Diets and men who cheat: Zuk reveals fantasies about evolution in NPC podcast Update-1

From popular diets that encourage us to eat like our ancestors to the idea that a man who cheats can blame his behavior on his DNA, misconceptions about evolution abound, evolutionary biologist Marlene Zuk said on the latest edition of the National Press Club podcast, Update-1.

“I think we’ve all got, well, fantasies about what it was like in our earlier evolution, whether that has to do with what we ate or how we lived or what we wore or our health,” said Zuk, a professor of ecology, evolution and behavior at the University of Minnesota who was in Washington for the American Psychological Association’s annual convention.

In reality, evolution is not synonymous with progress, rather, it has no goal and no endpoint, she said. Efforts to emulate our ancestors, then, are often misguided.

Zuk also is a writer who has been published in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chronicle of Higher Education and Natural History magazine. She has authored several books including her most recent, “Paleofantasy: What evolution really tells us about Sex, Diet and How We Live.”

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