The Community Appendix

E. O. Wilson writes of the “Paleolithic Curse": "genetic adaptations that worked very well for millions of years of hunter-gatherer existence but are increasingly a hindrance in a globally urban and technoscientific society.” So productive and protective drives like tribalism, racism, our refusal to curb population growth, our failure to cooperate with one another on a scale commensurate with the challenges we face and our devastation of the natural environment--all of these early evolutionary advantages now, in the modern world, become disadvantages. Like the appendix, these ancient qualities have not just outrun their advantages, they have become an active risk to our survival.

There is more than one catch-22 here. Since these qualities have evolved and are hardwired, they are more than tendencies. They are beyond our will. That would be our free-will.

So we are no longer doomed by our historical dialectic, we are now doomed to be the victim of our biologic history--unless, of course, some scientist can come up with the antidote.