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Did Snakes Help Build the Primate Brain?
sciencehabit writes "A new study of the monkey brain suggests that primates are uniquely adapted to recognize the features of snakes and react in a flash. What's more, by selecting for traits that helped animals avoid them, the reptiles ultimately endowed us with forward-facing eyes, for example, and enlarged visual centers deep in our brains that are specialized for picking out specific features in the world around us, such as the general shape of a snake's body camouflaged among leaves.The results lend support to a controversial hypothesis: that primates as we know them would never have evolved without snakes."
The question is: Is it enough to be relevant?
Given the myriad other hazards, and billions of other reasons that stereoscopic vision in hunter-animals evolved, the answer is pretty much No.
This is why it's controversial. It's "true" while also being absolute bollocks. It's like saying that without lead-acid batteries, cars wouldn't have evolved as they have. Well, no. But it doesn't mean that without lead-acid batteries cars couldn't have existed or anything like that.
P.S. The "wading in water made man stand upright" is just as controversial because, although it may be a FACTOR, the impact of that factor is the crucial question. It may well be zero. It may well be quite a lot. But chances are that it's such a minuscule factor that it's not worth spouting off about compared to thousands of other factors.
Evolution is not a case of "jumping off this cliff made birds suddenly grow wings". There are billions of factors over millions of years and hundreds of thousands of generations that all nudge towards small changes which impact upon the previous and next changes.
As such, this suggestion is almost complete bollocks, while being - on the surface - based on truthful data. But "snake-like predators might possibly have contributed a tiny bit to millions of years of our evolution along with million of other factors" isn't a headline that sells papers to journals.
I brought the link.
They feared that it could be used to suppress protest or support unpopular rule.
You can do better.
I thought they were prevalent on hunting animals because stereoscopic vision was important to depth perception which is critical when attacking another animal
The primates that humans evolved from where primarily frugivores, however they also had binocular vision.
Some do, like owls. Some don't, like pigeons.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Horses are no fun to be on while around snakes either. You don't have to train them to avoid snakes. So horses would not have evolved to eat grass and have eyes on the side of their head without snakes?
Owls. Eagles. Falcons. Hawks. Vultures. Birds of Prey = Forward, Birds are Prey = Side.
AC is so right - I was in a church the other day and looked up at a glass window panel and I was like "OMG it's full of angels and faces of Jesus!"
while (true != false) process_more_stupid_code();