Predator Factor: How Humanity Is Decoupling From Evolution and its Effects on Society

Of late several unique issues swirl around our communal consciousness. There is a disturbing subset of young people shrugging off their usual social roles with a decided rise in youth anxiety, depression and suicide to the point where it is the second leading cause of death among 15-24 year olds. Testosterone levels have been decreasing for decades. There is an alarming plummet of birth rates in industrialized nations. Young people demonstrate a decrease in sexual activity, drinking and partying, as if people had decided that procreation itself simply lacked the necessary panache to entice their life style. There appears to be a crisis in masculinity and in some 40% of households the woman is the breadwinner. We see a rise in transsexuality and homosexuality both of which have higher than average suicide rates. The paucity of answers leaves the culture starving for understanding.

In my book, “Predator Factor" I posit a comprehensive rationale for what we’re observing, specifically the demise of evolution. My book offers a rebuttal to books like Jonathon Haidt’s “The Anxious Generation” as well as “Alone Together” by Sherry Turkle, “iGen” by Twenge, “Of Boys and Men” by Reeves and many others. I assert that, due to the absence of the predatory intensity that was inherent in our lengthy 7 million year old jungle past people are decoupling from evolution, a major game changer in the forward progress of humanity, and its coming on like a freight train.

Steven Lesk, MD, is the author of Predator Factor, in which he explores a provocative question about the future of humanity: what happens when the evolutionary pressures that shaped our species are no longer operating as they once did? Drawing on the ideas of natural selection, sexual selection, predation, reproduction, and human behavior, Lesk proposes that modern humanity may be entering a new and consequential stage of its relationship with evolution.