Keith Henson

The information that is passed from person to person and from generation to generation is the primary factor that gives humans a competitive advantage over other animals.

People repeat behaviour that leads to flooding their brains with pleasurable chemicals. The short-term reward loop acts over hours to years, and the long-term reproductive success loop over generations.

Genetic studies in Iceland have found that many of the women who were the founding stock of Iceland came from England and what is now France. Some were probably captured and carried off in Viking raids only 40 generations ago.

Evolution acts slowly. Our psychological characteristics today are those that promoted reproductive success in the ancestral environment.