Why are people a little crazy?

Natural selection wants us to be crazy, at least a little. While insanity is actually not the goal of nature, some researchers claim that many mental health issues are a byproduct of a brain that is too functional.

When people improve cooking, hunting and gathering techniques, population size increases means that resources are limited (in part because we hunt and kill some. animals that make them extinct). As a result, not everyone has enough food. The cooperative relationship has an essential role to ensure the necessary food source, whether through agriculture or more strategic hunting. According to David C. Geary, author of the book "The Origin of Mind" (APA, 2004) and a University of Missouri researcher, "people with weak social skills cannot survive."

Therefore, a diverse set of new mental abilities comes with disabilities.

The nature of joy

It seems that modern people have evolved to be happy and harmonious. But according to Geary, naturally interested in genetic genes, not pleasure.

One in four adults in the United States has mental illness each year, according to the National Institute of Mental Health.

To explain our sensitivity to mental illnesses, Randolph Nesse in his book 'The Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology (Wiley, 2005) (translating as an evolutionary handbook) compared human brains with horse racing: Breeding activities of horses give priority to those with elongated legs to speed up but are very prone to falling and fracture; Similarly, progress in cognition also increases relevance in some way.

Consider the common mental states one by one.

People with aggressive character and self-esteem are the simplest models to understand evolution. But even if 16 million people today can trace their genomes until Genghis Khan (Genghis Khan's definition), the natural definition of success can be understood by his fatherhood. , but very few tyrants can achieve such heights. Perhaps to identify personal urges, to support more rational ways to obtain biological success, socially smooth oil such as empathy, sin, and moderate anxiety arose. .

According to official statistics, 25% of adults in the United States are suffering from mental illness.But in fact all of us are a little crazy but with a good reason: Nature doesn't care much about our happiness.(Photo: Dreamstime)

For example, our first ancestors were able to empathize and read facial expressions with remarkable benefits. They can affirm their social position and persuade others to share food and shelter. But if using too much emotional acuity, when people over-analyze every grimacing expression on the face - will cause a temper, restlessness about social value from which to form. anxiety, intense anxiety.

Think about the future

A cognitive transformation is also comparable to the potential future. While other animals only focus on present and unique humans, according to Geary, 'sit and contemplate what will happen in the next 3 years if they do this or that'. Our ability to think again and again about every problem may have been counterproductive, leading to an obsession.

However, certain forms of weakness can also be beneficial. A state of coma or a broken mental state can help us remove goals that cannot be achieved, whether it is a unrequited love or a noble social status. Evolution supports the fish that are aware of pausing and re-norm their ambitions instead of wasting energy due to blind optimism.

Natural selection also opens the door to disturbing symptoms such as lack of focus and attention. Quickly eliminating low-level stimulating situations may be more useful for men to hunt compared to gatherers. This may explain why boys are 5 times more active than girls.

Similarly, in the lightest form, symptoms of bipolar disorder can increase efficiency and creativity. Bipolar individuals (and their relatives) often have more sex than ordinary people, Geary emphasizes.

Sexual activity as well as the existence of a child is something that nature cares about. Sometimes unpleasant mental states lead to greater fertility, 'so these genes are still maintained in the genome'.