Aspect of Human Evolution

[foodchain]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that you resist the idea that one day all the complexities of life and human experience might be explainable by science - that perhaps one day, when we completely understand the workings of genes, the effect of the environment, the mechanisms of our bodies, etc - that one day it can all be explained with these concepts.

 

I know that life is monstrously complex. I know that the evolution of life must be even more so. I would say that today we are only a small fraction of the way towards explaining it all, but I still think it is possible. The natural world does follow basic rules, beginning at the atomic level and building up from there. Like I said, we are very far away from this goal yet, but even though many people may not like the idea that we can be explainable, it's most likely true. And that's not necessarily a bad thing, in my view. I don't think it's insulting, I think it's amazing. Atoms that once were bouncing around inside a star have come together over billions of years to create beings as complicated as we are. And I think life is complex enough that once it is all explained, it's not going to somehow negate the truth and value of human experience and individuality. It will just show us how it happens.

 

As for the question posed in your thread - that's the very reason why we keep talking about technology so much. Technology is the main way that humans are able "to conduct such widespread change to the environment in general." During our evolution something in our biology changed that enabled us to create and use tools, and something in our environment changed that made the use of tools advantageous, and then our biology began to change more in response to this advantage, in response to tool use, and both the biology and the technology influenced each other. No, not every animal that ever picked up a stick and used it as a club became like we did - because something in their evolutionary path was not the same as ours, be it the biology or the environment. And once we had the tools, we were able to change the environment itself to suit the needs of our biology.

 

I'm sure that if elephants were able to use chainsaws to knock down even the biggest trees and have access to the delicious leaves at their tops, they probably would. But they don't. Big as they are, they can still only knock down trees of a certain size. Thus they create a plains ecology, but don't have the ability to convert large-treed forests into plains. If they had the tools they would probably be more destructive than they are. They don't, we do. We have the chainsaws and the bulldozers, we can make fire to raze a forest and turn it into plains on which we grow our crops or our livestock. It's not so much a question of why we do it, it's the fact that we can, so we do.

 

No, its quite the opposite actually, I fully support the science and in time think that it can answer all questions about nature. The point I am trying to make is to say you don’t just take genetics in a biology curriculum for instance. I think it automatically induces fallacy also to view life as nothing more. The scope genetics has on biology is intense, large, and wide for instance, but its not all of biology or life. Life is a living system of course, it has a structure, function and origin, genetics is but one aspect of this. If it were just genetics that became to only objective truth to biology or life, from any angle you could study it, I imagine that such would have already surfaced, and biology again would be reduced to nothing more then genetics, its simply not true is any meaning of that word.

 

 

 

I also have an ardent naturalist streak, and personally despise what humanity is doing to life in general all over the planet. I think our ignorance is not going to pay off in the future, and I think its going to take life being brought to the brink of extinction in time to point this out. I talk to so many people that have such shallow views of life, and that I come to find out they typically have very little experience with such, the most being maybe a family dog. I know its not everyone’s cup of tea, but I just think that modus of operation in general for any society is truly ill.

[iNow]

The point I am trying to make is to say you don’t just take genetics in a biology curriculum for instance.

Was anybody arguing that one should?

[SkepticLance]

Foodchain said :

 

personally despise what humanity is doing to life in general all over the planet. I think our ignorance is not going to pay off in the future, and I think its going to take life being brought to the brink of extinction in time to point this out.

 

That is a terribly negative and pessimistic view of reality. Life is more resiliant than you think, and human kind is not as stupid. Life has been through six major extinction events, with some (like the Permian event) much worse than anything we are doing. Each time, life rebounded with increased diversity and vigour. In the mean time, humans are learning, and slowly turning to more environmentally responsible methods. In the western world, things were much worse in the past, with no consideration whatever of the impact of introducing new species into new environments, and with pollution rampant.

 

The western world today has biosecurity offices to stop introduction of alien species, and both air and water pollution are way lower than 100 years ago. Sure, we have a way to go, but the point is that we are moving towards more environmentally friendly ways to do things. Non western countries are trainling behind, with massive pollution in China and in Eastern Europe. However, they are starting to tidy up their acts, and it is predictable that they will clean up their environments as we in the west did.

[foodchain]

Foodchain said :

 

personally despise what humanity is doing to life in general all over the planet. I think our ignorance is not going to pay off in the future, and I think its going to take life being brought to the brink of extinction in time to point this out.

 

That is a terribly negative and pessimistic view of reality. Life is more resiliant than you think, and human kind is not as stupid. Life has been through six major extinction events, with some (like the Permian event) much worse than anything we are doing. Each time, life rebounded with increased diversity and vigour. In the mean time, humans are learning, and slowly turning to more environmentally responsible methods. In the western world, things were much worse in the past, with no consideration whatever of the impact of introducing new species into new environments, and with pollution rampant.

 

The western world today has biosecurity offices to stop introduction of alien species, and both air and water pollution are way lower than 100 years ago. Sure, we have a way to go, but the point is that we are moving towards more environmentally friendly ways to do things. Non western countries are trainling behind, with massive pollution in China and in Eastern Europe. However, they are starting to tidy up their acts, and it is predictable that they will clean up their environments as we in the west did.

 

Keywords being they were extinction events, in where the environment had changed.

 

I don’t doubt the U.S is starting to hold a higher standard, but even in politics the only politician to truly voice any concern about environmental issues was or is Gore and look at all the drama surrounding that. We have to make natural refuges for wildlife and wetlands, put things on the endangered species list and why? Because life is so resilient, its not a negative view, its reality. I mean we have punched holes in the ozone layer, which finally got peoples attention because now they could have an increased rate or cancer.

 

Even today the EPA is marginalized. Reports happen to get silenced along with people and it took so much this time around to save anwr. I mean oil is a finite substance, its going to run out, but first we should destroy ecosystems that took who knows how long to flourish or come about for what?

 

You can call it negative, and maybe it is a dreary view of things, but its a real view of things overall. When push comes to shove, people get there way, its always going to be like that. We will continue to have to make more and more stuff to support a population that will continue to grow. I mean living standards are only increasing, this does not mean much anything anymore, the population has done nothing but climb, and it will continue to do nothing but climb, all you have to do is couple that with industrial lifestyles and the image you get is what? Probably something dreary. In 500 years the amount of people alone on this planet is going to be staggering.

 

Its sort of pointless to try to stop it either, most people will just think of you as some liberal true hugger, and well at that point I don’t really care anymore. I have watched the movie soylent green, and in all reality what’s to stop that from being our future anymore. You know the pentagon has military plans for the future that surrounds and environmentally ruined one, where even drinking war becomes another resource to conduct war for, its going to take an extinction event before people pull there heads out of there %$# and start to care via understanding and action. The science is already in about what’s going on with the planet, it does not matter much right now because it applies no real stress yet to the money. To be honest I don’t even know why I care, because I am confident in my predictions, its just I know what it will mean to get to that point I guess.

[SkepticLance]

Foodchain said :

 

In 500 years the amount of people alone on this planet is going to be staggering.

 

I suggest you do a bit more research on human population growth. A good start is the United Nations site (http://www.un.org/popin), where its expert demographers show what is really happening.

 

Human fertility is dropping at a rapid rate, to the point some nations are getting really upset about their falling population. Many western nations have a fertility figure of as low as 1.1 children per couple, on average. In the developing world, the figure was 5.5 at a time 50 years ago, and is now less than 2.5, and dropping.

 

The United Nations predicts that the human race will probably rise from its current level of 6.5 billion to a figure close to 9 billion, and then the total population will start to drop. By 2060, the world will have a falling population.

 

Minor correction to web site address

 

http://www.un.org/popin/data.html

[foodchain]

Foodchain said :

 

In 500 years the amount of people alone on this planet is going to be staggering.

 

I suggest you do a bit more research on human population growth. A good start is the United Nations site (http://www.un.org/popin), where its expert demographers show what is really happening.

 

Human fertility is dropping at a rapid rate, to the point some nations are getting really upset about their falling population. Many western nations have a fertility figure of as low as 1.1 children per couple, on average. In the developing world, the figure was 5.5 at a time 50 years ago, and is now less than 2.5, and dropping.

 

The United Nations predicts that the human race will probably rise from its current level of 6.5 billion to a figure close to 9 billion, and then the total population will start to drop. By 2060, the world will have a falling population.

 

Minor correction to web site address

 

http://www.un.org/popin/data.html

 

Yes, but one thing you can find in social sciences is that they have to be a soft science for various reasons, I don’t find this much different. Its the only reason why I understand some sciences being labeled physical science. A global population of humans has such a rich density of variables considered to say the path of a comet out in the cosmos. I mean in twenty years what will happen if Europe has some cultural change that places emphasis on a baby boom, how about if china is not so tight on its birth control? All human population has done in physical reality that is a constant or giving is grow overall. It may be a product of radiating out all over the planet and the introduction of say different technologies, I cant be sure, the one thing I do know is that its never ceased to continue to grow, that’s an observation of mine.

[SkepticLance]

To foodchain

 

One thing I recognise is that predicting the future is really, really difficult. At least if you do it accurately!

 

One good guideline is that long term trends do not change abruptly. The reduction in fertility is a long term trend. It has been dropping for 50 years. The reason for this is known. It is the development and dissemination of effective contraception.

 

We can make good predictions based on this long term trend. We will continue to develop and distribute good contraception, to more and more parts of the world. Fertility will continue to drop as a result, and we will see population level off and begin to decrease. We can argue about the exact details, but the pattern is not likely to be terribly much different from that predicted.

[lucaspa]

Well, I understand the technology bit, and tool use of course I would think is paramount but its just one facet of it all. Its like the constant obsessions with genes, a single gene, I don’t even think nano bacteria has only one gene, so its lots of genes, but how does it all equate, well see you have these genes just floating around in the air by themselves,

 

Foodchain, your posts are getting more incoherent. In terms of genes, the simplest way to understand Mendelian genetics is one gene = one trait. And so you see that a lot because it is the simplest way to explain it. In reality, most traits are products of more than one gene (polygenic) and most genes participate in more than one trait (pleiotrophy). But that gets very complicated in the equations.

 

The evolution of intelligence has several intermediate stages. There are many species that 1) use tools and a few that 2) make tools.

 

Humans had a small modification: they make tools to make tools. That's a small change but it has huge results: all our technology.

 

Many species communicate and some have a primitive language. However, humans have small modifications: the ability to vocalize better AND the ability to deal with abstract thoughts. This allows communication of technology from generation to generation. Again, small changes with huge effects.

 

The reason people lost hair was cavemen were catching themselves on fire to often, so over time the hairless gene became selected for.

 

Don't be silly. By the time there were "cavemen" -- neandertals and Cro-Magnon (H. sapiens -- us), they were already hairless. Losing hair predated learning to use fire.

 

there is no organism, its just naked genes floating in the air, hairy ones catching themselves on fire!

 

Again, don't be silly. Or are you just trying to be irritating? Genes (the genotype) determines the phenotype, but it is the phenotype (individual) that is the subject of natural selection.

 

if it were just selfish genes why did we ever evolve or for that matter why did evolution ever take place, bacteria alone has a far better survival rate overall then anything else on the planet,

 

1. You don't seem to like Dawkins' "selfish gene" theory. You are not alone. Many evolutionary biologists don't like it either. Remember, "selfish gene" is NOT evolution! It appears that you are equating the two. Don't.

 

2. As to "why did we ever evolve", remember there is no consciousness in evolution. Remember, individuals vary. That is, you and I are not alike either in our genome or our phenotype. Those individuals lucky enough to have the genotype that gave the phenotype that could exploit a new food source did well. It's all about earning a living. Multicelled organisms can earn a living. And, initially, the multicelled organisms could exploit food sources that bacteria could not.

 

Its the same thing with humans and placing everything on the crutch of technology. Humans were around for hundreds of thousands of years with little to no technology past very primitive versions compared to today’s standards, that’s not covering ancestors of course. To say that human evolution was solely surrounded by fire, spears, and say cutting rock with rock for instance, well, I don’t think that quite covers the whole issue.

 

Nor did we say all of human evolution was technology. BUT, in answer to your first questions, yes, the abilities of humans you referred to are a product of technology: even the primitive technology of stone tools and fur clothing. After all, our hominid ancestors did not have to kill animals for fur: the stone knives would have been sufficient to skin animals that died from other causes. That technology would allow humans to live in a wide variety of ecosystems and exploit the food sources of each.

 

There has been quite a bit of work looking at the role of diet in human evolution. You can start here:

33. http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?colID=1&articleID=0007B7DC-6738-1DC9-AF71809EC588EEDF WR Leonard, Food for thought, Scientific American, Dec. 2002. Role of diet in human evolution.

 

Also, my thread was a question posed as to why we are able to conduct such widespread change to the environment in general, or the earth. Nothing more or less, and its a hypothetical question.

 

And the answer is: our technology! It's not "hypothetical" at all, but a well known fact. We can see and document how technology changes the environment -- from clear cutting the Amazonian rain forest to acid rain in New England. Shoot, the peppered moth as an example of natural selection is due to human technology: pollution to darken the bark of beech trees and then changes in technology that result in no longer darkening the bark of beech trees!

 

The reason I made the comment about the lose of hair in regards to an immunity response is two fold. First the immune system is something direct to our biology, tools are not. The parts of our brains that utilize tools or concepts or thought related to such happens to be, but so is the use of language, would our specie have made it without such. Other species used tools but in the end they did not make it, they went extinct overall.

 

You are being incoherent again. Behavior is part genetic. In humans that part is less than other species, but still the ability to conceptualize making tools to make tools is genetic. And yes, the ability to form precise sounds (necessary for language) is genetic. It involves the FOXP2 gene. We have an allele that allows finer control over the muscles that partake in speech. Other species have different alleles:

32. Molecular evolution of FOXP2, a gene involved in speech and language. Wolfgang Enard, Molly Przeworski, Simon E. Fisher, Cecilia S. L. Lai, Victor Wiebe, Takashi Kitano, Anthony P. Monaco, Svante Pääbo Nature 418, 869 - 872 (22 Aug 2002)

 

Organisms are composites of behaviors that for the instance of the phenotype do not even have to survive overall naturally in strict accordance with the genotype overall. Plus on that note you cannot segregate life into units like that, its a system in which parts all happen to be required. DNA may be a step away from RNA for also a composite of reasons, who is to say, a great deal of past evolution points towards a giant symbiosis.

 

Yes, behaviors are determined by the genotype. This has been extensively studied in insects. Behaviors can be changed by changing the genes. For instance, change the gene FRU (fruitless) in male Drosophila and the male courts males instead of females.

 

Evolution against occums razor, the razor fails. Life is vastly complex, and no simple generalization is going to fix this.

 

AH! Now we finally get to it! You don't like evolution!

 

1. You don't use Ockham's Razor to determine truth. I've done this in several threads and can do it again here if you want. So we don't care if evolution is against Ockham's Razor, because we don't use Ockham's Razor for theory evaluation to begin with!

2. Natural selection generates complexity. Natural selection is an unintelligent process that, if followed, is guaranteed to give you design (and complexity). So the complexity of the designs in living species has come about thru natural selection.

3. The initial "complexity" of the first cells is due to chemistry.

4. That evolution happened and that natural selection produces the designs in plants and animals is no longer open to doubt. You would need new data to cast doubt on evolution; ALL the data we have now says evolution by natural selection accounts for the diversity/complexity of life on the planet.

 

but life is so large overall that its rather insulting to hear someone say its just genes, that’s simply not true overall. I know firsthand and I have experience events in life that tend to contradict with interpretations like such.

 

You can't use human experiences to contradict evolution. Our brains have evolved to be so complex that there is plasticity in our behavior. Think of DOS vs Windows. Windows is much more complex that DOS, but it allows a "simpler" interface and much more flexible response to the computer user.

 

So, for humans the genes provide predilection for behavior, but our brains are so complex that we get to choose individual behavior to some extent. Some of our behavior, such as suckling or sexual orientation, is purely due to genetics. But we may have a tendency toward violent behavior from our genes, but we can choose at any given situation to use violence. Or not.

 

Plus if migratory the reality is a whole new ecosystem many times over of simply anything from prions, to bacteria to virus, and so on. Not to mention this would become even worse being we are social, which could have an equal footing if not more then tools, not to mention state of mind, who knows how much fear ruled our ancestors thoughts, just look how much it rules today’s.

 

It's not debatable that hominids evolved in Africa and then migrated out. The facts don't allow any other interpretation. First H. erectus, then later transitionals between H. erectus and H. sapiens, and finally H. sapiens. Africa leaked tribes of hominids for 1.2 million years or more. We can discuss different hypotheses as to motives for the migrations, but no doubt at all that the migrations occurred. A logical hypothesis is simply population pressure and food sources: move on to the next valley looking for more game or more berries.

 

Life in terms of its reality though evolution has slipped away it seems from something studied by for example wildlife biologists.

 

Oh, evolution is still studied in the wild. But it is also studied in the lab. One doesn't exclude the other. In fact, a few recent studies are using the wild as a laboratory!

1. Case, TJ, Natural selection out on a limb. Nature, 387: 15-16, May 1, 1997. Original paper in the same issue, pp. 70-73 (below). Discusses natural selection in the wild where lizards were introduced to various islands in the Bahamas. Length of limbs varied according to the plant life present on the islands.

JB Losos, KI Warheit, TW Schoener, Adaptive differentiation following experimental island colonization in Anolis lizards. Nature, 387: 70-73,1997 (May 1)

1a. JB Losos, Evolution: a lizard's tale. Scientific American 284: 64-69,March 2001. Phenotypic plasticity and evolution of Anolis lizards.

2. Reznick, DN, Shaw, FH, Rodd, FH, and Shaw, RG. Evaluationof the rate of evolution in natural populations of guppies (Poeciliareticulata). Science 275:1934-1937, 1997. The lay article isPredatory-free guppies take an evolutionary leap forward, pg 1880.

[SkepticLance]

lucaspa said

 

Losing hair predated learning to use fire.

 

Apology in advance for quibbling. We don't know that losing hair predated fire. We do not know when that hair loss occurred since hair is not normally fossilised. We do know that Homo erectus used fire. Was that species hairless? We don't know.

 

lucaspa also said

 

 

the stone knives would have been sufficient to skin animals that died from other causes

 

Not a quibble this time, but a question. The above phrase just tickled a question in my mind. There is a tendency to imagine pre-humans in 'clothes' of animal skin. However, I know a bit on that subject and it does not ring very true to me. Raw animal skins go rotten really quickly. And tanning skins, while it can be very simple, does not usually result in a product that is very useful as clothing.

 

You can tan an animal skin by dropping it into a forest pool that is full of tree bark fragments, and leaving it for a few months. In fact, something like that is probably how the first tanned skins came into being. However, the product is like plywood. Hard and inflexible. In fact, this type of leather has been used throughout much of history as armour.

 

To make leather flexible enough for clothing is much more difficult. It involves carefully scraping off flesh before tanning, making it thin enough to flex, and then much flexing of the hide during tanning, and rubbing in oils. With the skins of small animals sewn together, this can be done by primitive peoples, but it is not something a tribe with no experience with treating skins would quickly discover. I find it hard to imagine Homo erectus, for example, doing this.

 

My question is to do with early clothing. How do people think the first clothing was actually made?

[immortal]

 

Many species communicate and some have a primitive language. However, humans have small modifications: the ability to vocalize better AND the ability to deal with abstract thoughts. This allows communication of technology from generation to generation. Again, small changes with huge effects.

 

And yes, the ability to form precise sounds (necessary for language) is genetic. It involves the FOXP2 gene. We have an allele that allows finer control over the muscles that partake in speech. Other species have different alleles:

 

Some of our behavior, such as suckling or sexual orientation, is purely due to genetics.

 

 

 

Communication involves talking as well as listen to what's being said. So along with good vocal chords we must have a good hearing ability and we have that in the form of a gene called aminopterin. Other primates don't have this gene that's why it is difficult to teach them. If you want to create or invent a new technology you need language. So language came first then braininess. Humans pass on their memes to their offsprings (they teach) thats how it is being passed from generation to generation.

 

Now coming to the aspect of human evolution if conditions favour, organisms always increase their reprodutive rate. So having space colonisation in mind is it good to increase reproductive rate of humans or to have birth control? Some of the species may get extinct but today we have the technology to create better micro organisms than which have evolved naturally.

 

One more important thing for the success of humans is co-operation it is this ability of ours to punish those who don't co-operate and reward those who does has helped us to come up where we are. Only thing is no one is intending to be co-operative it just happens through evolution (its in our genes) forming complex societies.

 

I don't completely agree that behavior such has sexual orientation is purely genetic. Based on my experiences I had sexual desire only after when I learned about evolution and stuffs like that. So either my morality got twisted or it is because of mutation. Is it good to express sexual desires? whether it has an advantage over attracting mates for reproductive succcess or not?

[iNow]

Based on my experiences I had sexual desire only after when I learned about evolution and stuffs like that.

Does this mean that creationists don't get horny?

 

 

EDIT: Maybe that's not such a bad thing.

[pioneer]

Migration was beneficial for human evolution in that it put pre-humans in contact with a variety of new environments, requiring more need to adapt, compare to remaining within a balanced eco-system. The last ice age probably had a very significant impact on human development. Necessity is the mother of invention; routine does not need adaption.

 

One does not really need language to learn simple tasks. Monkey see and monkey do, allows one to mimick even without language. Even modern children often do what their parents do and not what they say. Where language becomes important is transfering what is in the mind. People can't see what is going on in another's brain, so they can copy. Language is the bridge between human minds and imaginations. For example, if a leader of a tribe gets his weapon, others will follow, even without anything said. But if the leader has a stategy in mind, he needs language to transfer what is on is mind, reducing his running around.

 

One can explain how to change a flat tire. One can also learn this skill, even if nothing was said, by watching how it is done. The first uses the person's imagination and the second the visual cortex. The first is more contaminated with human subjectivity. Teaching with language and doing are often two different things; unknown fears can make it hard to do. The doing after seeing, i.e., visual cortex, often dispels the subjectivity. As language got better, a second world developed in the imagination. This was originally populated with more and more imaginary subjectivities. The result were mythological affects populating this inner reality.

 

Before language, if someone had an imagination episode and began to panic, there was no way to transfer this to others except with symptoms of panic. Everyone goes on alert, looks around and sees nothing, so there is restored calm in the group. The leader may give him a dope slat for disturbing the peace. The person snaps out of it, sees the calm of the group and returns to calm. With language, the same imagination episode can now be transferred, into the imagination of others, causing others to panic and the group to remain on false alert for much longer. Mythology may have been induced by language (imagination/subjectivity) and helped language to evolve to help transfer the things of the imagination.

[iNow]

One does not really need language to learn simple tasks. Monkey see and monkey do, allows one to mimick even without language. Even modern children often do what their parents do and not what they say. Where language becomes important is transfering what is in the mind. People can't see what is going on in another's brain, so they can copy. Language is the bridge between human minds and imaginations.

 

You should look up the work of Albert Bandura (I think he was at Stanford at the time), and his research on social learning theory... aka "modelling behavior." I think you'd like it.

 

Per your point above on language only being to "transfer the mind," I think you are sorely mistaken if you see no other evolutionary benefits (I am not sure this is the case, so will point it out just to be sure since your post seems to imply such).

 

Language is vital to social groups... to society in general... and need not be defined only as that which is verbal. All of those modelling behaviors you list above are language, just nonverbal. Even tiny organisms navigate using patterns of scent and electromagnitism, itself a form of language when the organisms manipulate and perceive these.

 

Further, think of pack behavior (wolves, hyenas, dolphins, etc.) and successful hunting groups... even the military. Language is vital to the successful hunt, vital to the successful mission, and those who communicated well tended to have greater chances at survival... itself translating into better chances at passing on their offspring.

 

 

"I see," said the blind man to his deaf daughter.

 

 

Fox trot charlie two to base nine. The eagle flies at midnight. I repeat, the eagle flies at midnight.

[SkepticLance]

To pioneer

 

First : migration

 

As I said before, humans are not a particularly migratory species. However, every living thing has some means of dispersal. Some plants have seeds that are dispersed by explosive force, such as gorse - and some have seeds that are blown in the wind. Some are sticky and cling to animal fur etc. Animals are able to move, whether a dolphin swimming, a bird flying, or a monkey swinging through the trees. Against these examples, there is nothing special about human movements.

 

Except for one very special thing. When a seed blows in the wind, and lands, it will most probably die, since the seed can only grow if conditions are right. If a human family walks 50 kms, and decides to settle there, they can thrive. Why? Not because they are adapted to the new environment. In fact, they are probably maladapted. They thrive because they use culture and technology in the first instance as their means of adaptation.

 

It is technology and behavioural flexibility that enables humans to live in new environments. It took over 50,000 years for humans leaving Africa to colonise the whole world - a very slow rate of migration. However, people can adapt through technology to any environment. So we have the San in the Kalahari desert, and Inuit in Greenland. Plus others in every environment in between.

 

I don't think there is any particular qualitative special feature in human language either. The African grey parrot has a rich and diverse vocal 'language' for communicating with its fellows in the wild, and can be taught to use English in a meaningful way in captivity. Apes have been taught to use sign language meaningfully, and cetaceans appear to have quite complex vocal languages. Sure, none are likely to have language as complex and flexible as human languages, but this is a quantitative difference - not qualitative.

[foodchain]

To pioneer

 

First : migration

 

As I said before, humans are not a particularly migratory species. However, every living thing has some means of dispersal. Some plants have seeds that are dispersed by explosive force, such as gorse - and some have seeds that are blown in the wind. Some are sticky and cling to animal fur etc. Animals are able to move, whether a dolphin swimming, a bird flying, or a monkey swinging through the trees. Against these examples, there is nothing special about human movements.

 

Except for one very special thing. When a seed blows in the wind, and lands, it will most probably die, since the seed can only grow if conditions are right. If a human family walks 50 kms, and decides to settle there, they can thrive. Why? Not because they are adapted to the new environment. In fact, they are probably maladapted. They thrive because they use culture and technology in the first instance as their means of adaptation.

 

It is technology and behavioural flexibility that enables humans to live in new environments. It took over 50,000 years for humans leaving Africa to colonise the whole world - a very slow rate of migration. However, people can adapt through technology to any environment. So we have the San in the Kalahari desert, and Inuit in Greenland. Plus others in every environment in between.

 

I don't think there is any particular qualitative special feature in human language either. The African grey parrot has a rich and diverse vocal 'language' for communicating with its fellows in the wild, and can be taught to use English in a meaningful way in captivity. Apes have been taught to use sign language meaningfully, and cetaceans appear to have quite complex vocal languages. Sure, none are likely to have language as complex and flexible as human languages, but this is a quantitative difference - not qualitative.

 

I am not talking of language as the means simply to create verbal patterns, but the cognitive ability that comes with it. Human language on its own as evidence in the modern world alone is rather complex, and in reality I think the ability to be able to encapsulate say concepts like quantum mechanics into something that can be spoken to say others is vital, our ability to communicate period is vital. Mathematics for instance is a version of this.

 

I am not against the position of technology in regards to our species and the evolution of such, its just that hominid ancestors that also were technology users did not make it, so I cant really say if its the only piece of the puzzle then is all. Maybe is our oh so cool brain that allowed us to persist in time overall:confused:

[immortal]

Does this mean that creationists don't get horny?

 

 

EDIT: Maybe that's not such a bad thing.

 

No, they do because everyone are programmed to have sexual desire. When I mean sexual desire it is for reproductive success. Even If I would'nt have known about evolution I would have shown sexual desire. But evolution certainly changed the way I think about this world and the problem is most people in my part of the world don't like my thinking because most of them don't know about evolution and based on my experimentation if you talk about reproductive success and stuffs like that you will be in an ugly place.

Your behavior will be based on what you believe in and how you think.

 

As I said earlier co-operation is important for evolutionary success but how can co-operation and competition both exist? Do animals compete just to pass on successful genes and eliminate the unfit? If these two exists together then when do organisms co-operate and when do they compete?

[iNow]

Do animals compete just to pass on successful genes and eliminate the unfit? If these two exists together then when do organisms co-operate and when do they compete?

 

Animals compete to maximize their chances of passing on their genes to offspring. Competition is directly related the ability to attract more mates.

 

Following the above logic... organisms cooperate when it increases their likelihood of survival and chances of passing on their genes... organisms complete when it increases their likelihood of survival and chances of passing on their genes.

 

What needs to happen is for reproductive success to no longer be contingent on selfish motivation, but instead social vision and peaceful intent. Unfortunately, our evolved biology is lagging somewhat behind our tecnological advances and societal ails.

 

 

 

We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, 'Now, I have become Death, the destroyer of worlds.' I suppose we all thought that, one way or another.

 

~ J. Robert Oppenheimer

[SkepticLance]

To foodchain

 

No one knows why Homo sapiens thrived while others, like the neanderthals died out. We can only guess.

 

immortal said :

 

how can co-operation and competition both exist? Do animals compete just to pass on successful genes and eliminate the unfit? If these two exists together then when do organisms co-operate and when do they compete?

 

Actually competition is not there for any purpose at all. It is just a fact of life - an inevitable result of the way the world is. It generates certain results, and increased evolutionary change is one of those results. But it has no specific purpose.

 

Cooperation is not an opposite to competition. Normally when groups of organisms cooperate, they are competing against other groups. Thus competition drives cooperation.

[lucaspa]

lucaspa said

 

Losing hair predated learning to use fire.

 

Apology in advance for quibbling. We don't know that losing hair predated fire. We do not know when that hair loss occurred since hair is not normally fossilised. We do know that Homo erectus used fire. Was that species hairless? We don't know.

 

1. It is debated that H. erectus used fire.

22. B Weuthrich, Geological evidence dampens ancient Chinese fires. Science, 281: 165-166, July 10, 1998. Evidence for use of fire by H. erectus is challenged. First use of confirmed fire is by H. heidelbergensis 200,000 to 400,000 years ago.

 

2. http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/abstract/110482059/ABSTRACT?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0

TI: THE EVOLUTION OF BIPEDALITY AND LOSS OF FUNCTIONAL BODY HAIR IN HOMINIDS

AU: WHEELER_PE

NA: LIVERPOOL POLYTECH,DEPT BIOL,LIVERPOOL L3 5UX,ENGLAND

JN: JOURNAL OF HUMAN EVOLUTION, 1984, Vol.13, No.1, pp.91-98

"By 1.6 million years ago, however, we see evidence that this

pattern had begun to change dramatically. The famous skeleton

of Turkana Boy—which belonged to the species Homo ergaster—

is that of a long-legged, striding biped that probably

walked long distances. These more active early humans faced

the problem of staying cool and protecting their brains from

overheating. Peter Wheeler of Liverpool John Moores University

has shown that this was accomplished through an increase

in the number of sweat glands on the surface of the body

and a reduction in the covering of body hair."

 

So we have hairlessness 1.6 mya but confirmed fire only 400 kya.

 

 

Not a quibble this time, but a question. The above phrase just tickled a question in my mind. There is a tendency to imagine pre-humans in 'clothes' of animal skin. However, I know a bit on that subject and it does not ring very true to me. Raw animal skins go rotten really quickly. And tanning skins, while it can be very simple, does not usually result in a product that is very useful as clothing.

 

1. So our ancestors walked around in clothes that stank.

2. The clothing was primitive, so you can imagine thicker skins. Also, instead of the complex process, consider chewing the hide. Plains Indians used to do that to soften the hides for clothing and tents.

 

As I said earlier co-operation is important for evolutionary success but how can co-operation and competition both exist? Do animals compete just to pass on successful genes and eliminate the unfit? If these two exists together then when do organisms co-operate and when do they compete?

 

1. Remember that the competition is a metaphorical struggle for existence. Darwin made that very clear. It is not meant to always be direct competition between individuals of a species.

 

2. Think of lions. Males compete for access to the lionesses, but lionesses (and males on their own) cooperate when hunting.

 

3. Chimps compete against different tribes of chimps, but cooperate within their own group.

 

Basically, you have to look to see when competition between individuals happens and when there is cooperation. There is no hard and fast rule. It all depends on environment and what works in that particular environment.

 

If you want to create or invent a new technology you need language.

 

No, you don't. Macaques invent but have no language. They learn a new technique by watching others use it. Therefore:

So language came first then braininess.

this is wrong. Looking at evolution, it looks like our brain size increased before we evolved language. For instance, neanderals have pretty large brains and a good stone tool kit, but they lack the hyoid bone necessary for complex speech.

 

Now coming to the aspect of human evolution if conditions favour, organisms always increase their reprodutive rate.

 

No. What happens instead is that they encounter situations where the environment will support more individuals, so that more survive. However, you need to document that actual reproductive rate (# offspring born per year) increases.

 

So having space colonisation in mind is it good to increase reproductive rate of humans or to have birth control?

 

In order to have the spare resources to build space colonies, you must have birth control. You are talking a lot of technology and resources for a very few people -- the colonists. So if you increase our reproductive rate now, the increased number of people will consume the resources you plan on using to build the space colonies.

 

Of course, on the colonies birth control is needed because the resources on any individual colony are very limited.

 

One more important thing for the success of humans is co-operation it is this ability of ours to punish those who don't co-operate and reward those who does has helped us to come up where we are.

 

Actually, it more the ability to detect cheating. Punishment comes only after you know the other is not cooperating as they should. And yes, it appears that the ability to detect cheating is a genetic module in our brain.

 

Only thing is no one is intending to be co-operative it just happens through evolution (its in our genes) forming complex societies.

 

Actually, NOW people do intend to be cooperative. Now cooperation is a choice -- altho a genetic disposition. But yes, cooperation was not a goal of evolution.

 

I don't completely agree that behavior such has sexual orientation is purely genetic. Based on my experiences I had sexual desire only after when I learned about evolution and stuffs like that.

 

Sexual orientation isn't a "behavior". Whether you find opposite sex or same sex sexually desirable (sexual orientation) is due to the genes. And people have had sexual desire long before they learned about evolution. I had my first crush on a girl when I was 6.

 

So either my morality got twisted or it is because of mutation. Is it good to express sexual desires?

 

"good" is a matter for ethics. There are rules we as a society have set up on what is "good" or "bad" in terms of expressing sexual desire. Walking up to a woman and grabbing her breasts is "bad". Saying she looks very attractive in that attire is OK or "good". Both are means of expressing sexual desire.

[SkepticLance]

To lucaspa

 

It appears probable that Homo erectus used fire.

 

http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Galaxy/1508/H_erectus

 

Quote :

Homo erectus was the first to invent fire. This is supported by charred bones and stones found in the many H. erectus sites all over the world. Fire provided a great number of advantages, including warmth, light, safety from predators, cooked food (easier to digest) and many others. It was fire that allowed H. erectus to migrate north into Europe

 

You made the following statement

 

These more active early humans faced

the problem of staying cool and protecting their brains from

overheating. Peter Wheeler of Liverpool John Moores University

has shown that this was accomplished through an increase

in the number of sweat glands on the surface of the body

and a reduction in the covering of body hair."

 

This is exactly the kind of thing that sets my bullshit alarm ringing. Did Wheeler have actual empirical evidence, or is this a case of deduction? If the latter, then it is little better than speculation.

 

Paleoanthropologists have an unenviable reputation for swallowing a grain of sand and regurgitating a mountain. That is : using minute bits of evidence to deduce conclusions that are not sufficiently supported by the data.

 

You made the suggestion :

 

. So our ancestors walked around in clothes that stank.

 

Seriously unlikely, in my opinion. Homo sapiens came into existence as a species somewhere between 150,000 and 250,000 years ago. Since they were our species, we can assume they were hairless. For most of this time, they lived in Africa. That is a warm part of the world. If an untanned skin was taken from an animal to use as clothing, in tropical heat it would rot and fall apart within a few days. I doubt that animal skins were that readily available that everyone could get a new one every few days.

 

I have often wondered about the clothing used by the native polynesian people of my country - the Maori. In spite of having access to dead seals, they had no tanning technology and did not use leather. Even in the cold of New Zealand, skins rotted too fast. Instead, they used a fibre technology based on the native flax plant. They wove this into mats, and made cord and rope from twisting the fibres. The warmest garment they could access was the feather cloak. This was a flax mat, with thousands of down feathers tied into it. Thrown over shoulders, it made a very warm cover. However, feather cloaks were too expensive in raw materials and labour to be widely available. It appears that most Maori had to make do with clothes from flax fibres, and the warmth of the fire.

 

How sophisticated is this? Could Homo erectus have made clothing in a similar way?

[foodchain]

To lucaspa

 

It appears probable that Homo erectus used fire.

 

http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Galaxy/1508/H_erectus

 

Quote :

Homo erectus was the first to invent fire. This is supported by charred bones and stones found in the many H. erectus sites all over the world. Fire provided a great number of advantages, including warmth, light, safety from predators, cooked food (easier to digest) and many others. It was fire that allowed H. erectus to migrate north into Europe

 

You made the following statement

 

These more active early humans faced

the problem of staying cool and protecting their brains from

overheating. Peter Wheeler of Liverpool John Moores University

has shown that this was accomplished through an increase

in the number of sweat glands on the surface of the body

and a reduction in the covering of body hair."

 

This is exactly the kind of thing that sets my bullshit alarm ringing. Did Wheeler have actual empirical evidence, or is this a case of deduction? If the latter, then it is little better than speculation.

 

Paleoanthropologists have an unenviable reputation for swallowing a grain of sand and regurgitating a mountain. That is : using minute bits of evidence to deduce conclusions that are not sufficiently supported by the data.

 

You made the suggestion :

 

. So our ancestors walked around in clothes that stank.

 

Seriously unlikely, in my opinion. Homo sapiens came into existence as a species somewhere between 150,000 and 250,000 years ago. Since they were our species, we can assume they were hairless. For most of this time, they lived in Africa. That is a warm part of the world. If an untanned skin was taken from an animal to use as clothing, in tropical heat it would rot and fall apart within a few days. I doubt that animal skins were that readily available that everyone could get a new one every few days.

 

I have often wondered about the clothing used by the native polynesian people of my country - the Maori. In spite of having access to dead seals, they had no tanning technology and did not use leather. Even in the cold of New Zealand, skins rotted too fast. Instead, they used a fibre technology based on the native flax plant. They wove this into mats, and made cord and rope from twisting the fibres. The warmest garment they could access was the feather cloak. This was a flax mat, with thousands of down feathers tied into it. Thrown over shoulders, it made a very warm cover. However, feather cloaks were too expensive in raw materials and labour to be widely available. It appears that most Maori had to make do with clothes from flax fibres, and the warmth of the fire.

 

How sophisticated is this? Could Homo erectus have made clothing in a similar way?

 

What I don’t get is the idea that many animals occupy regions on the planet that happen to be very warm, they also are closer to the ground which also has an impact. The point being they did not lose fur. There is work in action about the lineage in which a specie, which was to be giant in size actually compared to modern man supposedly went extinct from one aspect that its surface area took in to much heat compared to its ability to regulate such. I don’t off hand know the species name, but it was in Africa and was rather large. Supposedly unlike reptiles our relationship to the environment has an impact on our body size, but I think this is hypothetical if I have my memory on it straight.

 

So I guess it would just have to be an issue to see what all kinds of traits have come about to deal with temperature, I could easily see losing hair as a reason for such, but I think that being bipedal also greatly helped with heat regulation. From six feet to the ground, the change in temperature can very greatly.

[pioneer]

Language is important but it importance is in transferring thoughts. I can go into the Amazon forest and find a new flower, for example. There is a language problem if I try to tell someone since it does not yet exist in language. If I show them without saying a word it is easier to transfer. If I try to explain it in terms of what I know, like color, size, texture and try to explain its fragrance it is sort of like this, that and the other thing, I can only transfer the image in my mind so far. The imagination of the person will try to fill in the rest. If I did it to ten people and told then to draw it, one may get ten different loosely similar drawings. The variation is due to the subjective affects of the imagination. This need to overcome this subjectivity helped language to evolve.

 

If someone said the boy ran to the park. I don't know if he jogged or ran since running is sort of relative to what one thinks it means. The debate will break out with half thinking jog and other running, due to the subjective nature within all the people hearing these words and not knowing exactly what the person defines as running. The person may say he ran quickly to the park. This is now a little clearer. But someone then may look at the person speaking, who can't even run, and think maybe his definition of quickly is a little faster than a walk. Now he says, he ran quickly to the park at the pace of someone on a high school track team who does the mile in 6 mins. Now we are getting even clearer. Now the imaginary fog between people is lifting and all see the same thing.

 

The simple nouns may have been first since they are easy to make and create, since they can be pointed to in reality and compared to what the eyes see, i.e., dog. If there is a pack of dogs, adjectives then needed to evolve to help dispel the subjectivity of which dog. Verbs are sort of clear but are harder to transfer than nouns, like the example of run. One now needs to begin evolving adverbs and propostional phrases, etc.. Even when you can do all of that, there is still human subjectivity.

 

For example, the data and arguments of global warming does not lead to only one consensus image in the imagination. There is still subjectivity. To convince someone, when the language of hard data won't do, language now goes after the subjectivity directly and manipulates at that level. We go back to the ancient visual cortex and present visual data out of wack to create an imaginary reality. This is sort of language going backwards from clarity back to the days of subjectivity. Spin does not clarify meaning for reality but caters to the imagination, with emotional induction being used to help trigger the imagination and to help make the person irrational so rational clarity can be avoided in favor of an image in the imagination.

 

Mythology was the concensus spin at a time when subjectivty was high. The level of human subjectivity is much lower today, but spin still works. The animal sees reality and acts with the cause and affect relative to their animal nature, i.e., visual cortex. Humans departed from nature via an imaginary reality that language both helped to induce, i.e., mythology expanded, while also helping to gradually clarify reality at the same time. Language is still used to bring one in either direction. One can live in the world of fiction and spin or one can live on the world of hard data, or anywhere in the middle, which is probably the natural balance.

[foodchain]

Language is important.

 

I just molded the quote so you would know this is in response to you, nothing more.

 

Animal behavior is neat subject. Even rats have a very complex social system and or behavior. To watch a modern day movie you can see in that even that human behavior is also vastly complex, or not eloquent or beautiful if I may for simple explanations.

 

In anthropology though you can find the impact culture has on a person. You don’t find flukes in a society were someone has say the mannerisms naturally common to an alien culture, or even more advanced concepts such as language and the relationship it has with cognition. I do not see as to why this would be so different for our ancestors. In regards to the fur loss question I originally posed, the behavior of grooming, where did that go, was such genetic at one point and became a holdover or ghost really? As to molecularly speaking, does say a chimpanzee have such in its code to groom, or was that in code at some point. Cleaning ones self seems to be a prevalent behavior in a great deal of life, superorganisms like ants even administer an "anti biotic soap" really. So if that was a genetic function, that would have had to go along in some level with the loss of hair, unless that behavior was phased out slowly due to use, which brings another question about the relationship of the phenotype to the genotype and genetic variance. Maybe grooming has just taken a new face, and never left.

 

I guess this is why it would be important to be able to put all the pieces together evolutionarily speaking, from the molecular to the ecological for life. With such data I think objectivity in questions like this would have no trouble finding answers, its just a shame that life does go extinct and we really cant remove the top mile of the African continent and shift through it for fossils, we can however minus modern day extinction start such, and heck, maybe unravel the "genome of life in total".

[SkepticLance]

To foodchain

 

There are a couple of very likely remanants of grooming behaviour in human behaviour. Mothers fuss over their children, including such things as combing their hair. Women go to hairdressers for grooming. People go for a massage etc.

 

However, the main replacement for grooming as a social glue is probably conversation. Where chimps get together for prolongued grooming sessions to build social bonds, humans get together for prolongued 'chin wag' sessions, which also build social bonds.

[iNow]

To foodchain

 

There are a couple of very likely remanants of grooming behaviour in human behaviour. Mothers fuss over their children, including such things as combing their hair. Women go to hairdressers for grooming. People go for a massage etc.

 

However, the main replacement for grooming as a social glue is probably conversation. Where chimps get together for prolongued grooming sessions to build social bonds, humans get together for prolongued 'chin wag' sessions, which also build social bonds.

 

Additionally, look up trichotillomania. It seems to be more common in individuals who are not as socially active (where proximity is the key factor... clearly posting here is social, but does not involve tactile stimulation from another being).