Over the last few years, I've been increasingly immersed in books that tackle why we think and behave as we do, and how that plays out for humanity around the world. I started out with Sapiens, by Yuval Noah Harari, and then moved on to The Bell Curve, by Charles Murray and Richard Herrnstein, and most recently Determined, by Robert Sapolsky, before just finishing off this science-palooza with the 50-year old classic by Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene. I'm not a science guy by any means; this stuff just doesn't come easily for me. I often had to re-read passages, even taking notes along the way as this aids me with comprehension. Distilling the various ideas into just a few main ideas, I have come to believe that luck, good or bad, and that plays out on innumerable fronts, is the key variable for us when it comes to our wellbeing. We didn't earn our good luck, nor should we be blamed for our inherited bad circumstances. And the disparities between these two poles are enormous: life expectancy, cognitive abilities, physical health, family structure, educational attainment, income earned, country of birth, etc. etc. ETC! ETC! 

I often imagine a graphic organizer (GO) that captures this, surely using a timeline but more than that. It probably should begin with the Big Bang, and all the cosmic settling out that then resulted over billions of years, and then that first replicating molecule in the oceans, followed by that whole Darwinian natural selection thing, etc. but that's too tall an order. My GO would begin with our genes, and Dawkins point that humans are "survival machines" because it's all about getting our genes into the next generation (by survival and reproduction). I would move to the points that Sapiens makes about our emerging eventually 300,000 years or so ago from Africa. We outlasted other humans and spread throughout the globe, but life was poor, solitary, nasty, brutish, as Hobbes said. There was a lot to admire in those hunter-gatherer groups. At this point, I'd add in what I know from John Rawls, though I have not read his A Theory of Justice, I totally get what he meant by a just society. His "Veil of Ignorance" metaphor asks us what would a just society be, what resources would it provide to everyone, if you had NO IDEA where into that world you would be born? You would have no knowledge of your race, socio-economic level, country, family, IQ, physical or mental attributes, etc. This has really affected my views on what such a just society would provide. Lastly, I take the lessons of the Bell Curve on intelligence and our lack of free will from Determined, and I ponder how to make this all work? How do we educate 8 billion people about how little is really in our control, and how to mitigate for the vast disparities we face. Most people, reaching back 300,000 years, have lived those poor, solitary, nasty, and brutish lives, and far, far too many still find themselves, through NO FAULT of their own largely, in such circumstances. 

I won't attempt to create a graphic organizer that captures what I've shared, but damn, I wish someone would, and could only hope that humanity would be instructed in its findings in order to provide for a more just world. And I get it that we have made enormous strides since 1700, and the Industrial Revolution, and that has to be recognized and applauded. Okay, enough of my rant. If you care to comment, please do, but I sense there aren't many of us left here as closing time approaches.

Peter T.

PS: there should be room for Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs pyramid, and though I have only skimmed Thinking, Fast and Slow, by Kahneman, that certainly warrants inclusion, and I'm surely missing out on so MUCH MORE! I guess I'm searching for the mother of all graphic organizers, one that encompasses all of human development and behavior! Perhaps AI is up to it, but good luck displaying it on a classroom wall!