When agriculture emerged about 10,000 years ago, people were able to settle in one place; this is when "civilization" emerged.
The term "civilized" has come to connote some group of people who are relatively "advanced" in some important ways relative to others.
The concept of "evolutionary mismatch" forces us to re-examine just how "advanced" our "civilized societies" truly are.
We often think of the modern, "civilized" world as being somehow luxurious and advanced relative to how most people lived thousands of years ago. And some people will often think of others who are "in the third world" or who currently live in nomadic bands, just as our ancestors all did prior to the agricultural revolution, as "less than civilized," which has all kinds of negative connotations.
The evolutionary perspective in the behavioral sciences forces us to truly question this conception of civilization. In the same breath, the evolutionary perspective forces us to question so many features of our own lives today. READ MORE...
