Avoiding Human Extinction: What makes our species so intelligent yet so self destructive

Stephen Hawking

“I believe that the long-term future of the human race must be in space. It will be difficult enough to avoid disaster on planet Earth in the next hundred years, let alone the next thousand, or million” – Stephen Hawking, during his interview with Big Ideas.

Ever wondered what makes us humans, as a species, so brilliant yet so self destructive.  Latest findings on human origins show that as recently as 125,000 years ago, the human race had come very close to extinction.

Chance and our cognitive and technological ability saved us from the brink of extinction. So can we cheat extinction again, and what is so different this time around?

In this blog post we look at how the human ability to communicate, think and tinker with our world has evolved, and what it means for our future.

Beware the “certified” expert

Have you ever suspected that the expensive “certified” experts and consultants often fail to deliver? They appear to remain fixed in their views and methods (even when presented with facts contrary to their views) and seem to miss the big picture?

You are not alone in thinking so, and you could be right. In business as well as in our daily life we are assured by “certified” experts – management consultants, project managers, psychologists, life coaches etc, that they (through the methods they use) have the answers to our problems. The focus on the term “certified” is because its use signals someone who is an expert, which could be misleading. So how do you decide which kind of expert to use?

A part of the answer can be found in the way we humans behave and organise ourselves.

The All Assuring Expert

What skills can be certified: Different types of jobs need different types of experts

Most of these experts see themselves as a “knowledge worker,” using their mental skills rather than their labour to produce goods and services. Does this mean that all the “knowledge workers” are equal? 

 No, there are two kinds of jobs – algorithmic and heuristic, and they need different kinds of skills. Algorithmic jobs are made up of tasks in which you follow a set of established instructions down a single pathway to one conclusion.  Heuristic jobs are instead made of tasks that involve trial and error and discovering the solution on your own. 

Light Blue Collar Workers

Algorithmic jobs are repetitive and lend themselves to frameworks and methods that can be taught, assessed and certified. These are what we can term as the “Light Blue Collar” workers. They turn out similar and mostly the same “service widgets” day after day.  Examples of such widgets

Patternicity, Causality and Distress: Why we make mistakes in stressful times

Have you ever come away from a critical negotiation, presentation, meeting or interview wondering – “why on earth did I say that?” Not only are you not alone, you may even be in elite company.

“We care about the small people,” said Carl Svanberg, the chairman of BP. While the comment has become a source of feeding frenzy for global news media and blogosphere (most of it tainted with schadenfreude); the question that really needs to be answered is “under what circumstances would an articulate, charismatic & proven business leader come across as ineffective, insensitive and gaff prone?”

The answer may be in how we evolved, the limitations of the tools we use to make sense of our world, and what happens to us under stress.

Making Sense of the world around us

Face on Mars

Human ability to sense patterns in our immediate environment was vital during the course of our evolution. If you were an early hominid, and you heard rustling in the grass, you had to make an immediate decision – was it the wind, or is it a tiger? If you made the wrong choice you would become lunch. But we are not so good at detecting the difference in false and true patterns. We must be aware of Patternicity – when we see meaningful patterns in meaningless random noise e.g. face on mars, Virgin Mary on a grilled cheese sandwich etc.   

Our cognitive limitations

Patternicity results in two kinds of errors; type I error, false positive, when you assume that there is something and it is not there (in our example you assume that it is a tiger, but it turns out to be the wind); and type II error, false negative, when you assume that something is not there and it is there (you assume that there is no tiger, but it is a tiger and you end up as lunch).

We have evolved to make type I errors – it is better to be safe than sorry. Type I error takes less mental effort. For type II errors the brain has to consider a wide range of possibilities, sort and qualify evidence – it is expensive in terms of time, effort and intellect. But the type II errors, when made, are far more disastrous.

Limited information

But many a times we do not have enough information to understand and explain these patterns. In such circumstances we try and come up with our own view of what is causing these patterns. Whenever we receive information or stimuli, our brain tries to make sense of it e.g.  when the wearers of the God Helmet (see my earlier post) perceived stimuli in a sensory deprived environment  they thought that they were in the presence of angels or Gollum, depending upon their view of life. This is also the reason that in the absence of enough information we begin to imagine scenarios and situations (many of them are, sadly, far from the truth), mostly ones that could lead to negative outcomes – we start to create our own type I errors, imagining that there is a tiger when it is only the wind. (I suspect this is also the reason people quit perfectly good careers, leave good marriages and relationships, or commit suicide). It also increases type II errors as we ignore the real world for the imaginary – burying our heads in the sand e.g. not being aware of politics at work.

In face of crisis – lessons from neuroscience

Perception of patterns occurs in the right hemisphere of the brain (this is why the left handed people tend to be far more creative) and is influenced by levels of dopamine (higher levels of dopamine increases the ability to see patterns), and the analysis to weed out errors in these patterns takes place in the prefrontal cortex (PFC).But when we are angry, upset, anxious, distressed or depressed our dopamine levels fall – reducing our ability to see patterns and the capacity to sense errors move to the primitive brain. Along with the decreased ability to sense the patterns, there is an increase in the meaningless patterns – we start making up information and scenarios that are not totally based on reality, accompanied by potentially disastrous results.

Hardwired to err?

Are we doomed to commit errors? No, not really!! Mankind has been looking at various ways to deal with and reduce stress. This may take the form of recreation, sport, music, meditation, gratitude, compassion and prayer. This is validated by Neuroscientists Dr Andrew Newburg and Mark Waldman who, in their book How God Changes Your Brain: Breakthrough Findings from a Leading Neuroscientist, have found that belief in God (any kind) reduces your stress, thus improving the way you deal with crisis and stressful situations.

Considering the facts that BP had caused, and was unable to fix, one the greatest environmental disasters, there was poor insight into the decision making a four hour grilling by the most powerful man on earth, it is easy to see how Carl Svanberg   an “articulate and charismatic” proven leader could turn into a wooden, error prone, bumbling individual with “lower-profile than an agoraphobic prairie dog.”

We will continue to face such situations on a daily basis, more so when we are anxious – when someone does not get back to us on time about a business deal; when someone fails to turn up to an appointment; your partner is spending too much time at work etc. Whenever you are faced with such a situation, remember that these situations are not in your in control; combined with very little information (some of it manufactured by your anxious and overactive brain) it can be easy to jump to the wrong conclusion.

 What can we do to avoid such situations?  Avoid getting distressed, try exercising, meditation, praying, or surrounding yourself with people who you can trust in a crisis, and most importantly don’t let problems turn to crises, especially by imagining things that haven’t happened.