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The Hubris of Mankind: Our Survival May
Depend on The Secrets We Can Learn From The
Animals
Hubris is a Greek word that originally meant
defiance of the gods, nearly always resulting in
divine retribution. Its modern meaning is
“extreme arrogance, a combination of foolish
pride and dangerous self-confidence. It aptly
describes mankind’s attitude towards the
natural world.”
Jan Bee Landman, Editor-in-Chief, of Aftermath
magazine says,
“We humans have always had a
hugely inflated opinion of ourselves. Our
ability to outsmart other animals made us
believe that we were unique, superior to all
other beings, not bound by the laws of nature
but free to do anything we wanted. We imagined
that we were supernatural, the center of the
universe, pinnacle of creation, darlings of our
imagined gods, destined for eternal life, partly
divine and sometimes even entirely so. This
delusion of grandeur blinded us to the grave
errors that marked our reign, the worst–and
now seemingly fatal–error being our
disregard for nature.”
Prosanta Chakrabarty explores the roots of our
dis-ease and calls us to reconnect with the natural
world. Dr. Chakrabarty is one of the world’s
leading experts on ecology, evolution, and,
interestingly, fish. He says,
“I have described 15 new species
of fishes from almost as many countries and
I’ve been lucky enough to have worked in
more than 35 countries doing natural history
research.”
He was a Program Director for the National
Science Foundation and is a TED Senior Fellow. He
teaches one of the largest evolutionary biology
classes in the United States where he dispels many
myths about evolution and the place of humans in
the community of life.
We’ve all seen images like this one that
purport to summarize the path of evolution with
modern humans being the last stage of our advance
from monkey to modern man.
In his powerful and important TED talk,
“Four Billion Years of Evolution in Six
Minutes,” Dr. Chakrabarty begins with a
provocative question.
“If we evolved from monkeys, why
are there still monkeys?”
His answer is even more surprising.
“Because we’re not monkeys,
we’re fish.”
In his 5 minute and 41 second talk, he dispels
some hardwired myths about evolution, encouraging
us to remember that we’re a small part of a
complex, four-billion-year process, and not the end
of the line.
“We’re not the goal of
evolution,”
Chakrabarty says.
“Think of us all as young leaves
on this ancient and gigantic tree of life —
connected by invisible branches not just to each
other, but to our extinct relatives and our
evolutionary ancestors.”
Animal Secrets: Nature’s Lessons For a
Long and Happy Life
Another man with a unique perspective on human
wellbeing is David B. Agus, M.D. Dr. Agus is the
author of the international bestsellers The End
of Illness, A Short Guide to a Long Life, and
The Lucky Years. He is a professor of
medicine and engineering at the University of
Southern California and founding director and CEO
of the Lawrence J. Ellison Institute for
Transformative Medicine.
He is also the author of the new book, Animal
Secrets: Nature’s Lessons for a Long and Happy
Life. There is a myth that Homo sapiens (Latin:
“wise man”) are the end product of
evolution. This myth, he believes, blinds us to the
reality that rather than being the pinnacle of
evolutionary progress, we are a very young,
outlier, species, in danger of being blown off the
tree of life like a diseased leaf unless we wake up
and learn from our elders.
In the Introduction to Animal Secrets, Dr. Agus
quotes Albert Einstein:
“Look deep into nature, and then
you will understand everything.”
He goes on to pose several hopeful
health-related questions:
“What if, for the rest of your
life, your body could be ten to fifteen years
younger than your birth certificate says? What
if you could safely edit your genes to avoid
getting Alzheimer’s or heart disease that
notoriously runs in your family? What if I could
assure you that you’d never develop cancer
or some rare, abominable illness with no
meaningful treatment? What if you could know
exactly which diet and exercise regimen to
follow to stay lean and fit? What if you could
avoid ever feeling depressed, achy, foggy, and
‘old’?”
I think most of us would pay a good deal of
money if we could get positive answers to even one
of these questions. We’d probably pay even
more if we didn’t have to wait in line to
enroll in some high-tech scientific study testing a
new drug that had been recently discovered after
billions of dollars invested by a multi-national
pharmaceutical company with a dubious
reputation.
What if we could get introduced to these
healthcare miracles from an expert that lives very
close to us?
“Seventy-eight million households
in America,” say Dr. Agus, “have
four-legged, fleecy family members. My family is
one of them.”
In his chapter, “Oh My Dog! More Than
Man’s Best Friend,” Dr. Agus gives us the
first of many stories in the book that offers
wisdom to create a life of health from our
evolutionary elders in the animal kingdom.
I grew up in a family with dysfunctional
parents. My father had become increasingly stressed
and depressed when he couldn’t find work. He
took an overdose of sleeping pills and was
committed to the state mental hospital. My mother
lost her own father when she was young and had
become obsessed with death ever since. She was
convinced she would die soon and bought life
insurance policies she couldn’t afford so that
I would have money when she died. When I was five
years old she bought life insurance policies on me
“so your family will have money in case you
die.”
My refuge from the craziness of life was with my
dog Spotty. He was playful, full of energy, loved
me unconditionally, and was always ready for romp
in the yard. At night he would sleep at the foot of
my bed. He was my friend and companion and the only
being I felt I could trust. Dr. Agus says that
domesticated dogs have been found with human groups
that go back at least 130,000 years into our
hunter-gatherer past, long before we domesticated
other animals like sheep, goats, and cattle.
Dr. Agus describes many ways that dogs
contribute to our health, not the least of which is
their ability to heal our emotional wounds.
“A pet pooch,” says Dr. Agus,
“provides comfort, cuddles, and
unconditional love. And because dogs know only
how to live in the present, they can help us all
focus on the now, sometimes hard to do. Even the
bond we feel when we play with our dogs and
enjoy those almost inevitable licks is like
therapy on the brain and the nervous
system.”
I have spent a lot of money on therapy in my own
life, and as a psychotherapist offered my care and
support to thousands of men, women, and children,
but I have never forgotten the great healing that
comes from animals.
There are many other animal secrets the good
doctor shares with us. These include head-bobbing
pigeons that offer creative strategies for
preserving our memories and warding off dementia,
bold squirrels and pigs that harbor secrets for
managing chronic pain, elephants that help unlock
insights into preventing cancer, giraffes who offer
solutions to cardiovascular issues, and many animal
secrets that provide health-promoting wisdom we can
all use.
Humans have been on planet Earth a comparatively
short time. Our animal elders have been here much
longer. We would do well to listen to what they can
teach us and stop pretending that we have nothing
to learn from the animal partners who are with us
in the community of life. As the cultural historian
and religious scholar Thomas Berry so eloquently
warned us:
“We never knew enough. Nor were we
sufficiently intimate with all our cousins in
the great family of the earth. Nor could we
listen to the various creatures of the earth,
each telling its own story. The time has now
come, however, when we will listen or we will
die.”
You can learn more about David
B. Agus, M.D. and his work here. If you would
like to read more articles on ways to stay healthy
in body, mind, and spirit, please join me at
MenAlive.com
©2023 Jed
Diamond
See Books,
Issues
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* * *
Wealth can't buy health, but health can buy
wealth. - Henry David Thoreau
Jed Diamond
is the internationally best-selling author of seven
books including Male
Menopause, now
translated into 17 foreign languages and his
latest book, The
Irritable Male Syndrome: Managing. The 4 Key Causes
of Depression and
Aggression. For over
38 years he has been a leader in the field of men's
health. He is a member of the International
Scientific Board of the World Congress on
Men’s Health and has been on the Board of
Advisors of the Men’s Health Network since its
founding in 1992. His work has been featured in
major newspapers throughout the United States
including the New York Times, Boston Globe, Wall
Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, and USA
Today. He has been featured on more than 1,000
radio and T.V. programs including The View with
Barbara Walters, Good Morning America, Inside
Edition, CBS, NBC, and Fox News, To Tell the Truth,
Extra, Leeza, Geraldo, and Joan Rivers. He also did
a nationally televised special on Male Menopause
for PBS. He looks forward to your feedback.
E-Mail.
You can visit his website at www.menalive.com
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