Salvador Macip, doctor and writer: “The history of humanity is its struggle to get out of the biological prison”

Salvador Macip (Blanes, 1970) is an unconventional doctor. With a PhD in Molecular Genetics and Human Physiology, with a decade of experience at the Mount Sinaí Hospital in New York in the field of oncology, this researcher is known to many for his role as a writer and disseminator more than for his work in the field of health. .

From his chair of Molecular Medicine at the University of Leicester (United Kingdom), which he now combines with the direction of Health Sciences Studies at the Open University of Catalonia (UOC), doctor Macip has found enough time to over the years to write multiple novels, children’s stories and essays. Latest, Life in extremes. Contributions to a rationalist biohumanism (Arcadia Publishing).

With this publication, which follows a first one –What makes us human?–Macip dives headfirst into some of the big issues that affect humanity, from couple relationships to death, or from the questioning of gender to immigration, and he does so from a scientific perspective. But not to limit social advances to what nature dictates – biology should not be a prison, quite the opposite, he repeats – but to promote the understanding of human behaviors.

Biology can push us towards violence, machismo, xenophobia, outlines Macip. These are not purely social or cultural constructions. “We usually have very relevant socially relevant debates that have to do with our social structures in which the biological part that often determines them is ignored. And if we want to escape from them and build a society that we consider better, we must understand where we come from,” he argues.

Does the history of civilization consist of tame our biology?

It’s one of my plot lines. As primates that we are, we have a biological basis that pushes us. Human history is the fight to get out of the biological prison. Culture and civilization consist of overcoming certain instincts. Democracy is a great example, because it is the most unnatural thing there is. Mammals are not democrats, but rather function in stratification and with alpha males. But we have been able to invent human rights or equality, it is fascinating!

But if you neglect it, these drives will emerge again. It is easy to convince people of the benefits of a dictator because it appeals to a basic instinct, which is to be commanded by an alpha male or female. And these people also vote.

It is easy to convince people of the benefits of a dictator because it appeals to a basic instinct, which is to be commanded by an alpha male or female.

In the book he talks, for example, about xenophobia, which is not alien to our biological condition.

It is not that there is physical evidence, but a logical explanation for its existence is that it is a protective mechanism against what comes from outside, which can give you an evolutionary advantage. Dodos are animals that do not have this instinct and when they met explorers they quickly ended up in the pot. Being trusting with others was a drawback, especially when humans lived in small and isolated groups.

However, once we build larger societies we need cooperation, which is unusual in animals except those with structures like ants or bees. If we want to overcome a certain level of society we have to trust the stranger, and that is where xenophobia becomes an obstacle against progress. We must overcome the xenophobic instinct.

Is feeling instinct natural? He says the same thing happens with the feeling of hate.

It’s just that you have it printed on your circuits. Hate exists, we have it. But we must try to keep it under control. Just like we feel love and we don’t go around kissing people in an uncontrolled way, with hate the same. There’s no use denying it.

What do science and biology say about our romantic relationships?

We have built an entire mythology around love to justify something that is purely biological, which is the biochemical process by which we feel attracted to someone to reproduce. But from here things start to get complicated, because not everything is oxytocin and reproduction. Sex and attraction are something genetic designed to promote reproduction, but from there the cultural factor comes in. Just as we eat for pleasure, the same thing happens with sex. For centuries, culture, with religions at the forefront, has reinforced sex as a reproductive element. But since the feminist revolutions of the 20th century, although there are examples before, sex is separated from reproduction and we see that there are many shadows beyond black and white, binarism and heterosexual relationships.

Was monogamy an evolutionary advantage?

We tend to think that monogamy is something that humanity has selected because it interests it, but there is no animal that has chosen its way of reproduction. For birds, who go in pairs, it is given by evolution. Dolphins mate male and female, but the males then go together as a pair. None of that is created just culturally. Even homosexual relationships that exist in nature are usually part of a very broad spectrum, something more similar to pansexual relationships, and are also the result of evolution.

One hypothesis that is proposed is that we are all bisexual to some degree.

If nature teaches us any lesson, it is that there is a much more diffuse gradient of sexual behaviors. Most humans have fallen into very tight boxes of heterosexuality and monogamy, which are partly cultural. And now we are breaking them.

Nature tells us that there is a much more diffuse gradient of sexual behaviors. Most of us humans have fallen into very tight little boxes of heterosexuality and monogamy.

You generally defend breaking with biological determinism.

Clear. The moment you have created democracy, human rights or equality, which are totally unnatural, we can break everything. Humanity will be what humanity wants. If we consider the genre absurd, go ahead. We can do it. But it will cost us, just as breaking with monogamy as a model is complicated, both because it is partly determined genetically and because we have reinforced it culturally. If you have achieved democracy, you can also achieve a society of polyamorous communes.

Something similar happens on the gender issue. Binary sex creates certain conditions… Another thing is that it determines certain behaviors.

Hormonally there are differences between males and females and this generates physical and behavioral differences. Then the cultural structure and patriarchy reinforce and multiply it. Binaryism is not cultural, but a boy wanting war toys and a girl wanting dolls are cultural gender roles. Sometimes we go with the idea, for example, that in prehistoric times women did not hunt and stayed behind to take care of babies. But let’s see, do you think that if you have a strong and capable woman she won’t go hunting in a scenario that is so difficult to get food? Of course. Another thing is that she is fragile because she has just given birth and is breastfeeding. The thing about men going to work and women at home is unfounded.

It is something critical of gender self-determination. Because?

I am cautious. We are totally capable of transcending gender, it seems good to me that we use the tools that science gives us to do so. Admitting that we are a binary and sexually dimorphic species does not mean that we cannot change it. But let’s have the debate without ignoring biology. I worry that we are jumping too happily into it without sufficiently valuing the long-term effects of transitioning with hormones. This of course does not mean denying the process. In the same way that the psychological problems of not transitioning can also be very important.

The other major area it addresses is death. Humans apparently are the only species that is aware of its own death. How does that affect us?

What creates us first of all is a terrible anxiety [ríe]. Animals know death, but they don’t seem to know that they are going to die one day. Anticipating the end has led us to create religions and the idea of ​​life after death. We are not able to understand it, it happens to us as with infinity.

Does medical research about immortality make sense according to your idea of ​​humanism?

I don’t think so. The starting point is that everything we propose as a species, we can achieve. But I doubt that science will be able to reach this point. What we will surely find are ways to slow aging, and we must evaluate how to incorporate and integrate it into the social structure.

What separates us today at a scientific level from extending life significantly and with quality?

I would say that we are close to it. We are in the final stretch of obtaining anti-aging drugs. We have done it with animals in a dozen different ways. It has been shown that it is possible. The final step is that an anti-aging treatment is complicated to study in humans, because from an ethical point of view you cannot give drugs to someone healthy. And at the moment we do not consider aging as a disease. What we will see will be anti-aging drugs applied to associated diseases, such as Alzheimer’s or cancer itself.

This raises doubts beyond science. Like what are the consequences of having an increasingly aging population to unsustainable limits, right?

Humans are a weed, but we are reaching a point where it seems that we are regulating ourselves demographically. Be that as it may, if we do not die and are not born, what we will have is a society of older people, without a young population, and this generates problems that affect the welfare state. It is the young mass that keeps people retired.

The second big problem is that any drug is never available to everyone, but only to a few at the beginning, who are usually the rich. The gap between rich and poor can be incredible, with populations living to be 90 or 100 years old while in Africa life expectancy remains 40 or 50 years. You have to think about it well.

Humans are a weed, but we are reaching a point where it seems that we are regulating ourselves demographically

As a scientist who has been interested in humanism, how do you experience the recent rise in science denialism?

I don’t know if it’s growing or if it’s just being heard more. With social networks and the Internet, the ability to spread information and misinformation is greater. Pseudosciences and conspiracies are more attractive than science they don’t tell you what No. In the midst of the fog, I believe that there are a few extremists and a large part of the population that doubts, which is normal and legal. The struggle of scientists is not to let themselves be defeated and to attract that part of the population.