[Music]
the future of love and family other more
important things than love and family
I'm sure you will agree with me ever
since I was a child I dreamt about
having kids and being a mother it really
sounds real but I was so eager to care
that I used to practice it on my younger
brothers when I was 19 I fell in love
for the first time under the strong
influence of all those bonding hormones
after three years of being together we
got married and two years later we got
divorced at the age of 28 during my PhD
I started to hear my biological clock
ticking the real one not the one on the
bench and I decided I needed a break so
I traveled alone in India and Nepal
where I challenged all my fears and did
rafting in one of Nepal's most beautiful
rivers high on cortisol I fell from the
boat on the first rapid and the water
were very shallow but I didn't realize
it and while I was saying my last words
to God I suddenly felt a strong hand
fishing me out of the water the hand was
connected to a charming Nepali guy with
the warmest smiling eyes I've ever seen
in my life he saved my life as far as i
concerned and so two years later we got
married and brought to the world two
gorgeous kids and divorced six years
laters hi my name is Lee OTT I'm a
biologist and I'm one of 200,000 single
mothers in Israel every third couple in
Israel filed for divorce and every
second couple in other Western countries
since the 70s divorce rates have soared
globally and marriages are in decline
the number of single-parent family
increases every day what happened to us
what happened to the happily ever after
dream are we biologically programmed for
everlasting
love what would be the future of love
and family in light of these trends and
how will they transform our social
structures these are very important and
questions that we must answer we humans
tend to apply a very human centric
thinking towards life unable to
comprehend four billion years of
evolutionary power they shaped
everything that we are and the end we
didn't invent love we inherited it and
the answers to all those fascinating
questions lies within our biology and
more specifically in our genes like all
creatures of on earth we are
reproduction machines machine designed
blindly by the selfish molecules called
genes to pass them on from generation to
generation as Rachel docking so wisely
put it all the living creatures are
programmed to maximize the genetic
variation of their progeny machines and
by mating with several partners along
their lifetimes
so our genes are interested in staying
here for hundreds of thousands of years
long after we all vanish to dust
so whatever maximizes the genes odds to
survive here's longer is strongly
imprinted in our brains
this magnificent evolutionary product of
500 million years so from the genes
perspective monogamy is a disaster why
to put all the eggs in one basket
that's why 95% of all species on earth
are polygamous or poly genus which means
males compete to fertilize as many
females and as possible and femurs
raises their offspring by themselves
this is the default strategy for
reproduction on earth monogamy in which
one male bond may form a stable pair
bond with one female and together they
raise their offspring is extremely rare
in nature only 5% of mammals and many
birds are monogamous
monogamy is dictated by the needs of the
offspring that are shaped by the
environment we will find monogamy
whenever conditions are harsh and many
predators lurks around if daddy
Bernal didn't stay to take care of his
eggs while mommy went to bring food the
chicks are doomed
so the monogamist father adapted to form
a bond a pair bond with the female and
to raise to behave maternally and raise
their offsprings how this adaptation is
represented in the genes level is there
a gene for monogamy is there a monogamy
gene and do we have this gene in order
to address this question scientists have
compared the genomes of monogamous and
polygamous species of the same kind they
compare the genomes of the monogamist
Prairie vole to his cousin the
polygamist montón vole
interestingly a variation in the
regulatory region of one gene makes all
the difference and changes the brain
structures of the monogamist vole and
make it behave maternally this gene
encodes to it the love hormone receptor
and the love hormone receptor will be
more expressed is more expressed in the
brain of the monogamous Prairie vole the
love hormones a oxytocin family are
group of hormones that are released from
the ancient limbic emotional regions in
our brain they are released whenever we
look in each other eyes whenever we kiss
whenever we touch whenever we hug
whenever we say to each other warm words
whenever we smile and laugh and during
intercourse and orgasms this hormone
induce bonding and attachment between
creatures and they are amazingly
conserved along evolution from warmth to
humans we will find
we will find the highest level of this
hormone in the blood of a female in
labor
this hormone will induce labor
breastfeeding and the maternal behavior
to form the strong mother offspring
attachment scientists from the Weitzman
Institute have shown recently that they
laid this limbic regions that control
maternal behavior are bigger in the
brain of females than in the brain of
males in mice and that they are doubled
during labor in order to increase
maternal care and it's rewarding effect
in the brain of the mother let's explain
why we don't just throw them away
sometimes our kids and so in the
monogamous brain the monogamy stay a
creatures brain the mate the brain of
the male resembles the brain of the
female mommy becomes a daddy becomes
more like mommy and the big question is
what about us do human deaths have this
monogamy gene so scientists from Sweden
address this equation and check this
conserved love hormone receptor in 500
male twin a Swedish twin men they
compared this their genomes and
interestingly they find a difference in
the regulatory regulatory region of the
gene between males that were men that
were scored high in relationship by
their wives compared to men who was
called low in relationship they also
find a high variance between different
men which is very interesting this test
is now available for $100 I must tell
you that as a single woman geneticist I
no longer waste my time on endless dates
I just asked for saliva and blood
samples I run my tests I would ideally I
would ask for brain section but I assume
it may cause problem later in the
relationship so monogamy may hi
it in our genes but it's important to
understand that monogamy in nature is
not the happily ever after fairytale
that we have in mind since the 80s DNA
Parenthood test became more available
and genetic testing of these creatures
revealed a world of infidelity
everywhere
for example 25% of the liters of these
lovely romantic priory balls that stay
all the time together he gets a he is
depressed when you take her from him but
anyway the genetic testing revealed that
25% of the litter don't share DNA with
their father in pigeon the number is 30%
of the eggs don't share DNA with the
father so a more careful look into these
monogamist when again mist creatures
showed us that they stay together only
through the breeding season sheet from
time to time when there is no
opportunity and then separate this is
called serial monogamy like per project
partnership only about 12 species out of
8 million on earth form long life per
bond true love exists in 0.0001 percent
of species in nature most of them are
birds so the genes always win genetic
variation rules there is one important
strong neuronal wiring the genes
imprinted in our brain in order to
verify these endless swinging between
couples this is called a the famous
Coolidge effect this wiring in the brain
make us experience more pleasure more
dopamine rush during orgasms with new
partner and less pleasure during orgasms
and intercourse with the same familiar
partner so the brain is
we roll rewarded by novelty in sex this
is the genes power this is a very
powerful wiring that lies at the root of
human infidelity our sexual fantasies
and porn without it you won't recognize
the internet without this effect this
effective means has been shown in male
and female but it is much stronger in
males as it is enhanced by testosterone
why college effect is stronger in the
male and less strong in the female male
are totally dependent on female to pass
on their genes and they can never be
sure that their children are their own
right they don't have this DNA testing
the gender struggle starts here in this
effect so in his inferior position the
male has two strategies optional
strategies in order to ensure the
passing of his gene one strategy is to
spread his sperm as much as possible and
while suppressing other males from doing
so and dominating the females the other
option is to form one pair bond with one
female and guard every step she take and
every male that tries to come near it
calls mate guarding so what is but what
is her a strategy to choose the best
genes so for the benefit of the both of
them the most evolutionary stable
strategy for both of them is the
efficient one is a polygamy as we can
see in nature so maybe we actually
polygamist it makes more sense like
other primates and mammalians indeed our
species has a long history of polygamy
you can open the Bible and look at it
and also a strong history of domination
of women and most of the world still
practice polygamy and
domination of women and and in the
polygamist species the competition
between the male in polygamy the
competition between the male create a
unique social order that is called
dominance hierarchy a scientist a so it
from flies to mammalians this special
social order in this order every
individual tries to dominate the others
and all the individuals subordinate to
the winners alpha or several alpha
usually there are males and the winner
takes it all the resources and the
females this is the reward of being an
alpha and scientists off from the
Weizmann Institute recently show that
male dominance hierarchy in mice is
formed within 24 hours of chasing in the
cage we also live in dominance hierarchy
we always lived there are few winners in
this game and we have few higher ranked
usually also males monopolize the group
our group resources in the past the a
monopoly included also the women in the
inca society the number of women a man
was entitled by law was correlated by
his rank and you can see that the lowest
ranked men were forced to have one women
so we see another form of monogamy which
is forced by hierarchy and not by the
adaptation that we see before it were
the roman emperors and their religious
institutions that spread this
hierarchical form of monogamy in their
colonies they did it in order to
dismantle the power of the tribes and
hemolysis and it became the tradition
and continue to our time protected by
the religious and the elite institutions
and also by poverty but
but here today during the 20th century
the Scientific Revolution the rise of
democracy the prosperity and women
liberation have slowly weakened the old
hierarchy religion loses the grip and
biology steps in and lifelong monogamy
we see each chatters we see more serial
monogamy Polly amore and more operon
relationship starts to thrive we need to
create new social institutions to
support these changes social and
economic institutions because our
current outdated and archaic economic
system still falls
pair-bond in order to prosper
it recognizes the de perak bonded the
nuclear family as the principal economic
unit only pair-bonded couples can
provide their offspring more comfortably
today and per bond is still a
precondition for the territory for house
for a roof by the banking debt system
and single-parent struggles in order to
provide for the families and many
families collapse by divorce this
economic a dis economic pressures that
starting to emerge and combined with the
transform transforming effect of
technology unemployment and job security
enhance and accelerate the social unrest
that rock the rocky already rocky
economic system but we humans are master
of imagination all system need to be
replaced by new ones so I believe that
we are on the verge of a paradigm shift
in which we need to create new
definitions new definitions for walk and
money and new definitions for family and
love but this time this new innovative
paradigm will be facilitated by the true
engines of creations the women in the
near future we will witness a massive
movement of women into the once
abandoned political and economical
institutions in every country these
women will
bed a female mind set to policy and
decision-making and will reshape our
social institutions in the new paradigm
I believe that every member of society
will be referred to as a separate
economic unit entitled for the right for
a decent job a roof and education and
security regardless of his or her sexual
or reproductive choices I believe that
they will also change the fact that the
hard work of creating nurturing and
sustaining life will be a acknowledged
as economic activity and be counted in
state accounts the old measures of
Nations growth will be replaced by new
measures that account also for the
well-being and the level of happiness of
all people and not only the few a true
new New World Order that will lead to
prosperity of all not only for you and
what about love what will happen to love
will relationship never last I believe
it's up to us we are not prisoners of
our genes we need to understand and we
need to accept and realize our biology
and when we accept it we can learn these
wirings and mechanisms of how love works
and learn and teach our self and our
children how to form a stable pair bond
this is possible because we know love
make us healthy love make us happy love
make us flourish and it worth all the
efforts I would like to conclude with
the nice wise words of the Mahatma
Gandhi the day the power of love
overruled the love of power this world
with no peace thank you very much
you