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Fear of Snakes May Have Driven Pre-Human Evolution
Krishna Dagli writes "An evolutionary arms race between early snakes and mammals triggered the development of improved vision and large brains in primates, a radical new theory suggests. The idea, proposed by Lynne Isbell, an anthropologist at the University of California, Davis, suggests that snakes and primates share a long and intimate history, one that forced both groups to evolve new strategies as each attempted to gain the upper hand. Early primates developed a better eye for color, detail and movement and the ability to see in three dimensions — traits that are important for detecting threats at close range. Humans are descended from those same primates. "
Snakes...ON A PLANE
Humans are descended from those same primates.
And lawyers/politicians/managers are descended from snakes.
At least its an explanation of the uneasy feeling I get when I see Darl Mcbride.
liqbase
Unfortunately for the bible-thumpers, this isn't actually a theory, it's just an idea. The idea that among a litany of predatory creatures human beings were primarily pushed by one - that although fear-inducing is relatively harmless on the scale of tribes and socities - is a bit of a stretch.
If this is pursued by scientists we will likely find that, yes, there are specific factors involved in competition between humans and snakes that drove specific selections that persist in modern humans, but to suggest that all of "pre-human evolution" was driven primarily by snakes is a bit silly.
If you haven't foed me yet, what are you waiting for?
So what you are saying is that our fear of snakes caused us to incorporate them into our myths and legends as the stereotypical "bad guy"? Makes sense to me.
As a scientist I am intrigued by this "profit" thing. Please tell me more.
The owls are not what they seem
Did the primates have no other predators? As I recall, binocular vision is a characteristic of predator, not prey. (How far do I have to run or jump to catch dinner?) Motion detection and wide-field vision are a characteristic of prey, not predator. (Is something about to run or jump on me? Maybe a moderator with points?)
@HbFyo0$k8 tH!$
I *am* a psychologist / scientist that studies vision, and I can happily report that this material is a) not new [see the bogus theoretical ramblings of Mineka on the subject] and b) not in any way factual.
Why should the threat of consumption from snakes (snakes! of all things!) have driven us to evolve incredibly good eyesight? Why not hearing? Why not some more obvious and simple snake defense mechanism (like, immunity from snake poison?) At no time in our evolutionary history did snakes actually represent a dominant predatory force (To deal with this, some "experts" claim generalization from dinosaur tails. Right). Just because it has the word "evolution" in it doesn't mean it's right.
This idea, and almost every instantiation of this idea, is total crap, and should be treated this way.
...a snake participates in an arms race, I'll never know.
I had the same thought at first.
At second - another thought. Birds of prey. Keeping alive from them requires similar improvements in vision. It also requires much more.
Current primates do not cooperate to defend against snakes. At the same time they cooperate even on interspecies level to keep track and warn the pack about forest eagles. There is some extremely good footage narrated by David Attenborough on that (forgot in which one of his movies). The most important characteristic of primates is their socialness. In fact the size of a primate brain for the lower primates is directly proportional to the group size (once again quoting Attenborough).
So the primary driver in primate development should be the predators which improved their pack social cohesion and group communication. Eagles, tree mammal predators from the polecat family and to some extent cats.
Not snakes.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
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My mind leapt to Genesis as well.
The thing is, the snake is by no means a uniformly malign figure in mythology. Quite the opposite; they are often beneficent. The snake has other symbolic potentials, with its ability to shed its skin (rebirth) and to form a circle by biting its tail (eternity).
Chinese dragons are conspicuously snake-like, and share the common mythical snake role as bringers of wisdom. In fact Genesis, if you read it closely, is clearly a compilation of myths. It is clear that in the source material for the temptation story, the snake plays exactly the bringer of wisdom role in the story ("Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made." Gen 3:1). But with irony that is a particular characteristic of Jewish scripture, that gift is a source of misfortune.
Stories of dual natured gifts are not uncommon in folklore and myth. The point of these stories is pretty much the same: life is full of pain and toil, then you die. But on the other hand if you could choose otherwise, there would be a price you might not be so happy to pay: without death children are not born, illness and suffering does not end. Wisdom is a particular source of pain, but as the generations of scribes and their successor Talmudists, it's also a source or pleasure and comfort. There is no wisdom without toil and suffering.
Our way of looking at these stories, Genesis in particular, has been diminished by religious ideology. To the point that those of us raised in the Judeo-Christian tradition think nothing is more natural than to hate and revile snakes. The snake figure in Genesis was never equated with Satan until a much later date. "Satan" comes from the Hebrew word for "obstacle" or "adversary". Read carefully: the snake's part in the story puts enmity between him and humanity, but it does not unambigiously put him in the role of The Enemy; he could equally be seen as a tragic figure that nudged humanity down an alternative path of pain and enlightenment.
In any case, to bring this back to the topic at hand, it is certainly not the case the myth and religion can be used to show an atavistic revulsion to snakes that may have an evolutionary basis.
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Dude, they were hardly innocent. They ran around outside butt naked for crying out loud!
To my knowledge - which is admittedly a year or so old - basically there are three relevant points.
1. Most people have 3 color receptors that they actually use, while some are colorblind to varying degrees including a relatively high number are red-green colorblind having effectively one RG and one B receptor. HOWEVER, where (what wavelength) the "R" "G" and "B" receptors is is NOT exactly the same for each person. So it is very possible that a perfect match for one person is not a perfect match for another especially for colors that are a complex mixture of wavelengths (eg most real-life pigments in sunlight) Note that generally matching the amount of the same pigment should generally be very, very close - to demonstrate this effect you mostly need to be combining very different wavelengths that "should" be the same added together.
The take-home geek message is that you can use an RGB monitor to match every color you can see - IF the monitor's RGB match yours. Otherwise it's not perfect. (Also see point 3)
Have two receptors very close together eventually becomes indistinguishable from just having one as they approach being in the same spot.
2. Some people are known as "tetrachromats" All examples I've heard about have been the mothers of red-green colorblind men. Essentially they have an extra receptor between R & G. This means that they can determine that two colors don't match in situations where everyone with three receptors would think they matched.
3. Apparently we may also have a 4th (or 5th, depending on pt 2) receptor in the ultraviolet range. However, most of the light in this range is blocked by the alchohol in our eye fluids, so this receptor is mostly pretty useless. However, this doesn't mean we don't see SOME color with this receptor right at the edge where it's not blocked by the alchohol - it's just not a very large part of our sight.
These colors definitely don't exist in monitors, which I personally and nonscientifically think is why I love staring at the LED on a PS2.
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Scientist 1: How'd you like my paper on "Impact of herpetological influence on anthropological evolution?"
Scientist 2: Bad news, dude! The "bible-thumpers" have glommed off your hypothesis! Something in Genesis about chicks stomping on snakes. Sounds fetishy. Anyway, we can't afford to lend these cretins any legitimacy. You'll have to think of something else.
Scientist 1: Crap! Back to the drawing board. How about 'gators? They're hella scary!
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
And we wonder why there is a debate between Darwinism and Creationism.
No, we don't.
There is a debate because creationists have manufactured a debate. There is internal debate among biologists about some of the mechanisms of evolution and natural selection, but that doesn't require creationism in the slightest.
Those who espouse creationism do so out of a bond to a cult. "If it contradicts what is literally in my Bible, it is false." That is an aspect of a cult: to deny the evidence when faced with it. (There's also the whole personality-driven thing, in which Jerry Falwell, Ralph Reed, Pat Robertson, and their demons play a major part.)
Now, it's your chance to respond, "That is just what Darwinists do!" As if stating it as fact makes it fact.
The funny thing is, Darwin didn't create the theory of evolution. It existed for years before Darwin boarded the Beagle. He came up with the concept that is the core of current evolutionary theory, though: that evolution is driven by natural selection. "Natural selection" is merely the idea that some phenotypes within a population are better adapted at survival than others, within the current environment. When there is little selection pressure, many phenotypes may survive, allowing genetic diversity within a population. When the environment changes, certain phenotypes may provide better adaption to the environment. When two different phenotypes provide survival traits, you may end up with a divergent population, resulting in two species where there used to be one.
Most modern biologists accept this as the driving force behind evolution. There are details that are argued, and there is always points of debate, but the fundamental theory is laid down more-or-less as Darwin painted it.
. . . but are in actuallity mere theory and speculation.
That pretty much removes you from any serious debate. The Theory of Gravity is just a theory, but I don't see you jumping off a very tall cliff with no parachute any time soon. You should go figure out what a "theory" is in the scientific sense before making stupid statements like this.
The way science works is this: if you have an theory that fits the facts, and accurately makes predictions (which is required for testability), that theory survives. Once that theory fails a prediction, the theory is either modified or discarded. Hopefully, there are competing theories to take its place that provide a more accurate prediction mechanism.
The theory of evolution through natural selection has survived a long, long time. It is probably one of the most-tested theories ever. One example: it predates modern genetic theory, and yet the implications of evolution on genetics (the predictions) are borne out by modern genetic research.
The problem with the creationists' appeal to a divine intervention is simple. For it to be a viable scientific theory, it must make predictions that can be tested for accuracy. There is no known method to accurately test for God. You might assume his existence, but you cannot test for him, the the best of my knowledge.
The arguments of the intelligent design crowd invariably reduce to a simple logical mistake: we don't know how it happened, so it must've been God who did it. And when science, using its proven epistemology, pushes back the boundaries of knowledge, the ID crowd responds, "Oh, yes, well, we didn't quite mean that. We meant this other thing that you can't prove." It happened with "irreducible complexity" (which is nothing but the long-disproven "Only God could create the eye" argument gussied up with the terminology of microbiology), it happened with the catastrophists (who use catastrophism to prove the Biblical flood), and will most likely occur with the next pseudo-scientific attempt to subvert education.
Ultimately, that's what this is about: the ability to control the next generation through education. If they are taught to think for themselves, to reason about problems instead of appealing to
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