At first glance, it’s hard to see the downside of being civilized. Compared with Stone Age living, an office job doesn’t look too shabby. Throw in the Internet, leisure time and dessert, and all this culture looks like a win-win.
But there’s a catch, says Wells, an anthropological geneticist. Civilization grew out of a gradual switch 10,000 years ago from hunting and gathering to farming, and, he says, “more food produced more people.” The result is a planet with 6.8 billion human grazers.
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