Human-environment interaction has become a common theme in many scientific literature over recent decades. It has often been recognized as being at the heart of our species’ social and biological survival.

Human Environment Interaction

While our ability to survive has been built up over the past 10 million years, it is only through a series of highly selective breeding and natural selection over recent millennia that we have managed to survive and reproduce in the first place.

The survival of this human species has depended on a highly intelligent selection process which has seen us evolve from an ‘alpha male’ predator to the most socially flexible animal on Earth.

Evolutionary Processes

As these evolved evolutionary processes are still operating today, we are living in the most technologically advanced society ever known on the planet.

Yet, despite this, we seem to be doing better than ever in school, sports and other areas of life, with less bullying and more respect for one another. It appears as if there is a very strong human genetic imprint in our technological capabilities.

As I’m sure you are aware, the genetic selection process is the basis of evolution. So how does this relate to human-environment interaction?

Human Environment Interaction Process

In fact, the human environment interaction process has a direct bearing on the way our genes are expressed. The expression of our genes can either be in one of two ways – either by influencing the gene’s ‘expression’ or by influencing the gene’s ‘readiness’ for the process of expression.

Although environmental interaction is a crucial part of our biology, it is perhaps most important for us to understand the role that this plays in our social interactions.

• If we can understand how this relates to the environment we are able to design environments that are conducive to our evolutionary and survival success – environments which are highly ‘selective’ environments, in the sense that they favor the survival of our genes – and environments which allow us to express the genes we already possess.
• The ‘expression’ of a gene can be in many different ways. One of these ways involves the introduction of foreign DNA into the gene’s DNA, usually by means of virus.
• The DNA inserted into the gene alters the gene’s ‘expression’ by changing its ability to work properly. This change occurs because the new DNA alters the coding of the gene.
• The second way a gene’s ability to function can be altered is by means of ‘readiness’. Here, the DNA introduced into the gene can directly affect the gene’s ability to make proteins – again altering the coding of the gene. This is a direct result of the DNA ‘reading’ the gene’s coding in order to affect the gene’s ability to make proteins.
• The primary aim of human-environment interaction is to design environments that favour the survival of our genes – environments which give us the greatest chance to survive and reproduce. In short, in order to survive, we have to survive by creating environments that are conducive to our survival.

Conclusion

Human-environment interaction has a number of different forms. The most common form is known as the ‘social game’. This is the most popular type of human-environment interaction. It involves playing with others, and it is an important aspect of human interaction.

The most popular version of the social game is the sporting event. The reason for this is that the environment created in the social game is extremely conducive to human survival – the reason being that it provides an excellent place for us to interact, to play and to compete.