 --> 00:27:05,380
subscribe to it um I still subscribe to it.

470
00:27:05,460 --> 00:27:09,700
Nobody else does, but I'll I'll stick with maybe that's my delusion, but uh I still think

471
00:27:09,700 --> 00:27:10,260
it's a good one.

472
00:27:10,740 --> 00:27:10,900
Yeah.

473
00:27:10,980 --> 00:27:13,540
No, I th I think it's definitely a compelling hypothesis.

474
00:27:13,700 --> 00:27:18,500
Um, but this this is a good segue into your other work on on mental health issues.

475
00:27:18,660 --> 00:27:24,500
So as we talked about the prevailing view in psychiatry and mental

476
00:27:24,500 --> 00:27:30,370
health research is that uh mental uh illnesses in general are are are dysfunctions.

477
00:27:30,530 --> 00:27:32,930
Uh depression itself is a chemical imbalance.

478
00:27:33,010 --> 00:27:37,570
We just need to rejinger the the right levels of neurotransmitters and we'll solve your

479
00:27:37,570 --> 00:27:37,810
problem.

480
00:27:38,050 --> 00:27:40,210
It's it's things breaking down.

481
00:27:40,450 --> 00:27:46,290
Um and you have a different view on what mental illness is.

482
00:27:46,610 --> 00:27:51,970
Uh how what is your view and how does it differ from from the uh conventional view?

483
00:27:52,450 --> 00:27:55,890
Yeah, so it's it's not a view of mental illness in general.

484
00:27:56,050 --> 00:28:01,560
Um the brain can dysfunction just like every other system in our body can dysfunction.

485
00:28:01,640 --> 00:28:07,240
We have autoimmune disorders, we have cardiac arrests, we have liver dysfunction, kidney

486
00:28:07,240 --> 00:28:09,720
failures, vision problems, so forth and so on.

487
00:28:09,880 --> 00:28:12,280
So the brain can dysfunction.

488
00:28:12,680 --> 00:28:18,600
And I strongly suspect that things like schizophrenia and which is distinct,

489
00:28:18,680 --> 00:28:22,120
uh which is actually you can distinguish from the delusional disorder that I was just

490
00:28:22,120 --> 00:28:22,520
talking about.

491
00:28:22,680 --> 00:28:28,350
Even though delusions are part of schizophrenia, they They're uh nosologically distinct.

492
00:28:28,590 --> 00:28:34,270
Um, but things like autism, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder probably are genuine

493
00:28:34,910 --> 00:28:37,310
uh uh cognitive dysfunctions.

494
00:28:37,550 --> 00:28:42,990
But if you look at depression and anxiety, quote unquote disorders, they really are

495
00:28:43,230 --> 00:28:43,950
different.

496
00:28:44,110 --> 00:28:47,550
Um and they're different in a number of different respects.

497
00:28:47,790 --> 00:28:53,070
First of all, unlike schizophrenia and autism, the environmental

498
00:28:53,440 --> 00:28:59,360
causation, the environmental component of depression is huge, whereas it's a really small

499
00:28:59,360 --> 00:29:04,160
component of schizophrenia, which is largely seems to be genetically heritable due to

500
00:29:04,160 --> 00:29:04,960
genetic variance.

501
00:29:05,040 --> 00:29:07,840
Um so you're referring to twin studies research where they compare.

502
00:29:08,160 --> 00:29:13,120
Twin studies research, GWAS research, um, genome-wide association studies, yeah.

503
00:29:13,520 --> 00:29:14,080
Exactly.

504
00:29:14,400 --> 00:29:19,120
And and those pretty clearly indicate that there's a really strong uh

505
00:29:20,270 --> 00:29:25,470
Contribution of genetic variation to things like schizophrenia and autism,

506
00:29:25,710 --> 00:29:30,990
unlike depression, where the heritability, the contribution of genetic variation to

507
00:29:30,990 --> 00:29:32,830
variation in depression is quite small.

508
00:29:33,230 --> 00:29:35,550
There is some, but it's quite small.

509
00:29:37,150 --> 00:29:41,870
And there is environmental components to always mental health problems, but with things

510
00:29:41,870 --> 00:29:45,470
like schizophrenia and autism, we don't really know what those environmental components

511
00:29:45,470 --> 00:29:45,710
are.

512
00:29:45,870 --> 00:29:48,120
With depression, we know it's adversity.

513
00:29:48,360 --> 00:29:50,280
Bad things happen to you and you get depressed.

514
00:29:50,360 --> 00:29:51,880
That's what we were just talking about.

515
00:29:51,960 --> 00:29:56,760
Um, and that's been shown very convincingly that um it's not just associated with

516
00:29:56,760 --> 00:30:00,760
depression, but that adversity is very likely causal.

517
00:30:01,080 --> 00:30:05,720
Um now that doesn't mean everybody that suffers adversity will get depressed, but pretty

518
00:30:05,720 --> 00:30:09,710
much everybody that's depressed has suffered adversity with rare exceptions.

519
00:30:09,790 --> 00:30:11,470
And there are some exceptions.

520
00:30:12,270 --> 00:30:17,870
But at least 80 to 85, maybe even 90% of the cases of depression have a clear link to some

521
00:30:17,870 --> 00:30:20,830
recent severe adverse event.

522
00:30:21,070 --> 00:30:26,670
It might be divorce, might be death of a loved one, might be sexual or physical

523
00:30:26,670 --> 00:30:31,790
abuse, might be loss of a job, financial problems, legal problems, something.

524
00:30:32,270 --> 00:30:38,180
But these are all things That would have had a very strong negative impact on our fitness.

525
00:30:38,340 --> 00:30:39,940
These are all common things.

526
00:30:40,260 --> 00:30:42,180
These are not new part of our new environment.

527
00:30:42,260 --> 00:30:48,020
And you know, there's not a person alive that hasn't had somebody die or

528
00:30:48,340 --> 00:30:52,100
been had at least some physical threat or had you know bad things happen to them.

529
00:30:52,260 --> 00:30:58,020
So these are the kinds of things that would have been very, very common and routine over

530
00:30:58,180 --> 00:30:58,980
evolutionary history.

531
00:30:59,060 --> 00:31:04,050
And when they happened, would very plausibly have had a negative impact on fitness.

532
00:31:04,210 --> 00:31:09,810
And so they should, we should have evolved some kind of adaptive response, some adaptations

533
00:31:10,130 --> 00:31:12,770
in response to these kinds of adversity.

534
00:31:13,250 --> 00:31:15,170
And when you look stuff should should feel bad.

535
00:31:15,330 --> 00:31:15,810
It should be bad.

536
00:31:15,970 --> 00:31:16,770
We would expect it to feel bad.

537
00:31:17,250 --> 00:31:20,290
We would expect it to feel bad because it's having a negative impact on your on your

538
00:31:20,290 --> 00:31:25,570
biological fitness if your parent dies or your child dies or your wife or husband dies.

539
00:31:25,970 --> 00:31:30,460
Um and so that's one thing that really distinguishes two things that really distinguish

540
00:31:30,460 --> 00:31:33,820
depression um and anxiety disorders from some of these other ones.

541
00:31:33,980 --> 00:31:35,820
And the other thing is they're really common.

542
00:31:35,980 --> 00:31:38,540
Um, so schizophrenia and autism are pretty rare.

543
00:31:38,620 --> 00:31:41,100
They're down at the one percent ish level.

544
00:31:41,340 --> 00:31:45,180
Um, depression is at least 10 times higher than that, if not more.

545
00:31:45,740 --> 00:31:51,450
Um and um schizophrenia and autism, lifelong

546
00:31:51,450 --> 00:31:56,570
conditions, and they develop early on in life, and you've got them for the rest of your

547
00:31:56,570 --> 00:31:57,690
life, typically.

548
00:31:57,850 --> 00:31:59,850
Um, not the case with depression.

549
00:32:00,010 --> 00:32:05,690
Um, typically, people will suffer one episode in their life if they suffer any episodes,

550
00:32:06,010 --> 00:32:11,980
and um they will have symptoms for several months, maybe up to a year or

551
00:32:11,980 --> 00:32:13,580
so, and then that's it.

552
00:32:13,740 --> 00:32:16,460
Um, and then they're back to normal after that.

553
00:32:16,620 --> 00:32:21,740
Again, very much unlike these these other much more plausible uh mental illnesses.

554
00:32:21,980 --> 00:32:22,140
Yeah.

555
00:32:23,500 --> 00:32:27,820
It's hard to reconcile that with the chemical because if it was a chemical, I mean you'd

556
00:32:27,820 --> 00:32:33,230
expect it to last presumably your whole life until you get uh you know an antidepressant or

557
00:32:33,230 --> 00:32:33,630
something like that.

558
00:32:33,710 --> 00:32:37,870
But it would be weird to just have your your your chemicals become imbalanced for a few

559
00:32:37,870 --> 00:32:41,630
months, you know, coincidentally when when hardship is happening and then go back to

560
00:32:41,630 --> 00:32:41,790
normal.

561
00:32:41,950 --> 00:32:45,870
Like that's that's a pretty strange thing to happen if under the the chemical imbalance

562
00:32:45,870 --> 00:32:46,030
view.

563
00:32:46,350 --> 00:32:47,310
Yeah, exactly.

564
00:32:47,470 --> 00:32:52,720
And um this actually makes it hard to test antidepressants because when you have your

565
00:32:52,720 --> 00:32:57,600
control group, their symptoms are decreasing just about as fast as they are under

566
00:32:58,000 --> 00:32:59,200
antidepressant regime.

567
00:32:59,520 --> 00:33:04,880
So distinguishing there's this very slight difference in those survival curves.

568
00:33:10,320 --> 00:33:12,400
It's not really, you know, a placebo effect.

569
00:33:12,560 --> 00:33:14,080
It's just that depressive symptoms.

570
00:33:14,960 --> 00:33:15,760
It's the baseline.

571
00:33:16,160 --> 00:33:16,640
It's the baseline.

572
00:33:16,960 --> 00:33:19,520
They tend to things resolve, you know, if you're having a problem.

573
00:33:19,760 --> 00:33:20,000
Yeah.

574
00:33:20,570 --> 00:33:25,930
Um, and when you take antidepressants, there is, you know, they may resolve slightly

575
00:33:25,930 --> 00:33:27,930
faster, very slightly.

576
00:33:28,170 --> 00:33:30,730
Um, but even that's not clear.

577
00:33:30,970 --> 00:33:35,770
Um, in in some sense, the jury is is kind of still out on antidepressants and if they're

578
00:33:35,770 --> 00:33:37,610
really doing anything.

579
00:33:37,850 --> 00:33:43,780
Um so you know, on a on the Hamilton scale, it's like two points out

580
00:33:43,780 --> 00:33:44,420
of whatever it is.

581
00:33:44,500 --> 00:33:46,340
I forget what the buttons like out of 30 points.

582
00:33:46,500 --> 00:33:51,540
It's a very limited effect size, very small effect size, about 0.3

583
00:33:51,860 --> 00:33:55,380
D.3, for those of you know that stuff.

584
00:33:56,660 --> 00:34:02,660
So yeah, so exactly as David said here, my idea is actually, you know, and is pretty

585
00:34:02,730 --> 00:34:05,850
much the same idea that most evolutionary people that have looked at this, they they have

586
00:34:05,850 --> 00:34:07,610
their own little spins on it.

587
00:34:07,850 --> 00:34:11,850
But it's basically just as as David said, um, when bad things happen, you should feel bad.

588
00:34:12,010 --> 00:34:15,770
And the reason you should feel bad is the same reason we feel bad when we get a physical

589
00:34:15,770 --> 00:34:17,850
injury and we feel physical pain.

590
00:34:18,090 --> 00:34:22,330
Uh, we need to know that something bad has happened um and we need to address it.

591
00:34:22,490 --> 00:34:26,000
Um, If you break your ankle, you need to see what you just did.

592
00:34:26,160 --> 00:34:28,320
You need to stop walking on your ankle.

593
00:34:29,200 --> 00:34:32,880
You need to, you know, sit down or whatever you're doing that broke your ankle.

594
00:34:32,960 --> 00:34:34,720
You need to learn whatever stupid thing you did.

595
00:34:34,800 --> 00:34:36,000
Don't do that again.

596
00:34:36,240 --> 00:34:42,000
So there's all kinds of rearrangements and learning that we need to

597
00:34:42,000 --> 00:34:46,400
make when we have a physical injury, and that's why we experience physical pain.

598
00:34:46,800 --> 00:34:52,230
And we very likely experience psychological pain for very analogous reasons.

599
00:34:52,310 --> 00:34:57,670
Um, that when bad things happen, if your wife is getting ready to leave you, uh, you better

600
00:34:57,670 --> 00:34:59,110
figure out what's going on here.

601
00:34:59,190 --> 00:35:01,510
Is there can you change your behavior?

602
00:35:01,830 --> 00:35:07,670
Um, or you know, should you learn what to not to do next time, uh the next time you get

603
00:35:07,670 --> 00:35:08,470
a mate?

604
00:35:08,710 --> 00:35:14,710
Um, or if um someone close to you dies, uh feeling bad won't bring

605
00:35:14,710 --> 00:35:19,900
that person back, but you may begin to really think about what you could do to prevent the

606
00:35:19,900 --> 00:35:22,780
death of another close person that's close to you.

607
00:35:22,860 --> 00:35:27,260
Um, what could you have done differently that might have made things you know travel down a

608
00:35:27,260 --> 00:35:28,220
different pathway?

609
00:35:28,700 --> 00:35:31,900
Or how can you live your life without this person that you were that you're doing?

610
00:35:32,060 --> 00:35:37,020
Or how can you exactly now um all those resources have disappeared or that social support

611
00:35:37,100 --> 00:35:37,740
or whatever it is?

612
00:35:37,820 --> 00:35:40,300
I need to now find alternative sources.

613
00:35:40,540 --> 00:35:45,100
So you do really need to think about these things um and learn from them and readjust your

614
00:35:45,100 --> 00:35:45,420
life.

615
00:35:45,770 --> 00:35:48,810
So it would be remarkable if we didn't feel bad.

616
00:35:48,970 --> 00:35:53,290
And when we look at depression, it's on a continuum, it's a continuous scale.

617
00:35:53,850 --> 00:35:59,690
And so when people suffer adversity, some people, you know,

618
00:35:59,850 --> 00:36:02,570
suffer less psychological pain, so they're not diagnosed.

619
00:36:02,730 --> 00:36:04,250
Some people suffer a little bit more.

620
00:36:04,410 --> 00:36:09,850
And that's because what looks like the same event, like a divorce, might be horrendous for

621
00:36:09,850 --> 00:36:13,210
some person, but not so bad for another person.

622
00:36:13,450 --> 00:36:19,360
So the levels of depression or you know psychological pain that we might

623
00:36:19,360 --> 00:36:25,280
experience to what on the surface looks to be a similar kind of adversity might really have

624
00:36:25,280 --> 00:36:27,920
very different implications for different individuals.

625
00:36:28,240 --> 00:36:33,520
So that I think is at least part of the explanation why not everybody is

626
00:36:33,520 --> 00:36:39,230
diagnosed as depressed every time there's someone dies or they get fired or

627
00:36:39,230 --> 00:36:40,830
there's a relationship breakup.

628
00:36:40,990 --> 00:36:45,070
And it's because those things have different implications for people in different

629
00:36:45,070 --> 00:36:46,110
circumstances.

630
00:36:46,670 --> 00:36:51,630
So grieving and mourning, um, and I mean what I've heard, you know, maybe you this is your

631
00:36:51,630 --> 00:36:53,790
expression, Ed, but it's almost like kind of going on strike.

632
00:36:53,950 --> 00:36:55,710
Like can you talk a little bit about the proximate?

633
00:36:55,790 --> 00:37:01,790
So like why is there a turning down of valuation or like feeling good or

634
00:37:01,790 --> 00:37:02,270
anything?

635
00:37:02,620 --> 00:37:02,940
Yeah.

636
00:37:03,180 --> 00:37:04,460
So go ahead, David.

637
00:37:04,780 --> 00:37:04,940
Yeah.

638
00:37:05,020 --> 00:37:09,900
So I mean, so this explains why the the feeling bad part of it, but that's not all of what

639
00:37:09,900 --> 00:37:10,540
depression is.

640
00:37:10,700 --> 00:37:16,380
It's not merely feeling bad that, you know, your spouse died, or you know, your you know

641
00:37:16,540 --> 00:37:21,500
your wife broke up with you or um or or whatever, you got fired from your job.

642
00:37:21,660 --> 00:37:26,070
It's not merely that you feel bad about these things, It's that you have lost your

643
00:37:26,070 --> 00:37:28,230
motivation to engage in everyday activities.

644
00:37:28,310 --> 00:37:29,270
You become dysfunctional.

645
00:37:29,350 --> 00:37:32,550
You can't do anything, can't get out of bed, you're not eating, you're not sleeping.

646
00:37:32,710 --> 00:37:36,550
So there's much more to depression than merely feeling bad about something bad that

647
00:37:36,550 --> 00:37:37,110
happened to you.

648
00:37:37,270 --> 00:37:39,270
So how can we explain this extra stuff?

649
00:37:39,750 --> 00:37:39,910
Yeah.

650
00:37:39,990 --> 00:37:44,070
And one of the big ones there is uh suicidality, thinking about killing yourself and

651
00:37:44,070 --> 00:37:45,510
sometimes falling through on that.

652
00:37:45,750 --> 00:37:46,870
So what the heck is going on?

653
00:37:46,950 --> 00:37:52,100
And that's where my contribution comes in, are these more severe symptoms.

654
00:37:52,820 --> 00:37:57,140
And our approach there is where we add a little bit on to the psychological pain

655
00:37:57,140 --> 00:37:59,780
hypothesis, which is an internal signal.

656
00:38:00,100 --> 00:38:03,540
Um, but there's also going to be external signals a lot of times.

657
00:38:03,620 --> 00:38:07,220
So again, with physical pain, you know, we it hurts.

658
00:38:07,620 --> 00:38:11,550
Uh, but a lot of times we give uh external signals.

659
00:38:11,790 --> 00:38:15,550
We have a sad face or we start crying or screaming.

660
00:38:15,790 --> 00:38:20,830
Um, so we're signaling our need to others.

661
00:38:21,070 --> 00:38:23,950
Um, and in many cases, others will respond.

662
00:38:24,030 --> 00:38:29,950
Again, as we talked about earlier, uh you know, humans are obligatory, uh obligatorily

663
00:38:30,270 --> 00:38:30,590
social.

664
00:38:31,150 --> 00:38:36,980
Um, and we have always lived in social groups, and in many

665
00:38:36,980 --> 00:38:41,700
cases, when we're suffering adversity, our social partners jump in, they are glad to help

666
00:38:41,700 --> 00:38:43,060
us, they value us.

667
00:38:43,780 --> 00:38:45,220
But that's not always the case.

668
00:38:45,540 --> 00:38:49,540
And this is kind of the theme that underlies a lot of my work on mental health: is that a

669
00:38:49,540 --> 00:38:53,540
lot of times when people are in need, they don't get the help they need.

670
00:38:53,860 --> 00:38:55,620
And that's because there's conflicts of interest.

671
00:38:55,700 --> 00:39:00,930
There's genuinely, if your wife is leaving you, uh, she's probably got good reasons for

672
00:39:00,930 --> 00:39:01,650
leaving you.

673
00:39:01,810 --> 00:39:03,890
Um, there's a conflict there.

674
00:39:04,210 --> 00:39:10,130
Um, if your spouse dies, you now need all the resources you were getting from them, from

675
00:39:10,130 --> 00:39:13,890
somebody else, but others may not have those resources to give.

676
00:39:14,210 --> 00:39:19,970
Um you uh you know are physically assaulted or sexually

677
00:39:19,970 --> 00:39:23,410
assaulted, you need protection, but that puts other people at risk.

678
00:39:23,570 --> 00:39:29,400
Um, So, what do you do when there's conflicts and you do have needs, but

679
00:39:29,400 --> 00:39:31,000
other people are unwilling to fill them?

680
00:39:31,080 --> 00:39:34,200
And that's where what David brought up, this idea of a strike.

681
00:39:34,600 --> 00:39:39,160
If you are valuable, you know, a living person is extremely valuable.

682
00:39:39,320 --> 00:39:42,600
You have all kinds of skills and knowledge and capabilities.

683
00:39:43,400 --> 00:39:48,930
So you have tremendous value to others potentially.

684
00:39:49,410 --> 00:39:54,530
And what we argue that things like all these symptoms that David brought up of your

685
00:39:54,530 --> 00:39:58,770
motivation dials down, you can't get out of bed, you may stop eating, you may think of

686
00:39:58,770 --> 00:40:03,730
killing yourself, what you're doing there is you're threatening to take away the value that

687
00:40:03,730 --> 00:40:05,730
you represent to others, take that away.

688
00:40:05,810 --> 00:40:07,650
And that's the idea of going on strike.

689
00:40:07,890 --> 00:40:13,810
So if workers aren't getting the salaries they need and deserve,

690
00:40:13,890 --> 00:40:15,780
um, And there's conflict with many, you know.

691
00:40:15,860 --> 00:40:18,820
Now, if management is good, they'll say, hey, I know you guys need it.

692
00:40:19,220 --> 00:40:22,740
But if they have conflicts with management, they're not going to necessarily get the salary

693
00:40:22,740 --> 00:40:23,540
increase they want.

694
00:40:23,700 --> 00:40:24,420
What do they do?

695
00:40:24,500 --> 00:40:25,700
They can withhold their labor.

696
00:40:25,780 --> 00:40:30,740
They can stop making the widgets, and the factory worker or the factory owners aren't gonna

697
00:40:30,740 --> 00:40:32,020
get their profit.

698
00:40:32,420 --> 00:40:34,980
And so now there's an incentive to bargain or negotiate.

699
00:40:35,060 --> 00:40:40,100
And so that's what we're arguing here: is that there's this signaling process where if

700
00:40:40,210 --> 00:40:46,050
people aren't getting the investment they need from social partners in times of

701
00:40:46,050 --> 00:40:49,090
need, they can bargain with their own value to others.

702
00:40:49,890 --> 00:40:54,690
If you don't invest in me, I'm not going to take care of the kids.

703
00:40:55,730 --> 00:40:59,570
If I'm your child, I might end up killing myself, and that is going to be devastating to

704
00:40:59,570 --> 00:41:00,450
your fitness.

705
00:41:00,600 --> 00:41:06,360
Um, if I'm your spouse, um, I'm not gonna be bringing home the bacon or doing child

706
00:41:06,360 --> 00:41:12,280
care and all the things that are valuable to you until you step up and

707
00:41:12,280 --> 00:41:15,400
we reach some agreement that we can both live with.

708
00:41:15,720 --> 00:41:21,240
So that's that's our kind of twist on the psychological pain story is that it involves a

709
00:41:21,240 --> 00:41:26,200
signaling component, an external signaling component, especially when there's when there's

710
00:41:26,200 --> 00:41:28,760
conflict with with your social partners.

711
00:41:29,000 --> 00:41:29,160
Right.

712
00:41:29,330 --> 00:41:30,530
And that's it.

713
00:41:30,850 --> 00:41:31,410
Go ahead, David.

714
00:41:31,570 --> 00:41:31,810
Go ahead.

715
00:41:32,050 --> 00:41:35,170
So would you view suicidality and self-harm?

716
00:41:35,410 --> 00:41:40,450
Would you view that as an extreme end of the continuum of this bargaining tactic?

717
00:41:40,530 --> 00:41:44,930
That I'm threatening, you know, the milder forms would be I'm going to withdraw uh my

718
00:41:44,930 --> 00:41:48,850
energy and investments in the relationship or in my everyday activities that would

719
00:41:48,850 --> 00:41:49,810
otherwise benefit you.

720
00:41:49,890 --> 00:41:53,330
But in the extreme end of the continuum, I'm going to actually hurt myself or threaten to

721
00:41:53,330 --> 00:41:57,490
kill myself, which would be the ultimate withdrawal of the value that I'm providing you.

722
00:41:57,960 --> 00:41:59,160
Yeah, exactly.

723
00:41:59,400 --> 00:42:03,880
And um, you know, you think about it, killing yourself is about the worst thing you can do

724
00:42:03,880 --> 00:42:04,600
to your own fitness.

725
00:42:04,760 --> 00:42:08,840
It really seems like the the antithesis of a fitness enhancing strategy.

726
00:42:09,000 --> 00:42:14,840
So what we're proposing is that exactly as David said, um We're going with Dave and

727
00:42:14,840 --> 00:42:15,640
David, just to clarify.

728
00:42:16,440 --> 00:42:19,640
And which is where she named that on your own.

729
00:42:20,920 --> 00:42:21,400
I'm David.

730
00:42:21,640 --> 00:42:23,080
I so think of me as the one with the id.

731
00:42:23,560 --> 00:42:25,560
I'm the I'm the less mature one.

732
00:42:26,120 --> 00:42:26,440
Okay.

733
00:42:27,430 --> 00:42:33,430
Um so sorry, we just completely Yeah, yeah, no, that's that I was gonna ask that at the

734
00:42:33,430 --> 00:42:33,830
outset.

735
00:42:34,070 --> 00:42:35,270
Uh you know, what what am I getting?

736
00:42:35,350 --> 00:42:36,710
And you're both Dave P's too.

737
00:42:36,790 --> 00:42:37,350
So what are we gonna do?

738
00:42:37,670 --> 00:42:38,870
We should have David Putts on.

739
00:42:38,950 --> 00:42:39,110
Yeah.

740
00:42:39,270 --> 00:42:39,510
I know.

741
00:42:39,750 --> 00:42:40,870
Yeah, exactly.

742
00:42:41,110 --> 00:42:47,110
Um so what we're proposing is because folks, you

743
00:42:47,110 --> 00:42:52,070
know, you know, healthy individuals are extremely valuable to others potentially, um,

744
00:42:53,270 --> 00:42:59,200
but that they may not be getting what they need from others, um, that they may either

745
00:42:59,200 --> 00:43:04,880
threaten to or actually engage in an act that with some low but non-zero probability could

746
00:43:04,880 --> 00:43:06,480
end up killing them.

747
00:43:06,880 --> 00:43:11,520
Um and for those uh listeners who are familiar with this, it's kind of a form of costly

748
00:43:11,520 --> 00:43:12,000
signaling.

749
00:43:12,080 --> 00:43:17,710
It's a credible signal that if you were being deceptive and just wanted more investment,

750
00:43:17,790 --> 00:43:21,950
even though you didn't really need it, you couldn't afford the cost of an actual suicide

751
00:43:21,950 --> 00:43:27,310
attempt where you're maybe taking a 1% chance of killing yourself or maybe a 10% chance.

752
00:43:31,870 --> 00:43:37,230
And the data showed that the vast majority of people who attempt suicide in fact survive

753
00:43:37,230 --> 00:43:37,390
it.

754
00:43:38,040 --> 00:43:43,720
And so, and the the ratio of attempts to completions in young adult women is

755
00:43:43,720 --> 00:43:45,240
100 to one or so.

756
00:43:45,480 --> 00:43:45,720
Wow.

757
00:43:46,120 --> 00:43:47,640
Might even be higher than that.

758
00:43:48,200 --> 00:43:53,000
And so what we're arguing here is that that folks say, okay, I'm not getting what I need.

759
00:43:53,160 --> 00:43:57,880
I'm going to do something and that everybody will recognize could have killed me, but

760
00:43:57,880 --> 00:43:58,520
probably won't.

761
00:43:58,760 --> 00:44:01,240
But if you don't then step up, I might do it again.

762
00:44:01,400 --> 00:44:04,770
And at some point are gonna lose me.

763
00:44:04,930 --> 00:44:10,930
And so this is a a costly but credible signal that you genuinely do

764
00:44:10,930 --> 00:44:13,170
need more investment, that you're not faking it.

765
00:44:14,930 --> 00:44:20,610
And you're gambling that you will survive the attempt and get

766
00:44:20,930 --> 00:44:26,440
that will be enough to convince your social partners that you actually do deserve the

767
00:44:26,440 --> 00:44:27,880
investment and need it.

768
00:44:28,840 --> 00:44:33,560
And so the evidence in favor of that is that when we look in the ethnographic record,

769
00:44:33,960 --> 00:44:38,760
suicidality is pretty common across cultures, including small-scale hunter-gatherer

770
00:44:38,760 --> 00:44:39,000
cultures.

771
00:44:39,240 --> 00:44:42,040
So it's not a modern, it's not a disease of modern civilization.

772
00:44:42,440 --> 00:44:43,160
That's right.

773
00:44:43,480 --> 00:44:48,120
And as far as we can tell, we see it in culture after culture.

774
00:44:48,450 --> 00:44:54,290
And it is ubiquitously associated with severe conflicts with social

775
00:44:54,530 --> 00:44:58,850
partners and folks that do survive the suicide.

776
00:44:59,170 --> 00:45:02,210
It's often a public sort of act.

777
00:45:02,370 --> 00:45:06,770
And then folks that survive often do get what they did.

778
00:45:07,010 --> 00:45:09,570
The person that was abusing them stops abusing them.

779
00:45:09,810 --> 00:45:12,450
The partner who left them comes back.

780
00:45:16,680 --> 00:45:20,920
uh the the issue gets resolved in their favor in many in many cases.

781
00:45:21,240 --> 00:45:26,760
So um not not not recommending doing it, but understanding doing it, not

782
00:45:26,920 --> 00:45:28,440
recommending doing it, just for the record.

783
00:45:28,680 --> 00:45:28,840
Yeah.

784
00:45:29,080 --> 00:45:34,040
No, I actually I have a question that is there any have you thought about like would a

785
00:45:34,680 --> 00:45:39,370
would an intervention sort of be teaching people this theory?

786
00:45:40,170 --> 00:45:40,490
Yeah.

787
00:45:40,570 --> 00:45:42,490
I so I I I should say this at the outset.

788
00:45:42,570 --> 00:45:44,410
You know, I I love my own theories.

789
00:45:44,570 --> 00:45:50,490
Uh but I I don't recommend that anybody uh put them into practice because they

790
00:45:50,490 --> 00:45:52,250
are far from being proven.

791
00:45:52,810 --> 00:45:56,970
We're really talking kind of theoretically just in the early stages of of these things.

792
00:45:57,050 --> 00:46:02,840
I I think many of us social scientists far too quickly jumped to wanting to implement

793
00:46:02,840 --> 00:46:04,840
our our latest pet theories.

794
00:46:05,480 --> 00:46:09,320
And then we've all seen many bad examples of that.

795
00:46:10,360 --> 00:46:15,640
So I we're definitely just talking theoretically here and hypothetically.

796
00:46:15,880 --> 00:46:20,120
But what would be the, and you know, to dig a little bit further in the weeds here, the

797
00:46:20,120 --> 00:46:25,870
problem is what is private information that the outsiders don't necessarily know how

798
00:46:25,870 --> 00:46:27,390
severe your need actually is.

799
00:46:27,550 --> 00:46:28,030
Right.

800
00:46:28,270 --> 00:46:30,830
Um, you could be faking it.

801
00:46:30,990 --> 00:46:31,870
There's conflict.

802
00:46:32,110 --> 00:46:37,630
Um, um, are you genuinely need or are you just uh looking for more?

803
00:46:37,950 --> 00:46:43,790
Um and so how do we, when there is this conflict, you know, are there ways to more

804
00:46:43,790 --> 00:46:49,550
credibly to reveal that private information without going down the

805
00:46:49,550 --> 00:46:51,380
road of a suicide attack.

806
00:46:51,700 --> 00:46:54,180
Um and that that might not be easy.

807
00:46:54,260 --> 00:46:59,220
Um, I think one of the big mistakes in psychiatry and therapy is that, you know, talking to

808
00:46:59,220 --> 00:47:03,380
a therapist is going to fix everything, but that therapist is not embedded in your

809
00:47:03,380 --> 00:47:03,700
community.

810
00:47:03,860 --> 00:47:05,380
They don't have any authority.

811
00:47:05,620 --> 00:47:10,100
Um, if your wife leaves you, the therapist has no influence over her.

812
00:47:10,740 --> 00:47:16,650
Uh and um and so how do we deal with

813
00:47:16,650 --> 00:47:22,330
situations where you know there's not any easy way to intervene in that person's complex

814
00:47:22,490 --> 00:47:24,090
conflictual social network?

815
00:47:24,410 --> 00:47:25,690
It doesn't mean it's impossible.

816
00:47:26,010 --> 00:47:31,050
I it's not, you know, but I am a little bit skeptical about how easy it's it's going to be

817
00:47:31,050 --> 00:47:33,450
to fix to actually improve things.

818
00:47:33,690 --> 00:47:37,610
Yeah, it's kind of the chemical imbalance thing where it's sort of like what you're saying

819
00:47:37,610 --> 00:47:40,570
is that it's a control and support issue.

820
00:47:40,900 --> 00:47:46,260
And what we don't want to do is just recapitulate the thing of you just sort of gloss that

821
00:47:46,260 --> 00:47:46,420
over.

822
00:47:46,580 --> 00:47:50,900
If somebody is in a situation where they they're being harmed or they need more support or

823
00:47:50,900 --> 00:47:54,980
they need more control in their life and they don't have it, the solution, the easy

824
00:47:54,980 --> 00:48:00,660
solution is to just turn off the alarm in the person's head that that's a problem, right?

825
00:48:00,820 --> 00:48:02,340
But that's a bad solution.

826
00:48:02,580 --> 00:48:08,210
A better solution is fix the lack of control, the harm, the

827
00:48:08,610 --> 00:48:09,410
those things.

828
00:48:09,570 --> 00:48:14,610
But that that is not something that you just pop a drug or an easy sort of social science

829
00:48:14,610 --> 00:48:15,090
intervention.

830
00:48:15,170 --> 00:48:18,130
That's changing the person's situation.

831
00:48:18,690 --> 00:48:18,850
Yeah.

832
00:48:18,930 --> 00:48:20,690
And I have two comments on that.

833
00:48:20,770 --> 00:48:25,490
One, when we think about physical pain, you break your ankle and you go to the hospital and

834
00:48:25,490 --> 00:48:30,290
you expect them to set your ankle, put some pins in, put a cast on, but they'll also give

835
00:48:30,290 --> 00:48:31,010
you a painkiller.

836
00:48:31,480 --> 00:48:37,400
but they won't do that until they've actually fixed the painkiller until they see

837
00:48:37,400 --> 00:48:37,640
it.

838
00:48:38,280 --> 00:48:43,240
And that's what we're doing with kind of depression therapy now with antidepressants, is

839
00:48:43,240 --> 00:48:45,960
we're giving you the painkiller, but without fixing the problem.

840
00:48:46,280 --> 00:48:51,240
So it does suggest there might be a role for a psychological painkiller, but only in

841
00:48:51,240 --> 00:48:56,350
combination with genuine solutions to the social conflicts and social problems and

842
00:48:56,350 --> 00:48:59,070
adversity that actually exists.

843
00:48:59,230 --> 00:49:00,830
Um, so that'd be point number one.

844
00:49:00,990 --> 00:49:05,150
Point number two is we we kind of have, as humans, we have a moral system.

845
00:49:05,310 --> 00:49:07,790
Some people are on the right side and other on the wrong side.

846
00:49:07,870 --> 00:49:13,790
So your wife leaves you, uh, she could be the selfish person, um, or you could

847
00:49:13,790 --> 00:49:14,910
be a jerk.

848
00:49:15,150 --> 00:49:19,520
Um, and so when there's conflict and you have adversity, and you know, maybe you got fired

849
00:49:19,520 --> 00:49:22,640
from your job, but maybe you should have been fired, maybe you were stealing from the

850
00:49:22,640 --> 00:49:23,760
company or something.

851
00:49:23,920 --> 00:49:28,960
Um, so people have adversity sometimes because they are, you know, the innocent victim, but

852
00:49:28,960 --> 00:49:31,120
other times because they're the guilty victim.

853
00:49:31,280 --> 00:49:36,320
We can't always assume that the folks in need are what the public would

854
00:49:36,960 --> 00:49:40,080
judge as uh sort of innocent victims of adversity.

855
00:49:40,240 --> 00:49:42,160
They might be guilty victims of adversity.

856
00:49:42,240 --> 00:49:47,750
And so that's going to make it even more complicated to address a lot of times that that

857
00:49:47,750 --> 00:49:53,750
folks that are suicidal um and we don't want that to happen but may

858
00:49:53,750 --> 00:49:57,750
have really genuinely transgressed against others or or done things that they really

859
00:49:57,750 --> 00:49:59,030
shouldn't have done.

860
00:49:59,590 --> 00:50:02,790
And that's going to make it all the more complicated to to kind of deal with their

861
00:50:02,790 --> 00:50:03,670
situation, I think.

862
00:50:05,740 --> 00:50:08,540
Um David, do you have something else on this?

863
00:50:08,620 --> 00:50:09,980
Because I was going to do a transition.

864
00:50:10,380 --> 00:50:12,380
Uh one last question.

865
00:50:12,540 --> 00:50:17,740
Um, could this potentially explain the limited benefits you see uh from

866
00:50:17,740 --> 00:50:18,780
psychotherapy?

867
00:50:19,020 --> 00:50:24,700
So if you are deprived of you know social support, people who are listening to your

868
00:50:24,700 --> 00:50:29,730
problems and offering solutions, people who are there for you, um, that if you're deprived

869
00:50:29,730 --> 00:50:34,770
of that, and that's one of the causes of your depression, that regularly seeing someone who

870
00:50:34,770 --> 00:50:39,970
is compassionately listening to you could help to alleviate some of that, or at least the

871
00:50:39,970 --> 00:50:44,690
perception of social conflict, could give you the perception that at least some someone is

872
00:50:44,690 --> 00:50:48,690
out there who cares about you, and that and that could be responsible for for some of these

873
00:50:48,690 --> 00:50:50,690
limited uh benefits of psychotherapy.

874
00:50:51,020 --> 00:50:51,260
Yeah.

875
00:50:51,340 --> 00:50:55,900
And folks that are in the evolutionary psychiatry realm recognize, you know, this is sort

876
00:50:55,900 --> 00:50:59,500
of the alliance with your therapist that this is going to be now your social partner.

877
00:50:59,580 --> 00:51:01,500
They're genuinely on your side.

878
00:51:01,740 --> 00:51:06,700
And you can develop this trusting relationship where you may begin to get some of that

879
00:51:06,700 --> 00:51:07,100
stuff.

880
00:51:07,260 --> 00:51:12,860
Um, and so in some cases, that could explain some of the really important benefits of

881
00:51:13,100 --> 00:51:13,980
therapy.

882
00:51:14,220 --> 00:51:15,180
Absolutely.

883
00:51:15,340 --> 00:51:20,270
Um, and then the limitations would be that the therapist can't intervene in your actual

884
00:51:20,270 --> 00:51:21,310
life in many cases.

885
00:51:21,470 --> 00:51:22,750
And I'll give you an anecdote.

886
00:51:22,910 --> 00:51:28,190
One of my colleagues and good friends in evolutionary psychiatry, Andy Thompson.

887
00:51:29,630 --> 00:51:32,590
You know, he and I have been talking about this stuff for years and years now.

888
00:51:32,670 --> 00:51:35,790
And he's kind of as a he's a psychiatrist.

889
00:51:35,870 --> 00:51:37,790
Um, and he works in student health.

890
00:51:37,870 --> 00:51:43,870
And so he's seeing students with often severe issues like being suicidal.

891
00:51:44,360 --> 00:51:50,360
And he just told me this one anecdote that he had one, and I can't remember the precise

892
00:51:50,360 --> 00:51:53,640
details here, but he had one patient come in, one student.

893
00:51:54,760 --> 00:51:56,600
And it was really the stereotypical thing.

894
00:51:56,680 --> 00:52:00,680
You know, his parents were really pressuring him to be an engineer and major in

895
00:52:00,680 --> 00:52:01,320
engineering.

896
00:52:01,400 --> 00:52:03,640
And he was trying to do that, but he hated it.

897
00:52:03,800 --> 00:52:08,520
And what he really wanted to do was, you know, the arts and theater, something like this.

898
00:52:08,600 --> 00:52:10,440
I can't remember the exact details.

899
00:52:11,590 --> 00:52:15,190
And he was suicidal about this conflict with his parents.

900
00:52:15,670 --> 00:52:21,590
And um, but because Andy was, you know, a school therapist, he could actually call

901
00:52:21,590 --> 00:52:22,150
the parents.

902
00:52:22,230 --> 00:52:23,110
And he basically did.

903
00:52:23,190 --> 00:52:27,670
He called the parents and said, You really need to let your son drop out of engineering and

904
00:52:27,670 --> 00:52:29,430
switch to a major whether he wants to.

905
00:52:29,590 --> 00:52:31,590
And the parents immediately relented.

906
00:52:31,750 --> 00:52:34,550
And literally, like a week later, this guy was fine.

907
00:52:34,710 --> 00:52:40,230
Um so in that anecdote where the therapist really did intervene in the conflict and change

908
00:52:40,230 --> 00:52:46,220
things in the patient's favor, or at least um in that one, you know, n equals

909
00:52:46,220 --> 00:52:48,540
one case, uh, it really seemed to help a lot.

910
00:52:49,660 --> 00:52:50,220
So it's interesting.

911
00:52:50,300 --> 00:52:56,220
So it it it suggests that this model of the disinterested, dispassionate therapist

912
00:52:56,220 --> 00:53:01,660
who doesn't intervene and isn't your friend, but is just a you know uh

913
00:53:02,140 --> 00:53:07,180
a professional, uh I don't know, mm psyche uh repairer.

914
00:53:07,450 --> 00:53:12,410
um, that this picture is actually could be counterproductive in terms of helping solve

915
00:53:12,410 --> 00:53:12,970
people's problems.

916
00:53:13,050 --> 00:53:17,290
That really what the people who come to see a therapist what they need is additional social

917
00:53:17,290 --> 00:53:18,810
support that they're currently not getting.

918
00:53:18,890 --> 00:53:23,530
And insofar as that social support is provided, their their problems may well be improved.

919
00:53:23,770 --> 00:53:26,650
Um w is there something to that?

920
00:53:27,460 --> 00:53:28,020
Maybe.

921
00:53:28,180 --> 00:53:31,780
I I don't wanna, you know, there's my theory, there's the theories, and then there's the

922
00:53:31,860 --> 00:53:32,500
real world.

923
00:53:32,660 --> 00:53:37,620
Uh and the real world is obviously way more complicated, but I I do think there is is

924
00:53:37,620 --> 00:53:38,900
something to that.

925
00:53:39,140 --> 00:53:45,060
Um and um you know, I and there there

926
00:53:45,140 --> 00:53:51,050
there is, you know, there is a strand of there's family therapy and in where they do bring

927
00:53:51,050 --> 00:53:54,650
in the family but that sort of presupposes that the conflict is family oriented which in

928
00:53:54,650 --> 00:53:59,770
many cases especially with adolescents it is um so there they're kind of kind of putting

929
00:53:59,770 --> 00:54:05,610
into practice what I'm advocating here to to think about um but in other

930
00:54:05,610 --> 00:54:11,580
cases the conflict is is not family it's at your job or um it's with some romantic

931
00:54:11,580 --> 00:54:14,860
partner that is just out of the picture at this point.

932
00:54:15,420 --> 00:54:17,740
Or it's not about that kind of conflict.

933
00:54:17,820 --> 00:54:21,820
It's, you know, your spouse has died and you're not, it's the neighborhood that's not

934
00:54:21,820 --> 00:54:26,380
getting together to help you, or your your social, you know, your broader social network

935
00:54:26,380 --> 00:54:29,740
that was really, you didn't really realize, but was really through your spouse.

936
00:54:29,980 --> 00:54:35,230
And now that they're dead, um all of the people you thought were your mutual friends um

937
00:54:35,470 --> 00:54:40,830
turned out to be you know his friends or her friends and um that social network begins to

938
00:54:40,830 --> 00:54:45,710
deteriorate and the therapist doesn't have any any power over that so

939
00:54:46,510 --> 00:54:51,230
yeah uh is the disinterested you know standoff kind of um

940
00:54:53,310 --> 00:54:58,270
um type is that the way to go there there may be uh you know there's obviously more

941
00:54:58,270 --> 00:55:04,260
complications here um but um it would take a lot

942
00:55:04,260 --> 00:55:10,180
of work to really work out the the you know a lot of the evolutionary psychiatrists

943
00:55:10,180 --> 00:55:15,940
do have like Randy Nessie, you know, he he actually is a therapist and and um

944
00:55:15,940 --> 00:55:16,980
works with patients.

945
00:55:17,140 --> 00:55:20,580
And so um and he's put a lot of this stuff into practice.

946
00:55:20,660 --> 00:55:24,500
And um I'm not quite sure exactly what he would say, but I'd say I think he would not

947
00:55:24,500 --> 00:55:26,900
necessarily my theories, but his very similar theories.

948
00:55:27,050 --> 00:55:29,690
He seems, I mean, I having read his book, we should probably have him on the podcast, by

949
00:55:29,690 --> 00:55:34,890
the way, but having re having read his his book, he seems to uh be less of the

950
00:55:34,890 --> 00:55:40,170
disinterested therapist and tends to be more of an active uh supporter for his patients.

951
00:55:40,570 --> 00:55:45,210
I remember one anecdote where um there was this guy who was doing these death-defying uh

952
00:55:45,210 --> 00:55:49,930
motorcycle races and he was suffering uh anxiety and fear about them because you know

953
00:55:50,010 --> 00:55:54,560
people have died doing these kinds of stunts, And he wanted uh something to take the edge

954
00:55:54,560 --> 00:55:54,720
off.

955
00:55:54,880 --> 00:55:58,400
He wanted his fear to be reduced so that he could continue doing these death-defying

956
00:55:58,400 --> 00:55:59,440
motorcycle stunts.

957
00:55:59,760 --> 00:56:03,600
And he actually, Randy actually introduced and said, No, I'm not gonna give you that.

958
00:56:03,760 --> 00:56:07,680
Like your your fear system is telling you something important that your life is at risk.

959
00:56:07,840 --> 00:56:11,360
And if I were to give you medication to reduce that, I would be doing you a disservice.

960
00:56:11,520 --> 00:56:13,680
I would be increasing the chance that you die.

961
00:56:13,840 --> 00:56:18,000
And so what you need to do is is not what you need to do is is is look into other

962
00:56:18,690 --> 00:56:20,530
activities for yourself that are safer.

963
00:56:20,690 --> 00:56:25,970
Uh and so that seems to be at least crossing some boundaries between the therapist and the

964
00:56:25,970 --> 00:56:26,290
patient.

965
00:56:26,370 --> 00:56:30,690
And it's interesting that, you know, he crosses those boundaries in those ways, perhaps

966
00:56:30,690 --> 00:56:32,290
informed by his his perspective.

967
00:56:32,530 --> 00:56:32,690
Yeah.

968
00:56:32,770 --> 00:56:37,490
And I think many people that work in evolutionary psychiatry, but also then also work with

969
00:56:37,490 --> 00:56:39,970
patients, uh, would would take a similar approach.

970
00:56:40,130 --> 00:56:45,410
Many of them have mentioned sort of kind of being the allies of their patients.

971
00:56:45,490 --> 00:56:48,720
Um for these reasons exactly.

972
00:56:49,200 --> 00:56:55,200
So uh earlier um in the podcast, one episode I talked about Edward Bernays, who was

973
00:56:55,200 --> 00:56:58,320
sort of the father of sort of um public relations.

974
00:56:58,640 --> 00:57:03,440
And one of the things I mentioned was that one of his first projects was convincing women

975
00:57:03,440 --> 00:57:06,240
who were not at the time smoking to smoke.

976
00:57:06,640 --> 00:57:12,000
Um, and so this is a way of bringing up this uh this thing that you um

977
00:57:12,320 --> 00:57:16,000
talk about, which is sort of use of drugs.

978
00:57:16,450 --> 00:57:20,530
Um, and every time I drink a cup of a cup of coffee now, I think a little bit, there's a

979
00:57:20,530 --> 00:57:23,970
little Ed Hagan on my shoulder saying, you're drinking pesticide.

980
00:57:25,490 --> 00:57:30,850
And so um so this is sort of an invitation to sort of um and and I remember seeing your

981
00:57:30,850 --> 00:57:36,850
talks when you were talking about um cigarette smoking um and uh and just the

982
00:57:36,850 --> 00:57:41,320
numbers of of deaths uh was staggering.

983
00:57:41,480 --> 00:57:47,400
Um so so I don't know, yeah, if you want to start either with coffee or cigarettes, um uh

984
00:57:47,560 --> 00:57:53,000
but but can you talk a little bit and maybe also like how did you get into that from

985
00:57:53,000 --> 00:57:53,800
depression?

986
00:57:54,360 --> 00:57:57,400
Uh yeah maybe there is a segue.

987
00:57:57,560 --> 00:58:01,970
So uh it turns out that folks with mental health issues are heavy drug users.

988
00:58:02,610 --> 00:58:08,450
Um, and so one of my um started doing this um as graduate students, Roger

989
00:58:08,450 --> 00:58:09,250
Sullivan and I.

990
00:58:09,330 --> 00:58:13,810
We were both anthropologists, we were both working in on mental health issues.

991
00:58:13,890 --> 00:58:17,970
I was working more on depression, he was working more on schizophrenia, we were both taking

992
00:58:17,970 --> 00:58:23,410
an evolutionary perspective, and he was uh visiting from um

993
00:58:24,200 --> 00:58:28,600
Auckland to Santa Barbara to do a year at Santa Barbara.

994
00:58:28,760 --> 00:58:33,320
And so we were both really interested like what the heck is going on with the heavy drug

995
00:58:33,320 --> 00:58:35,560
use by folks with mental health problems.

996
00:58:35,720 --> 00:58:38,760
And so Roger was working in Palau with schizophrenics.

997
00:58:38,840 --> 00:58:44,680
And you know, these guys were using tobacco and betelnut and other uh drugs

998
00:58:44,920 --> 00:58:45,720
copiously.

999
00:58:45,800 --> 00:58:47,960
And this is a really common pattern.

1000
00:58:48,120 --> 00:58:49,560
It's widely recognized.

1001
00:58:50,040 --> 00:58:55,890
And this was a this was a group of people who were in a a sort of um weird society

1002
00:58:55,970 --> 00:58:57,410
or in sort of a more hunter or horror.

1003
00:58:57,730 --> 00:58:58,690
They were more traditional.

1004
00:58:58,850 --> 00:59:04,530
That's it's an island kind of basic island type, you know, heavy kin based non- So maybe

1005
00:59:04,530 --> 00:59:09,250
not like a medical, maybe no not like psychiatrists or psychologists available, right?

1006
00:59:09,650 --> 00:59:14,450
Well, they did have a clinic and so Roger got access to the patients through the clinic

1007
00:59:14,450 --> 00:59:14,690
there.

1008
00:59:15,170 --> 00:59:15,570
Okay, great.

1009
00:59:15,650 --> 00:59:21,000
And so they they were kind of um and um I don't know if the if the clinicians were Western

1010
00:59:21,000 --> 00:59:23,240
trained or not, but probably they were basing.

1011
00:59:23,480 --> 00:59:23,720
Yeah, yeah.

1012
00:59:23,960 --> 00:59:28,120
Um, but Roger was able to kind of see how these symptoms played out in a much more

1013
00:59:28,120 --> 00:59:29,160
traditional context.

1014
00:59:29,320 --> 00:59:30,920
I don't think they would play out here.

1015
00:59:31,160 --> 00:59:36,680
So we we started thinking about um, you know, what's up with with the heavy drug use.

1016
00:59:37,240 --> 00:59:43,130
Um and um we decided that we want to take an

1017
00:59:43,130 --> 00:59:45,370
evolutionary approach to this, obviously.

1018
00:59:45,690 --> 00:59:51,130
And so we started like, what are the evolutionary origins of all these drugs?

1019
00:59:52,330 --> 00:59:57,290
Let's not so much think about the drug use to begin with, but you know, why do tobacco

1020
00:59:57,290 --> 00:59:58,810
plants produce nicotine?

1021
00:59:58,970 --> 01:00:00,970
Why do coffee plants produce caffeine?

1022
01:00:01,130 --> 01:00:03,450
Why do coca plants produce cocaine?

1023
01:00:03,610 --> 01:00:07,880
Why do cannabis plants produce THC and other cannabinoids.

1024
01:00:08,360 --> 01:00:11,960
I just want to interject one one quickly, uh one one uh thought real quickly.

1025
01:00:12,040 --> 01:00:17,720
Um I think it's a beautiful example of how the evolutionary approach causes you to ask

1026
01:00:17,720 --> 01:00:21,240
questions that you would otherwise not think to ask.

1027
01:00:21,800 --> 01:00:26,280
So why do plants have properties that make human beings high?

1028
01:00:26,520 --> 01:00:31,080
Like that out of all of the chemical properties that a plant could have, it's kind of

1029
01:00:31,080 --> 01:00:36,730
curious that it would have a property that i elicits pleasure and and pleasurable

1030
01:00:36,730 --> 01:00:39,610
psychological states in uh apes like us.

1031
01:00:39,850 --> 01:00:44,330
So I think just asking that question is is a really important question to ask.

1032
01:00:44,490 --> 01:00:45,930
So continue continue, sorry to interject.

1033
01:00:46,170 --> 01:00:47,690
Yeah, no, that's that's exactly right.

1034
01:00:47,850 --> 01:00:53,690
So we uh of course knew that um these things are all what we call plant

1035
01:00:53,770 --> 01:00:59,580
defensive chemicals, that tobacco is producing nicotine, not so we

1036
01:00:59,580 --> 01:01:04,940
can produce cigarettes, but as um a way to defend itself against herbivores.

1037
01:01:05,180 --> 01:01:07,980
So nicotine is a highly toxic substance.

1038
01:01:08,060 --> 01:01:09,500
It's a neurotoxin.

1039
01:01:09,900 --> 01:01:13,100
Um people commit suicide with nicotine pesticides.

1040
01:01:13,180 --> 01:01:14,860
It's a really effective pesticide.

1041
01:01:14,940 --> 01:01:16,460
It's uh used by organic farmers.

1042
01:01:16,620 --> 01:01:18,140
It's actually still pretty widely used.

1043
01:01:18,220 --> 01:01:18,460
Go ahead.

1044
01:01:18,940 --> 01:01:24,930
That only intensifies the mystery that a toxic substance is pleasurable to the

1045
01:01:24,930 --> 01:01:25,650
to the human brain.

1046
01:01:25,890 --> 01:01:29,330
Yeah, these things, the the the popular drugs can kill you.

1047
01:01:29,410 --> 01:01:31,090
So you can kill yourself with caffeine.

1048
01:01:31,170 --> 01:01:32,530
It's a little harder with caffeine.

1049
01:01:32,610 --> 01:01:34,850
You can kill yourself with nicotine easily.

1050
01:01:35,010 --> 01:01:38,770
You can kill yourself with cocaine, heroin easily.

1051
01:01:39,330 --> 01:01:44,770
And these things are are very, very potent neurotoxins, and plants evolve them

1052
01:01:45,090 --> 01:01:48,130
to deter herbivores from eating them.

1053
01:01:48,450 --> 01:01:51,700
And um so that's exactly where we started.

1054
01:01:51,860 --> 01:01:54,340
Why would and then how do they do that?

1055
01:01:54,500 --> 01:01:58,180
They do that by mimicking our endogenous neurotransmitters.

1056
01:01:58,340 --> 01:02:01,060
So nicotine mimics acetylcholine.

1057
01:02:02,660 --> 01:02:07,620
And cocaine, these mimic dopamine and other neurotransmitters.

1058
01:02:07,940 --> 01:02:11,940
And so caffeine mimics adenosine.

1059
01:02:13,090 --> 01:02:17,410
And that's plants based, and these neurotransmitter systems are not unique to humans.

1060
01:02:17,490 --> 01:02:20,930
They're widespread among animals, including insect herbivores.

1061
01:02:21,970 --> 01:02:24,290
They're ancient, ancient systems.

1062
01:02:24,610 --> 01:02:29,570
And so plants have evolved compounds that mimic these systems to basically gum up the

1063
01:02:29,570 --> 01:02:33,330
works, to interfere with cellular signaling, neural signaling.

1064
01:02:33,740 --> 01:02:35,820
That's how venoms work as well.

1065
01:02:36,060 --> 01:02:37,820
Same, same basic principle.

1066
01:02:38,300 --> 01:02:43,100
And that means the plant really only has to produce a small quantity of this extremely

1067
01:02:43,100 --> 01:02:48,460
deadly toxic substance and infuse it into its leaves in order to deter

1068
01:02:48,780 --> 01:02:49,580
herbivores.

1069
01:02:49,820 --> 01:02:53,980
So the idea with an herbivore is sort of like if I'm an herbivore, I have an evolved system

1070
01:02:53,980 --> 01:02:57,980
that sort of detects something in my works is gummed up.

1071
01:02:58,140 --> 01:02:59,020
Don't eat this again.

1072
01:02:59,260 --> 01:02:59,420
Yeah.

1073
01:02:59,500 --> 01:03:04,530
And in us humans and um mammals and many vertebrates, it's taste receptors.

1074
01:03:04,610 --> 01:03:08,530
So we have these bitter taste receptors on our tongues and in our oral cavities.

1075
01:03:08,690 --> 01:03:11,250
Actually, we express them in many tissues, it turns out.

1076
01:03:12,690 --> 01:03:17,490
And these respond uh quite quickly to toxic substances.

1077
01:03:17,890 --> 01:03:22,290
Um and so all of these drugs of abuse taste bitter.

1078
01:03:22,370 --> 01:03:25,570
Um, in fact, our body recognizes them as toxic very quickly.

1079
01:03:25,730 --> 01:03:31,410
Anybody who remembers the their first cigarette um probably remembers feeling pretty queasy

1080
01:03:31,720 --> 01:03:32,840
afterwards.

1081
01:03:33,560 --> 01:03:38,360
And so Roger and I, to, to kind of get back, we were trying to think, you know, what what

1082
01:03:38,520 --> 01:03:43,720
benefits might there be to um you know

1083
01:03:44,040 --> 01:03:49,640
taking substances that mimic neurotransmitters that are highly

1084
01:03:49,640 --> 01:03:50,440
toxic.

1085
01:03:50,680 --> 01:03:55,160
And as we were thinking about our um folks with these mental health issues like

1086
01:03:55,160 --> 01:04:00,150
schizophrenia and stuff, of course, a lot of the reigning theories of of those disorders

1087
01:04:00,150 --> 01:04:02,630
are neurotransmitter signaling deficits.

1088
01:04:02,870 --> 01:04:08,070
So our kind of early idea, which we haven't really followed up on too much, but was could,

1089
01:04:08,390 --> 01:04:12,070
and I still think there might be something to this, could these compounds kind of act as

1090
01:04:12,070 --> 01:04:14,870
neurotransmitter substitutes in small quantities?

1091
01:04:15,030 --> 01:04:19,190
Um, if in fact schizophrenia has something to do with some disruption of, let's say,

1092
01:04:19,350 --> 01:04:24,630
dopamine signaling, could taking a dopamine analog, you know, partially

1093
01:04:24,630 --> 01:04:27,320
compensate for those deficits.

1094
01:04:28,440 --> 01:04:31,240
And so that's kind of where we we started out.

1095
01:04:32,920 --> 01:04:37,720
But the more we began to think about it, the more we realized, hey, these things evolve to

1096
01:04:37,720 --> 01:04:39,960
kill plant parasites, basically.

1097
01:04:40,200 --> 01:04:45,880
And if they kill plant parasites, they they might kill our parasites as well.

1098
01:04:46,440 --> 01:04:52,280
And so the more we looked into that hypothesis, the stronger it got that um,

1099
01:04:52,600 --> 01:04:58,450
and we really began to focus on uh intestinal worms because these

1100
01:04:58,450 --> 01:05:00,690
are kind of macroscopic animals with nervous systems.

1101
01:05:01,090 --> 01:05:06,290
Um, just I'm just laughing like people who are eating, so just like like like warning the

1102
01:05:06,450 --> 01:05:10,370
warning for this portion of the yeah, warning for this portion of the talk.

1103
01:05:10,850 --> 01:05:14,530
Um we're gonna get we could get into brain worms too um at some point here.

1104
01:05:14,850 --> 01:05:16,530
Fortunately, Ed does not have slides.

1105
01:05:16,610 --> 01:05:21,490
I have to say that the most disgusting slides I've ever seen were from Ed's slides, Ed to

1106
01:05:21,490 --> 01:05:22,050
your credit.

1107
01:05:22,100 --> 01:05:23,220
So yeah.

1108
01:05:24,020 --> 01:05:27,460
And so worms have nervous systems pretty similar to ours.

1109
01:05:28,180 --> 01:05:33,780
And one of the first clues was that a lot of anti-worm medicines that are used commercially

1110
01:05:34,580 --> 01:05:39,220
are in fact chemically very similar to recreational drugs.

1111
01:05:39,380 --> 01:05:41,860
Lvamasole is very similar to nicotine.

1112
01:05:41,940 --> 01:05:45,140
It interacts with the same acetylcholine receptors.

1113
01:05:45,670 --> 01:05:51,670
Even to this day, we uh deworm dogs and other animals with a compound called aceticoline,

1114
01:05:51,910 --> 01:05:57,830
not acetylcholine, but ercoline, which is an acetycholine analog produced in

1115
01:05:57,830 --> 01:06:02,390
betel net, which is one of the world's most widely used drugs.

1116
01:06:02,470 --> 01:06:06,710
We don't really use it here in the US that much, but in in the Pacific, and it's probably

1117
01:06:06,710 --> 01:06:08,710
the number four drug in the world.

1118
01:06:10,560 --> 01:06:16,240
And so when we began to look at this, we realized that basically every single drug of

1119
01:06:16,240 --> 01:06:18,640
abuse kills intestinal worms.

1120
01:06:19,840 --> 01:06:25,600
And so could our taste for these neurotoxic substances be a form of

1121
01:06:25,600 --> 01:06:31,530
self-medication that we are attracted to them because they are even today, what are some of

1122
01:06:31,530 --> 01:06:32,090
the most valuable?

1123
01:06:32,170 --> 01:06:35,210
We just were talking about antidepressants, it's a multi-billion dollar business.

1124
01:06:35,450 --> 01:06:41,370
Drugs and medicines are still uh even today some of the most valuable

1125
01:06:41,370 --> 01:06:45,130
substances that we have, some of the most valuable products.

1126
01:06:45,290 --> 01:06:50,410
And that may well have been true over our evolutionary history, that discovering compounds

1127
01:06:50,410 --> 01:06:56,320
that could kill our own pathogens and our own parasites uh would have been tremendously

1128
01:06:56,320 --> 01:06:57,280
beneficial.

1129
01:06:57,600 --> 01:07:03,280
And plants and animals are basically attacked by the basic same broad classes of

1130
01:07:03,920 --> 01:07:05,360
things that eat them.

1131
01:07:05,840 --> 01:07:11,680
And so if plants are constantly evolving compounds that that harm those classes of

1132
01:07:11,680 --> 01:07:16,160
organisms, they may also harm the ones that are trying to eat us.

1133
01:07:16,560 --> 01:07:21,120
So that's that's the basic idea and that's how we how we got into it.

1134
01:07:23,030 --> 01:07:24,870
And then to get onto oh go ahead, David.

1135
01:07:24,950 --> 01:07:25,030
No.

1136
01:07:25,430 --> 01:07:30,870
I just want to do a just just a a a recap of of the idea, just in case people aren't quite

1137
01:07:30,870 --> 01:07:31,510
following.

1138
01:07:31,750 --> 01:07:37,590
Um so the idea is that plants evolved neurotoxins to

1139
01:07:37,590 --> 01:07:39,910
get rid of uh the animals that eat them.

1140
01:07:40,070 --> 01:07:42,070
So plant parasites, right?

1141
01:07:42,470 --> 01:07:47,720
And uh and we take these substances because we're often preyed upon by the same parasites.

1142
01:07:47,960 --> 01:07:52,840
And if we take these toxins in small doses, it's enough to kill the per parasites without

1143
01:07:52,840 --> 01:07:53,320
harming us.

1144
01:07:53,560 --> 01:07:55,720
So we evolved a taste for these things in small doses.

1145
01:07:55,880 --> 01:07:58,120
In large doses, obviously, they can harm us.

1146
01:07:58,200 --> 01:08:02,920
Uh, but if we consume them in small doses, they act as a as a medicine uh that can get rid

1147
01:08:02,920 --> 01:08:05,640
of uh pathogens and parasites in us.

1148
01:08:06,360 --> 01:08:07,240
That's exactly right.

1149
01:08:07,320 --> 01:08:12,650
That we we basically have this, we didn't haven't recognized that we have a psychology to

1150
01:08:12,650 --> 01:08:16,170
self-medicate with toxic plant compounds.

1151
01:08:16,650 --> 01:08:17,130
And the reason why we're going to do that.

1152
01:08:18,650 --> 01:08:22,170
We love spices and they are also toxic plant compounds.

1153
01:08:22,330 --> 01:08:27,290
And there's a very strong case to make that we put them in our food to kill foodborne

1154
01:08:27,290 --> 01:08:27,930
pathogens.

1155
01:08:28,410 --> 01:08:32,730
And so is the idea that the pleasurable response that we get from consuming these drugs

1156
01:08:32,730 --> 01:08:33,610
itself evolved?

1157
01:08:33,690 --> 01:08:37,760
That we evolve so that originally maybe we didn't find it rewarding to consume these

1158
01:08:37,760 --> 01:08:41,520
substances and maybe, you know, there was there was no response, but over evolutionary

1159
01:08:41,520 --> 01:08:46,480
history, perhaps those who found consuming these substances to be more rewarding, uh, had a

1160
01:08:46,480 --> 01:08:50,320
reproductive advantage because of the self medication benefits.

1161
01:08:50,400 --> 01:08:54,640
And then so we evolved to to find these drugs rewarding.

1162
01:08:55,280 --> 01:08:56,800
Yeah, basically yes.

1163
01:08:56,880 --> 01:09:02,730
Um I would be a little careful here because um the reward model is very tied

1164
01:09:02,810 --> 01:09:08,490
up with dopamine signaling model that is still heavily

1165
01:09:08,490 --> 01:09:09,850
debated and heavily investigated.

1166
01:09:10,010 --> 01:09:15,850
So I and it is often conflated, the research on drug abuse is very

1167
01:09:15,850 --> 01:09:21,620
much linked with research on reward-based learning

1168
01:09:21,620 --> 01:09:22,260
mechanisms.

1169
01:09:22,420 --> 01:09:27,380
And so even though those really are should be distinct, they're for historical reasons and

1170
01:09:27,380 --> 01:09:31,860
other reasons, really conflated and intertwined in kind of complex ways.

1171
01:09:32,020 --> 01:09:37,300
And so we kind of want to, it's been challenging because uh people want to jump right in

1172
01:09:37,300 --> 01:09:39,140
with the dopamine reward model.

1173
01:09:39,940 --> 01:09:45,090
And we're not willing to, you know, put a blanket endorsement over that whole thing.

1174
01:09:45,250 --> 01:09:49,650
We kind of want to step back from that and say, yes, we humans have some evolved

1175
01:09:49,730 --> 01:09:51,970
propensity, a taste for these drugs.

1176
01:09:53,330 --> 01:09:59,090
But exactly how that might be manifested in terms of our psychology and our psychological

1177
01:09:59,090 --> 01:10:04,130
mechanisms, we want to leave that a little bit open because initially our reaction to it is

1178
01:10:04,130 --> 01:10:04,610
aversion.

1179
01:10:04,690 --> 01:10:09,060
You know, when folks first try some of these drugs, they their first reaction is correctly

1180
01:10:09,140 --> 01:10:10,020
in a versive one.

1181
01:10:10,100 --> 01:10:14,100
They taste better, they make you sick to your stomach, they'll often induce vomiting.

1182
01:10:14,340 --> 01:10:19,540
Um, and what we see is that kids avoid them just like the plague.

1183
01:10:19,860 --> 01:10:25,060
So um, there's not this universal rewarding experience, just you know, um

1184
01:10:26,100 --> 01:10:26,500
study here.

1185
01:10:26,820 --> 01:10:30,340
The the drug use by age graphs you showed were just incredible.

1186
01:10:30,580 --> 01:10:31,860
Can you talk a little bit about that?

1187
01:10:31,940 --> 01:10:32,100
Yeah.

1188
01:10:32,500 --> 01:10:32,740
Yeah.

1189
01:10:32,820 --> 01:10:36,660
So we began thinking about drugs as toxins instead of rewarding substances.

1190
01:10:36,870 --> 01:10:41,430
So that the the basic model that is used by pretty much everybody in this area today, the

1191
01:10:41,430 --> 01:10:46,550
mainstream folks, is that recreational drugs are like sugar.

1192
01:10:47,270 --> 01:10:52,550
And that we like them and they they give us this rewarding feeling, and it's due to

1193
01:10:52,550 --> 01:10:53,990
dopamine signaling.

1194
01:10:54,150 --> 01:10:55,670
And that's why we use more of them.

1195
01:10:55,750 --> 01:10:59,590
And then they have all kinds of complications around that basic story.

1196
01:11:00,780 --> 01:11:02,700
But our story, we start with these things are now.

1197
01:11:02,860 --> 01:11:05,580
They're deadly toxins and they taste bitter.

1198
01:11:06,140 --> 01:11:08,940
And your body recognizes them as toxic.

1199
01:11:09,260 --> 01:11:13,100
They trigger vomiting reflexes and nausea.

1200
01:11:13,180 --> 01:11:15,100
They trigger a versive learning quite effectively.

1201
01:11:15,260 --> 01:11:19,180
It's actually really hard to get animals to self administer nicotine.

1202
01:11:21,260 --> 01:11:26,790
And so from that perspective, we said, okay,

1203
01:11:27,030 --> 01:11:30,150
who should not use these things?

1204
01:11:30,390 --> 01:11:36,230
And we thought, well, these things are interfering with neurosignaling,

1205
01:11:36,310 --> 01:11:40,550
and that's going to be really critical during development when your brain is growing

1206
01:11:40,550 --> 01:11:41,430
rapidly.

1207
01:11:41,910 --> 01:11:45,750
So we would predict that kids shouldn't lose uh use them.

1208
01:11:45,830 --> 01:11:51,060
And I still even remember saying, you know, I'm gonna check what uh what we know about

1209
01:11:51,060 --> 01:11:53,540
child tobacco use.

1210
01:11:53,620 --> 01:11:57,700
Uh and when I looked it up, I was just I was blown away the same way Dave was here.

1211
01:11:58,500 --> 01:12:03,300
There's no drug use by kids uh under the age of 10.

1212
01:12:03,460 --> 01:12:05,780
Um there's just almost none.

1213
01:12:05,940 --> 01:12:08,500
Despite some of the YouTube videos that you might see.

1214
01:12:10,010 --> 01:12:15,050
uh and and we replicated this in hunter gathers where there's um and and everybody thinks

1215
01:12:15,210 --> 01:12:18,890
okay it's because your parents tell you not to do it and they prevent you from doing it um

1216
01:12:19,050 --> 01:12:23,210
but you know all those 14 year old parents the parents of 14 year olds yeah smoke and do

1217
01:12:23,210 --> 01:12:27,290
drugs right yeah right i i tell I tell my daughter to avoid eating too much candy she

1218
01:12:27,290 --> 01:12:31,530
doesn't listen to me exactly that's what that's right I was saying like how I've never been

1219
01:12:31,530 --> 01:12:36,330
able to struggle with not eat their you know Halloween candy or uh grab those cookies.

1220
01:12:36,580 --> 01:12:42,420
So when it comes to genuinely rewarding things like sweets, um, the kids don't listen to us

1221
01:12:42,420 --> 01:12:42,660
at all.

1222
01:12:42,740 --> 01:12:48,660
But we we have large scale um data where you know they've actually done drug testing, um,

1223
01:12:48,820 --> 01:12:54,260
and we just see nothing in in kids for either caffeine, and caffeine is put into soft

1224
01:12:54,260 --> 01:12:54,980
drinks.

1225
01:12:55,140 --> 01:13:00,340
Um, and even there, the levels in kids are really low compared to adults.

1226
01:13:00,580 --> 01:13:06,230
So um, And then from about age 10 to 20, everybody transitions to drug use.

1227
01:13:06,310 --> 01:13:06,710
Everybody.

1228
01:13:06,870 --> 01:13:11,430
It may be caffeine, it might be nicotine, it might be alcohol, it might be some, you know,

1229
01:13:11,510 --> 01:13:13,510
it might be marijuana, some other drug.

1230
01:13:13,830 --> 01:13:16,310
But basically everybody makes a very rapid transition.

1231
01:13:16,470 --> 01:13:22,230
And our argument there is that once your brain is more or less fully developed, the cost of

1232
01:13:22,230 --> 01:13:27,240
interfering with brain development with these deadly neurotoxins has gotten down to the

1233
01:13:27,240 --> 01:13:31,320
point, and the benefits of the self-medication have increased to the point where the

1234
01:13:31,320 --> 01:13:36,440
balance now tips, and it's the benefits of self-medicating outweigh the costs.

1235
01:13:36,520 --> 01:13:38,280
And we see this rapid transition.

1236
01:13:38,440 --> 01:13:40,920
And the exception there is that there is a sex difference.

1237
01:13:41,160 --> 01:13:46,600
Females are transitioning less than males and adults, and especially in their reproductive

1238
01:13:46,600 --> 01:13:47,080
years.

1239
01:13:47,320 --> 01:13:52,370
And we argue uh that that's because uh over our evolutionary history, women would often be

1240
01:13:52,370 --> 01:13:56,130
pregnant, so they're not protecting their own brain development, but the development of

1241
01:13:56,130 --> 01:13:57,410
their potential fetuses.

1242
01:13:57,890 --> 01:14:03,010
Um, and so we have really good evidence uh supporting that hypothesis, too, that the

1243
01:14:03,010 --> 01:14:08,930
toxicity of drugs um explains a lot about the epidemiology of drug

1244
01:14:08,930 --> 01:14:10,450
use that we see by age and sex.

1245
01:14:10,700 --> 01:14:10,860
Yeah.

1246
01:14:11,020 --> 01:14:14,940
And how facultative is do you do you think this is?

1247
01:14:15,020 --> 01:14:18,940
So I mean, you know, if when you're thirsty, you want water and you drink water and you're

1248
01:14:18,940 --> 01:14:24,860
sort of you feel better, and that sort of, you know, is a important representation for

1249
01:14:24,860 --> 01:14:25,980
organisms.

1250
01:14:26,300 --> 01:14:32,220
If, you know, if I'm infected with zoonotic parasites, that's that's that's

1251
01:14:32,220 --> 01:14:33,580
a fun sentence to say out loud.

1252
01:14:33,660 --> 01:14:33,980
Okay.

1253
01:14:34,220 --> 01:14:36,220
Um, for the record, I'm not, I don't think.

1254
01:14:36,300 --> 01:14:42,150
Um, but anyway, uh, if I'm infected with this and I take something, um, or or m

1255
01:14:42,230 --> 01:14:45,590
my my question is sort of like do I might am I c do I crave things, you know?

1256
01:14:45,670 --> 01:14:49,270
Or do I think so this is are these prophylactic or are they therapeutic?

1257
01:14:49,510 --> 01:14:49,830
Yeah, exactly.

1258
01:14:50,550 --> 01:14:52,790
Thank you for putting it more much more sophisticated way than me.

1259
01:14:52,870 --> 01:14:53,510
Uh yeah.

1260
01:14:53,590 --> 01:14:58,230
And so uh I think the strongest evidence would be that we use them therapeutically.

1261
01:14:58,310 --> 01:15:01,350
And this hypothesis, we're not the only ones researching this.

1262
01:15:01,430 --> 01:15:05,700
There's a there's actually quite a few folks researching this idea in non-human animals.

1263
01:15:05,860 --> 01:15:11,780
So in primates and even in insects, um, there's quite a bit of evidence now that other

1264
01:15:11,780 --> 01:15:15,060
animals are self-medicating with toxic plant substances.

1265
01:15:15,620 --> 01:15:21,540
Um so that's where we can get some of the best um experimental tests of kind of the um

1266
01:15:21,940 --> 01:15:22,980
insects are smoking.

1267
01:15:23,140 --> 01:15:24,070
Yeah They're getting high.

1268
01:15:24,310 --> 01:15:24,950
Bug bugs are not.

1269
01:15:25,190 --> 01:15:30,550
Well, they're they're using they're consuming toxic plants that don't make sense

1270
01:15:30,550 --> 01:15:31,430
nutritionally.

1271
01:15:31,670 --> 01:15:36,790
And um so presumably they would be they would be getting some kind of high, if your model

1272
01:15:36,790 --> 01:15:37,430
is correct.

1273
01:15:37,910 --> 01:15:42,230
If I if if I would and if they're neurotoxins, plants are producing a wide variety of

1274
01:15:42,230 --> 01:15:45,590
toxins, not all of which are neurotoxin, but some of them are, yeah.

1275
01:15:45,670 --> 01:15:50,310
So it could be they're getting but they may have different representations, you know, how

1276
01:15:50,310 --> 01:15:52,300
it affects their psychology.

1277
01:15:52,700 --> 01:15:53,580
But yes.

1278
01:15:54,460 --> 01:15:58,940
Now there I will say the evidence is mixed because in those experiments, you can

1279
01:15:58,940 --> 01:16:04,540
experimentally infect your insect that's in your and see, does it then

1280
01:16:04,540 --> 01:16:09,740
increase consumption of, or you can experimentally infect your rat model or your mouse

1281
01:16:09,740 --> 01:16:11,260
model or whatever it might be.

1282
01:16:11,550 --> 01:16:14,350
Um, and there the results have been have been really mixed.

1283
01:16:14,430 --> 01:16:20,030
Um, a lot of I think what the data show most clearly is that animals

1284
01:16:20,190 --> 01:16:25,870
um are uh more inclined to eat toxic foods

1285
01:16:26,030 --> 01:16:31,390
lace with these toxins than they should be, um, given that they are toxic.

1286
01:16:31,870 --> 01:16:37,070
So that would support either that we're wrong, and our whole idea is is wrong, or that it's

1287
01:16:37,070 --> 01:16:42,160
more of a prophylactic um type adaptation than a therapeutic one.

1288
01:16:42,320 --> 01:16:47,520
But there is, there are, there are some studies that show increased intake of toxic

1289
01:16:47,520 --> 01:16:52,000
substances after infection, experimental treatments with infections.

1290
01:16:52,480 --> 01:16:54,800
Now in humans, it's tougher.

1291
01:16:55,440 --> 01:16:59,360
We did one experiment with hunter gatherers where we went in the opposite direction.

1292
01:16:59,440 --> 01:17:03,120
So we were working with ACA hunter gatherers in the Congo Basin.

1293
01:17:03,280 --> 01:17:08,630
And we were working with this population because they use a lot of drugs.

1294
01:17:08,790 --> 01:17:09,430
The men do.

1295
01:17:09,590 --> 01:17:15,270
The women almost do not at all, nor do the kids, but almost 100% of the men, basically

1296
01:17:15,350 --> 01:17:18,950
100% of the men either use tobacco or cannabis or both.

1297
01:17:19,830 --> 01:17:23,510
And basically 100% are infected with worms.

1298
01:17:23,990 --> 01:17:29,430
And so what we thought is, well, uh the ideal experiment would be to infect somebody with

1299
01:17:29,430 --> 01:17:34,640
worms and see if they start smoking more, but um that might not be ethically permitted.

1300
01:17:34,720 --> 01:17:36,080
So we'll do the reverse.

1301
01:17:36,160 --> 01:17:39,520
We'll take a bunch of people who are already infected with worms that are already smoking

1302
01:17:39,680 --> 01:17:41,520
and treat them for worms.

1303
01:17:42,320 --> 01:17:47,680
So we did a double blind RCT randomized controlled trial, placebo controlled trial, where

1304
01:17:47,680 --> 01:17:53,520
we took a large number of ACA hunter gatherer men and got stool

1305
01:17:53,680 --> 01:17:59,680
samples to confirm their worm infected status and saliva samples to confirm their

1306
01:17:59,680 --> 01:18:01,760
tobacco use and cannabis use.

1307
01:18:02,160 --> 01:18:06,770
And then we randomized them double blind into two groups, one getting a placebo and one

1308
01:18:06,770 --> 01:18:10,370
getting albendazole, which is a powerful anti-worm medication.

1309
01:18:12,210 --> 01:18:14,210
And then we waited two weeks.

1310
01:18:14,530 --> 01:18:19,250
And then we got everybody back and tested them for worms again and tested them for uh

1311
01:18:19,490 --> 01:18:22,850
salivary cotinine, which is a nicotine metabolite again.

1312
01:18:23,170 --> 01:18:26,850
Um, and indeed the abendazole worked, not too surprisingly.

1313
01:18:26,930 --> 01:18:29,170
All those guys were cleared of worms, the other guys weren't.

1314
01:18:29,330 --> 01:18:34,720
But the key result is uh that in the treatment group, uh

1315
01:18:34,960 --> 01:18:38,400
nicotine levels went down compared to the control group.

1316
01:18:38,560 --> 01:18:44,240
And they went down in proportion to how badly infected they were with worms to begin with.

1317
01:18:44,400 --> 01:18:49,120
So the more heavily infected guys reduced their tobacco use more, and we got the same

1318
01:18:49,120 --> 01:18:50,880
result for cannabis use.

1319
01:18:51,600 --> 01:18:54,160
So um that result needs to be replicated.

1320
01:18:54,240 --> 01:18:57,920
We have not replicated it, uh so put a little asterisk on all these things.

1321
01:18:58,000 --> 01:19:01,850
Um, but um that it was definitely an encouraging result.

1322
01:19:02,010 --> 01:19:07,850
And then the the follow-up, we followed up with all these guys uh a year later um

1323
01:19:08,090 --> 01:19:10,810
because you get reinfected with worms pretty quickly.

1324
01:19:11,210 --> 01:19:17,130
And so um, and what we found a year later is that the guys who had um started

1325
01:19:17,130 --> 01:19:22,810
smoking more were less likely to be reinfected than the guys who were smoking less.

1326
01:19:23,130 --> 01:19:28,820
So that would be more the prophylactic effect that I mean kind of prevents you from from

1327
01:19:28,980 --> 01:19:29,860
infections.

1328
01:19:30,340 --> 01:19:36,100
This is such a cool result um and such a a great example of you know an

1329
01:19:36,100 --> 01:19:41,140
evolutionary perspective providing you with a really bold, testable prediction that nobody

1330
01:19:41,140 --> 01:19:42,100
would have thought to make.

1331
01:19:42,260 --> 01:19:46,020
Nobody would have thought to make, you know, yeah, if if you if we cure your intestinal

1332
01:19:46,020 --> 01:19:48,150
parasites, then you're gonna smoke less, right?

1333
01:19:48,230 --> 01:19:48,310
Right.

1334
01:19:48,470 --> 01:19:49,430
Like no no one would make it.

1335
01:19:49,510 --> 01:19:50,230
For at least two weeks.

1336
01:19:50,470 --> 01:19:51,430
Yeah, for at least two weeks.

1337
01:19:51,510 --> 01:19:51,670
Yeah.

1338
01:19:51,750 --> 01:19:54,150
Like that that's an incredibly bold, testable prediction.

1339
01:19:54,230 --> 01:19:55,270
It it has been confirmed.

1340
01:19:55,670 --> 01:20:00,950
We still want it to be replicated, obviously, but uh it's a really beautiful example of the

1341
01:20:00,950 --> 01:20:03,430
utility of the evolutionary approach.

1342
01:20:03,670 --> 01:20:09,350
Um I also love how it it just it beautifully explains really strong patterns in the

1343
01:20:09,350 --> 01:20:14,000
empirical data, like as we s as we mentioned, that kids don't uh do drugs.

1344
01:20:14,160 --> 01:20:18,720
They don't have an interest in doing drugs, despite uh them having an interest in, say,

1345
01:20:18,800 --> 01:20:19,280
sweets.

1346
01:20:19,360 --> 01:20:23,760
And our you know, parents are have a hard time keeping them away from the sweets.

1347
01:20:23,840 --> 01:20:26,400
We I don't have a hard time keeping my daughter away from my coffee.

1348
01:20:26,480 --> 01:20:31,520
Uh she has no interest in it at all, or any, you know, uh and we s we see similar drops,

1349
01:20:31,600 --> 01:20:35,280
you know, when when women are pregnant, they they don't uh consume these substances.

1350
01:20:35,520 --> 01:20:40,250
So we see a close match between what you would expect uh from the self-medication

1351
01:20:40,250 --> 01:20:45,210
hypothesis, that that use is calibrated to the cost-benefit ratio of self-medication.

1352
01:20:45,290 --> 01:20:49,050
Uh, and it it doesn't really match this idea that drugs are just hijacking our reward

1353
01:20:49,050 --> 01:20:49,210
system.

1354
01:20:49,370 --> 01:20:54,810
If they're hijacking our reward system, then you would expect kids to be uh uh grasping for

1355
01:20:54,810 --> 01:20:56,410
this stuff the way they grasp for candy.

1356
01:20:56,490 --> 01:21:00,250
You expect everybody to be doing it, and the more you do it, the the more pleasure you'd

1357
01:21:00,250 --> 01:21:00,410
get.

1358
01:21:00,570 --> 01:21:02,890
Um so here's another prediction that your model makes.

1359
01:21:02,970 --> 01:21:04,730
I'm not sure if there's any evidence for this.

1360
01:21:05,020 --> 01:21:10,460
Given that these uh substances only have self-medicating effects in small doses, and then

1361
01:21:10,460 --> 01:21:16,380
in larger doses they have harmful effects, um, you would expect the pleasurable response

1362
01:21:16,380 --> 01:21:21,660
to only occur at small doses and start to become aversive at large doses.

1363
01:21:21,820 --> 01:21:23,260
Uh is there evidence for that?

1364
01:21:23,340 --> 01:21:26,540
I mean, intuitively that's strong evidence, strong evidence for that.

1365
01:21:26,940 --> 01:21:32,650
So um if the if the hijack model is correct, that these things are

1366
01:21:32,650 --> 01:21:35,450
hijacking over basically everybody should be overdosing.

1367
01:21:35,610 --> 01:21:35,850
Yeah.

1368
01:21:36,250 --> 01:21:39,370
Um and nicotine can easily kill you.

1369
01:21:39,450 --> 01:21:42,970
Um, and yet nicotine overdoses are vanishingly rare.

1370
01:21:43,130 --> 01:21:47,450
They're actually more common now than they've ever been due to vaping, and the fact that um

1371
01:21:47,610 --> 01:21:52,700
these vape fluids are often have flavors in them, and so you've got vial, and it's it's

1372
01:21:52,700 --> 01:21:53,820
basically young infants.

1373
01:21:53,980 --> 01:21:59,980
Oh god that so the the uh visits to uh poison centers have skyrocketed uh with the onset of

1374
01:21:59,980 --> 01:22:05,740
vaping because um little little babies or uh toddlers are getting into the

1375
01:22:05,740 --> 01:22:10,620
vape fluids and they kind of smell sweet and and flavored and then they get a big dose of

1376
01:22:10,620 --> 01:22:14,140
nicotine um and have to be rushed to the hospital.

1377
01:22:14,380 --> 01:22:20,170
So um but absent that uh nicotine overdoses are really, really

1378
01:22:20,170 --> 01:22:20,490
rare.

1379
01:22:20,570 --> 01:22:24,410
And so the evidence in favor of what David was saving here is there's been many, many

1380
01:22:24,410 --> 01:22:27,450
studies of what's called um nicotine titration.

1381
01:22:27,690 --> 01:22:33,690
And so these are experimental studies where you take smokers and you um measure,

1382
01:22:33,850 --> 01:22:38,410
you actually have this little box that measures that you're in flow, how deeply draw you're

1383
01:22:38,410 --> 01:22:39,610
drawing in the tobacco.

1384
01:22:39,690 --> 01:22:40,970
So it's measuring airflow.

1385
01:22:41,050 --> 01:22:44,410
Um so you kind of stick your cigarette on one end, smoke it through the other end.

1386
01:22:44,730 --> 01:22:50,660
Um And uh so you do this uh to get everybody's baseline levels

1387
01:22:50,740 --> 01:22:54,820
of of basically, and you can also measure their nicotine levels in their blood, their

1388
01:22:54,900 --> 01:22:57,460
cotinine levels, that's the nicotine metabolite.

1389
01:22:57,620 --> 01:23:02,340
Um and then what you do is you randomize them into groups where they either kind of get

1390
01:23:02,340 --> 01:23:06,900
their normal cigarette or they get a cigarette that's either got more nicotine in it than

1391
01:23:06,900 --> 01:23:12,110
usual or uh less nicotine in it than so a high nicotine cigarette or a low nicotine

1392
01:23:12,110 --> 01:23:12,990
cigarette.

1393
01:23:13,310 --> 01:23:15,630
And what you find is that people titrate.

1394
01:23:15,870 --> 01:23:20,190
If you give them the high nicotine cigarette, they dial back and they dial back their

1395
01:23:20,270 --> 01:23:24,030
smoking to basically getting the same levels of nicotine they were getting at baseline.

1396
01:23:24,110 --> 01:23:28,430
If you give them the low nicotine cigarettes, they inhale, they puff more deeply, more

1397
01:23:28,430 --> 01:23:31,950
puffs, bring to bring their nicotine levels back up.

1398
01:23:32,190 --> 01:23:37,980
So folks are very, very accurately titrating their levels of nicotine in a very

1399
01:23:37,980 --> 01:23:39,260
narrow range.

1400
01:23:39,900 --> 01:23:45,580
And that range is pretty much just below the range where you start to trigger acute toxic

1401
01:23:45,580 --> 01:23:46,300
reactions.

1402
01:23:46,540 --> 01:23:51,420
So people are, and that suggests to me that there's got to be an evolved mechanism to do

1403
01:23:51,420 --> 01:23:54,540
that, to be that precise with such a dangerous substance.

1404
01:23:54,860 --> 01:23:59,820
That folks are very, very good at keeping their nicotine levels within a pretty narrow

1405
01:23:59,820 --> 01:24:03,820
band, even when you manipulate their source of nicotine.

1406
01:24:04,070 --> 01:24:04,390
Yeah.

1407
01:24:04,710 --> 01:24:05,110
Awesome.

1408
01:24:05,190 --> 01:24:06,070
It's really beautiful work.

1409
01:24:06,150 --> 01:24:07,270
I I love I love this stuff.

1410
01:24:07,350 --> 01:24:08,310
It's mind blowing.

1411
01:24:08,470 --> 01:24:11,190
Um I I gotta ask though, what's the deal with heroin?

1412
01:24:11,350 --> 01:24:13,510
Like that your your model has a hard time explaining this.

1413
01:24:13,670 --> 01:24:14,710
It destroys people's lives.

1414
01:24:14,870 --> 01:24:19,030
They it does seem like something is being hijacked and something is going wrong there.

1415
01:24:19,190 --> 01:24:20,230
Uh what's what's going on there?

1416
01:24:20,470 --> 01:24:22,630
Yeah the opioid one is the tough one for us.

1417
01:24:22,790 --> 01:24:23,670
I agree with that.

1418
01:24:23,910 --> 01:24:29,840
Um and uh I don't have a great I don't have a great story

1419
01:24:29,840 --> 01:24:30,160
here.

1420
01:24:30,480 --> 01:24:36,400
Um a lot of it is that the way you take a lot of those uh ones that are really dangerous

1421
01:24:36,400 --> 01:24:39,440
is you bypass a lot of your toxin detection mechanisms.

1422
01:24:39,520 --> 01:24:40,960
So you inject them.

1423
01:24:41,360 --> 01:24:43,440
Um, for example.

1424
01:24:44,080 --> 01:24:49,280
Um and so, for example, with cocaine, we don't really see folks

1425
01:24:49,280 --> 01:24:52,790
overdosing seriously with cocaine if they snort it.

1426
01:24:53,030 --> 01:24:55,590
But if they inject it, that's when you get the overdoses.

1427
01:24:56,630 --> 01:25:01,750
And also, you know, with, you know, toxicodone and fentanyl, you're taking pills that

1428
01:25:01,830 --> 01:25:05,670
again, you're bypassing a lot of your innate toxin defense mechanisms.

1429
01:25:06,070 --> 01:25:08,310
So I think that's that's part of it.

1430
01:25:08,950 --> 01:25:14,150
If you really had to taste the bitterness of of these things and you were fully engaging

1431
01:25:14,150 --> 01:25:18,180
your your toxin detection mechanisms, they may be less dangerous.

1432
01:25:18,420 --> 01:25:18,740
Interesting.

1433
01:25:19,460 --> 01:25:21,060
And they do destroy people's lives.

1434
01:25:21,220 --> 01:25:22,020
Alcohol does too.

1435
01:25:22,100 --> 01:25:26,020
Alcohol is another little bit of a tough case for us because it's not a plant toxin, for

1436
01:25:26,020 --> 01:25:26,660
example.

1437
01:25:27,300 --> 01:25:32,100
But it is a toxin and it is an antibacterial, powerful

1438
01:25:32,180 --> 01:25:34,260
antibacterial substance.

1439
01:25:36,180 --> 01:25:38,740
So I don't fully know.

1440
01:25:39,140 --> 01:25:44,030
And you know, not everybody gets addicted to opioids.

1441
01:25:44,830 --> 01:25:50,190
So could there be something about the environment, either the social environment, or

1442
01:25:50,750 --> 01:25:54,030
you know, could there be some I've I've looked for patterns.

1443
01:25:54,190 --> 01:26:00,030
For example, we have IgE measures from around the country, which is a biomarker of uh

1444
01:26:00,030 --> 01:26:04,990
worm infections, uh, to see if those kind of correlate with drug use patterns around.

1445
01:26:05,070 --> 01:26:07,870
I haven't really found anything too convincing.

1446
01:26:08,110 --> 01:26:10,060
Um allergens.

1447
01:26:10,940 --> 01:26:14,620
You know, you David was saying he didn't think he was infected with parasites, but actually

1448
01:26:14,700 --> 01:26:15,020
you are.

1449
01:26:15,180 --> 01:26:19,260
We all have these little mites that are in uh inhabiting our hair follicles.

1450
01:26:19,660 --> 01:26:22,460
Um and those can actually stimulate immune responses.

1451
01:26:22,620 --> 01:26:25,180
So we do have a lot of these ectoparasites on us.

1452
01:26:25,340 --> 01:26:30,540
Um and so um, and in some folks you get these really severe

1453
01:26:30,570 --> 01:26:32,890
outbreaks from them.

1454
01:26:33,050 --> 01:26:34,570
Most of us tolerate them pretty well.

1455
01:26:34,730 --> 01:26:37,770
So, could there be some immune system thing going on?

1456
01:26:37,930 --> 01:26:43,130
And that there's a quite a bit of evidence that, and there's actually animal models of

1457
01:26:43,130 --> 01:26:48,570
this, that stimulating the immune system does increase drug intake in laboratory animals.

1458
01:26:48,810 --> 01:26:54,250
Um, and in correlation studies in humans, um, immune activation seems to be associated with

1459
01:26:54,250 --> 01:26:55,370
opioid use.

1460
01:26:56,330 --> 01:27:01,980
So, it could be some kind of immune uh variation that might explain some of the

1461
01:27:01,980 --> 01:27:04,460
variation in susceptibility to opioid.

1462
01:27:04,540 --> 01:27:09,900
You see, maybe you are self-medicating, uh, but because your immune system is activated in

1463
01:27:09,900 --> 01:27:15,100
a way for you, either due to your environment that you're in, um, obviously it's associated

1464
01:27:15,100 --> 01:27:20,220
with poverty, uh, and that's obviously more associated with exposure to pathogens and lack

1465
01:27:20,220 --> 01:27:21,420
of sanitation.

1466
01:27:22,060 --> 01:27:27,790
Um, So this is all hand waving, but this would be some of the some of the paths that would

1467
01:27:27,790 --> 01:27:28,510
follow for that.

1468
01:27:28,910 --> 01:27:32,590
More more research is needed, or as as or as my friend Dan Sneezer would say, more funding

1469
01:27:32,590 --> 01:27:32,990
is needed.

1470
01:27:33,710 --> 01:27:37,630
So it does it does opium that comes from like the poppy plant, right?

1471
01:27:37,870 --> 01:27:38,510
That's right.

1472
01:27:38,830 --> 01:27:44,240
So presumably if people were making tea from the poppy plant, they would be less if your

1473
01:27:44,240 --> 01:27:46,880
model's correct, you might expect them to be less likely to get addicted.

1474
01:27:46,960 --> 01:27:51,680
If they're ingesting the substance through normally ecologically valid ways, their nervous

1475
01:27:51,680 --> 01:27:56,240
system has evolved to titrate, that presumably you would expect this, these kinds of uh

1476
01:27:56,240 --> 01:27:58,000
addictions to be less prevalent.

1477
01:27:58,320 --> 01:27:59,680
Yeah, well, less severe.

1478
01:27:59,840 --> 01:28:04,480
So addiction is a tricky concept, and I really don't like it because it has this thing that

1479
01:28:04,560 --> 01:28:10,450
um you're using a substance um that you know is harmful to you, that you you want to

1480
01:28:10,450 --> 01:28:11,490
stop, but you can't stop it.

1481
01:28:11,570 --> 01:28:16,530
So it involves all this kind of weird intrapsychic conflict where you somehow know the

1482
01:28:16,530 --> 01:28:18,610
harms, whatever that means.

1483
01:28:18,770 --> 01:28:22,690
Uh and you want to stop, whatever that means, but you can't stop, whatever that means.

1484
01:28:22,850 --> 01:28:26,210
So that it's a really fuzzy and I think unhelpful concept.

1485
01:28:26,290 --> 01:28:27,410
But are we addicted to food?

1486
01:28:27,490 --> 01:28:28,610
Are we addicted to oxygen?

1487
01:28:28,690 --> 01:28:30,050
Um, are we addicted to water?

1488
01:28:30,440 --> 01:28:31,720
I'm addicted to oxygen.

1489
01:28:31,800 --> 01:28:31,960
Yeah.

1490
01:28:32,120 --> 01:28:32,360
Yeah.

1491
01:28:32,600 --> 01:28:34,600
I can't stop breathing even though I want to all the time.

1492
01:28:34,920 --> 01:28:35,160
Right, yeah.

1493
01:28:36,120 --> 01:28:40,600
So uh and if I don't want to stop using heroin, then I'm not addicted to it.

1494
01:28:40,680 --> 01:28:43,320
You know, you have to want to stop using it.

1495
01:28:43,720 --> 01:28:49,080
Um and you know, when we think about coffee addiction, um, nobody really worries about it.

1496
01:28:49,240 --> 01:28:51,480
And we don't even really call it that except as a joke.

1497
01:28:51,560 --> 01:28:56,070
Um, but really why so kind of habitual use

1498
01:28:57,270 --> 01:29:02,310
is one thing, and then use to the point that it destroys your life is another thing.

1499
01:29:03,030 --> 01:29:07,030
And I think habitual use, I think is perfectly consistent with our model.

1500
01:29:07,110 --> 01:29:09,670
We habitually use stuff that's beneficial to us.

1501
01:29:09,830 --> 01:29:13,350
And so if it's a prophylactic, uh, we need to habitually use it.

1502
01:29:13,430 --> 01:29:16,390
We need to use it uh all the time.

1503
01:29:16,470 --> 01:29:21,030
You know, are we habitually addicted to pepper uh and spices?

1504
01:29:21,190 --> 01:29:23,270
Um no, we we want them, we like them.

1505
01:29:23,440 --> 01:29:23,600
Yeah.

1506
01:29:24,080 --> 01:29:29,520
So it's more of the life destroying aspects of what you think that um that's the more

1507
01:29:29,520 --> 01:29:30,320
challenging part.

1508
01:29:30,480 --> 01:29:33,040
Why would you be using them to that, to that level?

1509
01:29:33,200 --> 01:29:37,600
And and maybe as you say, if if they weren't bypassing a lot of our toxin defense

1510
01:29:37,600 --> 01:29:42,240
mechanisms, um and that's that's kind of ideas that Randy Nessie has floated and then other

1511
01:29:42,240 --> 01:29:43,920
people have floated too but that's fascinating.

1512
01:29:44,080 --> 01:29:47,440
So presumably if you're I mean again, we don't know if you're right, but if you are right,

1513
01:29:47,520 --> 01:29:49,810
it could have very important implications.

1514
01:29:49,970 --> 01:29:54,050
It could suggest that the best way to prescribe people opiates and painkillers is not by

1515
01:29:54,050 --> 01:29:58,130
giving them pills that they could potentially destroy their lives with, but by giving them

1516
01:29:58,130 --> 01:30:03,490
teas or whatever kinds of, you know, ancestrally ecologically valid ways of consuming these

1517
01:30:03,490 --> 01:30:08,050
substances that would prevent them from destroying their their lives with these substances.

1518
01:30:08,370 --> 01:30:10,050
Yeah, or a mimic that did that.

1519
01:30:10,210 --> 01:30:14,770
Because a lot of the challenge with drug design is that your body, we are so well defended

1520
01:30:14,770 --> 01:30:19,300
against plant toxins that it's often hard to get the drug to the target tissue.

1521
01:30:19,460 --> 01:30:23,380
In fact, that's why it's almost impossible to train brain infections and brain cancer,

1522
01:30:23,540 --> 01:30:26,020
because we can't get drugs across the blood brain barrier.

1523
01:30:26,820 --> 01:30:32,820
And so a huge amount of engineering in in pharmacology is exactly how

1524
01:30:32,820 --> 01:30:35,940
do we bypass uh toxin defense mechanisms.

1525
01:30:36,100 --> 01:30:39,060
We need them to not trigger, you shouldn't, we don't want you to vomit.

1526
01:30:39,380 --> 01:30:41,620
We don't want your body to metabolize this.

1527
01:30:42,500 --> 01:30:44,270
We need it to get to the target tissue.

1528
01:30:44,350 --> 01:30:49,390
Often we disguise it as one thing, and then we count on your metabolic enzymes to convert

1529
01:30:49,390 --> 01:30:52,110
it into the active product later.

1530
01:30:53,710 --> 01:30:57,310
And that's actually what's happening with morphine and heroin.

1531
01:30:58,430 --> 01:31:04,430
And so if we were to begin to think about designing these things, we would want, you

1532
01:31:04,430 --> 01:31:10,100
know, we have the there's these trade-offs of getting getting the drug to the target

1533
01:31:10,100 --> 01:31:15,860
tissue to do its job, but then also um not you know either

1534
01:31:15,860 --> 01:31:21,060
triggering or not triggering toxin defense mechanisms to get the ideal outcome.

1535
01:31:21,220 --> 01:31:25,860
So it it would be a tricky problem, but I could imagine putting in other bitter substances

1536
01:31:26,020 --> 01:31:26,660
maybe.

1537
01:31:26,930 --> 01:31:32,770
Um and I I don't know what the case with opioids and all these different opioids um in uh

1538
01:31:32,930 --> 01:31:38,690
uh washing down your uh your your opium your opiate pill with some horseradish or something

1539
01:31:38,690 --> 01:31:38,930
like that.

1540
01:31:39,170 --> 01:31:41,010
Something, yeah, with some wasabi or something.

1541
01:31:41,170 --> 01:31:45,090
Uh for me that would be I I find wasabi kind of addicting myself.

1542
01:31:45,170 --> 01:31:46,370
But yeah, I like it too.

1543
01:31:46,610 --> 01:31:46,770
Yeah.

1544
01:31:46,940 --> 01:31:50,540
Um, can you talk a little bit about the cigarette thing and the Yeah?

1545
01:31:50,700 --> 01:31:56,380
So tobacco is, you know, this hugely it is very deadly, but it's deadly in the long term.

1546
01:31:56,460 --> 01:32:01,340
It has these, it's not the nicotine that kills you uh with smoking, it's all the other

1547
01:32:01,340 --> 01:32:06,540
stuff um that gives you cancer much later in life or um heart

1548
01:32:06,540 --> 01:32:07,420
disease.

1549
01:32:08,670 --> 01:32:14,670
And so in high-income countries like ours that have a history

1550
01:32:14,670 --> 01:32:19,470
of high prevalence of tobacco use, about one in five deaths are due to tobacco.

1551
01:32:19,710 --> 01:32:21,550
Worldwide, it's about one in ten.

1552
01:32:22,830 --> 01:32:28,750
And so it's this enormously costly drug that uh whose

1553
01:32:28,750 --> 01:32:31,150
costs occur late in life.

1554
01:32:31,390 --> 01:32:36,540
Um, But it's exactly one of these drugs that we've been talking about to plant neurotoxin.

1555
01:32:36,620 --> 01:32:37,740
It's very deadly.

1556
01:32:38,300 --> 01:32:40,220
We're very good at titrating it.

1557
01:32:42,460 --> 01:32:47,900
And there's been a huge debate in public health about vaping,

1558
01:32:48,220 --> 01:32:53,820
because vaping delivers the nicotine without all of those other harmful, or without most of

1559
01:32:53,820 --> 01:32:59,020
the other harmful substances, or at least stuff that's a lot less harmful than the highly

1560
01:32:59,020 --> 01:33:03,030
reactive compounds when you burn tobacco leaves.

1561
01:33:04,150 --> 01:33:06,870
And so on the one hand, you might say this is perfect.

1562
01:33:07,270 --> 01:33:13,110
And as a smoking cessation device, it is very good that folks find it a lot

1563
01:33:13,110 --> 01:33:16,790
easier to stop smoking by transitioning to vaping.

1564
01:33:17,110 --> 01:33:20,870
And that's often more effective, is my understanding of the literature, than things like

1565
01:33:20,870 --> 01:33:23,830
nicotine patches and nicotine gum.

1566
01:33:25,600 --> 01:33:27,680
And that's an interesting question why that is.

1567
01:33:28,880 --> 01:33:34,880
And so, but the worry that public health folks have is that it's kind of a gateway drug to

1568
01:33:34,880 --> 01:33:35,760
actually smoking.

1569
01:33:36,160 --> 01:33:39,760
And so there's been this huge debate over the last 10 years with the rise of vaping.

1570
01:33:39,920 --> 01:33:43,200
Should we encourage it because it's way safer than smoking?

1571
01:33:43,440 --> 01:33:48,320
Or should we continue to discourage it because it's really going to just be a gateway drug

1572
01:33:48,480 --> 01:33:50,400
to regular actual smoking?

1573
01:33:50,880 --> 01:33:55,710
And I don't know if the evidence, I it's hard to kind of separate out there the two camps,

1574
01:33:55,790 --> 01:33:57,950
you know, and they're they're kind of fighting each other.

1575
01:33:58,030 --> 01:34:00,990
It's kind of like you know the debate over COVID and all this stuff.

1576
01:34:01,150 --> 01:34:05,870
Um it's gotten to the point where it's it's hard to know what the where the real truth is

1577
01:34:05,950 --> 01:34:08,350
and what the best policy would be.

1578
01:34:08,670 --> 01:34:14,560
But I my bias is that eventually we're going to need something kind of

1579
01:34:14,560 --> 01:34:15,120
like a drug sub.

1580
01:34:15,440 --> 01:34:17,280
We we love drugs so much.

1581
01:34:17,760 --> 01:34:21,600
Um, and I think you know, the rise of Starbucks and coffee is great because that one is

1582
01:34:21,600 --> 01:34:26,000
really safe and it satisfies our kind of desire for plant toxins.

1583
01:34:26,160 --> 01:34:32,000
But we'll probably need a lot more of these that kind of satisfy our taste for plant

1584
01:34:32,000 --> 01:34:38,000
toxins, but don't come with all these tremendously harmful side effects like cancer and

1585
01:34:38,000 --> 01:34:40,960
heart disease or ruining your life with opioids.

1586
01:34:41,440 --> 01:34:47,350
Um and vaping was kind of the baby steps in that direction, but

1587
01:34:47,350 --> 01:34:51,190
one that's been very controversial and you know, understandably so.

1588
01:34:51,590 --> 01:34:52,150
Interesting.

1589
01:34:52,390 --> 01:34:57,830
Yeah, I mean, it sounds like the almost everybody we've had on, in some way or another,

1590
01:34:57,990 --> 01:35:01,990
it's the argument that things are you can have insights from an evolutionary perspective

1591
01:35:01,990 --> 01:35:07,190
that you would never get, but it also highlights that if you have a cartoonishly oversimple

1592
01:35:07,190 --> 01:35:09,270
view of the world, you're gonna be wrong.

1593
01:35:09,430 --> 01:35:14,360
And so the idea that like immune function or parasite load has anything to do with drug

1594
01:35:14,360 --> 01:35:14,680
abuse.

1595
01:35:14,760 --> 01:35:18,760
And it's not just shame on you for being immoral for taking drugs.

1596
01:35:18,920 --> 01:35:24,760
Like that, you know, it it it challenges just this really cartoonish view of the world

1597
01:35:24,840 --> 01:35:27,560
where it's just you take drugs because you're a bad person, right?

1598
01:35:27,960 --> 01:35:33,240
Or a weak person, or because it's hijacked your reward system.

1599
01:35:33,720 --> 01:35:39,400
Um, and you know, just pop culture, you know, dopamine hit, we hear, you know, constantly.

1600
01:35:39,480 --> 01:35:43,910
Um and it's really kind of getting the whole thing backwards, you know, that these

1601
01:35:43,910 --> 01:35:46,150
neurotransmitters are how your body works.

1602
01:35:46,390 --> 01:35:51,270
And the buzz and the high is not from neurotransmitters, it's from compounds that evolve to

1603
01:35:51,270 --> 01:35:55,910
interfere with with cellular signaling.

1604
01:35:56,310 --> 01:35:57,510
Hit is right, but they mean it.

1605
01:35:58,470 --> 01:36:00,870
They're saying the right word, but it's the wrong intention.

1606
01:36:00,950 --> 01:36:01,270
Yeah.

1607
01:36:01,590 --> 01:36:01,830
Yeah.

1608
01:36:01,990 --> 01:36:04,790
There it's it's we're not getting hits from dopamine.

1609
01:36:04,950 --> 01:36:07,750
We're getting from hits from compounds that evolve to interfere with dopamine.

1610
01:36:08,150 --> 01:36:08,550
Exactly.

1611
01:36:08,630 --> 01:36:08,950
Yeah.

1612
01:36:09,110 --> 01:36:10,440
So it's exactly the opposite.

1613
01:36:10,520 --> 01:36:10,680
Yeah.

1614
01:36:10,760 --> 01:36:13,000
So exactly.

1615
01:36:13,240 --> 01:36:18,680
Um the uh I mean David, I'll you know, feel free to jump in.

1616
01:36:18,760 --> 01:36:21,560
I just wanted to because I just want to cover a little more ground.

1617
01:36:21,800 --> 01:36:27,720
Um knowledge specialization and sort of um we've had some folks on talking about

1618
01:36:27,720 --> 01:36:31,960
leadership and also like female leadership has been something we've kind of been going

1619
01:36:31,960 --> 01:36:32,360
around.

1620
01:36:32,600 --> 01:36:36,970
Can you talk a little bit about you know, we you and I, we both had leadership papers come

1621
01:36:36,970 --> 01:36:38,330
out roughly around the same time.

1622
01:36:38,570 --> 01:36:41,850
Yours was an enormous, again, encyclopedic um thing.

1623
01:36:42,090 --> 01:36:46,890
Can you talk a little bit about what you're thinking about from kind of new ideas about um

1624
01:36:46,890 --> 01:36:49,290
leadership and and family leadership?

1625
01:36:49,450 --> 01:36:51,210
I I I know you've been thinking about that a little bit.

1626
01:36:51,450 --> 01:36:51,690
Yeah.

1627
01:36:52,010 --> 01:36:52,250
Yeah.

1628
01:36:52,330 --> 01:36:57,930
So Zach Garfield um gives credit for the encyclopedic uh treatment of

1629
01:36:57,930 --> 01:36:58,650
leadership there.

1630
01:36:58,730 --> 01:37:01,450
He's the one that did all the work there.

1631
01:37:01,690 --> 01:37:03,540
Well, is that Oh, I said great.

1632
01:37:03,620 --> 01:37:08,500
And actually we've been having try we're getting trying to get Zach on um with field site

1633
01:37:08,580 --> 01:37:09,940
uh scheduling things.

1634
01:37:10,020 --> 01:37:11,380
But yeah, that's great good to know.

1635
01:37:11,460 --> 01:37:14,740
So yeah, yeah, he he gets credit for for that.

1636
01:37:14,980 --> 01:37:20,580
Um so this was uh this kind of actually goes back to Shagnon.

1637
01:37:20,980 --> 01:37:26,420
Um right around the time I was getting my PhD, 2000, a book came out

1638
01:37:26,740 --> 01:37:32,410
that um accused Shagnon and his early collaborator, James Neal,

1639
01:37:32,650 --> 01:37:38,650
who's a geneticist of deliberately triggering an epidemic in the Onomamo

1640
01:37:39,050 --> 01:37:41,050
using a dangerous measles vaccine.

1641
01:37:41,690 --> 01:37:46,490
I was an anthra minor when this was happening and I was learning about it real time.

1642
01:37:46,650 --> 01:37:52,280
I think the first John Tubi thing I ever read was John's um basically just like

1643
01:37:52,520 --> 01:37:55,800
post online about sort of what he found out about this.

1644
01:37:55,960 --> 01:37:57,880
So yeah, this was a real thing when it was happening.

1645
01:37:58,040 --> 01:37:59,160
This darkness in El Dorado.

1646
01:37:59,720 --> 01:38:02,760
Yeah, this is called The Darkness in El Dorado is the name of the book.

1647
01:38:02,920 --> 01:38:08,680
Um and uh we got early notification of this um

1648
01:38:10,200 --> 01:38:15,880
coming out, and so John and Michael Price and myself

1649
01:38:15,880 --> 01:38:21,590
started looking into what the heck was actually going on, And it turned out

1650
01:38:21,590 --> 01:38:23,670
just to be completely made up.

1651
01:38:23,830 --> 01:38:25,270
Basically, it was a vaccine scare.

1652
01:38:25,350 --> 01:38:27,990
So the same kind of anti-vaxx stuff we're seeing today.

1653
01:38:28,310 --> 01:38:33,670
Probably some evolved psychology about vaccines are you got to get stuck with a needle.

1654
01:38:33,750 --> 01:38:35,750
Somebody's injecting some weird thing into you.

1655
01:38:35,830 --> 01:38:37,350
And so people are kind of hesitant.

1656
01:38:37,430 --> 01:38:41,990
So there's we probably have some reason to that, you know, it's probably pretty easy to

1657
01:38:41,990 --> 01:38:44,660
trigger fears of vaccines.

1658
01:38:45,140 --> 01:38:49,860
And so that's what this book was kind of at its core was another yet another vaccine kind

1659
01:38:49,860 --> 01:38:52,420
of scare that there was this dangerous vaccine.

1660
01:38:52,500 --> 01:38:55,460
But you know, vaccines cannot cause epidemics.

1661
01:38:55,620 --> 01:38:57,540
Uh they prevent epidemics.

1662
01:38:57,620 --> 01:39:02,180
Um, and the evidence for that was overwhelming with this measles vaccine and that it was

1663
01:39:02,180 --> 01:39:04,660
used properly in all the right context, blah, blah, blah.

1664
01:39:05,110 --> 01:39:10,310
So now Shagnon was sort of Sam the Neil and Shagnon were basically inoculating them against

1665
01:39:10,470 --> 01:39:15,670
measles, but there was this book that was basically, for various reasons, which maybe are

1666
01:39:15,670 --> 01:39:21,590
not worth going into, uh falsely accused them of creating a problem.

1667
01:39:22,310 --> 01:39:26,630
Yeah, this is kind of the you know the controversies over evolutionary approaches to human

1668
01:39:26,630 --> 01:39:26,950
behavior.

1669
01:39:27,030 --> 01:39:29,910
And of course, Shagnon was one of the pioneers in that.

1670
01:39:30,070 --> 01:39:35,800
And so to tarnish uh the field of evolution and human behavior.

1671
01:39:36,040 --> 01:39:38,680
Um, that was kind of one of the underlying motives of this book.

1672
01:39:38,840 --> 01:39:40,280
There were several underlying motives.

1673
01:39:40,360 --> 01:39:40,920
That was one.

1674
01:39:42,200 --> 01:39:48,200
Basically accusing of Shagnon and Neil of this unethical research to

1675
01:39:48,200 --> 01:39:52,200
test some evolutionary theory of leadership in the onamo.

1676
01:39:53,670 --> 01:39:58,310
And so that was the idea that Neil uh thought there was a leadership gene.

1677
01:39:58,470 --> 01:39:59,430
He didn't.

1678
01:40:00,950 --> 01:40:06,710
And that he concocted a plan to trigger a

1679
01:40:06,950 --> 01:40:12,710
measles epidemic to test his nefarious theory of leadership in the Onomammo.

1680
01:40:14,340 --> 01:40:18,820
and uh his sidekick Shagnon, you know, helped him carry out this plan.

1681
01:40:19,060 --> 01:40:21,380
So that was the the kind of the story of the book.

1682
01:40:21,540 --> 01:40:27,060
Yeah cartoon uh and you know, published by Norton, this you know, well-respected

1683
01:40:27,060 --> 01:40:31,380
academic publisher, published in the New Yorker with fact checking, blah, blah, blah.

1684
01:40:31,540 --> 01:40:33,940
Turned out to all be completely made up.

1685
01:40:34,180 --> 01:40:35,860
Uh, but it did get me curious.

1686
01:40:35,940 --> 01:40:38,180
So this is how it leads into the leadership question.

1687
01:40:38,420 --> 01:40:43,670
So um I was doing all the, I was kind of John's research guy behind the scenes, me and

1688
01:40:43,670 --> 01:40:47,110
Michael Price doing a lot of the all the getting all the papers and reading them.

1689
01:40:47,190 --> 01:40:49,190
And so I was reading the two grad students, right?

1690
01:40:49,510 --> 01:40:51,670
The two grad students doing all the work here.

1691
01:40:51,750 --> 01:40:53,350
Um and John was doing a lot too.

1692
01:40:53,430 --> 01:40:54,710
Um I'm sure, yeah.

1693
01:40:55,510 --> 01:40:56,870
But trying to figure out what was going on.

1694
01:40:57,030 --> 01:41:00,390
So I was reading Neil's papers, and you know, what did he say about leadership?

1695
01:41:00,470 --> 01:41:01,670
And what the what the heck?

1696
01:41:02,550 --> 01:41:03,430
Leadership gene.

1697
01:41:03,510 --> 01:41:04,710
You know, he's a geneticist.

1698
01:41:04,790 --> 01:41:06,790
Is that really what he was thinking?

1699
01:41:07,270 --> 01:41:12,160
And um, no, Neil had this really key insight back in the

1700
01:41:12,160 --> 01:41:16,480
1950s and early 60s, before anyone really.

1701
01:41:16,560 --> 01:41:20,880
And he's really his work has been forgotten, sadly, in my view.

1702
01:41:21,120 --> 01:41:26,400
But he, like many, many others, realized that if we really want to understand human

1703
01:41:26,400 --> 01:41:31,600
evolution, we have to really understand what's going on in these kind of small-scale, more

1704
01:41:31,600 --> 01:41:32,640
traditional societies.

1705
01:41:32,720 --> 01:41:38,640
So he started working in Amazonian groups, the Anomama with one and

1706
01:41:39,280 --> 01:41:43,970
the Chevante, another, and really trying to understand, you know, what's going on and being

1707
01:41:43,970 --> 01:41:47,170
a geneticist, he was really focused on survival and reproduction.

1708
01:41:47,250 --> 01:41:51,650
So he was you know putting together all these demographic tables and kinship charts and

1709
01:41:51,650 --> 01:41:56,050
who's reproducing and who's not, what are you know, um, what are the mortality rates, just

1710
01:41:56,050 --> 01:41:57,890
all the real basic stuff.

1711
01:41:58,130 --> 01:42:03,810
And what he discovered um was that uh the headman in these

1712
01:42:03,810 --> 01:42:08,130
communities were having way more kids, like way more than everybody else, uh, than all the

1713
01:42:08,130 --> 01:42:08,770
other men.

1714
01:42:09,180 --> 01:42:14,220
And um, and so he really began to think through what are the implications for human if

1715
01:42:14,220 --> 01:42:19,180
this, and you know, he was careful scientist, but if this pattern characterized human

1716
01:42:19,180 --> 01:42:24,460
evolution, these kinds of societies that there's this real reproductive skew that it's the

1717
01:42:24,460 --> 01:42:29,820
headmen that um are having uh most of the kids.

1718
01:42:30,570 --> 01:42:36,410
um among the men what are the implications for human evolution

1719
01:42:36,650 --> 01:42:41,690
and um of course many many folks have looked at status and you know that this would select

1720
01:42:41,690 --> 01:42:47,290
for status striving um and the desire to you know achieve status and that was not

1721
01:42:47,290 --> 01:42:51,680
neil's uh approach he was like what traits would be under selected?

1722
01:42:51,840 --> 01:42:55,280
What traits allow these men to rise into leadership positions?

1723
01:42:55,440 --> 01:42:58,560
And his answer was intelligence.

1724
01:42:58,720 --> 01:43:03,760
Um, that they are, they're not the most aggressive guys or the strongest guys or the most

1725
01:43:03,760 --> 01:43:04,560
violent guys.

1726
01:43:04,640 --> 01:43:06,080
Um, they're good at pretty much everything.

1727
01:43:06,160 --> 01:43:08,000
They're kind of jack-of-all trades.

1728
01:43:08,160 --> 01:43:11,040
Um, they are good warriors, they are good hunters.

1729
01:43:11,120 --> 01:43:14,710
They're not necessarily the best warrior, they're not necessarily the best hunter, They are

1730
01:43:14,710 --> 01:43:20,550
good at tribal lore and knowledge, um, and all the things that leaders are good at.

1731
01:43:20,710 --> 01:43:22,550
And he said that takes smarts.

1732
01:43:22,710 --> 01:43:26,550
Um, and he said, You know, I'm not talking about IQ here, but I'm talking about some more

1733
01:43:26,550 --> 01:43:31,110
general um notion of ability, these general is it just the ability to pick things up

1734
01:43:31,110 --> 01:43:33,190
quickly, just like to learn skills?

1735
01:43:33,830 --> 01:43:35,670
Well, he didn't go into his idea too much.

1736
01:43:35,750 --> 01:43:39,270
I mean, he was really a geneticist and much more focused on genetics, so this was a little

1737
01:43:39,270 --> 01:43:40,630
bit of a hobby side thing for him.

1738
01:43:40,710 --> 01:43:42,630
He only wrote a few things on it.

1739
01:43:42,870 --> 01:43:48,400
Um, and he left a lot of details out, like what okay, so these guys are maybe

1740
01:43:48,400 --> 01:43:50,160
smarter than average.

1741
01:43:50,320 --> 01:43:55,120
Um, and he had these kind of Monte Carlo models actually, uh, where he kind of shows that

1742
01:43:55,120 --> 01:43:59,840
it wouldn't take too much given the the patterns that he's seeing, and given you know, a

1743
01:44:00,080 --> 01:44:06,080
bell curve of the heritability of some sort of innate ability, uh, you'd get

1744
01:44:06,080 --> 01:44:08,080
selection pretty quickly for it.

1745
01:44:08,240 --> 01:44:13,410
But he really didn't go into okay, these guys might be, you know, on the smart end of the

1746
01:44:13,410 --> 01:44:18,930
scale, but um, why how does that allow them to rise into the leadership position?

1747
01:44:19,010 --> 01:44:21,570
He and he admitted, he said, I'm not really sure what it is.

1748
01:44:21,730 --> 01:44:24,370
He said, You know, he observed these guys, what they did.

1749
01:44:24,450 --> 01:44:28,370
And he said, You know, I can really see that they're respected by everybody and they're

1750
01:44:28,370 --> 01:44:30,050
respected for their talents.

1751
01:44:30,210 --> 01:44:34,980
Um And I thought, you know, and I remember talking about this with John, and we were both

1752
01:44:34,980 --> 01:44:37,620
like, wow, that's actually a really good idea.

1753
01:44:37,780 --> 01:44:41,940
Um and Neil was viewing this as one of the driving forces in encephalization.

1754
01:44:42,020 --> 01:44:45,620
So you know how Encephalization meaning brains getting bigger over evolution time.

1755
01:44:45,940 --> 01:44:47,460
Brains getting bigger over evolutionary time.

1756
01:44:47,540 --> 01:44:52,740
You know, how do we go from a chimp sized brain of 400 milliliters to a human sized brain

1757
01:44:52,740 --> 01:44:55,830
of, you 12 to 1400 milliliters.

1758
01:44:56,230 --> 01:45:00,470
And so he said, could this be one of the keys to that puzzle?

1759
01:45:01,110 --> 01:45:02,950
This reproductive skew and headman.

1760
01:45:03,110 --> 01:45:07,510
So I've always kind of I tucked that in my back pocket as an idea to pursue later and begin

1761
01:45:07,510 --> 01:45:11,670
to work out, you know, fill in some of the gaps that Neil didn't fill in.

1762
01:45:11,750 --> 01:45:14,230
Like, how do these guys rise into this position?

1763
01:45:14,390 --> 01:45:19,910
And so when I took on Zach as a Zach Garfield as a student, I said,

1764
01:45:20,150 --> 01:45:25,040
Hey, um, you've been working on status with Ray Haynes as an undergrad.

1765
01:45:25,120 --> 01:45:28,880
And I've been always wanting to kind of look at leadership more broadly.

1766
01:45:29,040 --> 01:45:29,840
Is Neil right?

1767
01:45:30,080 --> 01:45:31,600
Is there this reproductive skew?

1768
01:45:31,840 --> 01:45:34,560
Um are these guys viewed as smart and intelligent?

1769
01:45:34,720 --> 01:45:39,440
Um is that you really a universal feature of leadership in Hunter Gather and other small

1770
01:45:39,520 --> 01:45:40,080
scale society?

1771
01:45:40,240 --> 01:45:45,130
So I said, if you're interested, we can really dig into that and see if Neil was on to

1772
01:45:45,130 --> 01:45:45,930
something here.

1773
01:45:46,170 --> 01:45:51,770
And what we found is that yes, uh, leaders are nearly universally viewed, not all

1774
01:45:51,770 --> 01:45:57,690
leaders, but just in general, every culture values intelligent, knowledgeable leaders.

1775
01:45:57,850 --> 01:46:03,610
That is a very highly valued trait that is possessed by uh leaders in most um small-scale

1776
01:46:03,610 --> 01:46:04,570
societies.

1777
01:46:04,890 --> 01:46:10,090
Um, there's clear evidence of that they are more reproductively successful than other men.

1778
01:46:12,240 --> 01:46:16,640
And so that really gave us the empirical foundation that yes, Neil's onto something here,

1779
01:46:16,720 --> 01:46:21,040
and we should start to think about the importance of knowledge to other people and the

1780
01:46:21,040 --> 01:46:26,480
importance of some of these skills to other people that would allow these guys to rise.

1781
01:46:26,640 --> 01:46:30,960
And what are the cognitive challenges of leadership that these guys might be better at

1782
01:46:30,960 --> 01:46:34,170
solving than, you know, and just a little bit better.

1783
01:46:34,330 --> 01:46:35,290
Doesn't have to be a lot.

1784
01:46:35,450 --> 01:46:37,770
Uh, just that little bit of genetic variation.

1785
01:46:38,090 --> 01:46:44,010
Um and um, so that's that's kind of where we're coming in is is trying to figure out

1786
01:46:44,010 --> 01:46:47,930
what what are the cognitive demands of leadership that would be valuable to both.

1787
01:46:48,170 --> 01:46:49,610
And that's the interesting thing of leadership.

1788
01:46:49,690 --> 01:46:54,330
They're not a lot of folks have focused on how leaders are valuable to other men or how

1789
01:46:54,330 --> 01:46:55,370
they're valuable to women.

1790
01:46:55,530 --> 01:47:00,090
We're like they they're valuable to both, you know, both sexes are seeing value in what

1791
01:47:00,090 --> 01:47:01,610
these guys are offering.

1792
01:47:01,840 --> 01:47:05,280
And so what kinds of things would be valuable to both sexes?

1793
01:47:05,520 --> 01:47:09,040
Um, and so that's where the family issue comes in.

1794
01:47:09,120 --> 01:47:15,120
That we kind of realize that human societies are uh multi-level societies that we kind

1795
01:47:15,120 --> 01:47:19,200
of have the family level that is nested kind of within the more community or residence

1796
01:47:19,200 --> 01:47:25,170
level that's nested in with a more broader political level, but that

1797
01:47:25,170 --> 01:47:27,970
the challenges, there's kind of similar challenges at each level.

1798
01:47:28,130 --> 01:47:32,930
And so the kinds of traits that would make you a good leader would also make you a good

1799
01:47:32,930 --> 01:47:33,330
husband.

1800
01:47:33,410 --> 01:47:36,450
That you're gonna and some of those things are gonna be conflict resolution.

1801
01:47:36,530 --> 01:47:39,090
We conflict was kind of a theme earlier in our talk here.

1802
01:47:39,410 --> 01:47:45,010
Uh, that what leaders are doing across cultures is solving conflicts to

1803
01:47:45,010 --> 01:47:47,010
prevent group visioning.

1804
01:47:47,410 --> 01:47:53,060
Um and that's tough because you have to know just about everything about everybody to

1805
01:47:53,060 --> 01:47:58,340
understand what those conflicts are and be able to search a pretty broad space of solutions

1806
01:47:58,340 --> 01:48:03,940
pretty quickly to figure out where you might be able to square the circle here

1807
01:48:04,260 --> 01:48:06,900
and find a solution that everybody can rely on.

1808
01:48:07,060 --> 01:48:08,420
And that's the style of leadership.

1809
01:48:08,580 --> 01:48:11,940
This is not a top-down style leadership, what we see in small-scale societies.

1810
01:48:12,020 --> 01:48:15,060
It's not hereditary, it's not a formal position.

1811
01:48:15,300 --> 01:48:18,830
These are just guys who uh people listen to when they speak.

1812
01:48:18,990 --> 01:48:22,030
And they're listened to because they have valuable things to say.

1813
01:48:22,190 --> 01:48:26,990
They know something or they have some idea, something valuable to offer consistently over a

1814
01:48:26,990 --> 01:48:27,950
lifetime.

1815
01:48:29,150 --> 01:48:34,990
And so it's it's those are the aspects that we're kind of exploring to how these guys

1816
01:48:34,990 --> 01:48:40,910
actually, you know, what cognitive uh capabilities they have that might, you know, be

1817
01:48:40,910 --> 01:48:46,780
part of our now, today, our common humanity that we all have by virtue of

1818
01:48:46,780 --> 01:48:51,740
the fact that these things have been under constant selection throughout human evolution.

1819
01:48:52,060 --> 01:48:52,300
Yeah.

1820
01:48:52,380 --> 01:48:58,140
So it's kind of like the idea that there's an entry for variation in a certain set of

1821
01:48:58,140 --> 01:48:59,260
abilities.

1822
01:48:59,740 --> 01:49:05,180
And I like that you're unpacking that we don't just sort of like treat

1823
01:49:05,370 --> 01:49:10,570
intelligence quote unquote as just obvious or intrinsic, but then it's saying, well, what

1824
01:49:10,730 --> 01:49:16,730
what would be a important thing for organisms or other people to sort of want in

1825
01:49:17,370 --> 01:49:18,250
somebody else?

1826
01:49:18,330 --> 01:49:18,490
Right.

1827
01:49:18,650 --> 01:49:23,530
And so things like coordination or having knowledge to sort of see a possibility space of

1828
01:49:23,530 --> 01:49:26,010
for what to do or how to resolve a conflict.

1829
01:49:26,090 --> 01:49:28,410
Um that kind of gives that teeth.

1830
01:49:28,570 --> 01:49:30,490
Um yeah I like that.

1831
01:49:31,120 --> 01:49:31,360
Right.

1832
01:49:31,600 --> 01:49:36,800
And we're we kind of the way we're talk about this is a computational services that

1833
01:49:37,440 --> 01:49:43,360
we humans um are valuable to others many times because we offer valuable

1834
01:49:43,360 --> 01:49:45,440
comp uh computational services to others.

1835
01:49:45,520 --> 01:49:49,280
Sometimes it's information, sometimes it's decisions, solutions.

1836
01:49:49,600 --> 01:49:53,440
Um sometimes uh this comes in with the self medication aspect.

1837
01:49:53,600 --> 01:49:59,010
The the sort of triad there is that we have kind of spices and drugs, but we also have

1838
01:49:59,010 --> 01:50:03,330
traditional medicine that shamans are key figures in small-scale societies.

1839
01:50:03,410 --> 01:50:08,210
And one of the main things they do is offer traditional plant-based medicines that are,

1840
01:50:08,290 --> 01:50:14,130
again, special plant toxins that are effective at treating certain kinds of illnesses.

1841
01:50:14,930 --> 01:50:20,770
And that's a very cognitively demanding task to figure out which of these various

1842
01:50:20,770 --> 01:50:22,930
combinations of these various plant substances.

1843
01:50:23,090 --> 01:50:28,460
You know, you have a symptom profile that you have to figure out what that symptom profile

1844
01:50:28,460 --> 01:50:29,020
indicates?

1845
01:50:29,100 --> 01:50:32,780
Um, and then how do I match it to some combination of plant toxins?

1846
01:50:32,860 --> 01:50:37,820
There's a lot of computation going on there to solve those kinds of problems.

1847
01:50:37,980 --> 01:50:41,660
So that would be another example of a computational service in addition to these more

1848
01:50:41,660 --> 01:50:45,900
leadership-oriented ones that we think might have been really valuable in traditional

1849
01:50:45,900 --> 01:50:46,620
societies.

1850
01:50:46,700 --> 01:50:52,380
Um we're kind of broadly characterizing this as and then when you look at the family level,

1851
01:50:52,460 --> 01:50:53,740
who's doing all of those things?

1852
01:50:53,950 --> 01:50:54,910
It's mothers.

1853
01:50:55,310 --> 01:50:58,110
They're having to treat their kids and they know a lot of traditional medicine.

1854
01:50:58,270 --> 01:51:02,990
They're having to solve conflicts with all their kids, some of whom are adults, some of

1855
01:51:02,990 --> 01:51:03,870
whom are infants.

1856
01:51:04,190 --> 01:51:06,990
There's this daily conflicts that moms are having to solve.

1857
01:51:07,070 --> 01:51:12,190
So we actually think a lot of the selection wasn't in these male leaders, but in moms

1858
01:51:12,190 --> 01:51:16,350
leading their families and doing exactly the same thing that the headman is doing at the

1859
01:51:16,350 --> 01:51:18,860
community level, moms are doing at the family level.

1860
01:51:18,940 --> 01:51:22,380
So the selection on the cognitive abilities might initially have been in females.

1861
01:51:22,620 --> 01:51:23,500
Yeah, it's really interesting.

1862
01:51:23,580 --> 01:51:27,020
I mean being a parent and you know we're all parents and David and I are really on the

1863
01:51:27,020 --> 01:51:31,500
thick of it right now is like the control system is like a division of labor.

1864
01:51:31,580 --> 01:51:34,620
I mean my my son's gonna be getting a bit older and I think is a bit older than your

1865
01:51:34,620 --> 01:51:38,670
daughter, David, but you know, you're like your brain is for two, you know.

1866
01:51:39,150 --> 01:51:41,390
You're like you're watching the cars or more.

1867
01:51:41,550 --> 01:51:41,870
You're more.

1868
01:51:42,110 --> 01:51:46,510
And if you're in a traditional society, you have a you have five kids because you have

1869
01:51:46,830 --> 01:51:51,230
humans have this short interbirth interval of about two, two and a half years and this very

1870
01:51:51,230 --> 01:51:52,990
long developmental period.

1871
01:51:53,230 --> 01:51:57,230
Um and so you're not like a chimp mom where it's one kid at a time.

1872
01:51:57,390 --> 01:52:02,190
Um human moms are, you know, one, then two, then three, then four, then five kids, uh, and

1873
01:52:02,190 --> 01:52:03,390
you're dealing with all of them.

1874
01:52:03,550 --> 01:52:03,710
Yeah.

1875
01:52:03,950 --> 01:52:06,590
And they're at different ages, they have different needs.

1876
01:52:06,750 --> 01:52:11,140
Um, you know, some of them are ending the mating market, others are sick, others are

1877
01:52:11,140 --> 01:52:13,620
fighting with the you know the kids next door.

1878
01:52:13,860 --> 01:52:19,540
Um, and so you're you know, it's just a massive problem that you're trying to solve on a

1879
01:52:19,540 --> 01:52:20,980
literally a minute by minute basis.

1880
01:52:21,460 --> 01:52:26,180
I I can't say, like, I I think, I mean, maybe science approaches it, but I don't think

1881
01:52:26,180 --> 01:52:30,260
there's an thing in my life that I've ever used like every drop of my quote unquote

1882
01:52:30,260 --> 01:52:32,260
intelligence as much as in for parenting.

1883
01:52:32,660 --> 01:52:37,450
Yeah, my my wife, you know, uh teases me that this whole idea she deserves credit for this

1884
01:52:37,450 --> 01:52:41,610
whole thing because me observing her, you know, and also both of us just dealing with

1885
01:52:41,610 --> 01:52:43,370
parenting when when our kids were young.

1886
01:52:43,450 --> 01:52:48,330
It was just constant uh scheduling and negotiating.

1887
01:52:48,650 --> 01:52:53,210
And um just the cognitive demands were that were just really pushed both of us to the the

1888
01:52:53,210 --> 01:52:58,650
edge of what we and then you know, both trying to get our careers going, and um it was uh

1889
01:52:58,890 --> 01:52:59,530
intense.

1890
01:53:00,540 --> 01:53:05,740
Yeah, it definitely resonates with me as a married man with a kid, just all of the

1891
01:53:05,740 --> 01:53:10,940
incredible cognitive labor that my wife manages to pull off with navigating schedules and

1892
01:53:10,940 --> 01:53:14,460
social networks and like it uh it's it's dizzying to me.

1893
01:53:14,780 --> 01:53:18,780
Yeah, you're you're you're you you're figuring out, okay, your kid like I remember even

1894
01:53:18,780 --> 01:53:21,420
myself thinking, like, I am what am I worrying most about now?

1895
01:53:21,740 --> 01:53:26,550
My my you know five year old daughter's social relationship her and her friends in

1896
01:53:26,550 --> 01:53:32,390
kindergarten and who she's having conflicts with and uh you know is her friend dissing her

1897
01:53:32,470 --> 01:53:37,830
or is she getting along and so you're you're having to build a cognitive model of of their

1898
01:53:37,830 --> 01:53:43,030
social worlds and then figure out what you can do and then their parents and what are your

1899
01:53:43,030 --> 01:53:45,590
relationships with their with those kids' parents.

1900
01:53:45,910 --> 01:53:51,510
Um it's it's just uh and in mothers in traditional societies that's just it's

1901
01:53:51,600 --> 01:53:56,640
it's multiplied by by uh the number of kids that they're and plus you know, environmental

1902
01:53:56,640 --> 01:53:59,680
threats are are way more severe and health threats.

1903
01:54:00,080 --> 01:54:04,880
I there we we're gonna have to wrap up soon, but uh parenting brain or like what what

1904
01:54:04,880 --> 01:54:09,520
happens the adaptations for parenting, I think is such an understudied Yeah.

1905
01:54:09,600 --> 01:54:15,520
I totally if there's like a ratio of sort of like what

1906
01:54:15,520 --> 01:54:21,490
there is to the research on it, that's probably maybe one of the biggest sort of like

1907
01:54:21,490 --> 01:54:24,130
elephants of the room in terms of evolutionary psychology.

1908
01:54:24,210 --> 01:54:25,410
Yeah, I agree with that.

1909
01:54:25,730 --> 01:54:26,130
Yeah.

1910
01:54:26,450 --> 01:54:27,010
Absolutely.

1911
01:54:28,210 --> 01:54:33,090
And we often ask people, this has been great, lots of fun things to talk about.

1912
01:54:33,250 --> 01:54:37,570
Um some we often ask people, or always ask people, if there's anything we should have asked

1913
01:54:37,570 --> 01:54:37,810
you.

1914
01:54:38,050 --> 01:54:39,410
Um god.

1915
01:54:41,410 --> 01:54:46,860
Uh no, I think I think we've covered the the big uh I guess.

1916
01:54:47,260 --> 01:54:50,300
I feel like we've barely scratched the surface of 20 stuff I wanted to talk about.

1917
01:54:50,620 --> 01:54:51,660
We gotta have you on again.

1918
01:54:52,060 --> 01:54:53,980
Um we have music and dance.

1919
01:54:54,540 --> 01:54:55,580
Yeah, we have music and dance.

1920
01:54:55,660 --> 01:54:57,020
We haven't talked about that one.

1921
01:54:57,260 --> 01:55:02,860
Um we haven't talked about the challenges and barriers and

1922
01:55:02,860 --> 01:55:06,140
successes of of evolutionary thinking in the social sciences.

1923
01:55:06,860 --> 01:55:07,740
Uh yeah.

1924
01:55:07,980 --> 01:55:13,930
Um yeah, we were just talking to Christina um about about sort of what even are the

1925
01:55:13,930 --> 01:55:15,850
areas within the evolutionary social sciences.

1926
01:55:16,010 --> 01:55:20,010
And we talked a little bit so like Dan Conroy Beam on about sort of how the mating

1927
01:55:20,090 --> 01:55:22,410
literature has been progressing.

1928
01:55:22,570 --> 01:55:26,890
But we haven't, you know, we've there's been ebbs and flows of like how the evolutionary

1929
01:55:26,890 --> 01:55:28,250
behavioral sciences are going.

1930
01:55:28,410 --> 01:55:30,810
But yeah, we haven't there's still a lot more to say about that.

1931
01:55:30,970 --> 01:55:31,290
Yeah.

1932
01:55:31,690 --> 01:55:31,930
Right.

1933
01:55:32,090 --> 01:55:36,170
So that'd be an area I'm trying to think if there's any other um you are incoming human

1934
01:55:36,170 --> 01:55:38,330
behavior and evolution society president too.

1935
01:55:38,490 --> 01:55:38,730
Yeah.

1936
01:55:39,400 --> 01:55:40,040
Yeah.

1937
01:55:40,440 --> 01:55:46,040
Um, and the kind of polarization that we see in the

1938
01:55:46,040 --> 01:55:50,120
nation is reflected in our society as well.

1939
01:55:50,360 --> 01:55:51,720
So that's gonna be fun.

1940
01:55:51,880 --> 01:55:52,200
Yeah.

1941
01:55:52,360 --> 01:55:54,040
Um, that's gonna be fun to navigate.

1942
01:55:54,200 --> 01:55:55,240
Yeah, scientists are people.

1943
01:55:55,480 --> 01:55:57,960
I mean, you're gonna need to do a lot of computational services as well.

1944
01:55:58,040 --> 01:56:01,800
I mean, I'm exactly like uh conflict management there.

1945
01:56:02,040 --> 01:56:05,800
I may uh I may lose my position and may be dethroned very quickly.

1946
01:56:07,290 --> 01:56:09,850
Hopefully it doesn't hurt my reproductive success too much here.

1947
01:56:10,490 --> 01:56:15,050
Um yeah, uh that'll be interesting.

1948
01:56:15,290 --> 01:56:21,050
Um and we do have there's um there's child challenges in science in general right now

1949
01:56:21,210 --> 01:56:24,250
and um the publishing landscape.

1950
01:56:24,330 --> 01:56:29,500
Um there's a lot of challenges there too with our journal EHB and how do we want to go with

1951
01:56:29,500 --> 01:56:31,900
that that we're going to be uh dealing with?

1952
01:56:31,980 --> 01:56:34,540
Um right, which is uh Elsevere, yeah.

1953
01:56:34,860 --> 01:56:40,220
Which is the Elsevier, which of course is pretty controversial with many academics.

1954
01:56:40,300 --> 01:56:42,620
Uh I was shocked.

1955
01:56:42,780 --> 01:56:47,260
I mean, uh uh we can cut this, but I was shocked at like the Elsevier profits or like

1956
01:56:47,260 --> 01:56:48,140
publishing profits.

1957
01:56:48,220 --> 01:56:48,940
It's insane.

1958
01:56:49,260 --> 01:56:51,180
Yeah, there's a paradox there.

1959
01:56:51,420 --> 01:56:57,290
Um that their publishing profits are insane, and yet their publishing fees are

1960
01:56:57,290 --> 01:56:59,690
about the same as nonprofit journals.

1961
01:56:59,930 --> 01:57:05,530
So if you look at the um article publishing costs, they're

1962
01:57:06,090 --> 01:57:07,290
they're all about the same.

1963
01:57:07,370 --> 01:57:07,610
Yeah.

1964
01:57:07,770 --> 01:57:13,210
So how is El Selvier raking in these huge profits, whereas the nonprofits are nonprofits?

1965
01:57:13,290 --> 01:57:13,690
Yes.

1966
01:57:13,850 --> 01:57:15,450
Uh, and they're charging the same thing.

1967
01:57:15,530 --> 01:57:18,570
And I think I don't know the answer, but I think it's economies of scale.

1968
01:57:18,650 --> 01:57:21,500
Like Salvia just has huge numbers of titles.

1969
01:57:21,580 --> 01:57:24,780
Uh well, isn't it the institutional contracts?

1970
01:57:25,980 --> 01:57:27,580
You mean with libraries and stuff?

1971
01:57:27,660 --> 01:57:27,820
Yeah.

1972
01:57:28,060 --> 01:57:28,620
Yeah, yeah.

1973
01:57:28,700 --> 01:57:30,860
So they they say we'll sell you this bundle.

1974
01:57:31,100 --> 01:57:31,820
Yeah, yeah, exactly.

1975
01:57:31,900 --> 01:57:32,380
It's cable.

1976
01:57:32,460 --> 01:57:32,780
Yeah, yeah.

1977
01:57:32,860 --> 01:57:38,860
There's actually there's academic work on this and that they actually keep

1978
01:57:38,860 --> 01:57:41,500
it under they like there's non-disclosure agreements.

1979
01:57:41,740 --> 01:57:47,500
Because I actually I I did a lecture for Intro Psych about um uh like

1980
01:57:47,890 --> 01:57:48,850
issues in the field.

1981
01:57:48,930 --> 01:57:52,210
And actually one of them was like the publishing issues, you know, just for like, you know,

1982
01:57:52,290 --> 01:57:53,890
where are your tax dollars going?

1983
01:57:53,970 --> 01:57:57,250
Um and if people it's not just tax, it's tuition dollars.

1984
01:57:57,490 --> 01:58:00,770
I was just looking at there's all this stuff about overhead right now.

1985
01:58:00,850 --> 01:58:03,890
So I was looking at where is our overhead at WSU going?

1986
01:58:03,970 --> 01:58:09,640
So just the other day I was digging into our budget um and it turned out a lot of it is

1987
01:58:09,640 --> 01:58:12,040
going to the libraries to pay for these journals.

1988
01:58:12,280 --> 01:58:12,600
Exactly.

1989
01:58:12,840 --> 01:58:15,720
So, you know, folks were saying, oh, it's paying for this, it's paying for that.

1990
01:58:15,800 --> 01:58:19,240
Actually, it's it's paying for our journal subscriptions, at least at WSU.

1991
01:58:19,400 --> 01:58:21,000
That's where a lot, that's where a lot of it's going.

1992
01:58:21,160 --> 01:58:22,280
Not not all of it, of course.

1993
01:58:22,680 --> 01:58:23,800
Yeah, we're a little in the weeds.

1994
01:58:23,960 --> 01:58:26,040
Maybe we can have a whole episode on journal publishing.

1995
01:58:26,120 --> 01:58:28,120
So or maybe we're getting into the weeds here.

1996
01:58:28,200 --> 01:58:28,440
Yeah.

1997
01:58:30,790 --> 01:58:31,590
Well, all right.

1998
01:58:33,270 --> 01:58:35,350
Well, this was an awesome conversation.

1999
01:58:35,510 --> 01:58:41,510
I wish we had uh you know a a million hours to to fully explore the landscape of your

2000
01:58:41,510 --> 01:58:46,710
ideas and your work and to just shoot the shit and and you know bounce new ideas off of

2001
01:58:46,710 --> 01:58:46,950
you.

2002
01:58:47,110 --> 01:58:53,030
Um you're you're a truly um uh inspiring role model and capacious mind.

2003
01:58:53,190 --> 01:58:56,470
Um it was a pleasure to have you on, and I look forward to having you back.

2004
01:58:56,630 --> 01:58:57,110
Thank you so much.

2005
01:58:57,430 --> 01:58:57,590
Thank you.

2006
01:58:58,150 --> 01:58:59,750
Yeah, take care, guys.

2007
01:59:03,180 --> 01:59:05,420
So David, we finished up another episode.

2008
01:59:05,500 --> 01:59:07,500
Uh really uh I'm enjoying this.

2009
01:59:07,580 --> 01:59:08,860
How are how are you how are you doing?

2010
01:59:09,100 --> 01:59:09,900
I'm having a blast.

2011
01:59:10,060 --> 01:59:11,580
I mean, I have a great time on each one.

2012
01:59:11,820 --> 01:59:14,860
Yeah, I learn a lot and it's fun to talk to you.

2013
01:59:15,100 --> 01:59:18,140
And um yeah, and so I hope everybody is enjoying it.

2014
01:59:18,220 --> 01:59:20,940
If you are enjoying it, please, what can people do, David?

2015
01:59:21,330 --> 01:59:26,450
Well, they can leave us a kind review, they can tell a friend, they can climb a mountain

2016
01:59:26,610 --> 01:59:31,570
and shout Evolutionary Psychology the Podcast is the best, uh, as loud as possible.

2017
01:59:31,970 --> 01:59:33,090
Oh, that was really specific.

2018
01:59:33,250 --> 01:59:33,650
That was good.

2019
01:59:34,210 --> 01:59:38,690
Yeah, well, uh yeah, if everybody did that, then you know, everyone would know about us.

2020
01:59:39,330 --> 01:59:40,930
It would it would be weird and and interesting.

2021
01:59:41,090 --> 01:59:44,290
Um uh you can also check out our Patreon page and support us.

2022
01:59:44,370 --> 01:59:50,180
Uh really any kind of encouragement, support, uh uh of any kind is fuel for us.

2023
01:59:50,260 --> 01:59:55,380
It just motivates us to uh keep doing these episodes, bringing on new people, talking to

2024
01:59:55,380 --> 01:59:55,940
each other.

2025
01:59:56,100 --> 01:59:59,380
Um, you we really depend on you for for your support.

2026
01:59:59,780 --> 02:00:03,860
So yeah, and I have one more thing to say, which is if you have thoughts or suggestions

2027
02:00:03,860 --> 02:00:07,700
about, you know, topics or content you'd like to have on, just you know, let us know on

2028
02:00:07,700 --> 02:00:12,870
social media or, you know, send the podcast an email yeah yep all right uh david i'll see

2029
02:00:12,870 --> 02:00:14,790
you in about a week see you