About the Author

The first question you should be asking yourself is why should I listen to this guy?

Here I will explain how I came to create this blog. My hope is you will take the time to read the introductory essays, including the overview and realize that these essays are not about my view of humanity, but are summaries of the life work of thousands of scientists combined into a series of essays that both explain our current angry, polarized world, and hopefully start to lay the groundwork for changing it.

The seeds of this blog were planted when I was a teenager, some 60 years ago.  I stumbled on a biography of Sigmond Freud. It was life changing – not because of the now generally disproven facts of Freudian psychology, but because it made me suddenly aware that there were physical processes behind our behavior. It became clear that our brain is not perfectly rational and sometimes exerts control over our actions that our conscious mind is unaware of.

At that time computers were in their infancy, and PCs and Macs were decades from being invented.  I’m sure I didn’t think as we do now, that our brains were being “programmed”, but it was clear that our patterns of behavior were either being learned and stored in our brains, or they were innately imprinted. The nature vs nurture argument was centuries old, but it was new to me and the implications have fascinated, or more accurately consumed my thoughts ever since.

Neither science at that time, or my nascent awareness was ready to grasp all the implications our eventual understanding of these processes would entail. But for the rest of my life, I have remained convinced that grasping the evolutionary roots of our behavior was the key to understanding all things human – from philosophy to culture.

Not seeing this as a way to make a living, I went on to receive degrees in Astronautical Engineering (rocket science, as I annoyingly remind friends at every opportunity) and Business Administration. With minors in Physics and Math, I learned to reason out complex problems. The MBA taught me to apply those skills to the people problems of business and economics.

But following the advances in knowledge about homo sapiens and human behavior continued to be my secret passion – and science has not disappointed me. Starting in the 1970s our knowledge of ourselves began to expand exponentially. Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky proved humans are not innately rational and have numerous and predictable reasoning flaws. Edward O. Wilson suggested that human social behavior may have biological roots. While met with strong, sometimes violent, opposition from parts of academia, research into the biological factors affecting human behavior continued unabated. Techniques unimagined 30 years ago have made the 21^st century the golden age of genetics and neuroscience. Gene studies, brain mapping, sophisticated behavioral studies, and anthropological discoveries have all combined to provide enough “dots” to draw a detailed picture of the framework behind human behavior.

Not coincidentally, the timing of this flood of knowledge coincides with the advent of the internet.  –

-Stop the presses here for a moment.  Anti-vaxxers and conspiracy theorists have given the concept of “internet research” a bad name.  Reading social media or listening to for profit podcasts is not the same as seeking out peer reviewed research papers and confirming their procedures and processes.-

Most scientific papers are available to anyone determined enough to locate them on the web. While many are behind paywalls, the abstracts summarizing them are almost always available. Additionally, there are newsletters and online magazines that provide summaries and links to papers on every subject. There are new studies relating to human behavior published every day.

This wealth of available knowledge has enabled me to accumulate a huge online library of scientific studies about human behavior and evolution done over the last 80 years.

Additionally, my lack of association with an academic institution frees me from the significant academic political pressure to ignore the complex brain wiring that influences our decision making. Much more on that in the first 2 essays.

Finally, much of what I write will draw from the work of evolutionary biologists like Stephen Pinker and Edward O. Wilson. The difference – and this is very important – is my focus is on the impact of the seductive pleasure of tribal xenophobia. For example, the political right in the last 10 years has done a masterful job of demonizing Democrats, immigrants, bureaucrats, and much of the world. The pleasure of hating those common enemies overrides the need for fact or reason. 

A primary goal of this blog is to illuminate the reasons demonizing others is so pleasurable  – and thereby show ways to overcome it.

I hope you’ll find these essays interesting. Feel free to comment, express doubt, or debate. 

Lastly, please be patient as I learn how to format and operate this blog. My goal is to eventually make it as interactive and interesting as possible.