Daniel Lieberman

evolve healthy offspring diverse conditions abundance comfort

“We didn’t evolve to be healthy, but instead we were selected to have as many offspring as possible under diverse, challenging conditions. As a consequence, we never evolved to make rational choices about what to eat or how to exercise in conditions of abundance and comfort.”

—Daniel Lieberman

human sick illness body adapt evolve mismatch medicine

“The fundamental answer to why so many humans are now getting sick from previously rare illnesses is that many of the body's features were adapted in environments from which we evolved, but have become maladapted in the modern environments we have now created. This idea, known as the mismatch hypothesis, is the core of the new emerging field of evolutionary medicine, which applies evolutionary biology to health and disease.”

—Daniel Lieberman

body evolution diet germ environment

“Our body’s evolutionary journey is also far from over. Natural selection didn’t stop when farming started but instead has continued and continues to adapt populations to changing diets, germs, and environments. Yet the rate and power of cultural evolution has vastly outpaced the rate and power of natural selection, and the bodies we inherited are still adapted to a significant extent to the various and diverse environmental conditions in which we evolved over millions of years. The end product of all that evolution is that we are big-brained, moderately fat bipeds who reproduce relatively rapidly but take a long time to mature.”

—Daniel Lieberman

trend carry load back injury sit chair machine

“general trend is that people who frequently carry heavy loads and do other “back-breaking” work get fewer back injuries than those who sit in chairs for hours bent over a machine.”

—Daniel Lieberman

prohibit sugar alcohol wine beer minors

“There is nearly universal consensus that we should prohibit selling and serving alcohol to minors because wine, beer, and spirits can be addictive and, when used to excess, ruinous for their health. Is excess sugar any different?”

—Daniel Lieberman

evolution diet fitness primal instinct donuts elevator

“An evolutionary perspective predicts that most diets and fitness programs will fail, as they do, because we still don’t know how to counter once-adaptive primal instincts to eat donuts and take the elevator.”

—Daniel Lieberman

agriculture human food supply quantity quality industry

“In short, the invention of agriculture caused the human food supply to increase in quantity and deteriorate in quality, but food industrialization multiplied this effect.”

—Daniel Lieberman

evolution biological cultural behavior food activity sick

“We are still evolving. Right now, however, the most potent form of evolution is not biological evolution of the sort described by Darwin, but cultural evolution, in which we develop and pass on new ideas and behaviors to our children, friends, and others. Some of these novel behaviors, especially the foods we eat and the activities we do (or don’t do), make us sick.”

—Daniel Lieberman

comfort money challenge

"We love comfort, and people make a lot of money selling us comfort, but I would challenge the notion that comfort is usually good for us."

—Daniel Lieberman

health news incredulity doubt science journalism flaw

“When it comes to health news, a dose of incredulity is especially necessary because science and journalism are no less susceptible to humanity’s flaws than other endeavors.”

—Daniel Lieberman

exercise drug addict

“Everyone knows they should exercise, but few things are more irritating than being told to exercise, how much, and in what way. Exhorting us to “Just Do It” is about as helpful as telling a drug addict to “Just Say No.”

—Daniel Lieberman