Two books by Daniel Lieberman

Over the past week or so, I've read two fascinating books by Daniel Lieberman - except that one is by Daniel E. Lierberman (' The Story of the Human Body: Evolution, Health, and Disease') and one is by Daniel Z. Lieberman ('The Molecule of More').

The first book is about how evolution has shaped our bodies and the diseases that arise from environmental mis-matches, primarily diabetes and heart problems. Until about 120 years ago, most people died from contagious diseases caused by microbial and fungal infections. With the introduction of aseptic techniques, antibiotics and vaccines, these causes have more or less disappeared from our lives (pace Covid-19). They have been replaced by chronic noncommunicable diseases that generally are caused by a mismatch of the body's 'programming' (my word) and the current environment. 

The most obvious example of such a mismatch is sugar (sucrose): until about 250 years ago, sugar was a rare treat, being found almost exclusively in honey and berries. A few hundred thousand years ago, humans treasured such finds and so we became 'programmed' to search out sugar (and fat). Once plantations of sugar cane and sugar beet began to supply high quality sugar in vast amounts, the body finds it difficult to resist the temptation of eating sugar, and so we overwhelm our dietary system, causing diabetes. This topic connects with the book 'Glucose revolution' that I read a few weeks ago.  

The first few chapters of this book were fascinating, but towards the end I noticed that the author frequently repeated himself, making the end of the book weaker than the beginning. Despite this minor carp, I strongly recommend reading this book to anyone who has even a vague interest in the topic.

Coincidentally, the next book that I read was by Daniel Z. Lieberman, 'The Molecule of More', subtitled 'how a single chemical in your brain drives love, sex, and creativity―and will determine the fate of the human race'. I agree with the first half of the subtitle, but find the second half hyperbolic, even though there is a chapter devoted to the future.

Spoiling the story, the molecule in question is dopamine, of which you have no doubt heard. Generally regarded as being the pleasure molecule, the book explains that dopamine is better understood as being connected to reward prediction error. As Lieberman explains, We constantly make predictions about what’s coming next, from what time we can leave work, to how much money we expect to find when we check our balance at the ATM. When what happens is better than what we expect, it is literally an error in our forecast of the future: maybe we get to leave work early, or we find a hundred dollars more in checking than we expected. That happy error is what launches dopamine into action. It’s not the extra time or the extra money themselves. It’s the thrill of the unexpected good news.

Dopaminergic excitement (that is, the thrill of anticipation) doesn’t last forever, because eventually the future becomes the present. The thrilling mystery of the unknown becomes the boring familiarity of the everyday, at which point dopamine’s job is done, and the letdown sets in. At this point, the 'here and now' transmitters such as serotonin and oxytocin take over. 

Again, the first few chapters are fascinating and very interesting, whereas the final chapters seem less so. Maybe the opening chapters caused a dopamine rush ("I didn't expect that ..."), but the dopamine wore off as I continued through the book.

Both books are highly recommended to nerds with similar interests to mine.

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