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Study: Male Facial Development Evolved To Take Punches
First time accepted submitter Joe_NoOne (48818) writes "A new theory suggests that our male ancestors evolved beefy facial features as a defense against fist fights. The bones most commonly broken in human punch-ups also gained the most strength in early hominin evolution. They are also the bones that show most divergence between males and females. From the article: 'Fossil records show that the australopiths, immediate predecessors of the human genus Homo, had strikingly robust facial structures. For many years, this extra strength was seen as an adaptation to a tough diet including nuts, seeds and grasses. But more recent findings, examining the wear pattern and carbon isotopes in australopith teeth, have cast some doubt on this "feeding hypothesis". "In fact, [the australopith] boisei, the 'nutcracker man', was probably eating fruit," said Prof David Carrier, the new theory's lead author and an evolutionary biologist at the University of Utah. Instead of diet, Prof Carrier and his co-author, physician Dr Michael Morgan, propose that violent competition demanded the development of these facial fortifications: what they call the "protective buttressing hypothesis".'"
Of course I read this after my sandwich was late.
Sorry, sweetie...
Trolling is a art,
I realize that you evolve with the genome you have, not the genome you might want or wish to have at a later time;
Say that again and I'll punch you ;-) ........ or should that be [;=))]
You want to avoid delving into 'just so stories', or flattering a particular cultural quirk with the status of 'universality' ("Y'know why pink is a girl color, and chicks naturally like it? Because they, like, evolved to judge the ripeness of fruits that they were gathering! Oh, wait, you mean that the association between young girls and pink and young boys and blue is actually a century or two old? Umm, never mind...); but you can infer things about lifestyle and social interaction from archeological evidence.
Undamaged bone, bone that has experienced substantial unhealed trauma (ie. that trauma was part of whatever killed the bone's owner before any healing occurred), and bone that was damaged; but subsequently healed, all look quite different if they are in reasonably well-preserved shape.
If a fossil record is adequately detailed across time, changes in skeletal structure are also quite discernable, and isotopic analysis can help determine whether those changes were driven by dietary demands, or whether they occurred for unrelated reasons.
There is no certainty to be had, and there are pitfalls to avoid; but it's hardly a morass of nescience.
Why do you need thumbs for raping?
Plenty of species without hands get their rape on to a degree that makes A Clockwork Orange look like Saturday morning cartoons. Ducks, just by way of example, are so nasty that the evolution of their genital morphology is basically an arms race, with female reproductive tracts getting ever longer and more convoluted, and males developing ever more grotesque Cthulhoid horror-phalluses in an attempt to not let that stop them. ("Explosive eversion and functional morphology of the duck penis supports sexual conflict in waterfowl genitalia" is always a good read if you suspected nature of harboring any traces of benevolence...)
As best I can tell, body-building is sort of like opera singing for your muscles. It's not clear why you would want to, or why people would be interested in the result; but it is undeniably impressive what you can make a human body do if you put your mind to it.
You might be right or wrong, but you have no way of knowing without at least understanding the research and specifically addressing the points they make. You're not going to take the time to read the paper, let alone acquire the necessary background to understand it, and neither am I. Know-nothings tossing out hunches on an Internet forum, now that is mental masturbation.
The goal of bodybuilding is indeed aesthetics, and they do not hide it. Their goal is not functional -- rather, their goal is the full development of every muscle on the body in a proportional manner.
And that does not mean it's easy, either. People often assume that that degree of muscular development is just "lifting weights" and that is the farthest from the truth. Bodybuilding entails making sure that you pretty much develop every visible muscle group, without any one group looking out of proportion than the other. For instance, my chest and calves are the hardest to build, and it takes me a lot of effort to ensure that they develop in proportion to the rest of my body, my shortcomings notwithstanding.
However, bodybuilders are far from the best examples of fitness simply because their whole bulk/cut regimen isn't healthy, not to mention the overabundance of supplements that they consume. But I cannot tell from your post if you're referring to all bodybuilders (including the professional ones) or to the popular perception of the gym rat bodybuilder.
But there is a part of your argument that I disagree with - while they body builders may not be as strong as they should be, given their muscular density, that is by design. They're still stronger than most people (I mean, if you're squatting over a thousand pounds, imagine crushing something with those legs).
They may have some shortcomings compared to others of a leaner makeup, and that is a function of what they focus on. As a rock climber, I am more agile but my mirror muscles will never get that big; but despite having great lung capacity, my lung capacity will never equal that of my wife's, who's a long distance swimmer. Similarly, despite being strong and flexible, I cannot dream of ever squatting anything over 350 lbs. Because at some level, you hit a very realistic limit that cannot be overcome without additional muscle mass.
Bodybuilders are extremely good at what they do - i.e. push their muscle development to the max. You cannot judge a fish by how high it can fly.