"Many evolutionary biologists are fond of pointing out that the human body is not adapted to modern life, which often involves sitting for hours at a time and toiling in artificial light and consuming mounds of processed sugar ('There's no food in your food,' as the Joan Cusack character says in 'Say Anything'). But the same design problem, it could be argued, is true of the human brain: It was not engineered to process the volume of information we're getting, and at the rate we're getting it."
— Senior, Jennifer
Author
Date
February 9, 2019
Metaphor
"Many evolutionary biologists are fond of pointing out that the human body is not adapted to modern life, which often involves sitting for hours at a time and toiling in artificial light and consuming mounds of processed sugar ('There's no food in your food,' as the Joan Cusack character says in 'Say Anything'). But the same design problem, it could be argued, is true of the human brain: It was not engineered to process the volume of information we're getting, and at the rate we're getting it."
Metaphor in Context
Many evolutionary biologists are fond of pointing out that the human body is not adapted to modern life, which often involves sitting for hours at a time and toiling in artificial light and consuming mounds of processed sugar ("There's no food in your food," as the Joan Cusack character says in "Say Anything"). But the same design problem, it could be argued, is true of the human brain: It was not engineered to process the volume of information we're getting, and at the rate we're getting it.
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
Jennifer Senior, "Our Brains Aren't Designed to Handle the Trump Era," The New York Times (February 9, 2019). <Link to NYTimes.com>
Date of Entry
02/13/2019
