Ancestry Tests Pose a Threat to Our Social Fabric
By John Edward Terrell,
Sapiens
| 08. 23. 2018
I have never understood why anybody would think humans are by nature violent, warlike creatures. True, we have all surely had arguments turn sour and go off the rails—arguments sometimes so extreme, or even deadly, that we later wish we could take back what we have said and undo what has happened. So yes, we humans do have the physical and emotional capacity to be nasty and even violent creatures when we feel threatened or frightened. Yet if there is anything about being human written in our genes by evolution, it’s not that we are dangerous animals. Instead, it’s that we are one of Earth’s strongly social life forms. Some of us may not be as social as others. Yet most of us know that the words “gosh, I need a hug” are about more than just a sudden call for physical contact. Most of us not only want to be around others, we also need to be. That’s just being human.
If I am right that our kind of animal not only likes but needs to feel connected...
Related Articles
By Adithi Ramakrishnan, AP News | 08.05.2026
NEW YORK (AP) — Matt Walker couldn’t pet a dog without sneezing — until he and other scientists used a gene editing technique to produce a hypoallergenic beagle named Bailey.
Now, he can feed Bailey spoons of peanut butter while...
By Jessica Hamzelou, MIT Technology Review | 07.23.2026
When it comes to organ donation, time is everything. As soon as an organ has been carefully removed from a donor’s body, it starts to deteriorate. Surgeons have a matter of hours to get it into a recipient. Leave...
By Edward Chen, Nature | 07.28.2026
A small number of fertility clinics around the world are offering a controversial treatment: a procedure to furnish clients’ embryos with donated mitochondria as a way to increase the chances of taking home a baby.
The method, called mitochondrial replacement...
By Lauren Roberts, ABC News | 06.23.2026
Deanna Carr's early 20s looked very different to most people's.
"While everyone was travelling Europe and doing all those great things, I was hanging out in IVF clinics," she said.
"It felt very isolating. None of my friends were going...