The real story of human evolution
POSTED BY: SignyM
UPDATED: Saturday, March 25, 2006 22:05
VIEWED: 3424
PAGE 3 of 4
Possibly, but the fact is the main method of water purification in the Orient was boiling, in Europe it was fermentation and the amount of Alcohol in a single pint is far more than that produced by the stomach. Also remember that rice ferments pretty well and rice is a staple of the oriental diet.
Quote:
Originally posted by dug:
Cows and other herbivores do sometimes like to get drunk. I've seen some birds that would get so smashed on fermented grapes they couldn't fly and would fall off of the fence they landed on.
Many animals do. If it's not alcohol its some other substance. Some monkeys out in the rainforest (I forget what forest and what species of monkey) will pickup and bite a type of poisonous centipede that squirts it's venom at an attacker. This venom essentially gets them high.
Tigers will lick a type of poisonous plant that makes them high.
Drug taking is fairly common in the animal kingdom.
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity. But I know none, and therefore am no beast.
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I checked out that website. I can't go into detail right now how very wrong it is sicne I'm doing taxes 
but I'll give you one example. This website claims that all verterbrates have a diving reflex. Well the answer to that assertion is... no, not really. Just googling on diving+ reflex+ cats+ dogs+ primates led me to this biology site: Biology anamolies by species and in that very long list I found
"BHT21 Human Diving Reflex Unique among Primates"
www.science-frontiers.com/cat-biol.htm
Other sites give me to understand that "diving reflex" can be quantified, and that humans are so quantitatively different from other primates that we deserve special mention.
I also glanced through the section on salt handling and I think the whole discusison is misfocused. But, back to taxes!!
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And cats get high on catnip. 
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I get to post for a short while.
Fletch2,
we are VERY good at throwing things instinctively
First, what does instinctively mean? I can show (through a long series of facts) that chicks do not 'instinctively' scratch. To be instinctive, it must be something that ALL normal individuals do without practice. So another argument is that people don't 'instinctively' throw things. It starts with a cultural expectation of boys, though not girls. In other countries, the cultural expectation is that boys will kick the ball and block it. In still other countries the expectation is that boys will play with blowguns. And it requires practice to be proficient, only the best become (US) football, basketball or baseball players. Finally, it is as 'instinctive' to catch something as it is to throw something. You'd have a hard time arguing that catching is an important hunting capacity driven by an evolution of hunting.
Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.
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Finn,
There was a symposium back in Toronto a few years back that brought together physiologists, physical anthropologists, biochemists, medical doctors etc specifically to look at human evolution. They concluded - on the basis of the massive requirement for fish oil for normal brain development alone - that humans MUST have evolved by the ocean. That need is so absolute that they could reach no other conclusion.
Re hunting - some chimps (of the Pan troglodytes or 'common chimp' variety) - do hunt successfully. But their tool use is confined to more sedentary food acquisition - fishing for termites, breaking nuts, pounding roots and other tough vegetation; and also using small branches with leaves to swish bugs.
There is some evidence that large brain development came early, and cultural acquisition came later. It's also interesting to note that a new analysis of fairly recent skeletons indicates locking knees came about less than 100,000 years ago.
Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.
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SignyM AND Fletch2,
Quote:Yes, that's part of why there would be no man without an island. But there are other lines of evidence.
If I might hazard a guess? Evolutionary theory seems to need an isolated population that develops such that once that isolation is ended that population can no longer interbreed with the original species. The Aquatic Ape hypothesis would be best served if a group of homolids became seperated from the more common tree dwelling kind and forced to exploit the sea shore for survival. An island would more likely serve for genetic isolation than a shoreline.
One is that animals that are not prey tend to breed late and live a long time. If you go up the weight v lifespan graph (bigger animals live longer) there are several excursions. To give a few examples, one is the turtle which is well-protected, one is the island possum (evolved on an island w/out predators for 40,000 years and lives twice as long as the mainland possum), and another is man. (There are others.)
Another line of evidence comes from what you don't see fossil-wise in Africa, and what you do see. There are gaps in the human line that correspond with the times the Horn of Africa was an isolated island. The times when it was re-attached to the mainland show a fair number of human bones that appear to have made some kind of leap.
Neither of these is conclusive but I think they're suggestive.
Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.
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Hey Citizen,
Hmmmm - you know about mirror neurons? Just what do you do for a living?
I enjoyed your post thoroughly. To your list I would add elephants.
And I completely agree about lone hunters.
While this isn't a disagreement, I wonder if you know much about octopuses and verbal parrots. It seems to me they have an alien intelligence that we can't qualify, especially octopuses.
Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.
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So anyway, this is somewhat adrift, but I wonder ..... if people eventually accept the idea that humans were ocean-side scavengers and gatherers of little critters, living in cooperative groups; and not MAN THE HUNTER (flare nostrils, thump chest), what does it do to all the rationalizations about why things are supposed to be the way they are? Red of fang and claw, nasty brutish and short, survival of the fittest and all that.
Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.
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Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:
Possibly, but the fact is the main method of water purification in the Orient was boiling, in Europe it was fermentation and the amount of Alcohol in a single pint is far more than that produced by the stomach. Also remember that rice ferments pretty well and rice is a staple of the oriental diet.Quote:
Originally posted by dug:
Cows and other herbivores do sometimes like to get drunk. I've seen some birds that would get so smashed on fermented grapes they couldn't fly and would fall off of the fence they landed on.
Many animals do. If it's not alcohol its some other substance. Some monkeys out in the rainforest (I forget what forest and what species of monkey) will pickup and bite a type of poisonous centipede that squirts it's venom at an attacker. This venom essentially gets them high.
Tigers will lick a type of poisonous plant that makes them high.
Drug taking is fairly common in the animal kingdom.
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity. But I know none, and therefore am no beast.
More news from the animal kingdom: Llamas in Peru get a bit of a high by eating coca leaves, grasshoppers jump unusually high when they eat wild marijuana leaves, and elephants tend to seek out fermented ripe fruit for a bit of a buzz.
Do you have any sources for the evolutionary basis of Asians tending to be deficient in alcohol dehydrogenase (enzyme that breaks down alcohol, preferentially ethanol) because what you said is interesting and I'd like to read more about it. Other groups that are also deficient: Ashkenazi Jews and possibly Native Americans and Latin Americans (assuming I'm reading this right). People of Asian descent get kicked in the ass again because they also tend to be deficient in acetaldehyde dehydrogenase.
Evolution is intriguing.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Rue:
Hmmmm - you know about mirror neurons? Just what do you do for a living?
I first heard about mirror neurons a few years back in a BBC science documentary about Human learning and development. That program also fostered the view that they were used to help people bond.
They did an experiment where subjects would talk to an actor who would try to agree and generally support their views on the various topics. For some subjects the actor would mirror the subject’s mannerisms and others he didn't. After the test the subjects were asked how they got on with the actor. Where he mirrored their mannerisms and posture etc people thought they got on with him far better.
It's something I've noticed myself while people are talking you subconsciously start to mimic to some degree the person you’re talking too. The idea was that this was something else mirror neurons were responsible for. They sound pretty important to Human development learning and in essence what makes us Human so I did some research of my own (that is read stuff, not cut open peoples skulls to probe the grey matter within...)
Quote:
While this isn't a disagreement, I wonder if you know much about octopuses and verbal parrots. It seems to me they have an alien intelligence that we can't qualify, especially octopuses.
Not especially. I know that Octopus brains and nervous systems are very different to ours. I also know that the squid is also highly intelligent and most species live in groups and even display complex patterns on their skin which some biologists have suggested could be a form of communication.
The Octopus has also shown the ability to learn by example, a trait completely useless to a solitary animal like the Octopus. I’d hazard a guess that an evolutionary ancestor of the Octopus did live in groups, that pushed the evolution of its intelligence and learning skills before the Octopus and Squid split. The Octopus despite becoming more solitary would probably have kept the higher intelligence as it would have offered some advantages too their survival. It doubt intelligence could be a detrimental trait so there would be no mechanism for removing it.
Parrots like other vocal birds live in large social groups (to my knowledge) and likewise have shown communication skills and learning by example, so again I’d say that it was probably an effect of their social grouping.
The communication skills of parrots have actually been noticed in the lab:
Quote:
Pepperberg has first-hand experience in this area. Her team has studied an African Grey parrot, called Alex, in the lab for 27 years. Alex can articulate sounds for objects, shapes, colours and materials, knows the concepts of same and different, and bosses around lab assistants in order to modify his environment.
http://www.thegabrielfoundation.org/HTML/tongues.htm
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity. But I know none, and therefore am no beast.
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Quote:
Originally posted by SASSALICIOUS:
More news from the animal kingdom: Llamas in Peru get a bit of a high by eating coca leaves, grasshoppers jump unusually high when they eat wild marijuana leaves, and elephants tend to seek out fermented ripe fruit for a bit of a buzz.
Do you have any sources for the evolutionary basis of Asians tending to be deficient in alcohol dehydrogenase (enzyme that breaks down alcohol, preferentially ethanol) because what you said is interesting and I'd like to read more about it. Other groups that are also deficient: Ashkenazi Jews and possibly Native Americans and Latin Americans (assuming I'm reading this right). People of Asian descent get kicked in the ass again because they also tend to be deficient in acetaldehyde dehydrogenase.
Evolution is intriguing.
Not really that I can show you. There’s not much in the way of on-line sources (from a cursory scan) either I found a somewhat brief mention of the Chinese preference to boiling as a means for water treatment:
Quote:
In China, the preference was for warm (or boiled) water, possibly, though not necessarily, in which vegetable substances had been steeped (i.e., tea).
…
In other cases, as in the addition of wine to water in early modern France, the action was explicitly a purification, with greater or lesser amounts of wine added according to the estimated degree of impurity of the water
http://www.cambridge.org/us/books/kiple/water.htm
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity. But I know none, and therefore am no beast.
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