Evolutionary psychologist, Doug Lisle, PhD, social scientist, Jen Howk, PhD, and Nathan Gershfeld, DC discuss the following listener questions:  I am curious about the work of David Sinclair from Harvard about his anti-aging research. He makes some pretty fantastic claims. He does, for example, advocate for a plant-based diet, but then talks quite a bit about supplements, including prescription drugs like Metformin. I also heard him say that although plant-based diets are good, we must avoid foods that spike blood sugars - like rice and grapes. Aren't those whole foods? Grapes, really? What do they think of Dr. Sinclair's work...work considering or majoring in minor things? I’m on the highest end of a healthy weight range even on a whole natural foods diet composed of fruits vegetables whole grains and legumes, with at most 1 avocado per week and 1 tsp of flaxseed per day. No nuts or seeds. I’ve lost weight before by restricting and over exercising, but I couldn’t maintain it. However I felt much more confident at this lower weight (about 10-15 lbs thinner than I am now). As women there’s a lot of pressure to be thin. How do I get over my desire to be thin? Is this something I can ever get over? I think about it every day and am tired of thinking about this. Is the thicker persons' metabolism or spontaneous recovery different from the genetically skinny person? i.e. if your genetics figured out your survival success by having you eat more, weigh more and get more resources, won't your body be genetically predisposed to continue those successful survival instincts that helped in your survival before? I’m having difficulty distinguishing the difference between eating intermediately to grit myself through the extinction curve of a condition cram circuit and eating under the hunger drive. How do I know if I’m eating intermediately or eating under the hunger drive when I got through this process ? Is there like a rule of thumb you would suggest we follow e.g 1 plate of food then nothing for a couple of hours??     Copyright Beat Your Genes Podcast Host: Nathan Gershfeld, DC                            Interviewee: Doug Lisle, Ph.D. and Jen Howk, Ph.D. Podcast website:  www.BeatYourGenes.org True to Life seminars with Dr. Lisle and Dr. Howk : www.TrueToLife.us Fasting Supervision:  www.FastingEscape.com Intro & outro song: City of Happy Ones · Ferenc Hegedus  

Evolutionary psychologist, Doug Lisle, PhD and social scientist, Jen Howk, PhD discuss the following listener questions: 1. If I am understanding what you have said in the past about decision making and free will, the main thing that changes/influences our behavior is new information. So, we really don't have "free will" in our decision making like we think? If this is true, does it mean that -- if we want to have more control or positive results in our decision making -- rather than "trying harder" or "thinking more clearly" we should fastidiously study the situation and accumulate the most information possible. Then we kind of sit back and see what our computer-brain-cost/benefit/analyzer ultimately decides -- even though we like to think WE are making the decision? Maybe I have this wrong. Can you elaborate? 2. I love learning about evolutionary psychology because everything makes so much sense. However, this knowledge often makes me sad because I now realize how many things I can't change, specifically I can't make my disagreeable husband nicer. Do the doctors ever feel this way? Any tips for not feeling defeated? 3. Generally advice givers tend to give big picture advice. However, from listening to the doctors I see much more attention paid to the little minute to minute and hour to hour processes of any meaningful goal. For example, the whole concept of running experiments is to change conditions at the granular level to see if they result in a meaningful difference in affect that supports the general direction someone wants to move in. Why is it that people tend to ignore the small details of change? Is it because they are not very interesting I.e they don’t really sell books? 4. Which political system is best aligned with human nature? And if we could click our fingers and make it happen, what would that look like in reality?   Copyright Beat Your Genes Podcast Host: Nathan Gershfeld                               Interviewee: Doug Lisle, Ph.D. and Jen Howk, Ph.D. Podcast website:  www.BeatYourGenes.org True to Life seminars with Dr. Lisle and Dr. Howk : www.TrueToLife.us   Intro & outro song: City of Happy Ones · Ferenc Hegedus

Social scientist, Jen Howk, PhD discuss the following topics: I loved your last podcast about Buddhism and other perspectives in psychology. I'd love to hear more of your perspectives on spirituality such as how you would describe the personality profiles of popular gurus Byron Katie and Eckhart Tolle. They both claim to have been in close to catatonic states of misery/depression, suicidal and then overnight, woke up enlightened. If it's not enlightenment, what are they experiencing? I'd also like to hear your views on other personality profiles such as influencers who end up being con artist and other weird, modern day criminals. Can all personality types be equally happy if they apply diligent effort to worthwhile goals? ie all other things being equal, would a low conscientiousness individual be as happy as a high conscientiousness individual if they both applied their version of diligent effort and equally felt they hadn't left 'anything on the table' (despite those levels of effort and results being very different) I am curious how you would define a “sentient” organism. Does sentience even exist? If we are simply a system of electrical signals that indicates our next action based on a pre-programmed reward/punishment function, then are we truly more “sentient” than the AI personalities currently being built by OpenAI and Google, etc? How and where do we draw the line between an organism or machine that is sentient and one that is not? Do you think this should any implications for the construction and ownership of AI personalities and computer-based neural networks?     Copyright Beat Your Genes Podcast Host: Nathan Gershfeld                               Interviewee: Jen Howk, Ph.D. Podcast website:  www.BeatYourGenes.org True to Life seminars with Dr. Lisle and Dr. Howk : www.TrueToLife.us   Intro & outro song: City of Happy Ones · Ferenc Hegedus

Evolutionary psychologist, Doug Lisle, PhD discusses the following listener questions: 1. I have read "Blueprint" many times and am still learning so much from that book. It is obvious to me how much of who we are and what we do is heritable. So, what do you do when no one else gets that? Or knows that? Recently I was having coffee with good friends and they were discussing a mother of one of them who is a serious hoarder. The conversation went on forever while they tried to decide why she is like that...bad childhood, loves collecting stuff, mean husband, etc. Finally, I suggested "genetics" and they all stopped, looked at me in horror, and went right back into all their own opinions. Finally, to avoid getting frustrated with everyone, I had to leave. This kind of thing happens all the time as people talk openly about their kids, husbands, friends, etc. I feel like I can't have an interesting or intelligent conversation with anyone, anymore. 2.   I believe that a lot of my problems stem from the fact that my cost-benefit mechanism is faulty! I can never decide on a course of action and tend to miss out on things because I can't come to a decision as to which option is best. I've jumped from job to job throughout my life, I'm now 50, but have never achieved anything career wise due to indecision and the feeling the grass is always greener on the other side. This spills over into every aspect of life as I'm constantly comparing myself to others and their achievements and feel I'm a failure in comparison. Is it too late to do something about my over analysing of everything and is there a way to make my internal machinery stop going around in circles and finally reach some sort of a conclusion? Thanks very much from someone who thought they'd never make sense of humanity until discovering evolutionary psychology! 3. How do you find the balance between “trying” (gritting through something), or alternatively focusing on changing an environmental variable or circumstance. Based on carefully listening to the Drs discussing motivational dilemmas and procrastination it all comes down to a C/B analysis (most of which in unconscious). Therefore what rule of thumb or questions do you ask yourself to know when it is a good idea to potentially grit something out so you can “go up a learning” curve or instead focus your energy on changing something in the environment? To put this into context, I find my job boring… really boring… I can barely focus on the subject matter without my brain wondering, I can also see that if I focused for a few weeks or so and was diligent I would do better and start receiving positive feedback which could change how I feel i.e chane the C/B. So what’s the procedure here? How can I tell if I should be gritting it out or changing some variable in my environment. 4. Do men only love their children for as long as they love their mother? I’m a divorced single mom with two small children. I live in Florida while my ex lives in Colorado and he never comes to visit his children and rarely even calls them. He seemed like a loving father when we were together. When our marriage was falling apart, he seemed to care less about the children. Even though he says he loves them, his actions don’t show it. I have sacrificed so much for these children and love them more than I love my own life, while he’s happy just paying child support and sitting on the sidelines while I do all the work. I’m not complaining at all, I actually prefer it this way, I’m just baffled at how men who claim to love their children can spend years without seeing them. I have many divorced friends in this same situation. It seems to me that men only love their children for as long as they love the mother. Is this true? Is a man’s love for his children dependent upon how much he loves the mother? Even King Henry VIII was an example of this.   Copyright Beat Your Genes Podcast Host: Nathan Gershfeld                               Interviewee: Doug Lisle, Ph.D. Podcast website:  www.BeatYourGenes.org True to Life seminars with Dr. Lisle and Dr. Howk : www.TrueToLife.us   Intro & outro song: City of Happy Ones · Ferenc Hegedus

Evolutionary psychologist, Doug Lisle, PhD and social scientist, Jen Howk, PhD discuss the following listener questions: Do the realizations of Buddhism hold any credibility through an evolutionary psychological lens? Does suffering really come from unfulfilled desires? Why would we evolve to have an unsatiable drive of desires which leaves us suffering? Why is psychology the only field in which evolutionary psychology is controversial? Biologists, computer engineers studying AI and neurologists will all happily discuss evo psych. The most fierce reactions come from other psychologists. Why was hitting kids as discipline so normal throughout history and many cultures today. We now know it has many detrimental effects, so why does it come so naturally or intuitively to humans?   Copyright Beat Your Genes Podcast Host: Nathan Gershfeld                Interviewee: Doug Lisle, Ph.D. and Jen Howk, Ph.D. Podcast website:  www.BeatYourGenes.org True to Life seminars with Dr. Lisle and Dr. Howk : www.TrueToLife.us   Intro & outro song: City of Happy Ones · Ferenc Hegedus

Evolutionary psychologist, Doug Lisle, PhD and social scientist, Jen Howk, PhD discuss the following listener questions: A while back, you mentioned that when someone is financially strained, they can behave as though they are 10 IQ points lower than they actually are. Can you expand on that? In addition, if someone is obscenely wealthy, would you expect that they also would behave differently - maybe also lower IQ? I ask this because a close friend of mine has recently started earning a lot of money, he's 25 and is now making a 7 figure income. For context, he didn't just hit an actual lottery, he's very smart, with a reputable job in a highly specialized field, but he'll do wild, dangerous things that I consider lower IQ. Is it because he thinks he can bail himself out of any mess with enough money? I can't help but wonder if he would be less reckless if he was making a normal income for his age. If emotions are our response to environment to help us survive and reproduce, and we want to beat our genes, should we not focus on understanding and reshaping our emotional response before engaging in rational and analytical activities? If emotions are unresolved, wouldn't that cloud or impair our cognitive abilities? I ask this because a close friend, a conventional therapist, is at odds with me when I discuss what I hear on this show. He tells me of all these success stories of his clients as he explains that he is reshaping their emotional responses with his therapy method. I am a layperson in this field so maybe I'm missing something but how could my friend see so much success if his approach is not based at all on evolutionary psychology? Dr. Lisle - you say that men want to pair bond up. So a 7 will want to pair bond with an 8 or higher.  What trade-offs do the Dr's think men would take in order to have 2 permanent pair bonds simultaneously?  I'm not even sure men want this, but Dr. LIsle has talked about wife, wife, wife, chippy.  Would that same 7/10 male settle down with two 6s vs holding out for just one 8 or 9?  Obviously there's no correct answer but I'd love to hear Dr. Lisle and Jen's best guess on this.   Copyright Beat Your Genes Podcast Host: Nathan Gershfeld                               Interviewee: Doug Lisle, Ph.D. and Jen Howk, Ph.D. Podcast website:  www.BeatYourGenes.org True to Life seminars with Dr. Lisle and Dr. Howk : www.TrueToLife.us   Intro & outro song: City of Happy Ones · Ferenc Hegedus

Evolutionary psychologist, Doug Lisle, PhD and social scientist, Jen Howk, PhD discuss the following listener questions:   1. How does one go about getting an objective personality test? I have a friend that constantly mentions that they are cursed with being highly conscientious and very agreeable. However most others in our friend group find them not very conscientious, and highly disagreeable. How does low intelligence impact distortions in ones own perceptions of their personality, and possibly reality in general?   2. I am a very agreeable female married for many years. My husband and I very occasionally disagree and I find I need to stand up for myself. He stays calm and I get really anxious in an argument and even end up saying things I don’t even mean in the heat of it all which upsets me and him. Can I learn to stand up for myself but be calmer and if so can you help me with how to do this. 3.  In a great relationship, would a woman feel more comfortable if her mate was right more often than she was during disagreements?  4. I know that a child’s personality can go through a kind of dramatic evolution from a young age to adulthood. For instance, I know a very pleasant, agreeable young man who was quite obnoxious when he was 10. And I would suspect that this development is all genetic, and that an identical twin would also be obnoxious at 10 and pleasant at 18.   I am wondering if there is a continual evolution  of the personality as an adult that is genetic.  For instance, I know a woman who became increasingly bitter over the years. Is she likely more bitter at 55 than 18 due to circumstances or due to genetics?   Copyright Beat Your Genes Podcast Host: Nathan Gershfeld                               Interviewee: Doug Lisle, Ph.D. and Jen Howk, Ph.D. Podcast website:  www.BeatYourGenes.org True to Life seminars with Dr. Lisle and Dr. Howk : www.TrueToLife.us   Intro & outro song: City of Happy Ones · Ferenc Hegedus

Evolutionary psychologist, Doug Lisle, PhD discusses the following questions:  I find snobbish behavior fascinating (sometimes irritating, sometimes amusing), but I don’t really understand the evolutionary basis of it. What are the basic motivations behind and effects of snobbish behavior? Is it insecurity and an attempt to hijack unearned or unwarranted status, a combination of personality traits, or something else? My husband is 56 yrs old obese,smokes all day and eats the SAD diet and does not exercise. He just got a colonoscopy he has diverticulosis,internal hemorrhoids and 3 polyps removed.We are waiting on pathology report.His cholesterol is high and is pre diabetic.I have been trying to motivate him to make some changes to his diet or lifestyle but I have failed.Now he even gets irritated with me taking about it. I’m whole-foods, plant-based and exercise daily.I’m really getting frustrated.What should I do? I am pregnant and in my readings on parenting, I came across the hotly contested topic of infant sleep. In short, the sleep training camp believes that babies need to be taught how to sleep independently, and that the “cry it out” method does not cause any harm. Their rhetoric is heavy on the idea that babies are manipulating their parents and if the parent doesn’t sleep train, then they are creating terrible habits and will be trapped by their child’s sleep. The anti-sleep training camp believes that babies naturally want to be close to their caregiver (like other carrying mammals) and that the “cry it out” method is cruel and does not work. They believe that sleep training ruins the secure attachment that babies need, and that babies who have responsive parents will develop into more independent and secure children. I think the cry-it-out method is biologically inappropriate, but I also don’t know if I believe that it has the capacity to cause long-term harm. I also think that disagreeable parents are more likely to sleep train. At the end of the day, it seems like it all comes down to personality, and the best my husband and I can do is hope that we get a baby as agreeable as the two of us. What are your thoughts on sleep from an evopsych perspective? Do you have any tips on how to pursue physical intimacy as a single, young woman if you are not finding a proper "pair bond" partner . Ive been single for about two years, so far haven't met anyone who would qualify as a proper boyfriend but have a strong craving for intimacy. I already follow your tip to delay sex to not get hurt but I still do not want to miss out on the cuddling, intimacy, attraction part. Do you have any tips on communication skills and how to spot qualities in a partner who might be able to provide that?   Copyright Beat Your Genes Podcast Host: Nathan Gershfeld                               Interviewee: Doug Lisle, Ph.D. Podcast website:  www.BeatYourGenes.org True to Life seminars with Dr. Lisle and Dr. Howk : www.TrueToLife.us For consults, visit www.EsteemDynamics.com Intro & outro song: City of Happy Ones · Ferenc Hegedus

Evolutionary psychologist, Doug Lisle, PhD and social scientist, Jen Howk, PhD discuss a very misleading graph in a recent paper published in Lancet Journal along with the following listener questions: 1.To what extent would you say children, money and marriage contracts keep sub-par relationships intact today vs. the lesser stickiness of relationships in the stone age. This isn't always a bad thing, right? Parents are raising kids and everyone gets to keep more of their wealth. What's the harm- why bother splitting things up in the hopes of finding a magic 10. Isn't the conservation of energy circuit just doing what it does? 2. I am stuck in a loveless marriage. I had a steady career making six figures as a pharmacist. I hated my job, but I was stuck because I was over $500,000 in debt. I then met a rich man who promised me if I married him I wouldn’t have to work another day in my life. He paid off my student debt. So I agreed to marry him. Five years later, I am miserable. I never loved him, but I also feel like I have no purpose in life. I do nothing besides sleep, eat, exercise and attend social events. He has maids, cooks, nannies and tutors taking care of everything a woman normally would. The sex is awful, most of the time I just lie there waiting for him to finish and pretend to enjoy it. He loves and is attracted to me, but now even the sight of him repulses me even though he did nothing wrong. Now I am stuck in a dilemma: do I stay in a loveless marriage and comfortable life, forgoing my chance at ever finding true love, or do I leave, go back to a job I hate and have a chance at finding true love? I am a 32 year old female and he is 45 3. Dear doctors. I've been with my wife for a couple of decades. She was always very physically beautiful and I was very overrewarded up until we had kids several years ago. She is still the best person I know, however she has lost the looks and the dopamine doesn't drive me to seek her the way it use to. I've tried to talk to her about this, but she is pretty firm in her stance that I have to take it or leave it. I love my kids too much to leave the relationship, but I know deep down I would be happier with someone who I am attracted to physically. Do I do what my dad did and stick out an unhappy marriage for the kids? Or do I make the exit plan that most men seem to always do?  Copyright Beat Your Genes Podcast Host: Nathan Gershfeld                               Interviewee: Doug Lisle, Ph.D. and Jen Howk, Ph.D. Podcast website:  www.BeatYourGenes.org True to Life seminars with Dr. Lisle and Dr. Howk : www.TrueToLife.us   Intro & outro song: City of Happy Ones · Ferenc Hegedus  

Evolutionary Psychologist, Doug Lisle, PhD, and Harvard social scientist, Jen Howk, PhD. discuss physical attractiveness & general health, whether a relationship can fall apart from a simple misunderstanding, choosing one passion from many, and finding the courage to make hard decisions about a relationship.   Study mentioned:  "Physical Attractiveness & CardioMetabolic Risk" https://doi.org/10.1002/ajhb.23895  Q1: Do physically attractive people have an easier time developing attractive skills? I'll give an example because I'm having trouble wording this: on shows like American Idol, more often than not when someone can sing, they are physically attractive. I know that that instance is probably just selection bias by the editors of the show, but it got me thinking: are attractive people on average born with more attractive genes which are also better at developing attractive skills? Q2.   Is there anything one can do to improve chances of “qualifying” for a pair bond besides following the “10 paid dates” rule? Or if it’s more like, either you do or don’t qualify and it’s out of one’s control. Is it that all one can do is just wait and see? Q3:  I am a very conscientious and passionate person with varied interests. When I become interested in something, I consume all the information I possibly can and eventually move on to another hyperfixation. I am trying to figure out a career path, but feel a bit like a master of none, despite having more knowledge on niche topics than anyone else I know. Evopysch is appealing because it is a topic that contains all other topics, but making a career out of Everything seems insurmountable. How can I use evopsych to try and figure out what topics are worth building a career around when I feel equally passionate about all of them? Q4: I am with a man (he's 26, Im 25) who has been my best friend for many years. I love him a lot and honestly think in terms of compatibility I might never find someone better. He makes me really happy in my daily life. However, the sex and intimacy is almost forced on my part. He doesn't turn me on as much as my previous partners. The sex quality is good and he'd do anything for me. But I'm always relieved when it's over. I also am still sexually and romantically interested in other men . How do I navigate this situation? As we are long distance I often find myself having the urge to cheat as he might never find out.   Copyright Beat Your Genes Podcast Host: Nathan Gershfeld                               Interviewees: Doug Lisle, Ph.D. and Jen Howk, Ph.D. Podcast website:  www.BeatYourGenes.org True to Life seminars with Dr. Lisle and Dr. Howk : www.TrueToLife.us   Intro & outro song: City of Happy Ones · Ferenc Hegedus