Among CCCC’s educational endeavors, the ‘Birds and Bees’ presentation attempts to explain why we humans behave the strange way we do, which to a great extent, seems not understandable. Why do nations so furiously wage together? Why do men continue to abuse women? Why does racial prejudice persist? Since businesses are mostly human endeavors, it behooves business owners to have greater clarity about why workers do the strange things that they do and for the boss to be able to handle the situation more effectively. Here, is a shortened version of our birds and bees’ treatise.
Life
Life on Earth can be said to have begun 700 million years ago with a single-celled creature (bacterium)1 having the amazing ability to replicate itself.
Two Missions
The basic animal had two essential missions. The first was to survive personally and the second was to survive as a species, namely, to reproduce. Finding food, staying out of trouble, and having sex, therefore, were at the top of the agenda – as they still are today for all life forms.
Clarity
Let me make it clear that I am not writing this note to excuse human behavior, I am writing it to explain why we observe what happens among humans despite any logical person’s reasonable thinking that it should be otherwise.
Evolutionary Pieces
The marvellousness of this evolutionary story is almost overwhelming when one begins to study it in detail. Greater complications of creatures arose as a bacterium formed into the amoeba, still unicellular, but with the ability to change its shape. It has been assumed that 600 million years ago, the grypania spiralis was the first multicellular creature on Earth. Out of this came the multicellular sea creature, trilobite, more than 500 million years ago, a species that endured for the amazing life span of nearly 300 million years (compared with 100 million for dinosaurs and less than 1 million for us).
A funny thing happened on the way to the forum: 66 million years ago, a 10-km (6-mile) diameter asteroid from outer space hit the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico. Had it arrived ½ hour earlier it would have hit the Atlantic Ocean or ½ hour later, it would have hit the Pacific Ocean, causing far less havoc.
But no, it arrived when it did and hit an explosive factory which comprised the Yucatan, namely an area rich in hydrocarbons and sulfur that created a most harmful spew of products. The result was an
1 Lest you think a single cell (of a bacterium) is a simple entity, the E. Coli bacterium, a common stomach resident, has 4.6 million base pairs in its DNA (each base pair consisting of about 20 atoms) and about 4,000 genes to initiate actions to handle its life.
explosion that caused an earthquake of magnitude 11 (100 times worse than any in recorded history)
and launched tsunamis 200 meters (600 ft.) high. It showered each square meter (yard) of the Earth’s surface with an average of 10 kg (20 pounds) of molten debris that heated the atmospheric air to 2600C (5000F) and set fire to almost all forests and plants. The resulting soot, sulfur, and water vapor blocked out the sun, dropping the surface temperature of Earth by 110C (200F), casting that pall for 20 years. The dinosaurs and most living creatures were shaken, baked, frozen and then starved. It is estimated that 78% of animals and plants were destroyed. Then it took nearly 1,000 years for major plants to re-populate the Earth. Among the animals that survived were small burrowing mammals. Over subsequent time, these little animals grew into various large species including apes of which we are one. (During the 100-million ruling epoch of dinosaurs, the Jurassic/Cretaceous beasts would not allow large mammals to develop. Any signs of mammal largeness were quickly eaten.)
The point is: we humans are here because of a quirk of fate of a large asteroid hitting a soft spot of our planet, and the quirk of the statistical fact that a large asteroid would hit earth only once every 500 million years2 as well as the quirk of wiping out dinosaurs so that we humans could thrive.
As mammals developed, about 50 million years ago a new evolutionary step took place, the developing of the logic processing part of the creatures’ brains. We at CCCC like to say that we have two brains3, and we describe the logic processing brain part as the new kid on the block. The old brain is officially called the limbic brain and the newer brain part, the prefrontal cortex.
The Paragraphs that you can Ignore
Not wishing to make this paper too complex yet feeling that some readers need or want to understand the differences between the (old) limbic brain (emotions) and the (new) prefrontal cortex (logic), we take a few minutes to describe the general functions for both. At CCCC, we call these Brain 1 (emotion) and Brain 2 (logic) – but don’t worry about remembering these terms.
The old brain part (emotions) deals with basic functions of: Fight or flight or freeze, am I safe? It also has a deep memory of your entire life that from time to time you try to pull out and from time to time it pulls out ideas you don’t realize that you have.
The new brain part (logic) is defined as providing us with the functions of: empathy, insight, flexibility of response, some control over emotions, control of some body functions, morality, communications awareness, and fear control.
The old brain (emotions) allows us to form habits that promote survival, e. g. eating sweets and fat, a message much needed years ago when fat and sugar were in short supply, but not today when they are commonly available, in fact force-fed to us within most processed foods. Today, in the U.S., due to ingesting excess sugar and fat, 72% of the population is overweight or obese. It is nothing short of an epidemic. Due, mainly, to having more sugar than needed, over 100 million people in the U.S. have diabetes or prediabetes. Diagnosed diabetes costs the U.S. economy $327 billion per year.
- “A Series of Fortunate Events”, Sean B. Carroll, Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ, 2020
- Ask for the CCCC PowerPoint presentation, “Two Brains”.
How do you lose weight? Don’t eat so much. Can most people do that? Obviously not. Why not? Because the new logical brain that says: “Stop eating” is overridden by the older, bigger brother emotional brain that draws out old ideas and says: “Keep eating; you really need this sugar and fat” and favoring us when we eat them, with the thrill of dopamine hitting our brains’ reward centers.
Humans have had 980,000 years as habitual wanderers and only 20,000 years within societies and their necessary rules. The truth of the matter is that many of our behaviors link beyond that, back to our non-humanoid form of at least 50 million years ago. Thus, the relative comparison is about 50,000,000 years as wanderers vs. 20,000 as societal creatures. In a ratio of 5,000 to 2, which is likely to dominate? I am not asking which ‘should’ dominate but rather which is ‘more likely’ to dominate.
Overriding Principle
The simple principle at work is that the old brain in a moment of threat or sex need will dominate its kid brother of logic (the part which otherwise would well serve the societal groups – to which we all belong today).
Three Problem Areas
Now we will look at the three problems areas stated at the outset: war, male domination of women, and racism. Before we begin, realize that some of us have been gifted with strong discipline, an intense desire to do what makes common sense and the intelligence to carry it through. But not all of us. The evidence shows that the majority of today’s humankind lack such a gift package (as they get ensnared in the obesity trap and follow senseless fashion dictates). We will discuss the influence of the past on the less-gifted humans. Animals fight for two reasons: to establish their dominance in the social hierarchy, and to establish their territorial rights. In its evolutionary journey, a million years ago, the human animal learned that cooperation got better results than going alone, so that fighting within the group became less likely.
Wars
We became specifically territorial, namely having a discrete home base 4. As the tribe settled down to a territory, successful groups grew in size. Therein lay a need for more room. At the root of most wars is the need to control a larger territory – today as in the past. Then, the contest in the brain would begin: “I need my territory for my group” (emotions). “I really should not fight” (logic). Depending on the urgency of the need for more space and the mental position of the leaders of the group, a decision to war or not to war is made. Remember that the bigger brother (emotional brain) that wants more territory is colossal (5,000 to 2 ratio of time) compared with the smaller brother (logical brain) that tries to show restraint.
Males Dominating Females
Once the human family unit was established, the care of the most helpless infant animal of all, dependent on adult help for 15 years, fell mostly on the mother who stayed at home while father, out with other males, hunted cooperatively for meat. Father was imbued with a larger size and three times the female’s strength so that he could tackle the saber-toothed tiger and other threatening males. Not only did he use that strength to subdue his prey and enemies, he
4 Desmond Morris, “The Naked Ape”, Jonathan Cape Publishers, London U.K., 1967
used it to overcome uncooperative family members. His greatest challenge came from the strongest family member, usually the female partner. Again, the battle between the male’s two brain segments came into play with the dominant brain (emotional) trying to make it easy for the male leader to use a battle as his way to success despite the lesser (logic) brain preaching restraint of force against the family partners.
Racial Prejudice
As the humanoid group protected itself from other groups it was quick to identify foreign groups using its strongest sense, its vision. A different colored skin was an obvious identifier. Little did the white-skinned naked ape know that he had begun his existence as a dark-skinned humanoid. But what matters most for anyone is the here and now. Yet again, the battle between the human’s two brain segments started with an automatic, emotional brain defense against what appeared to be different, weighing against the logical brain defining the ridiculousness of being racially prejudiced.
Can we shake off today, five million years of conditioning to improve our group’s situation? Not likely, not automatically and not just because the new (logical) brain says we should. I would not be surprised if 100 years from now, despite many social improvements, our children’s children will be expressing their frustration and using the words ‘shouldn’t’ with these same three basic societal problems.
Reinforcing Clarity
Reading these ‘excuses’ for our behavior will strongly engage the logic processor of many readers who might judge this text as unacceptable. Let me again make it clear that I am not writing this note to excuse human behavior, I am writing it to explain why what happens does happen despite any logical person’s reasonable thinking that it should be otherwise.
Conclusion
Of course, we are not going to throw in the towel and say that Mother Nature made us nasty, so there’s nothing we can do about it. In fact, there is much we can do about it. Step-by-step, society has begun the battle of overcoming the illogical emotional response (Brain 1) with thought-provoking counteractions (via Brain 2) such as legislated sexual harassment rules – as one of many examples.
Individuals take a false step when they reason that people SHOULD behave a certain way. This does nothing to alleviate the situation. Instead, you need to take action that you can control. If the difficult situation is caused by your own reaction, draw in at least one other person for help that an outside viewpoint offers. If it is Harry demonstrating illogical or damaging action towards you, first focus on defusing his emotions. That is don’t deal with the issue, or your own sense of hurt or attempt to defend your position. Instead, deal with the aggressive behavior of Harry, the antagonist. Show sympathy for Harry’s stress: “I’m sorry that you feel that way.” Tell yourself that he is very ill – and he is at that moment because his emotions (old brain) are taking control. Think of how you can help him out of his illness or bad karma before you take steps to help him out of his problem. As for solving the problem itself (and only when you can see that Harry has calmed down), ask the formerly irate person what he feels would be a reasonable solution and proceed from there. These actions are very difficult to initiate because our Brain 1 (emotional) is set up to fight back before engaging in thoughtful considerations (logic).
However, we need to invoke the logic processor (new brain 2) when the emotion center (old brain 1) moves in to take charge. Recognizing this dilemma in the workplace, CCCC has been able to introduce processes to alleviate the conflict – simple systems which work extraordinarily well, if followed. The reality is that most individuals engaged in threat are unable to separate responses of the two active brain parts. Therefore, as a short-term answer, when confronted with damaging emotions (Brain 1), you need to show the discipline by reaching out for assistance (using Brain 2) from fellow associates, such as: “Sandra, would you read this email before I send it out?”.
Good luck
Bill