Slashdot Mirror
Evolving Humans on the Menu
Ant writes "BBC News is reporting that a popular view of our ancient ancestors as hunters who conquered all in their way could be incorrect. This was according to researchers who told a major United States (U.S.) science conference. They argued that early humans were on the menu for predatory beasts. From the article: 'This may have driven humans to evolve increased levels of co-operation, according to their theory. Despite humankind's considerable capacity for war and violence, we/humans are highly sociable animals, according to anthropologists.'"
Yes. If intergalactic lizards invaded earth tomorrow, I'm quite sure most political and religious conflicts would be forgotten pretty soon. ...until the lizards were defeated, that is.
Was there anyone who actually thought that the human line(s) immediately dominated the hunting scene the instant they became geneticly distinct from the other primates?
If it ain't broke, it needs more features!
It would be clearer to say that humans were not always apex predators. Many predators are themselves the prey of other creatures, and it is not exactly revolutionary to suggest that this may have been the case for humans and our proto-human ancestors for a long time.
A-Bomb
This concept:
"... also discovered that his subjects seemed to have enhanced memory for those people that did not reciprocate in the experiment."
Could explain this:
"... humankind's considerable capacity for war and violence..."
Maybe, or perhaps the custom arose out of a necessity to prevent the spread of infectious diseases (where they were the cause of death) or other harmful organisms that consume the body. Or maybe both are a factor. Perhaps dead bodies just smell bad :)
"Despite humankind's considerable capacity for war and violence, we/humans are highly sociable animals, according to anthropologists"
war and violence are contradictory to being sociable? war and violence are social activities. nonsocial animals would have nothing to do with one another, including violence. there is love, hate, and then not caring. not caring is considerably different than hating
reminds me of an old saying:
"Diplomacy is a continuation of war by other means." Zhou En Lai
in other words, being social is simply a way of resolving disputes without drawing blood... althought there is also "social intercourse," which is human social behavior as courtship. so at its psychological root, all human social effort is really just violent or sexual in nature
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Or how about just the psychological trauma to see your grandma or parents rotting in the ditch close to your hut? Not very pleasant I suppose. "Oops, checked on paw-paw this morning -- looks like the maggots finallay got to him... bless his heart!"
> humans are highly sociable animals, according to anthropologists.
Aristotle said this in another form (Man is by nature a political animal) in about 300 BC.
By the way the dead of the parsees (Zoroasters followers), were traditionally been given to vultures.
Fortunately, human protein tends to come with pointy and/or stout sticks, thrown rocks, and other things making it too dangerous a diet for predators.
"Despite"? Try fighting a war someday without a high degree of organization and cooperation. War requires society, it does not occur in spite of it.
And the brethren went away edified.
Organisms cannot be driven to evolve. They can either have the trait that is advantageous for survival or they can die. Humans had the trait, probably for adaptation (perhaps through creative thinking) and developed sociability as a means of survival. They were not driven to evolve sociability and cooperation. They were driven to use these traits that they already had.
In other words, they were driven to adapt.
[semi-offtopic rant]It is statements like these that make some people think that intelligent design is a plausible scientific theory. These kinds of statements give people the idea that evolution has a goal and because of this it must have been designed. Evolution is a combination of natural selection, genetic (in)stability and mutations, environmental factors, and random chance (like natural disasters) all acting together to dictate that the organisms with the best traits for a given environment will have the best chance of survival and pass those traits on to their offspring. It is a number of simple rules and factors working together to make intricate (and beautiful, if I may say so) complexity. No designers needed. Sorry for the off-topic rant.[/semi-offtopic rant]
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
Maybe it's because we developed those social skills early on that we became so dangerous more recently?
of course, biting monkeys is not to everyone's taste - Konrad Lorenz
Honestly, has anything really changed? I bet ya that if we dropped slashdotters in the African wilderness, they would still be on the menus of some of natures meanest beasts... add to that the fact that many here devolved and lost their sociable characteristics and BAM!.. bottom of the food chain.
Blecch. Supermodels are all skin and bone. Now figure skaters, on the other hand...
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Firstly, evolution is not entirely encompassed by natural selection. The mechanisms outside of natural selection do not require that things die. Take, for instance, any form of acquired behavior.
Secondly, even in the case of natural selection, death is by no means required. The reproductive rate of the advantaged group just has to be (at least) marginally higher than that of the disadvantaged species.
Thirdly, organisms can't be driven to evolve. Populations, however, can, which is, you know, what people are talking about when they say "humans" in this context. The only reason you have a problem the statement is because you're purposefully misinterpreting the statement (for the express purpose of having something to be pissed about, I might add).
Normally I don't feed the trolls, but I was bored today.
...it's really a sad day for America when we require a goddamn ACT OF CONGRESS to make our DVD players work properly. ~
You might try distinguishing between "Want to eat" and "Need to eat" in your ethics. If I "Want" to eat a blue whale, say to see how it tastes, that doesn't necessarily make it a sound and ethical decision to go off killing such a large and rare beast.
Now, If I'm living in Norway and it's 200 years ago, and it's but cold and me and me bros go out on a big ass boat to go kill one and use every ounce of blubber, meat, to improve our lives..... then I'd say my desire was part of a deeper "Need", and that it's totally justified.
Of course, anyone can use wild examples and edge-cases to argue a "Need" down to a "Want" and vice-versa. But I think we all have a sense of what's "reasonable" here (arguable need for protien in diets), and what's at the edge of reason (wanting to eat whale meat).
Certainly, regardless of your particular views, the ethics of killing and eating things changes as our power as a species changes over time.
IMHO, our desire to kill and eat animals is based more on childish whimsy today than on any sort of reasonably argued "Need".
"... the universal dragon myth ..."
There is no universal dragon myth. There are myths about large, ferocious animals. Many, like tha Aztec's flying serpent, have been forced into the "universal" mold by anthropologists selling books.
"... is thought to stem from an amalgamation of early human predators left over in some sort of instinctive memory."
So, a universal myth supported by another myth? Stretch.
"...wings of an eagle (yes, eagles were big enough to prey on humans), and fire."
Maybe three million years ago. Quite a long time for folklore to remain intact. Many "drgons" from around the world don't have wings.
Fire? Fire? That's a predator? Well, maybe to bolster up a poorly framed hypothesis it is.
One reads quotes like this all the time in stories about evolution. It's Lamarckianism all over again: the giraffe "evolved" a long neck by stretching for higher tree branches over many generations.
Bingo. 50K years ago the planet went into a rapid and violent cooling phase. This resulted in ice as far down as the middle tier states of the US, and down to Southern Europe. It makes sense that huge displacements in animal and plant life would occur.
The last ice age melted off, in less than 2000 years, around 10,000 years ago. The planet has been in a warming phase since that time.
That is the primary reason I think "global warming" is a totally natural change. The average temperature of the planet over millions and millions of years is much higher than it has been throughout our recorded history (5000 years, give or take). Modern humans are an ice age species trying to adapt to the end of the ice age.
"Take, for instance, any form of acquired behavior.
Wrong. Thank you for playing. Features aquired while alive (not counting genetic mutations in the sperm/egg or genome of an asexually reproducing organism) do NOT get passed on."
Well, not genetically, but they might go out the same way that they came in. Vocation, for example--I'm an X, as my father before me who taught me the way as did his before him. Or religious traditions, for another: I know plenty of people who were taught to celebrate christmast by their parents, and those parents by their parents, and so on. Religious tradition is another one: are christmast-lights transfered genetically? No. Do they transfer? Yes. Consider also, as, as he wrote, just about any other form of acquired behaviour.
-rozzin.