It is now accepted that the expression of certain genes can have a significant impact on both normal and abnormal behavior, and that our environmental, social and cultural factors are triggers for the expression of those genes. It is a complex calculus, but these variables all live in the same equation.
It shouldn’t be much of an inductive leap to think of a desire to care for oneself with illness or injury as a behavioral trait that would encourage survival.
What I propose is that humans have evolved with the desire to care for themselves and their kinship group when ill, or injured – a genetic predisposition that we all share. I am not talking about the drive for ”survival” – that’s different.
What I also propose is that the current model of health care delivery, one that evolved along with much needed new and better (and until recently proprietary) technology and information, has blunted this basic genetic imperative – the drive to care for ourselves.
The advent of the proprietary technology was necessary, as well as the delivery by an external structure – a delivery “system”. Despite the fact that we cared for ourselves until very recently in evolutionary terms, we did it very poorly. We had neither the tools nor the knowledge to do it well. However, that is changing as we speak – the digital revolution has given us tools to put directly into the hands of people rather than only doctors, and is democratizing knowledge as well.
The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion and analysis. Read full, original post: Human Evolution and the Sociobiology of Self-Care
