How uncertainty and risk-taking can make us better people

March 25, 2025 journo

By Andrew Leigh

March 26, 2025 — 12.00am

COGNITIVE SCIENCE
The Explorer’s Gene: Why We Seek Big Challenges, New Flavors, and the Blank Spots on the Map
Alex Hutchinson
HarperCollins, $34.99

In our personal and professional lives, each of us faces what social scientists have dubbed the “explore versus exploit” trade-off. Do you take on a fresh role at work or hone your expertise? Do you holiday in a new place or return to a familiar spot? Do you sign up for a triathlon or stick to your usual workout?

In The Explorer’s Gene, Canadian sports science writer Alex Hutchinson argues that most people have a bias towards sameness. But exploring the possibilities of new friends, new hobbies or a new restaurant carries little downside and potentially huge upside. When a strike on the London Underground closed hundreds of stations, commuters were forced to find new routes to work. After the strike ended, 5 per cent stuck with their new commuting pattern. The unexpected shock to their routine had inadvertently improved their lives.

The fact that we don’t spend enough time exploring is ironic given that our world is shaped by the exploring zeal of past generations. Hutchinson notes that to reach Australia from South-East Asia tens of thousands of years ago, the ancestors of First Nations Australians had to hop across island gaps that spanned at least 80 kilometres – a distance so far that you cannot see the next land mass over the horizon.

Hutchinson underscores humanity’s enduring curiosity by recounting the story of journalists Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland, who set off from New York in 1889 to race one another around the world in opposite directions, both successfully beating Jules Verne’s famed 80 days. He tells the tale of the anthropologist who sailed more than 4000 kilometres from Hawaii and Tahiti in a traditional sailing canoe – navigating by the stars to prove the navigational expertise of the ancient Polynesians.

American journalist Nellie Bly, who circumnavigated the world in 1889.Credit: Alamy

A keen endurance athlete himself, Hutchinson especially relishes stories of athletic prowess. One of his most compelling tales is that of Nils van der Poel, who set a world record for speed skating in the 2022 Winter Olympics with an unusual training regimen that involved months of aerobic exercise in running, cycling and ski mountaineering in the year before the event.

In the build-up, van der Poel would aim to train for around five hours a day, increasing the intensity of his workouts. Unusually, he moved onto the ice only a few months before his first competition. By contrast, other athletes trained almost exclusively in skates. While his competitors exploited their prowess on the ice, van der Poel explored other sports, and found an approach that saw him take home two gold medals.

The book’s title comes from research that identifies a novelty-linked version of the DRD4 gene. In populations with a high prevalence of this gene variant, such as Colombia’s Ticuna people, exploration and migration rates tend to be high. In populations where the gene variant is low, such as Italy’s Sardinians, emigration rates are low. The novelty-linked variant of the DRD4 gene appears to have shown up in humans 40,000 to 50,000 years ago, coinciding with a major wave of migration out of Africa.

Like Malcolm Gladwell and Maria Konnikova, Hutchinson deftly blends stories and science. He quotes one expert who observes that the returns on exploitation are “positive, proximate, and predictable”, while the returns on exploration are “uncertain, distant, and often negative”.

Nils van der Poel, who set a world record for speed skating with his unusual training regimenCredit: AP

Childhood should be a phase of maximum exploration, but the ability of children to free-range has diminished. One family in the city of Sheffield was asked how far each of them could go from the family home when they were eight years old. In 1926, the great-grandfather could walk 10 kilometres away to go fishing. Four generations later, the grandson was only permitted to walk to the end of the street – but rarely did so because his friends mostly stayed indoors.

Even in entertainment, people gravitate toward the familiar, preferring proven formulas over the risk of something new. In 1981, just two of the top 10 grossing Hollywood movies were sequels. By 2001, it was five. In 2022, all ten of the top ten box office hits were sequels or reboots. Research funding bodies have become less inclined to support risky research – preferring to fund incremental improvements rather than moonshots.

It makes sense for people to explore less as they age, but Hutchinson argues that most of us are too quick to abandon the search for newness. He advocates listening to different kinds of music, travelling to fresh destinations, and updating your hobbies. He makes a special case for orienteering, pointing to research suggesting that even one session boosts brain-derived neurotrophic factor, a neurochemical associated with better spatial memory ability.

Hutchinson draws an analogy between exploring and physical activity, noting that we should not be too quick to accept our bodies’ deterioration, highlighting research that about half the usual losses in fitness that accompany ageing are due to a reduction in exercise rather than ageing itself.

For motivation, The Explorer’s Gene is replete with Hutchinson’s own tales of new sporting endeavours and intrepid family hikes. So break your routines. The world is bigger than your habits.

Andrew Leigh is an author, ultra-marathon runner and member of the Australian Parliament.

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