#human problem solving

While studying human evolution to find solutions for the growing climate crisis, researchers found a mix of encouraging and depressing results. "How did humans get here" is the simple question Dr Tim Waring, associate professor at the University of Maine in the US, set out to answer in a recent paper focused on climate change. "If we understand the processes by which we have arrived at having such a major impact on the global biosphere, then we can try to solve the problems that we are facing," he told Euronews Next. Waring works on climate change through the lens of cultural evolution, a field of study at the intersection of biology and "all social sciences". His most recent paper analyses how human evolution might prevent us from solving climate change. [...] ‘Solutions need to be global’ Waring and his team analysed the resources that humans used, the impact they had on their environment, and the development of their cultural traits over the last 100,000 years. They found that humans have systematically found solutions to problems they faced. "A lot of people currently feel that climate change is something that we will eventually solve, and there is good reason for people to believe that because humans almost haven't come across a problem that we haven't been able to solve yet," said Waring. Still, our track record won’t be enough to save us in the long term. The authors of the paper found that one of the reasons we’re so good at problem-solving is that we use resources more intensely and at a greater scale whenever we need to. Their analysis also highlighted that humans only found solutions once problems were already out of hand. In the context of climate change, those approaches might not work as we only have one planet.

The book Paleofantasy: What Evolution Really Tells Us about Sex, Diet, and How We Liveby Marlene Zuk was written as retort to the nonsense that attempts to attach itself to science, anthropology, and human health. It is written by a practicing scientist…