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Famous Steven Lesk M.D. Quotes

“Prehistoric humans were too busy clawing their way to survival to consider suicide any sort of necessary option. Perhaps in a situation of imminent death there might be a decision to end one’s own life one’s own way instead of, say, by being ripped limb from limb by a surly gorilla. But apart from that, no, suicide was not a feature of the prehistoric human’s repertoire. In fact, I would further assert that suicide can only be a facet of modern society that expects happiness. And on that and many other bases, I suggest that happiness is a modern invention.”

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Book:Footprints of Schizophrenia: The Evolutionary Roots of Mental Illness
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“Our minds have advanced from the brutal, terrified, survivalist ethos of Mr. Caveman to the secure plateau of modern-day living. We now expect to survive into our eighties or beyond, to not endure brutal conditions, and to be able to negotiate a society that provides pathways toward success and even happiness, which is one reason I assert that happiness is a modern invention. It is when societies begin to break clown and fail in their promises that we begin to question this exchange.”

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Book:Footprints of Schizophrenia: The Evolutionary Roots of Mental Illness
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“I assume, that the rules changed after language's fortuitous appearance. Natural selection's decision was a no-brainer so to speak. The brain of modern sapiens with their more intense cognitivity, hierarchically structured mind, and conceptual consciousness trumped Mr. Neanderthal's primitive brutality. Homo sapiens proved that. But the primitive organization's old ways are still trying to recapture territory, the territory between our ears.”

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Book:Footprints of Schizophrenia: The Evolutionary Roots of Mental Illness
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“This book forwards the hypothesis that schizophrenia is a product of very recent evolutionary events. Although humans, or something like them, have been around for some six million years, language has been extant for a mere 50,000 to 100,000 years. The onset of language was afforded by skyrocketing advances in brain development, the central nervous system ballooning incrementally over eons of time to the point where the fetus's little head could barely navigate Momma's birth canal. The Horno sapiens brain profited from a unique folding of the cerebral cortex, allowing for greater speed and a sly adeptness at symbol formation that led to speech.”

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Book:Footprints of Schizophrenia: The Evolutionary Roots of Mental Illness
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“Humans went from experiential and physical beings to conceptual ones, and one could surmise that in the future we will become even more brainy still. The changes in sedentary lifestyle alone are staggering. Dietary changes might have led to a diabetes since there may be different levels of pancreatic reserve. The explosion of carbohydrate intake that moderns indulge in may surpass the limit of the pancreas to endure, resulting in either childhood diabetes or later onset type 2 diabetes. We must be careful not to outsmart ourselves and in vanquishing the predators that plagues us for millions of years to create new ones. Having moved from chaos to order, we need to appreciate order’s value, to protect and enhance it. Any slide into chaos may well be swift and irreversible.”

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Book:Footprints of Schizophrenia: The Evolutionary Roots of Mental Illness
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