Parvane’s Reviews > Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind > Status Update

In recent decades, psychologists and biologists have taken up the challenge of studying scientifically what really makes people happy.The generally accepted definition of happiness is ‘subjective well-being’. Happiness , according to this view, is something I feel inside myself, a sense of either immediate pleasure or long-term contentment with the way my life is going.

European empires believed that in order to govern effectively they must know the languages and cultures of their subjects. British officers arriving in India were supposed to spend up to three years in a Calcutta college, where they studied Hindu and Muslim law alongside English law; Sanskrit, Urdu and Persian alongside Greek and Latin;

Science is unable to set its own priorities. It is also incapable of determining what to do with its discoveries. For example, from a purely scientific viewpoint it is unclear what we should do with our increasing understanding of genetics. Should we use this knowledge to cure cancer, to create a race of genetically engineered supermen , or to engineer dairy cows with super-sized udders?

There is no proof that history is working for the benefit of humans because we lack an objective scale on which to measure such benefit.

Scientists studying the inner workings of the human organism have found no soul there. They increasingly argue that human behaviour is determined by hormones, genes and synapses, rather than by free will – the same forces that determine the behaviour of chimpanzees, wolves and ants. Our judicial and political systems largely try to sweep such inconvenient discoveries under the carpet.

How did it happen that in the one species whose success depends above all on cooperation, individuals who are supposedly less cooperative (men) control individuals who are supposedly more cooperative (women)? At present, we have no good answer. Maybe the common assumptions are just wrong.

Don’t believe tree-huggers who claim that our ancestors lived in harmony with nature. Long before the Industrial Revolution, Homo sapiens held the record among all organisms for driving the most plant and animal species to their exinctions. We have the dubious distinction of being the deadliest species in the annals of biology.