Experimental Blog #39

Comments on "Pandora's Seed" - The Unforeseen Cost of Civilization by Spencer Wells

The author of this book, Spencer Wells, seems to be a very accomplished American anthropologist and geneticist who also writes very informatively and persuasively. His book is full of stimulating information in paleohistory, genetics, and quite a few other subjects.
For instance, scientists can now find out that about 10,000 years ago, or about 350 generations, the human population began to dramatically increase and undergo an enormous genetic differentiation in hundreds of places on our chromosomes. The author writes that these changes occurred in conjunction with the developement of agriculture, that is, the domestication of land animals and plants.
The author also describes how until about 10,000 years ago, people died most often from "trauma", that is, injuries from hunting or other accidents. However, by about 7,000 years ago, most people died from infectious diseases, acquired from their domesticated animals and from each other in their large permanent settlements. Today, for the first time in human history, most people in the world are now dying from chronic non-infectious diseases of "genetic maladaptation" in origin. Even mental illness is predicted to become the second most common cause of death, after heart disease, by 2020.
And the author goes on to many other contempoary subjects and problems.