Ask A Genius 1170: Heredity
Author(s): Rick Rosner and Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2024/11/12
*Interview conducted in October-November, 2024.*
Rick Rosner: I read something interesting and assume it’s true. When you observe dogs—adorable, yes, but not particularly brilliant compared to wolves—it makes sense. I haven’t been around wolves, but they are known to be quite intelligent. The idea is that when wolves were domesticated, humans’ sense of smell weakened while wolves’ cognitive abilities atrophied, evolving into the modern dog. It was a trade-off: humans did the thinking for dogs, and dogs took on the role of sniffing for us.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: That’s an interesting take. It’s a symbiotic relationship, isn’t it?
Rosner: Yes, and if you think about it, you can extend that idea to smartphones. One of the gyms I go to is in an outdoor shopping center. You can see people zombified, wandering around glued to their phones. About 15 or 20 years ago, Stephen King wrote Cell, which was about a signal emitted from cell phones that turned people into deranged killers. It reminds me of that scene where people are so absorbed in their phones that they’re oblivious to everything around them. It makes me wonder if smartphones are making us less intelligent. But, of course, that’s something that needs deeper examination and context.
Jacobsen: Does that make any sense? It’s worth exploring.
Rosner: Because our brain is, according to current theory, constantly occupied with preparing us for the next moment. It helps us optimize our chances of survival, not just moment by moment, but over the course of our lives, so that we generally do as well as we can in the world. It’s hard to transition from that to cell phones truly optimizing our lives. Sure, they’re helpful with many things, but they’re also majorly distracting.
So, then you have to consider the “deliciousness” argument, which suggests that when we were on the savannah, we evolved instincts to identify what was beneficial for survival. We developed preferences for salty, sweet, and fatty foods because those were advantageous when found in the wild. People who had these tastes likely survived better. Now, with unlimited food availability, those tastes can work against us. I think it’s similar with smartphones, social media, or digital information. The data we get might or might not help with survival, but it taps into evolved instincts that make it seem “delicious” to us. It mirrors the type of information that could have been useful on the savannah.
So, we’re drawn to animal videos, for example. We find cute animals incredibly appealing and are fascinated when animals show unexpected behavior or befriend each other.
Jacobsen: Does that tap into something from our evolutionary past, where paying attention to animals on the savannah was beneficial?
Rosner: It might seem a bit far-fetched, but we also love gossip and knowing where we fit within the social order. Much of what comes through on our phones mimics that information. It’s more plausible that interacting with personalized information, even if it doesn’t directly help us thrive, feels valuable because of its personal relevance. What do you think?
Jacobsen: I view the brain as an adaptive engine, a somewhat fluid structure. It has a lot of ingrained behaviors, but there are critical windows, like the language learning period during early development, where certain functions become fixed. Some parts of the brain are highly specialized—like how some areas essentially become the “eyes.”
There is a case to be made for the idea that bringing other species into our sphere and using our senses differently—perhaps not atrophying them, but dulling them—over time is significant. However, there’s also an argument that humans haven’t genetically changed enough in the last 100,000 to 250,000 years to undergo significant speciation.
We could still reproduce with someone from 100,000 years ago, which suggests that our sensory system is fundamentally the same, even if the context has changed enough to dull its sharpness. It could be a social adaptation with another species, like dogs or horses, where certain traits become amplified and others reduced. For instance, people who ride horses develop strong upper bodies because of the need to control the reins constantly.
So, managing a horse burns a lot of calories, and there’s also the work involved in cleaning stalls or other chores. Even if you’re a trainer, you need significant strength to manage a horse, period. So, certain physical attributes will naturally be amplified. It’s like all human attributes are positioned at the center of a multi-dimensional polygon—one with many, many dimensions.
It could be two-dimensional or even three-dimensional. It doesn’t really matter. Each trait extends along its own axis, pointing out to different edges of that polygon.
Certain traits will be strengthened or weakened, but there’s a general line of best fit through all these different traits within the polygon. For example, someone like Usain Bolt is exceptional at short-distance running and exhibits certain traits, like height, that contribute to that. But he might not necessarily be better than average in terms of smell or vision. However, that almost becomes irrelevant since there’s very little evolutionary pressure on humans these days; we’ve mastered our environment to such an extent that reproduction isn’t tightly linked to physical fitness.
You might argue that certain types of fitness are still favored, and we could try to analyze that, but most people can raise a family without needing exceptional physical traits. It’s a light evolutionary drift when you consider how much more comfortable life has been over the last 12,000 years, especially with the advent of agriculture and modern plumbing.
Tall parents tend to have tall kids, and smart parents often have smart kids, but that’s not speciation—it’s minor variation within the same species. I’m trying to see where this fits in with the idea that there’s so little moment-to-moment survival pressure that we can afford to ignore our surroundings and get lost in our phones.
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