Posts Tagged ‘adaptation’

Thrifty, Drifty, and Crafty Paths to More Obesity

October 22, 2022 — Perhaps the most basic question behind this week’s extraordinary meeting at the Royal Society is how did we wind up with so much obesity? John Speakman addressed this on the final day, explaining that the thrifty genotype hypothesis has been popular ever since James Neel proposed it 60 years ago. But it turns out that […]

The New Normal vs Hope for a Better Future

July 19, 2020 — People adapt. This is a powerful fact of human psychology that hands us the problem of shifting baselines. When circumstances change, people come to accept a new normal. Even jarring changes, such as the blitz on London during World War II, might shock people at first. Yet after a time, people come to accept a […]