[Note from PP, March 19, 2017: The following article is written by commenter Race Realist and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of Pumpkin Person. In fact contrary to my opinion, and the conventional wisdom, that humans are the geeks of the animal kingdom, RR argues that we are a species of jocks. Out of respect for our guest blogger, please make an effort to keep all comments on topic. If discussions naturally evolve in other directions, that’s understandable, but please start by addressing the topic at hand. Race Realist is an Italian American personal trainer]
Homo nerdicus or Homo athleticus? Which name more aptly describes Man? Without many important adaptations incurred throughout our evolutionary history, modern Man as you see him wouldn’t be here today. The most important factor in this being our morphology and anatomy which evolved due to our endurance running, hunting, and scavenging. The topics I will cover today are 1) morphological differences between hominin species and chimpanzees; 2) how Man became athletic and bring up criticisms with the model; 3) the evolution of our aerobic physical ability and brain size; 4) an evolutionary basis for sports; and 5) the role of children’s playing in the evolution of human athleticism.
Morphological differences between Man and Chimp
Substantial evolution in the lineage of Man has occurred since we have split from the last common ancestor (LCA) with chimpanzees between 12.1 and 5.3 mya (Moorjani et al, 2016; Patterson et al, 2006). One of the most immediate differences that jump out at you when watching a human and chimpanzee is such stark differences in morphology, in particular, how we walk (pelvic differences) as well as our arm length relative to our torsos. Though we both evolved to be proficient at abilities that had us become evolutionarily successful in the environments we found ourselves in, one species of primate went on to become the apes the took over the world whereas the chimps continued life as the LCA did (as far as we can tell). The evolution of our athleticism is why we have a lean body with the right morphology for endurance running and associated movements. In fact, the evolution of our brain size hinged on a reduction in our fat depots (Navarette, Schaik, and Isler, 2011).
One of the largest differences you can see between the two species is how we walk. Chimps are “specially adapted for supporting weight on the dorsal aspects of middle phalanges of flexed hand digits II–V” (Tuttle, 1967). Meanwhile, humans are specifically adapted for bipedality due to the change in our pelvis over the course of our evolution (Gruss and Schmitt, 2015). Due to staying more arboreal than venturing on the ground, chimp morphology over the course of the divergence became more and more adapted to life in the trees.
Our modern gait is associated with physiologic and anatomic adaptations throughout our evolution, and are not ‘primitive retentions’ from the LCA (Schmitt, 2003). There are very crucial selective pressures that need to be looked at to see which selection pressures caused us to become athletes. Parts of Austripolithicenes still live on in us today, most notably in our lower leg/foot (Prang, 2015). Further, our ancestor, the famous Lucy had the beginnings of a modern pelvis, which was the beginning of the shift to the more energetically efficient bipedality, one thing that fully separates Man from the rest of the animal kingdom.
Of course, no conversation about human evolution would be complete without talking about Erectus. Analysis of 1.5 million-year-old footprints shows that Erectus was the first to have a humanlike weight transfer while walking, confirming “the presence of an energy-saving longitudinally arched foot in H. Erectus.” (Hatala et al, 2016). We have not yet discovered a full Homo erectus foot, but 1.5 million-year-old footprints found in Kenya show that whatever hominin made those prints had a long, striding gait with a full arch (Steudel-Numbers, 2006; Bennett et al, 2009). The same estimates from Steudel-Numbers (2006) show that Erectus nearly halved its travel costs compared to australopithecines. This is due to a longer stride which was much more Manlike than apelike due to a humanlike pelvis and gluteus maximus (Lieberman et al, 2006).
However, the most important adaptations that Erectus evolved was the ability to keep cool while walking long distances. Loss of hair loss specifically allowed individuals to be active in hot climates without overheating. Our ancestors’ hair loss facilitated sweating (Ruxton and Wilkinson, 2011b), which allowed us to become the proficient hunters—the athletes—that we would become. There is also thermoregulatory evidence that endurance running may have been possible for Homo erectus, but not any other earlier hominin (Ruxton and Wilkinson, 2011a) which was the beginnings of our selection to become athletes. The evidence reviewed in Ruxton and Wilkinson (2011a) shows that once hair loss and sweating ability reached human levels, thermoregulation was then possible under the midday sun.
Moreover, our modern gait and bipedalism is 75 percent less costly than quadrupedal/bipedal walking in chimpanzees (Sockel, Raichlen, and Pontzer, 2007), so this extra energy that was conserved with our physiologic and anatomic adaptations due to bipedalism could have gone towards other pertinent metabolic functions—like fueling a bigger brain (more energy could be used to feed more neurons).
Born to run
Before getting into how we are able to run so efficiently, I need to talk about what made it possible for us to be able to have the energy to sustain our distance running. That one thing is eating cooked food (meat). This one seemingly simple thing is the ‘prime mover’ so to speak, of our success as athletes. Eating cooked food significantly increases the amount of energy obtained during digestion. That we could extract more energy out of cooked food—no matter what type of food it was—can not be overstated. This is what gave us the energy to hunt and scavenge. We are, of course, able to hunt/scavenge while fasted, which is an extremely useful evolutionary adaptation which increases important hormones to have us search for food. The hormones released during a fasted state aid in human physiologic/metabolic functioning allowing one who is searching for food more heightened sensibilities.
We are evolutionarily adapted to be endurance runners. Endurance running is defined as the ability to run more than 5 km using aerobic metabolism (Lieberman and Bramble, 2007). Since we are poor sprinters, the idea is that our body has evolved for walking. However, numerous anatomical changes in our phenotypes in comparison to our chimp ancestors have left us some clues. In the previous section, I talked about physical changes that occurred after Man and Chimp diverged, well those evolutionary changes are why we evolved to be athletic.
Endurance running first evolved, most likely due to scavenging and hunting (Lieberman et al, 2009). Through natural selection—survival of the ‘good enough’, those who had better physiologic and anatomic adaptations could reach the animal carcass before other scavengers like vultures and hyenas could get to it. Over time, this substantially changed how we would look. Numerous physiologic changes in our lineage attest to the evolution of our endurance running. The nuchal ligament, as well as the radius of the semicircular canal is larger in Homo sapiens than in chimpanzees or australopithecines. This stabilizes our head while running—something that our ancestors could not do because they didn’t have a canal our size (Bramble and Lieberman, 2004).
Skeletal evidence that points to our evolution as athletes consists of (but not limited to):
- The Nuchal ligament—stabilizes the head
- Shoulder and head stabilization
- Limb length and mass (we have legs longer than our torsos which decreases energy used)
- Joint surface (we can absorb more shock when our feet hit the ground due to a larger surface area)
- Plantar arch (generates spring for running but not walking)
- Calcaneal tuber and Achilles tendon (shorter tuber length leads to a longer Achilles heel stretch, converting more kinetic energy into elastic energy)
So people who had anatomy closer to this in our evolutionary past had more of a success of getting to that animal carcass, divvying it amongst his family/tribe, ensuring the passage of his genes to the next generation. Man had to be athletic in order to be able to run for long distances. Where this would have come in handy the most would have been the Savanna in our ancestral past. Man could now use persistence hunting—chasing animals in the heat of the day—and kill them when they tired out. The evolutionary adaptation sweating due to the loss of our fur is the only reason this is possible.
One of the most important adaptations for endurance running is thermoregulation. All humans are adapted for long range locomotion rather than speed and to dump rather than retain heat (Lieberman, 2015). This is one of the most important adaptations we evolved that had us become successful endurance runners. We could chase down prey and wait for our prey to become exhausted/overheat and then we would move in for the kill. Of course, intelligence and sociality come into play as we needed to create hunting bands, but without our superior endurance running capabilities—that no other animal in the animal kingdom has—we would have gone down a completely different evolutionary path than the one we went down. Our genome has evolved to support endurance running (Mattson, 2012).
Further evidence that we evolved to be athletic is in our hands. When you think about our hands and how we can manipulate our environments with them—what sets us apart from every other species—then, obviously, in our evolutionary past, those who were more successful would have had a higher chance of reproducing. Aggressive clubbing and throwing are thought to be one of the earliest hominin specializations. If true, then those who could club and throw best would have the best chance of passing their genes to the next generation, thusly selecting for more efficient hands (Young, 2003). While we may have evolved more efficient hands over time warring with other hominins, some are more prone to disk herniation.
Plomp et al (2015) propose the ‘ancestral shape hypothesis’ which is derived from studying bipedalism. They propose that those who are more prone to disk herniation preferentially affects those who have vertebrae “towards the ancestral end of the range of shape variation within H. sapiens and therefore are less well adapted for bipedalism” (Plomp et al, 2015). One of the most amazing things they discovered was that humans with signs of intervertebral disc herniation are “indistinguishable from those of chimpanzees.” Of course, due to this, we should then look towards evolutionary biology in regards to a lot of human ailments (which I have also argued here on dietary evolutionary mismatches as well as on obesity).
Of course there are some naysayers arguing that endurance running didn’t drive our evolution. He wrongly states that it’s about what drove the evolution of our bipedalism; however, what the endurance running hypothesis argues is that there are certain physiologic and anatomic changes that only could have occurred from endurance running. Better endurance runners got selected for over time, leading to novel adaptations that stayed in the gene pool and got selected for. One thing is a larger gluteus maximus. A humanlike pelvis is found in the fossil record as far back as 1.9 mya in Erectus (Lieberman et al, 2006). Furthermore, longer toes had a larger mechanical cost, and were thusly selected against, which also helped in the evolution of our endurance running (Rolian et al, 2009). All in all, there are too many adaptations that our bodies have that can only be explained by adapting to endurance running. Just because we may have gotten to the weaker animals sometimes doesn’t falsify the hypothesis; Man still needed to sweat and persist in the hot mid-day temperatures chasing prey.
Brain size and aerobic physical capacity
When speaking about the increase in our brain size/neuronal count, fire/cooking, the social brain hypothesis, and other theories are brought up first. Erectus had a lot of humanlike qualities, including the ability to control/use fire (Berna et al, 2012), and the appearance of our modern gait/stride which first appeared in Erectus (Steudel-Numbers, 2006; Bennet et al, 2009). This huge change also occurred around the time our lineage began cooking meat/using fire. Without the increased energy from cooking, we wouldn’t be able to hunt for too long. However, we do have very important specific adaptations during a fasted state—the release of hormones such as catecholamines (adrenaline and noradrenaline) which have as react faster to predators/possible prey. Though, a plant-based diet wouldn’t cut it in regards to our daily energy requirements to feed our huge brain with a huge neuronal count (Fonseca-Azevedo and Herculano-Houzel, 2012). Cooked meat is the only way we’d be able to have enough energy required to hunt game.
What kind of an effect did it have on our cranial capacity/evolution?
Four groups of mice selectively bred for high amounts of “voluntary wheel-running”, ran 3 times further than the controls which increased Vo2 max in the mice. Those mice had higher levels of BDNF (Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor) several days after the experiment concluded as well as also showing greater cell creation in the hippocampus when allowed to run compared to the controls. In two lines of selected mice, the hormone VEGF (Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor) which was correlated with higher muscle capillary density compared to controls. This shows that the evolution of endurance running in mice leads to important hormonal changes which then affected brain growth (Raichlen and Polk, 2012).
The amount of oxygen our brains use increased by 600 percent compared to 350 percent for our brain size over the course of our evolutionary history. This is important. What would cause an increase in oxygen consumption to the brain? Endurance running. There was further selection in our skeleton for endurance running in our morphology such as the semicircular canal radii. The first humanlike semicircular canal radii were found in Erectus (Spoor, Wood, and Zonneveid, 1994). This meant that we had the ability for running and other agile behaviors which were then selected for. There is also little to no activation of the gluteus medius while walking (Lee et al, 2014), implying that it evolved for more efficient endurance running.
Controlling for body mass in humans, extinct hominins and great apes, Raichlen and Polk (2012) found significant positive correlations with encephalization quotient and hindlimb length (0.93), anterior and posterior radii (0.77 and 0.66 respectively), which support the idea that human athletic ability is tied to neurobiological evolution. A man that was a better athlete compared to another would have a better chance to pass on his genes, as physical fitness is a good predictor of biological fitness. Putting this all together, selection improved our aerobic capacity over our evolutionary history by specifically altering signaling systems responsible for metabolism and oxygen intake (BDNF, VEGF, and IGF-1 (insulin-like growth factor 1), responsible for the regulation of growth hormone), which are important for blood flow, increased muscle capillary density, and a larger brain.
Putting this all together, selection improved our aerobic capacity over our evolutionary history by specifically altering signaling systems responsible for metabolism and oxygen intake (BDNF, VEGF, IGF-1). More evidence is needed to corroborate Raichlen and Polk’s (2012) hypothesis. However, with what we know about aerobic capacity and the hormones that drive it and brain size, we can make inferences based on the available data and say, with confidence, that part of our brain evolution was driven by our increased aerobic capacity/morphology, with the catalyst being endurance running. Though with our increased proclivity for athleticism and endurance running, when we became ‘us’, this just shifted the competition and athletic competition—which, hundreds of thousands/millions of years ago would mean life or death, mate or no mate, food or no food.
Clearly, without the evolution of our bipedalism/athleticism we wouldn’t have evolved the brains we have and thus we would be something completely different today.
Sport and evolutionary history
We crowd into arenas to watch people compete against each other in athletic competition. Why? What are the evolutionary reasons behind this? One view is that sport (and along with it playing) was a way for men to get practice hunting game, with playing also affecting children’s ability to assess the strength of others (Lombardo, 2012).
In an evolutionary context, sports developed as a way for men to further develop skills in order to better provide for his family, as well as assessing other men’s physical strength so he can adapt his fighting to how his opponent fights in a possible future situation. Men would then be selected for these advantageous traits. You see people crowd into arenas to watch their favorite sports teams. We are ‘wired’ to like these types of competitions, which then leads to more competition. Since we evolved to be athletes, then it would stand to reason that we would like to watch others be athletic (and hit each other as hard as they can), as a type of modern-day gladiator games.
Better hunters have better reproductive success (Smith, 2004). Further, hunter-gatherer men with lower-pitched voices have more children, while men with higher-pitched voices had higher child mortality rate (Apicella, Feinberg, and Marlowe, 2007). This signals that the H-G men with more children have higher testosterone than others, which then attracts more women to them. Champion athletes, hunters, and warriors all obtain high reproductive success. Women are sexually attracted to certain traits, which events of human athleticism show. However, men follow sports more closely than women (Lombardo, 2012), and for good reason.
Men may watch sports more than women since, in an evolutionary context, they may learn more about potential allies and who to steer clear from because they would get physically dominated. Further, men could watch the actions of others at play and mimic their actions in an attempt to gain higher status with women. Another reason is a man’s character: you can see a man’s character during sports competition and by watching one’s actions closely during, for instance, playing, you can better ascertain their motivations during life or death situations. Men may also derive thrills from watching “idealized men” perform athletic activities. These are consistent with Lombardo’s (2012) male lek hypothesis, “where male physical prowess and the behaviors important in conflict and cooperation are displayed by athletes and evaluated primarily by male, not female, spectators.”
Testosterone changes based on whether one’s favorite sports team wins or loses (Bernhardt et al, 1998). This is important. Testosterone does change under stressful/group situations. Testosterone is also argued to have a role in the search for, and maintenance of social status (Eisenegger, Haushofer, and Fehr, 2011). Testosterone responses to competition in men are also related to facial masculinity (Pound, Penton-Voak, and Surrin, 2009). Male’s physical strength is also signaled through facial characteristics of dominance and masculinity, considered attractive to women (Fink, Neave, and Seydel, 2007). Since testosterone fuels both competition, protectiveness and confidence (Eisenegger et al, 2016), a woman would be attracted to a man’s athleticism/strength, which would then be correlated with his facial structure further signaling biological fitness to possible mates. Testosterone doesn’t cause prostate cancer, as is commonly stated (Stattin et al, 2003; Michaud, Billups, and Partin, 2015). Testosterone is a beneficial hormone; you should be worried way more about low T than high T.
Since testosterone is correlated with the above traits, and since athletes have higher testosterone than non-athletes (Wood and Stanton, 2011) then certain types of males would be left in the dust. Athleticism can be looked at as a way to expend excess energy. Those with more excess energy would be more sexually attractive to women and mating opportunities would increase. This is why it’s ridiculous to believe that we evolved to be the ‘nerds’ of the animal kingdom when so much of our evolutionary success has hinged on our athleticism and superior endurance running and other athletic capabilities.
Playing
Child’s play is how children feel out the world in a ‘setting’ in which there are no real-world consequences so they can get a feel for how the world really is. Human babes are born helpless, yet with large heads. Natural selection has lead to large brains to care for children, causing earlier childbirths and making children more helpless, which selected for higher intelligence causing a feedback loop (Piantadosi and Kidd, 2016). They show that across the primate genera, the helplessness of an infant is an extremely strong predictor of adult intelligence.
Indeed, a lot of the crucial shaping of our intelligence and motor capabilities are developed in our infancy and early childhood, which we have over chimpanzees. Blaisdell (2015) defines play as: “an activity that is purposeless in that it tends to be detached from the outcome, is imperfect from the goal-directed form of the activity, and that tends to occur when the individual is in a non-stressed state.” Playing is just a carefree activity that children do to get a feel for the world around them. During this time, skills are honed that, in our ancestral past, allowed us to survive and prosper during times of need (persistence hunting, scavenging, etc).
Anthropological evidence also suggests that the existence of extended childhood in humans adapted to establish the skills and knowledge needed to be a proficient hunter-gatherer. Since there are no real-world outcomes to playing (other than increased/decreased pride), a child can get some physical experience without suffering the real life repercussions of failing. Studies of hunter-gatherers show that play fosters the skills needed to be proficient in tool-making and tool-use, food provisioning, shelter, and predator defense. Play time also hones athletic ability and the brain-body connection so one can be prepared for a stressful situation. In fact, children’s fascination with ‘why’ questions make them ‘little philosophers’, which is an evolutionary adaptation to prepare for possible future outcomes.
Think of play fighting. While play fighting, the outcome has no important real life applications (well, the loser’s pride is hit) and what is occurring is the honing of skills that are useful to survival. During our ancestral evolution, play fighting between brothers could have honed the skills needed during a life our death situation when another band of humans was encountered. As you begin to associate certain movements with certain events, you then become better prepared subconsciously for when novel situations occur. The advantage of an extended childhood with large amounts of play time allow the brain and body to make certain connections between things and when these situations arise during a life or death situation, the brain-body will already have the muscle memory to handle the situation.
Conclusion
Studying our evolution since the divergence between Man and chimp, we can see the types of adaptations that we have incurred over our evolutionary history that have lead to us being specifically adapted for long-term endurance running. The ability to sweat, which, as far as we know began with Erectus, was paramount in our history for thermoregulation. Looking at the evolution of our pelvis, toes, gluteal muscles, heads, shoulders, brains, etc all will point to how they are adapted to a bipedal ape that is born to run—born to be an athlete. Without our athleticism, our intelligence wouldn’t be possible. We have a brain-body connection, our brain isn’t the only thing that drives our body, the two work in concert giving each other information, reacting to familiar and novel stimuli. That’s for another time though.
We didn’t evolve to be Homo nerdicus, we evolved to be Homo athleticus. This can be seen with how exercise has such a huge impact on cognition. We can further see the relationship between our athletic ability and our cognition/brain size. Without the way our evolution happened, Man—along with everything else you see around you—would not be here today. In a survival situation—one in which society completely breaks down—one who has better control over his body and motor functions/capabilities will outlast those who do not. Ultimate and conscious control over our bodies, reacting to stimuli in the environment is fostered in our infancy during our play time with others. Playing allows an individual to get experience in a simulated event, getting important muscle memory to react to future situations. The brain itself, of course, is being molded during playing as well. This just attests to the large part that playing has on cognition, survival skills and athletic ability over our evolutionary history.
Aerobic capacity throughout our evolutionary history beginning with Erectus was paramount for what we have become today. Without the evolution of certain muscles like our gluteus maximus along with certain appendages that gave us the ability to trek/run long distances, we would have lost a very important variable in our brain evolution. Aerobic activity increases blood flow to the brain and so the more successful endurance runners/hunters would increase their biological fitness (as seen in Smith, 2004) and thusly those who were more athletically successful would have more children, increasing selection for important traits for endurance running/athleticism throughout our evolutionary history.
We still play sports today since we love competition. Testosterone fuels the need for competition and sports is the best way to engage in competition in the modern day. Women are much more attracted to men with higher levels of testosterone which in turn means a more masculinized face which signals dominance and testosterone levels during competition. Women are attracted to men with higher levels of testosterone and a more masculinized face. This just so happens to mirror athletes, who have both of these traits. However, being in top physical condition is not enough; an athlete must also have a strong mental background if, for instance, they wish to break world records (Lippi, Favaloro, and Guidi, 2008).
The evolution of human playing ties this together. These sports competitions that we have made hearken back to our evolutionary past and show who would have fared best in the past. When we play, we are feeling our competition and who we can possibly make allies with/watch out for due to their actions during playing. One would also see who he would likely need to avoid and form an alliance with as to not get on his bad side and prevent a loss of status in his band. This is what it really comes down to—loss of status. Higher-status men do have higher levels of testosterone, and by one losing to a more capable person, they show that they aren’t fit to lead and they fall in the social hierarchy.
To fully understand human evolution and how we became ‘us’ we need to understand the evolution of our morphology and how it pertains to things such as our cognition and overall brain size and what advantages/disadvantages it afforded us. Whatever the case may be, it’s clear that we have evolved to be athletic and any change in that makeup will lead to a decrease in quality of life.
Homo athleticus, not Homo nerdicus, best describes Man.
Pumpkin Person 
Thanks for your answers afro RR and Phil. I did not know for the precolonial sports.
“Let’s say, for argument’s sake, they didn’t develop any type of indigenous sport. So what? What does that mean? They still dominate competitions in which fast twitch (type IIx/b) fibers are used.”
Because in your article you developed the thesis that human is homo athletics and then developed sports to train because of this. So, sports are supposed to be a cultural trait of all human societies. So, if African people did not invent sports by themselves, it was interesting for me. But nevermind. Apparently, they did.
“Because in your article you developed the thesis that human is homo athletics and then developed sports to train because of this. So, sports are supposed to be a cultural trait of all human societies. So, if African people did not invent sports by themselves, it was interesting for me. But nevermind. Apparently, they did.”
Well, sport is competition. People compete all the time. Life is a sport. Life is a competition. The best come out on top. And when we became anatomically modern (which largely happened about 2mya), we became able to efficiently hunt.
Here is a good list of indigenous African sports.
http://www.okayafrica.com/news/7-traditional-african-sports-olympics/
Guys, forget Counter Strike, COD and the likes and buy yourself a Nerf Rival riffle, tell your squad to do the same and hit the woods on the weekend:
I told you he copies and pastes ads.
Ahah, true. IIRC, on here, I advertised for:
-Colgate
-Piave golden/platnum plated toothbrushes
-Versace
-Rolex
-Ralph Lauren
-Land Rover/Range Rover
-Lexus
-BMW
-Volkswagen
And a couple more I don’t remember
#instafamous model habits… You should try I get good deals hashtaging brands.
Afro, you’re a shill?
Nope, I’d say I’m somewhat the opposite of a shill because my advertising is done straight up, and I would never say negative things on a brand/restaurant/hotel… I may even exaggerate my appreciation for some products.
Also, in opposition to a shill, I get contacted by community managers or if I’m at a restaurant, I ask to see a manager and tell him “I have this amount of followers, including this heir, this soccer player, this reality star, this rapper… So here’s the deal, you give me 30% off and I post some selfies and say your place is #awesomesauce or #fire a couple of times”.
Sometimes it does not work, but most often it does, especially for things directed at a young or hip/SWPL audience. I’ve been part of the movement to expand Starbucks’ presence in France and I’ve been nicely thanked for this. I’ve been taught how to use the social media and brands quest to advertise differently in a special module in college.
oh, I mistook the definition shill for something else. I’m totally a shill actually. I thought shill meant something like incognito critic.
Youre a joke.
Your French is a joke, your typing is a joke, my English rocks.
C’mon Afro, that’s just gay.
What’s really gay is your lame ass playing Xbox. Actually, it’s so gay that it gives me AIDS.
Not surprising that the black guy has AIDS.
I actually play a PS3, you filthy casul!
“Not surprising that the black guy has AIDS.”
I got it from your mom.
“I actually play a PS3, you filthy casul!”
PS3 ? So 2010…
“I got it from your mom.”
Well that’s what you get for being stupid and not having impulse control. Could you be anymore of a stereotype?
“PS3 ? So 2010…”
Ehh. I’d rather wait until they come out with 3 more versions of the ps4 before I buy one. My buddy bought an xboxone when they first came out and now they released a new version, so his is basically outdated lol.
“Well that’s what you get for being stupid and not having impulse control. Could you be anymore of a stereotype?”
Actually, your junkie mom drugged me cause she wanted me so bad, I was out of my mind when I finally surrendered.
“My buddy bought an xboxone when they first came out and now they released a new version, so his is basically outdated lol.”
You should rather sell your PS3 before it loses too much value and buy a PS4 instead.
“I was out of my mind when I finally surrendered.”
I guess this is what you call creative stupidity.
“You should rather sell your PS3 before it loses too much value and buy a PS4 instead.”
Well not to get too personal but a dead relative had given me that. I still play some of the games too. Plus I’d only get like 50 bucks for it.
While superficially interesting, this article has at least one gaping flaw. It does not try, as far as I can see, to subject its arguments to any kind of criticism. It does not look for alternative hypotheses, but only for what supports its own arguments. Unfortunately, this makes it unscientific at best. Reality is not constrained by either your understanding or what you believe.
I especially enjoy the author’s setup of a dichotomy solely between walking and running. How does the view change if the adaptions are for swimming? Crawling for roots and berries? All of the above and other forms of locomotion neither of us has thought of yet?
Also, the author’s focus on male activities as the sole determinant of evolutionary pressure would be amusing if it did not fall into a pattern with his nickname and the article subject.
It can also be pointed out that to believe that the smartest animal on the planet has not been subject to evolutionary pressures both from without and within its own species that prioritized intelligence (read: smarter people had more successful offspring over time), is …dumb.
Thank you.
In case you haven’t realised sir, the author is also associated with the KKK and has refused to disavow it publicly.
Philosopher you’re a very funny guy, but please don’t make jokes like that because first time readers, who are unaware of your irony, will take you literally, and that’s not fair to the targets of your humour.
Fuck off with your bullshit Philosopher. Shit isn’t funny at all. Can you stay on topic for once?
I think balanced first time readers understand straight away that the Philibuster is an insane moron. That’s his comments are monologues most often.
And….the Philosophere’s annoying attempts at humor backfire again.
Lmao you guys are nuts, that was hilarious. I mean how hard is it to say you don’t like the KKK?
“While superficially interesting, this article has at least one gaping flaw. It does not try, as far as I can see, to subject its arguments to any kind of criticism. It does not look for alternative hypotheses, but only for what supports its own arguments. Unfortunately, this makes it unscientific at best. Reality is not constrained by either your understanding or what you believe.”
Check our the very last paragraph in the section “Born to run”. I brought up one criticism. So you were incorrect in your contention.
“I especially enjoy the author’s setup of a dichotomy solely between walking and running. How does the view change if the adaptions are for swimming? Crawling for roots and berries? All of the above and other forms of locomotion neither of us has thought of yet?”
Can you think of any scenarios where this would be the case? Why else would we have a strong gluteus maximus? Crawling on the ground for berries? I don’t think so. There are too many adaptations we have that can only be explained by endurance running.
“Also, the author’s focus on male activities as the sole determinant of evolutionary pressure would be amusing if it did not fall into a pattern with his nickname and the article subject.”
I didn’t talk about race in the article.
“It can also be pointed out that to believe that the smartest animal on the planet has not been subject to evolutionary pressures both from without and within its own species that prioritized intelligence (read: smarter people had more successful offspring over time), is …dumb”
Thank you for telling me this but I am already aware. It doesn’t change anything. Athleticism was very important in our evolutionary history starting with erectus. That’s when our full anatomy appeared in the fossil record. Without the adaptations we incurred from these events, we’d still probably be like our australopithcene ancestors. And I never denied that there was selection within and between species selecting for intelligence. I may write a piece on that for this blog one day, that’ll have to wait for the future.
Very weak assertions.
“Why else would we have a strong gluteus maximus?”
As compared to the gluteus maximus of what other bipedal upright mammal? “Strong” is a relative term. (I do enjoy your flailing, but taking credit for the strength of the *muscle that is keeping us upright* for your little fantasy is taking credulousness a mite far.) Also, have you seen the butts of swimmers?
So your assertion “can only be explained by” is shown to be (warning, technical term here) bullshit.
You brought up a criticism… *Checks* Oh. You know what a strawman argument is? This here is a strawfoot. (Very small piece of an incomplete strawman argument)
And no, you didn’t talk about race. You spoke about “Man the *Athlete*” (who is, incidentally, the weakest of the great apes by a good margin). And you focused on the activities of men as drivers of genetic change, while the activities of women were reduced to choosing a mate. And you have that unfortunate nick.
I see a pattern. if you now also call me a SJW, the pattern should be obvious.
You are also scientifically illiterate and unable to defend your work from criticism. Criticism is how you *improve* your argument, dumbass. Not by saying “very weak assertions.” That’s about as impressive an argument as Trump’s “Sad.”
You do make for some light entertainment, however. And I do appreciate the effort it must have taken for you to find the supporting links.
“As compared to the gluteus maximus of what other bipedal upright mammal? “Strong” is a relative term. (I do enjoy your flailing, but taking credit for the strength of the *muscle that is keeping us upright* for your little fantasy is taking credulousness a mite far.) Also, have you seen the butts of swimmers?”
It is unique to humans. It first appeared in Erectus around 1.9 mya. It is the most powerful extensor and outward rotator of the hip, and is the center of the posterior chain (along with the hamstrings). You are aware that the activation of the gluteus maximus is next to zero right? A lot of our adaptations for distance running do come from walking. Though elongated leg tendons, for instance, compared to extinct hominins show we were selected for longer tendons.
“Also, have you seen the butts of swimmers?”
Aquatic apes?
“So your assertion “can only be explained by” is shown to be (warning, technical term here) bullshit.”
I understand anatomy and HMS. It’s not bullshit.
“You brought up a criticism… *Checks* Oh. You know what a strawman argument is? This here is a strawfoot. (Very small piece of an incomplete strawman argument)”
Bringing up a criticism is a strawman. Got it. A humanlike pelvis found in Erectus 1.8 mya. Footprints found around that time period that looked like human footprints in a group. A pelvis that pretty much looked like out. Gee… I wonder what that could mean.
Speaking of feet, our toes became smaller as longer toes were a metabolic disadvantage in terms of endurance running.
“And no, you didn’t talk about race. You spoke about “Man the *Athlete*” (who is, incidentally, the weakest of the great apes by a good margin).”
Who can best us endurance running? Other animals would break down either due to running out of air or overheating. Weird how sweating and fur loss arose at around the same time huh>
“And you focused on the activities of men as drivers of genetic change, while the activities of women were reduced to choosing a mate. And you have that unfortunate nick.”
I will go in depth on women sexual selection later. What’s wrong with my nick? Is this a deconstruction of what you could say I am by grasping straws? Keep on topic please (I see that’s hard for you, though).
“I see a pattern. if you now also call me a SJW, the pattern should be obvious.”
I see a pattern. You have to go off on other tangents and cannot completely speak about what is written since you go off on unrelated tirades.
“You are also scientifically illiterate and unable to defend your work from criticism.”
Read this whole thread.
“Criticism is how you *improve* your argument, dumbass. Not by saying “very weak assertions.” That’s about as impressive an argument as Trump’s “Sad.””
As if you didn’t get addressed.
“You do make for some light entertainment, however. And I do appreciate the effort it must have taken for you to find the supporting links.”
No, no. The entertainment here is you.
If you must know, it took me 10 days to read everything I linked, write the article and proofread it. Does that mean anything?
This conversation would be better without your idiotic and unfounded attacks. You accuse me of being logically fallacious yet you do the same. That’s some funny stuff.
Repeating your original assertions is not arguing. It is repeating your original assertions. You cannot defend a statement by making it again. I have shown that parts of your “this can only be explained by distance running” can in fact be explained by other things. I could do this instantly, which suggests that you have not, in truth, thought this through very far. And it also suggests that the rest of your arguments are just as hollow. And when made aware of this, you repeat your assertions and start being rude.
It is not how many times your theory is right that matters. It is how many times it is wrong.
“[The gluteus maximus] is unique to humans.” Exactly. Calling something that is unique “strong” is meaningless. There is no point of comparison to anything. And since our upright posture is also unique, and this muscle is *holding us upright*, that is a sufficient explanation for it. Your “athleticism” is not required for the explanation, and can therefore be taken away. (Occam’s razor) And since distance running is then not required to explain the gluteus maximus, the gluteus maximus cannot be taken as proof of distance running being an evolutionary driver.
You suffer from “I want this to be true and so I am finding things that support me in my belief and not seeing the alternative explanations”-ism, also known as confirmation bias. In science, this is as close as you can get to a sin.
And yes, dear, bringing up a weak criticism or not honestly representing the criticism is the very definition of a strawman. (Sin!)
Confirmation bias. Strawman. Inability to defend your hypothesis. These are not, as you seem to view them, meaningless attack words. They are specific descriptions of behaviour. Behaviour which you exhibit. Which means that, if you have any intention of ever being taken seriously by anyone with at least a minimal scientific education, you must *change your behaviour*. Not merely reshout your assertions at us.
Or you could just continue doing cargo cult science. (Again, specific meaning. Look it up.)
As for the pattern, you smell like a racist man’s right activist. And they’re silly. I could be wrong about the smell. But not about the silly. (Oh dear. Saw your webpage. Yeah, not wrong about the smell.) And yes, “racist” is also one of those words with a specific meaning.
Man, you’re a far bigger mess than I expected.
“Repeating your original assertions is not arguing. It is repeating your original assertions. You cannot defend a statement by making it again. I have shown that parts of your “this can only be explained by distance running” can in fact be explained by other things. I could do this instantly, which suggests that you have not, in truth, thought this through very far. And it also suggests that the rest of your arguments are just as hollow. And when made aware of this, you repeat your assertions and start being rude.”
What did you say? Something useless like ‘crawling on the ground looking for berries is why we have large gluteus maximus’. That’s idiotic. Our modern gait appeared around 1.9 mya in Erectus.
Do you want an argument?
““[The gluteus maximus] is unique to humans.” Exactly. Calling something that is unique “strong” is meaningless. There is no point of comparison to anything. And since our upright posture is also unique, and this muscle is *holding us upright*, that is a sufficient explanation for it. Your “athleticism” is not required for the explanation, and can therefore be taken away. (Occam’s razor) And since distance running is then not required to explain the gluteus maximus, the gluteus maximus cannot be taken as proof of distance running being an evolutionary driver.”
Too bad that the gluteus maximus is barely activated while walking but it is while running. What does that mean to you?
“Calling something that is unique “strong” is meaningless.”
Our gluteus maximus is the strongest muscle in our body which keeps our torso erect and is responsible for jumping high and sprinting. Relative to the rest of the body the gluteus maximus is the strongest muscle we have. And for good reason.
“Your “athleticism” is not required for the explanation, and can therefore be taken away.”
Have you any idea what the gluteus maximus does while running?
It controls the flexion of the trunk, responsible for movement of the hip and thigh. There is little to no activation of the gluteus medius while walking (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4273057/) implying it evolved for endurance running.
The gluteus maximus shows little to no activation while walking. You seem to be a specialist in this area—mind telling me why it evolved?
“And since distance running is then not required to explain the gluteus maximus, the gluteus maximus cannot be taken as proof of distance running being an evolutionary driver.”
Many of the adaptations we have that allow us to sprint come from walking—I don’t deny that. However, closer scrutiny of the human body shows larger bones that have no use while walking—such as longer leg tendons—which show little to no use for human walking and so must have evolved due to endurance running. The GM accelerates and decelerates the leg at higher velocities than walking, suggesting that it evolved to decelerate the swinging leg at the end of the swinging phase.
“You suffer from “I want this to be true and so I am finding things that support me in my belief and not seeing the alternative explanations”-ism, also known as confirmation bias. In science, this is as close as you can get to a sin.”
If I really do, then it should be easy to go through my claims and show how they’re wrong since, according to you, I’ve carefully selected the data I used.
But you won’t. Idiotic attacks are more your level. You’re talking about something you have no understanding of.
“And yes, dear, bringing up a weak criticism or not honestly representing the criticism is the very definition of a strawman. (Sin!)”
I honestly represented it. We can discuss it here fully if you’d like. But you seem to like to make a scene with your logical fallacies.
“Confirmation bias. Strawman. Inability to defend your hypothesis. These are not, as you seem to view them, meaningless attack words. They are specific descriptions of behaviour. Behaviour which you exhibit. Which means that, if you have any intention of ever being taken seriously by anyone with at least a minimal scientific education, you must *change your behaviour*. Not merely reshout your assertions at us.”
If I have confirmation bias it should be extremely easy to disprove me (you haven’t); strawman, no. I represented it correctly. Let’s discuss that article. Inability to defend my hypothesis, nope.
You do realize that since the GM is unique to humans and since it’s one of the largest muscles in our body that it, obviously, needs some explaining for how we got it. Fact: the GM is hardly activated by walking. Fact: the GM is activated while running. What is two plus two? Four.
“As for the pattern, you smell like a racist man’s right activist. And they’re silly. I could be wrong about the smell. But not about the silly. (Oh dear. Saw your webpage. Yeah, not wrong about the smell.) And yes, “racist” is also one of those words with a specific meaning.”
More fallacies. Nice job.
What’s wrong with my blog page? More idotic attacks I see. You’re calling me a ‘racist’, yet you’ve no evidence for your assertion. You’re saying the GM didn’t evolve for endurance running, yet I doubt you have any real understanding of what the GM actually does!
“Man, you’re a far bigger mess than I expected.”
Likewise.
So here it is: the GM is a unique muscle, and extremely important to us. How did it evovle then? Clearly, endurance running is the best explanation—especially if you have an actual understanding of human body movements.
Learn some anatomy and get back to me.
——————-
(this is unrelated to my comment to you)
By the way, I can call you a feminist-man-hater (since that’s how you come off), however, if I’m wrong tell me how AND why. Not just give little spurts of nothing with no understanding of the human body with 3/4 of your comment filled with inane bullshit.
Step your game up.
Here is an argument:
P1: If the GM evolved for walking, then it would activate while walking.
P2: The GM hardly activates while walking.
C: Therefore, the GM evolved due to other pressures NOT involved with walking.
——————-
By the way, you said “Oh dear. Saw your webpage. Yeah, not wrong about the smell.” Please, do tell, how you’re ‘not wrong about that smell.” I have 182 articles on my blog, choose one and show me how and why it is ‘racist’. THEN show me how I’m ‘racist’ (you used the buzzword, now explain how that describes me based off of all of the writing I’ve done in close to two years since I started the blog).
To K,
“Repeating your original assertions is not arguing. It is repeating your original assertions. You cannot defend a statement by making it again.”
Well, it could when the respondee left out his evidence and he mentions such in his response. Sadly it is only ignored again.
” I have shown that parts of your “this can only be explained by distance running” can in fact be explained by other things.”
….only touching upon the development of the Gluteus Maximus and not even putting it into further context in application to hominids, as in why would we expect it compared to the evidence RR gave for ER?
” I could do this instantly, which suggests that you have not, in truth, thought this through very far.”
Neither have you as I’ve demonstrated with your own “explanations”.
“And it also suggests that the rest of your arguments are just as hollow. And when made aware of this, you repeat your assertions and start being rude.”
Rude? You were the first to even start using actual insults and continue to use them, specific ones being “Dumb”, “Dumbass”, “racist”, and “bigger mess”.
That’s not even counting the plain hostile phrases you spewed along with them.
“It is not how many times your theory is right that matters. It is how many times it is wrong.”
Oh, but how did you actually, in sufficient elaboration, proved his theory wrong as opposed to passive aggressively critizing his debate skills (poorly I might add).
“[The gluteus maximus] is unique to humans.” Exactly. Calling something that is unique “strong” is meaningless. There is no point of comparison to anything.”
Actually that doesn’t negate comparison because he could very well be referring to how strong and prominent it is compared to the our other muscles that we share with animals.
“And since our upright posture is also unique, and this muscle is *holding us upright*, that is a sufficient explanation for it. Your “athleticism” is not required for the explanation, and can therefore be taken away. (Occam’s razor)”
Except him pointing out it’s limited use in upright walking, more heavily used in our “unique” distance running.
BTW, Occam’s Razor used to rule out arguments for being unnecessary would be to get to a simpler explanation and making less assumptions. How do either of those purposes rules out ER in the presence of your ideas?
“And since distance running is then not required to explain the gluteus maximus, the gluteus maximus cannot be taken as proof of distance running being an evolutionary driver.”
Yet he didn’t use the gluteus maximus alone to support his argument for ER, and he even said that it wasn’t one.
Way to lecture on strawman arguments only to come to this.
“You suffer from “I want this to be true and so I am finding things that support me in my belief and not seeing the alternative explanations”-ism, also known as confirmation bias. In science, this is as close as you can get to a sin.”
Well, to actually prove confirmation bias how about you present evidence that contradict his as you only given other possible uses for the gluteus maximus by hominids while he has given far more comprehensive data surrounding the matter.
Doesn’t fair well under Occam’s Razor, does it?
“And yes, dear, bringing up a weak criticism or not honestly representing the criticism is the very definition of a strawman. (Sin!)”
Well are you actually knowledgeable of competing theories for his assertions accompanied by data regarding the development of certain features to make his representation “dishonest”, because so far you provided none beyond your hypothetical assertions.
RR might’ve been able to make a satisfying response had it been otherwise, like this.
https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/3743587/2007i.pdf?sequence=1
So perhaps you should work on your criticisms you might be able to help this “dumbass”.
“Confirmation bias. Strawman. Inability to defend your hypothesis. These are not, as you seem to view them, meaningless attack words. They are specific descriptions of behaviour. Behaviour which you exhibit. Which means that, if you have any intention of ever being taken seriously by anyone with at least a minimal scientific education, you must *change your behaviour*. Not merely reshout your assertions at us.”
Well you aren’t exactly without your flaws in discussing science such either, like not presenting either data or expert criticisms used against the ER Hypothesis.
“Or you could just continue doing cargo cult science. (Again, specific meaning. Look it up.)”
Trust me, you have a list of things to look up before having any authority to judge RR on scientific terms.
“As for the pattern, you smell like a racist man’s right activist. And they’re silly. I could be wrong about the smell. But not about the silly. (Oh dear. Saw your webpage. Yeah, not wrong about the smell.) And yes, “racist” is also one of those words with a specific meaning.
Man, you’re a far bigger mess than I expected.”
Ah, the ham-fisted compilation of “argument fallacies” and lack of direct science actual comes to a point, you don’t really give a damn about RR and this was clearly personal.
Phil have ever disagreed with RR on anything? It’s cool that you’re a fan of his but it’s not normal to agree with ANYONE 100% of the time.
“….only touching upon the development of the Gluteus Maximus and not even putting it into further context in application to hominids, as in why would we expect it compared to the evidence RR gave for ER?”
Meant to say “why should we expect your examples to clash with RR’s in terms of the gluteus maximus’ purpose in hominid evolution?”
“Phil have ever disagreed with RR on anything? It’s cool that you’re a fan of his but it’s not normal to agree with ANYONE 100% of the time.”
I did disagree with the Savanna Hypothesis due to skeletal continuity, though aspects of the advantages of bipedalism could still apply.
Aside from instances like that, as long as I don’t notice anything I’m usually clear hence why I only rarely intervene between RR and Melo.
Right now this is just me giving my 2 cents on how to “argue” rather than defending RR’s theory, because Krist seemed to be beating around the bush at first before just ranting making no real point on scientific discussion beyond disagreeing with RR’s use of “only”.
As for defending RR, well, he’s often my source for looking at various HBD and I sometimes help him with finding sources on topics in my spare. Thus, he usually chimes me in with his ideas and they seem pretty convincing to me until refuted.
I like how you think I’m “only criticising his debating skills.”
I’m not. I am using some of the same words, yes. Strawman, confirmation bias, probably others. I am criticising his skill in making an argument, and his being unable to see what his argument is and what he needs to do to prove it.
As for “Only”, it is very important here. The argument is “distance running must be the reason that these features evolved, because this is the only way they can have evolved.”
Without “only”, we get “distance running must be the reason that these features evolved, because it is one of the ways in which they can have evolved.”
The second doesn’t have quite the same persuasive power, does it?
These are both hypotheses. RR likes the first.
If there are *any* features in his list of proofs which can be shown to have evolved for another purpose, then the first hypothesis is falsified. And “only” has to go, and we’re down to hypothesis two. Which doesn’t prove much of anything.
Or RR could accept that this feature does not support his argument, and we could move on to the next one. He has not chosen to do so. The gluteus maximus is the hill he has chosen to die on.
None of this has so far required me to get into the nitty gritty of comparative hominid skeletal studies, and so I have not.
(I’d also add, again, that he cannot prove the first hypothesis by adding more things that can only be explained by distance running. He must prove that the features he already has could not be explained by anything else. This will be …hard.) And the burden of proof is on him, not on me.
“I like how you think I’m ‘only criticising his debating skills.’ ”
You hardly acknowledged the majority of his material and the little you did focus on was mainly criticism of his wording and logic in defending his hypothesis.
Most of what you wrote was centered around various fallacies so, if I’m wrong, could you actually blame me for the impression that you were?
“I’m not. I am using some of the same words, yes. Strawman, confirmation bias, probably others. I am criticising his skill in making an argument, and his being unable to see what his argument is and what he needs to do to prove it.”
How is what he is doing significantly distinguishable from debating or it’s purpose?
https://www.google.com/search?q=debate&rlz=1CAACAJ_enUS665US665&oq=debate&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i61j69i65j69i61j69i65j69i61.1592j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
“As for ‘Only’, it is very important here. The argument is “distance running must be the reason that these features evolved, because this is the only way they can have evolved.
Without ‘only’, we get ‘distance running must be the reason that these features evolved, because it is one of the ways in which they can have evolved.’
The second doesn’t have quite the same persuasive power, does it?
These are both hypotheses. RR likes the first.”
Sure, you can certainly argue the issues with that,but the problem is it isn’t that simple.
Another word for the day is EXPLAINED. Not just opening a possibility on intuition, but capable of being put in coherent terms of Hominid evolution with evidence which he provides for theory.
When he actually used “explained” in the article, he was referring to the Hypothesis’ assertions, not his own.
Even when he did say “only” on his behalf for ER he meant the adaptations in *conjunction* with each other pointing towards ER coupled with the evidence from fossils and anatomy.
A hypothesis *is* designed to eliminate other possibilities with evidence as well as promoting it’s own for the sake of convergent thinking.
“If there are *any* features in his list of proofs which can be shown to have evolved for another purpose, then the first hypothesis is falsified. And “only” has to go, and we’re down to hypothesis two. Which doesn’t prove much of anything.
Or RR could accept that this feature does not support his argument, and we could move on to the next one. He has not chosen to do so. The gluteus maximus is the hill he has chosen to die on.”
Except he has shown time and time that it did had you actually read his material on GM activity and you have *yet* to refute him on that level, so you have only proposed, not verified a possibility.
So he has no reason to drop it.
Again, a Hypothesis can very well be designed to provide evidence and eliminate other possibilities, not just leave one in the open.
In response to his evidence, all you did was lecture on his loose use of “only”, and somehow thing that falsifies his theory AS A whole. *That’s* not even scientific as rarely does even evidence that attacks a single point of a theory has that effect if the rest holds up, then we could attempt to combine the concepts.
We just don’t diverge for divergence sake, we do it to step back and converge to a better point. Unless you can refute his logic, there stands no reason to diverging.
“None of this has so far required me to get into the nitty gritty of comparative hominid skeletal studies, and so I have not.”
You say evolution is your field, no? Well you ought to be familiar how comparing and testing a Hypothesis actually WORKS.
https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/3743587/2007i.pdf?sequence=1
“I’d also add, again, that he cannot prove the first hypothesis by adding more things that can only be explained by distance running. He must prove that the features he already has could not be explained by anything else. This will be …hard.) And the burden of proof is on him, not on me.”
Individually or in conjuction with eachother? The latter is what he’s actually doing and that’s actually a feasible task albeit difficult.
Overall, I could get behind why “only” can be misused and corrected. What’s horrible logic is how you use that flaw to approach his article in terms of the credibility of his theory, essentially discrediting it as a whole rather than explaining the mere technical limitations of the phrasing.
How you seem to argue little on the weight of his empirics, only toying with possibilities from intuitions rather than evidence like how science actually works, and show clear personal grudges against him to go through this pedantic charade doesn’t speak well for your credibility if your words were to speak for you.
And for Phil.
The reason why it is not his debating skills I am criticising is that in order to have a debate, RR needs to have a valid argument. A valid hypothesis. One that can be defended. His current one, as shown, cannot be defended. And he thinks throwing more circumstantial evidence at me will improve his argument, while I know it doesn’t matter in this case.
So this is not a debate. He hasn’t got the logical skills to get *to* the debate stage. And worse, he doesn’t know it. So he flails in impotent rage, not understanding why he isn’t being taken seriously.
The logic is important. The “pedantry” is important.
And reality, in the form of the archaeological record, says that I win. (Which I wasnt expecting. I’d have assumed at least some use of running down the prey. But the old ones were better hunters than the lion prides in the area. Respect! (Not sure that means what I think it means, but I liked it. 🙂 ) )
And for Phil.
“The reason why it is not his debating skills I am criticising is that in order to have a debate, RR needs to have a valid argument. A valid hypothesis. One that can be defended. ”
Debate skills include actually prepping arguments as well as skills to maintain them.
“His current one, as shown, cannot be defended. And he thinks throwing more circumstantial evidence at me will improve his argument, while I know it doesn’t matter in this case.”
Then you should’ve cut to the chase with that *with clarity*. You tried making that point multiple times in your replies yet it get muddled with paragraphs confusing whether it was supposed to be a the focus or a detail issue you have with him among time wasting intellectualism like talking about the fallacies he made or sharing your own personal bias against him on a ideological level.
Furthermore I’ve already explained ruling out other possibilities with evidence would actually prove his Hypothesis through the context of the circumstances.
“So this is not a debate. He hasn’t got the logical skills to get *to* the debate stage. And worse, he doesn’t know it. So he flails in impotent rage, not understanding why he isn’t being taken seriously.”
Yet I didn’t say it was debate, I said you were criticizing his debate skills which includes prepping an argument.
“The logic is important. The “pedantry” is important.”
I don’t think you understand what I think is pedantic. It’s not the point of using “only”, it’s losing focus of that by wasting time on other issues such as elsborating on his fallacies or spewing your own feelings about him which hinders your “criticism” as much as you claim his diction ruins his hypothesis.
“And reality, in the form of the archaeological record, says that I win. (Which I wasnt expecting. I’d have assumed at least some use of running down the prey. But the old ones were better hunters than the lion prides in the area. Respect! (Not sure that means what I think it means, but I liked it. 🙂 ) )”
Are you trying to say that you somehow one with evidence that older humans than Lion in their time without having to sneak up on prey?
You said you didn’t need to to look up info, yet you did it anyway and didn’t eve bother to provide a link.
“Are you trying to say that you somehow one with evidence that older humans than Lion in their time without having to sneak up on prey?
You said you didn’t need to to look up info, yet you did it anyway and didn’t eve bother to provide a link.”
I meant to say “..older humans were somehow better than lios by sneaking up on their prey?”.
See the link that PP provided, would you please?
To Kristian,
I did, and its conclusion was the primary hunting style of early Homo, and if you read Lieberman’s first response he elaborate how he was talking about early Homo potential to hunt through persistence and not whether or not it was
“At this point, all we can say is that there are several lines of evidence
cited above and elsewhere (Carrier, 1984; Bramble and Lieberman,
2004; Liebenberg, 2006) that ER capabilities would have
improved the performance of hominids to hunt and/or scavenge
using just an ESA technology. These capabilities may have enabled
early Homo to occupy a new niche, that of a diurnal social
carnivore. In fact, without projectiles, it is hard to imagine how
early Homo in the ESA would have either scavenged or hunted
safely and effectively unless they employed ER to some extent.
That said, we are not proposing that PH was the exclusive
method for hunting, that all scavenging was dependent on ER,
or that H. erectus had all the ER capabilities of modern humans.
Instead, all we can infer is that there is good evidence that H.
erectus was capable to some extent of ER and that ER would
have increased their fitness.”
In regards to refuting this concept from his 2007 response, thstudy only touched upon this
“This, of course, does not mean that ER-PH never happened in the
Pleistocene. It simply illustrates that a different ethnographic example
(i.e., hunting with bow-and-arrow) emphasized by Lieberman et al.
(2007: 442), when viewed in broader and better-matched ethnographic
and ecological perspective, does not provide quite the
epiphany about the evolution of ER-PH hunting that is desired: “In
fact, without projectiles, it is hard to imagine how early Homo in the
[Early Stone Age] would have either scavenged or hunted safely or
effectively unless they employed ER to some extent.” Ironically,
Lieberman et al. base that claim on their assertion that because of
technology, hunting strategies of recent foragers are not useful
analogs for early Homo, which they then justify using survey results
of ethnographic hunting technology (e.g., spear efficiency). Lieberman
et al. confuse and conflate the concepts of hunting efficiency and
hunting capability. In all likelihood, hunting efficiency is significantly
increased in recent contexts with bows and arrows, relative to the
Pleistocene, but it does not follow from relative efficiency, that
hunting capability in the absence of bows and arrows was lacking
(except by ER).”
However, Lieberman does show in another response that PH would work best in the context of Dry sparsely populated areas as well as providing evidence of higher efficiency under these conditions rather than with a bow and arrow.
Click to access Liebenberg-2008-Relevance-of-Persistence-Hunting.pdf
Pecking’s response works mainly for the ecological context presented from the site in terms of limited tracking and need for ER by older animals.
To PP,
Does the source refer to his general studies or one in particular?
Not that one.
This one: http://www.evoanth.net/2015/01/26/did-endurance-running-drive-human-evolution/
Archaeological evidence shows that hunters went not for the weak, sick and old (first to fall to an endurance hunt), but the better-than-average to much-better-than-average. Better, as I said, than the lions of the time. This is good hunting.
Does the source refer to his general studies or one in particular?
Not sure. I don’t have access to the paper (RR is the king of accessing science papers).
To Kristian,
“..by older animals”
Should’ve been “for older animals”.
To Kristian,
I was citing the actual study that article uses as evidence against persistance hunting.
However the Lieberman quote I meant to add was other studies apart from Liebenberg that support his case. Regardless, keeping in mind of Occam’s Razor, I investigated sprinting on the GM, finding evidence of activation and for aggressive behavior.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4736035/
So while this may damper ER as a mechanism, it does support RR’s points on competition and athleticism.
So with Ambush hunting in mind, and support from the text, it’s like a combination of walking (body proportions) and in group competition through fighting (glutes) that lead to modern uniqueness as endurance runners until more support for endurance running in pre-history is found.
But we are not good sprinters so the fact that our GM evolved for sprinting is a non-factor. Lieberman specifically said this in regards to the study that came out in 2016 about our GM evolving due to sprinting.
But we are not good sprinters so the fact that our GM evolved for sprinting is a non-factor
The question is not whether we’re good sprinters compared to other animals, because we only had to out-run other humans to save ourselves from getting eaten by a cheetah. The question is, are we better sprinters than our ancestors millions of years ago? I would assume the answer is yes, because they struggled to even walk on two legs, let alone run.
“The question is, are we better sprinters than our ancestors millions of years ago? I would assume the answer is yes, because they struggled to even walk on two legs, let alone run.”
Of course we are. Then we can say ‘are we better endurance runners than our ancestors? The answer is, of course, yes. The genus Homo started with Erectus. He had longer limbs compared to his body which allowed for a longer stride/gait. He could cover way more ground than his predecessors.
Furthermore, when speaking about the evolution of endurance running and the gluteus maximus, all lower extremities must be taken into account (ie the posterior chain and how the gluteus maxima interact with it). Having a laser focus just in the evolution of the gluteus maxima is useless.
The gluteus maxima hardly activate while walking, and do so while running. So walking was not the reason why the gluteus maxima evolve and became so large (our gluteus maximus is 1.6 times larger than expected for our body size and also we lack the gluteus maximus ischiofemoralis). Further adaptations such as the nuchal ligament which stabilizes the head while running is absent in Lucy but present in Erectus. Longer limbs means more ground can be covered.
Of course our ancestors could struggle to walk. This is due to pelvic morphology. When speaking of the posterior chain, all of these factors need to be looked at.
All other comments to me I will respond to tonight.
Of course we are. Then we can say ‘are we better endurance runners than our ancestors? The answer is, of course, yes.
I agree, but the question is, which was directly selected for and which was just a spandrel, or were they both directly selected for? My uninformed guess is that out-sprinting your friend (so that the cheetah catches him before you) or even out-sprinting an angry member of the tribe or rival tribe, was much more of a selection pressure than marathon running after your lunch.
“Not sure. I don’t have access to the paper (RR is the king of accessing science papers).”
Paper here:
Click to access 10.1016%40j.jhevol.2007.01.012.pdf
For future reference PP, go to http://libgen.io/ and input the paper title and click on ‘scientific articles’ and the paper should be there. They also have fresh papers just released most of the time.
Cool. I’ll try that next time.
Uhhh ? Is someone here really thinking that outrunning ferocious beasts was a selection pressure ? So why wouldn’t we have evolved to climb trees for the same purpose ? I believe humans understood from the earliest times how to avoid such beasts, like by throwing stones on them.
Afro, you’re a great commenter and I respect you, but we don’t have a good rapport so it would be nice if you could avoid responding to me. But that doesn’t mean you can’t interact with the people you do have a good rapport with!
I have no issue with you, it’s all about your thin skin and fragile heart. I’m sorry if you can’t stand interacting with a grown up man.
No Afro, i have one of the thickest skins in the HBD-o-sphere. That’s one of the secrets of this blog’s success. I tolerate almost anyone no matter how much they offend me, hence all the colourful characters here.
But I’m now ready to move on to more respectful & scholarly exchanges where i can actually learn something without all the pissing contests, bravado, & ad homines.
I’m not blaming you for our poor rapport, it might be 100% my fault. But it is what it is.
“I agree, but the question is, which was directly selected for and which was just a spandrel”
I concede that it’s extremely hard/next to impossible to fully untangle this with the current evidence we have, which is why we need to compare anatomy with extinct hominins/our close primate ancestors and compare morphology. Doing this, we can see how and why we have the morphology and anatomy we have.
“My uninformed guess is that out-sprinting your friend (so that the cheetah catches him before you) or even out-sprinting an angry member of the tribe or rival tribe, was much more of a selection pressure than marathon running after your lunch.”
Sprinting in the way you’re speaking of only lasts for short bouts of about 30 seconds—glycogen supplies in the body become quickly depleted. However, the type of running that Lieberman et al speak about is pretty much jogging—which doesn’t use as much glycogen. Further, people can cover the more ground in a shorter amount of time jogging in comparison to running (obviously). So, if sprinting at full-power with max glycogen only lasts ~45 seconds, then it obviously makes sense that to conserve glycogen stores, slower speeds at longer distances make sense (which is what Lieberman et al speak about). If your glycogen is depleted, you’re toast.
Of course running for our lives was a selective pressure. But enough of a pressure to select for a large GM? No. Lieberman says that a large GM evolving for sprinting is an ‘argument from design’. We are assuming that since we have a large GM that it must have evolved for short bouts of power. This is not the case.
Short bursts of sprinting does tap into more glycogen stores. However, I would assume that our ancestors at the time were fat-adapted. Your body doesn’t need carbs to create glycogen—it can do it with protein and fat through a process called gluconeogenesis. So we didn’t need a large amount of carbs to power our muscles (glycogen powers our muscles) and the necessary glycogen can be created from protein and fat. Once the body hits ketosis, it’s easier to get the glycogen needed for running.
Well, we are the only bipedal primate with striding bipedalism that does not have a tail. Look at all mammals that are sprinters—they have tails. The tail is the major balancing organ responsible for keeping the head steady.
Endurance running may also show fitness—making women select men with higher levels of endurance and that would further drive the evolution of our morphology due to endurance running.
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0121560
We can manage a pace of 15m/mile. We can out-sprint other animals for 4 minutes, however, the other adaptations we have are related to distance running whereas we have derived featurs that are no present in other extinct hominin/primates.
I’ve gotten enough criticism to where I’m ready to respond to the criticisms in full in a new article. I’m already sorting things out in my head so I will take these criticisms into consideration for part II of this article.
Sprinting in the way you’re speaking of only lasts for short bouts of about 30 seconds—glycogen supplies in the body become quickly depleted.
That’s all you need. It only takes seconds for a cheetah to catch a human, so if you can outrun your friend in that time, he’ll can eaten instead of you, and your sprinting genes will be passed on at the expense of his.
To PP,
I mentioned to Kristian that I found more citations from Lieberman aside from Liebenberg, but figure at this point it would apply to Occam’s Razor.
So far, both archaeology, body proportions, and muscle formation confirm economical walking and in group fighting (which through explosive motions like maximal punching and jumping actually uses more Glute power than walking apparently than sprinting) to be relevant towards shaping hominid evolution.
It could be possible through glutes driven pressures like in group competition and leg lengthen walking combine could produce results that make us better at endurance running.
Sprinting may have to do with it as well since the results also show it to require more activation that “sustained speed running” but less so with escaping a predator and possibly more so with ambush hunting because.
So far I couldn’t find info on hominid locomotion with this kind of hunting (likely need to search harder) but smilodons apparents do use “jump power” with their ambushing.
Smilodons were however stocky rather than lanky, but that could’ve occurred from walking in the case of humans.
However I refrain to commit to this idea for a few reasons, such as the possibility of certain features observed being more particular to endurance running or new archaeology on the matter.
One example of finding in support of distance running would be discovering early homo remain in formerly flat and hot place, unlike the intial Savanna rainforests.
“That’s all you need. It only takes seconds for a cheetah to catch a human, so if you can outrun your friend in that time, he’ll can eaten instead of you, and your sprinting genes will be passed on at the expense of his.”
Try again. We are very weak sprinters. The GM hardly activates while walking. A humanlike posture appeared before a humanlike musculoskeletal system. Therefore, our GM evolved due to endurance running and not sprinting. Thirty-four percent of glycogen stores get depleted in ~45 seconds of sprinting in the quadricep.
And it’s more than ‘sprinting genes’ that would get selected for. But your scenario is stupid because we are talking about the evolution of the GM, which wasn’t due to sprinting and not walking.
Try again. We are very weak sprinters.
That’s because not getting eaten by a cheetah only required us to outsprint our ape ancestors who were even weaker sprinters
The GM hardly activates while walking.
That’s cause it evolved for sprinting
A humanlike posture appeared before a humanlike musculoskeletal system.
That’s cause the posture evolved for walking.
Therefore, our GM evolved due to endurance running and not sprinting.
Complete non sequitur
Thirty-four percent of glycogen stores get depleted in ~45 seconds of sprinting in the quadricep.
That’s more than enough time for a cheetah to catch your friend while you’re running away.
But your scenario is stupid because we are talking about the evolution of the GM, which wasn’t due to sprinting and not walking.
Says who? Lieberman? Who died and made him king?
“That’s because not getting eaten by a cheetah only required us to outsprint our ape ancestors who were even weaker sprinters”
No, we are weak sprinters due to the other adaptations outlined above which evolved for endurance running. Our ancestors were weak sprinters due to different pelvic morphology and were hardly bipedal (with modern morphology beginning with Erectus). That’s when we became predators. That’s when a humanlike pelvis and gait appeared.
“That’s cause it evolved for sprinting”
Large glutes help people run faster and jump higher, but that doesn’t mean it evolved for that reason. When all of the other twenty musculoskeletal regions are looked at that have changed, it points to being adapted for endurance running. Assuming that our GM is large for sprinting is an argument from design.
“That’s cause the posture evolved for walking.”
As I’ve been saying all along, it’s about the pelvis.
As pelvic morphology reached a humanlike state, a low ilium, short ischium, a GM with an iliac attachment and no ischial attachment (which apes have), a flexed bipedal posture would have become more difficult to maintain whereas an extended bipedal posture would be facilitated. It evolved due to extended time in an extended bipedal position along with ER. Look at Lucy’s pelvis then look at ours.
“Complete non sequitur”
It does follow logically with my premises.
“That’s more than enough time for a cheetah to catch your friend while you’re running away.”
The fastest humans today can run at 10 m/second while a quadruped our size doubles that. The GM couldn’t have evolved for sprinting, we are poor sprinters (for the trillionth time) and along with all of the other musculoskeletal adaptations, that suggests that our morphology evolved—in part—due to ER.
“Says who? Lieberman? Who died and made him king?”
Says me who has outlined it for you.
The fastest humans today can run at 10 m/second while a quadruped our size doubles that.
It doesn’t matter. Being a quadruped was no longer viable for our ancestors, so we didn’t have to outrun other quads, we had to outrun our biped ape brothers, so they would get eaten instead of us.
The GM couldn’t have evolved for sprinting, we are poor sprinters (for the trillionth time)
We are poor sprinters compared to other animals but not compared to our biped ape ancestors. Those are the ones we had to outrun so that they got eaten instead of us (for the trillionth time)
and along with all of the other musculoskeletal adaptations, that suggests that our morphology evolved—in part—due to ER.
No it suggests it evolved for both walking and sprinting and ER is just a useless spandrel. That’s the most obvious explanation. The entire scientific community rejects Lieberman’s theory.
“It doesn’t matter. Being a quadruped was no longer viable for our ancestors, so we didn’t have to outrun other quads, we had to outrun our biped ape brothers, so they would get eaten instead of us.”
We can’t outrun predators or our prey. As I said, your scenario doesn’t make sense since our GM didn’t evolve due to sprinting. You can talk about ‘sprint genes’ all you want, I’m talking about human morphology.
“We are poor sprinters compared to other animals but not compared to our biped ape ancestors. Those are the ones we had to outrun so that they got eaten instead of us (for the trillionth time)”
And they were garbage runners due to their pelvic morphology. Who had a modern pelvis? Erectus? Who hunted? Oh yea, Erectus.
“No it suggests it evolved for both walking and sprinting and ER is just a useless spandrel. That’s the most obvious explanation. The entire scientific community rejects Lieberman’s theory.”
“Useless”. They’re not spandrels. Over twenty regions of the human musculoskeletal region have been identified that are adaptations to running. A very important one being the nuchal ligament which keeps our heads stabilized while running (which Lucy lacked and we have as well as Erectus).
The entire scientific community rejects Lynn, Rushton, Kanazawa, et al.
Nice appeal to authority.
We can’t outrun predators or our prey. As I said, your scenario doesn’t make sense since our GM didn’t evolve due to sprinting.
You can’t just assert that the GM didn’t evolve for sprinting. That’s what your argument is trying to prove, not the premise that it rests upon. Circular logic.
You can talk about ‘sprint genes’ all you want, I’m talking about human morphology.
A morphology that was selected for a combination of walking and sprinting would probably end up being good at endurance running, but that doesn’t prove it evolved for that purpose.
And they were garbage runners due to their pelvic morphology. Who had a modern pelvis? Erectus? Who hunted? Oh yea, Erectus.
Erectus was a product of millions of years of selection for bipedal walking and sprinting. That alone explains his modern pelvis. You don’t have to invoke Lieberman’s theory that he was marathon running after animals in the jungle for hours a day. It’s kind of far fetched.
“Useless”. They’re not spandrels. Over twenty regions of the human musculoskeletal region have been identified that are adaptations to running. A very important one being the nuchal ligament which keeps our heads stabilized while running (which Lucy lacked and we have as well as Erectus).
All of that can be explained by selection for sprinting. The rest can be explained by selection for walking. Unless there’s some trait that is ONLY useful for endurance running, but has no value in walking and sprinting, the spandrel argument makes sense.
The entire scientific community rejects Lynn, Rushton, Kanazawa, et al.
HBDers are rejected for moral/political reasons. Lieberman is rejected for scientific reasons.
“You can’t just assert that the GM didn’t evolve for sprinting. That’s what your argument is trying to prove, not the premise that it rests upon. Circular logic.”
Yes I can assert that because I’ve provided the evidence.
Look at marathons. Anyone can train and run a marathon. Most people do pretty well. Most people can’t train for sprinting comps and hope to do well.
“A morphology that was selected for a combination of walking and sprinting would probably end up being good at endurance running, but that doesn’t prove it evolved for that purpose.”
Then you have to explain the nuchal ligament, plantar arch, shoulder and head stabiliziation, longer limb length and mass than our torsos which decreases energy used (a huge clue), joint surface, and the calcenal tuber and achilles tendon. Our ankles have springs in them, specifically for running for shock absorption.
“Erectus was a product of millions of years of selection for bipedal walking and sprinting. That alone explains his modern pelvis. You don’t have to invoke Lieberman’s theory that he was marathon running after animals in the jungle for hours a day. It’s kind of far fetched.”
‘And sprinting’. This guy. He had a humanlike gait and posture. His footprints are found in groups, suggesting he hunted in bands. Further evidence for this is seen in Homo habilis. He had a similar morphology too. But Lucy, on the other hand, couldn’t run. Limiting factor being her pelvis (which we can also infer that she didn’t have a GM like we did).
“All of that can be explained by selection for sprinting. The rest can be explained by selection for walking. Unless there’s some trait that is ONLY useful for endurance running, but has no value in walking and sprinting, the spandrel argument makes sense.”
Explain how they are explained by sprinting then PP. You made an assertion, now back it up.
You just asserting ‘it all can be explained by sprinting’ when I outlined a few of them in the article is dishonest.
“HBDers are rejected for moral/political reasons. Lieberman is rejected for scientific reasons.”
Right. As if Rushton et al have never been scientifically responded too. Please.
Look at marathons. Anyone can train and run a marathon. Most people do pretty well. Most people can’t train for sprinting comps and hope to do well.
Just because we’re better at marathon running than sprinting doesn’t mean we evolved to run marathons. Most humans can learn to drive a car better than any other animal can, but that doesn’t prove we evolved for that purpose.
Then you have to explain the nuchal ligament, plantar arch, shoulder and head stabiliziation, longer limb length and mass than our torsos which decreases energy used (a huge clue), joint surface, and the calcenal tuber and achilles tendon. Our ankles have springs in them, specifically for running for shock absorption.
It’s not enough to just list a bunch of traits that are useful in marathons. In order to be compelling, you also need to show these traits are NOT useful in sprinting. The nuchal ligament is actually MORE important to sprinting than marathoning. A direct quote from this source: The nuchal ligament keeps the head in a neutral position during a run, especially a sprint.
‘And sprinting’. This guy. He had a humanlike gait and posture. His footprints are found in groups, suggesting he hunted in bands. Further evidence for this is seen in Homo habilis. He had a similar morphology too. But Lucy, on the other hand, couldn’t run. Limiting factor being her pelvis (which we can also infer that she didn’t have a GM like we did).
We agree there was selection for running. But I think it was for sprinting not marathons.
Explain how they are explained by sprinting then PP. You made an assertion, now back it up.
No it’s you who needs to back up the endurance running hypothesis, but since you asked me to back up my views, there’s FAR MORE EVIDENCE that humans were selected to escape dangerous animals, and thus needed to sprint, then there is of homo erectus going on marathons every afternoon, which sounds ridiculous:
Humans were eaten by giant hyenas, cave bears, cave lions, eagles, snakes, other primates, wolves, saber-toothed cats, false saber-toothed cats, and maybe even—bless their hearts—giant, predatory kangaroos. Amazingly, these are just the predators that consumed our ancestors during relatively recent history, the past 100,000 years or so. Go further back in time, and the diversity of things that ate our kin goes up (particularly given that our earlier, pre-hominin ancestors were progressively smaller).
“Just because we’re better at marathon running than sprinting doesn’t mean we evolved to run marathons. Most humans can learn to drive a car better than any other animal can, but that doesn’t prove we evolved for that purpose.”
I know that. We have many more adaptations than what we do.
“It’s not enough to just list a bunch of traits that are useful in marathons. In order to be compelling, you also need to show these traits are NOT useful in sprinting. The nuchal ligament is actually MORE important to sprinting than marathoning. A direct quote from this source: The nuchal ligament keeps the head in a neutral position during a run, especially a sprint.”
It keeps the head still during all types of movement that’s not a brisk walk.
“We agree there was selection for running. But I think it was for sprinting not marathons.”
I don’t even think marathons, just jogging (which is what Lieberman et al describe).
“No it’s you who needs to back up the endurance running hypothesis, but since you asked me to back up my views, there’s FAR MORE EVIDENCE that humans were selected to escape dangerous animals, and thus needed to sprint, then there is of homo erectus going on marathons every afternoon, which sounds ridiculous:”
I don’t believe Eretus went marathoning every afternoon. I’ve laid out the data about about Erectus—especially his gait. That backs me up.
I don’t deny that that had any selection on our bodies,
The article is talking about 100 kya. These derived changes occurred about 2mya, not 100kya.
All of my assertions are found in the article, I’m not repeating myself.
“Logical fallacy.” You know, I don’t think that word means what you think it means.
And you still are incapable of either understanding the nature of argument or representing a criticism fairly, or even correctly.
That “inane bullshit” is a scientist telling you you’re not doing science. You are going through (some of) the motions while being utterly ignorant of the process.
That you are unable to understand the withering contempt inherent in the criticism levelled at you is not my problem.
Your knowledge of anatomy may or may not be correct. Not my field. Your knowledge and understanding of the basics of argument and the scientific process, however, are nonexistant.
Any argument that goes “x *can only* be explained by y” is going to make any actual scientist go “woah, hold your horses”, and require extraordinary proof. And in *evolution* (my field), any single-variable explanation would be laughed out of the room. Evolution is not that tidy.
You might not know about evolution(so obviously not your field), but not understanding that you are making an absolute, infinite-strength assertion and thus need unassailable proof… that marks you as an amateur within science as a whole.
You have a single-variable explanation, you do not have extraordinary proof, and what proof you do have has been shown to be flawed. (I would not need to add this paragraph, usually, but you seem incapable of getting to the argument finish-line without help.)
You do not need to read books about anatomy. Or even books about evolution. You need to read basic books on how to make an argument and what constitutes proof. Then you need to read up on evolution. A lot.
As for racist: “Someone who treats people differently, or advocates for having people treated differently because of their race.” You may argue for racism not being bad (good luck!), but as for not being a racist… I mean, that graph in the *headline*?)You may also claim (as your nick indicates) that being racist is fact-based and “realist”. But you’d still be racist. By definition.
My argument is not “you do not have *enough* proof”, and so, repeating yourself or adding more “this can only be explained by” does not counter my argument. My argument is that your proof is not suffiicient to show that athleticism is the *only* way these attributes can have evolved, because it can be shown (gluteus maximus, standing upright, balance, swimming, etc) that this is not so. They can have evolved for other purposes (insert obligatory negation of evolution and “purpose” here).
And “this must be the solution because it is the only solution” is your only argument.
In order to do what you are trying to do here, you have to go back to every single “proof” you have and show that it is impossible for it to have evolved for any other purpose. And then, when someone shows you that, um, you forgot about x, you have to show that x, too, is impossible. And then you have to thank them for making your argument better.
This is, obviously, an impossible task. It would take decades. If it could be done. My money is on “Are you kidding?” But you chose this. You made an impossible assertion.
““Logical fallacy.” You know, I don’t think that word means what you think it means.
And you still are incapable of either understanding the nature of argument or representing a criticism fairly, or even correctly.
That “inane bullshit” is a scientist telling you you’re not doing science. You are going through (some of) the motions while being utterly ignorant of the process.”
I understand the nature of argument and representing criticism fairly and correctly. Let’s discuss the link you’re saying I am misrepresenting.
Here is my argument:
P1: If the GM evolved for walking, then it would activate while walking.
P2: The GM hardly activates while walking.
C: Therefore, the GM evolved due to other pressures NOT involved with walking.
Which premise is wrong? or is my conclusion wrong?
“Your knowledge of anatomy may or may not be correct. Not my field. Your knowledge and understanding of the basics of argument and the scientific process, however, are nonexistant.”
Incorrect. You can accuse anyone of confirmation bias. I know the basics of argument and of the scientific method; I’m not a scientist though, which I admit. I do have a great knowledge of the human body (part of my work) and everything I am telling you is correct.
“Any argument that goes “x *can only* be explained by y” is going to make any actual scientist go “woah, hold your horses”, and require extraordinary proof. And in *evolution* (my field), any single-variable explanation would be laughed out of the room. Evolution is not that tidy.”
OK, excuse my choice of words. You got me here.
The evolution of the GM is best explained by endurance running. (As a large contributor to the evolution of a large GM.)
“You might not know about evolution(so obviously not your field), but not understanding that you are making an absolute, infinite-strength assertion and thus need unassailable proof… that marks you as an amateur within science as a whole.”
Care to explain how I ‘might not know about evolution’?
“You have a single-variable explanation, you do not have extraordinary proof, and what proof you do have has been shown to be flawed. (I would not need to add this paragraph, usually, but you seem incapable of getting to the argument finish-line without help.)”
This is your argument:
“[The gluteus maximus] is unique to humans.” Exactly. Calling something that is unique “strong” is meaningless. There is no point of comparison to anything. And since our upright posture is also unique, and this muscle is *holding us upright*, that is a sufficient explanation for it. Your “athleticism” is not required for the explanation, and can therefore be taken away. (Occam’s razor) And since distance running is then not required to explain the gluteus maximus, the gluteus maximus cannot be taken as proof of distance running being an evolutionary driver.
Correct. It is unique. You’ve seen my counter argument above.
A humanlike posture also may have preceded the appearance of humanlike musculoskeletal morphology.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF02436430
“You do not need to read books about anatomy. Or even books about evolution. You need to read basic books on how to make an argument and what constitutes proof. Then you need to read up on evolution. A lot.”
I know argumentation. I gave you my argument above. I have read up on evolution. You need to read up on some anatomy. A lot of it.
“As for racist: “Someone who treats people differently, or advocates for having people treated differently because of their race.””
Who does this? I acknowledge human differences. I believe some groups of humans are better at certain things than other groups of humans, on average. That makes me a ‘racist’? Sorry, I don’t address appeals to motivation. You’re assuming my motivation. Good job.
“You may argue for racism not being bad (good luck!), but as for not being a racist… I mean, that graph in the *headline*?)You may also claim (as your nick indicates) that being racist is fact-based and “realist”. But you’d still be racist. By definition.”
It’s a bell curve with average black and white IQ distribution. That’s ‘racist’?
“because it can be shown (gluteus maximus, standing upright, balance, swimming, etc) that this is not so”
Standing upright and balance, addressed above. Swimming?
OK, let’s see.
The nuchal ligament stabilizes the head while running. Lucy did not have this ligament. Erectus, however, did, along with a large gluteus maximus. Our GM is 1.6 times larger. We are better distance runners than other primates and mammals. This isn’t even touching on the other variables involved in regards to the evolution of our body and endurance running. One of the best lines of evidence is for thermoregulation.
So if the appearance of humanlike posture preceded our skeletal morphology, then that means that a larger gluteus maximus was not needed for our modern posture. Therefore the GM evolved for another reason.
If you’re a scientist, lay off the dumb attacks, accusations and appeals to motive.
Erectus, however, did, along with a large gluteus maximus. Our GM is 1.6 times larger.
Scientists are now arguing that the GM evolved because of sexual selection. That would explain why it’s especially large in Africans per Rushton’s r/K theory.
We are better distance runners than other primates and mammals.
Although horses tend to beat humans in marathons. And it could just be that our long distance running ability is an incidental spandrel of bipedalism and our gracile physique, and not something that was actively selected for:
If you search research into whether endurance running drove human evolution, a couple of names will keep cropping up: Bramble and Lieberman, the original two to formulate this theory.
Why don’t more names appear? Because they haven’t actually convinced that many people.
So why do so many experts reject what seems like an overwhelming array of data? Because most of it is circumstantial. All of those physical adaptations “for” endurance running also help us do many other things; such as carrying objects long distances and endurance walking. So whose to say that they evolved specifically for endurance running?…archaeological evidence shows that persistence hunting doesn’t seem to have been that common; suggesting endurance running wasn’t one of the primary benefits.
Thank you, gracious host.
I’d claim to be vindicated, but really, it’s just the scientific method. RR’s methodology (for lack of a better word) is not good, and his conclusions will be likewise except by chance. I do enjoy the archaeological evidence, especially.
“Scientists are now arguing that the GM evolved because of sexual selection. That would explain why it’s especially large in Africans per Rushton’s r/K theory.”
Nice job. This is talking about women. I know about this. Lassek and Gaulin talk about this as well.
It’s so large in Africans because of how they live their lives. What do you know about anatomy PP? What the hell does Rushton know about anatomy? You linked something to me about women’s GM.
“Although horses tend to beat humans in marathons”
We still have an outstanding capacity for endurance, though I doubt admit I used a poor word in my description.
It doesn’t mean that the GM didn’t evolve due to ER, nor does it mean that ER wasn’t paramount in our evolution when you look at the myriad of other adaptations we have that our ancestors did not.
“And it could just be that our long distance running ability is an incidental spandrel of bipedalism and our gracile physique, and not something that was actively selected for.”
No need for the Wikipedia link. I know what a spandrel is.
Click to access GouldLewontin.pdf
As I’ve already shown, a humanlike posture is noted before a human musculoskeletal system. Our gracile physique was already becoming selected for in Lucy with the pelvis. You also need to look at our pelvis and how it got narrower over time and how that changed our evolution. We were then able to persistence hunt/scavenge.
“If you search research into whether endurance running drove human evolution, a couple of names will keep cropping up: Bramble and Lieberman, the original two to formulate this theory.
Why don’t more names appear? Because they haven’t actually convinced that many people.”
Meaningless.
“All of those physical adaptations “for” endurance running also help us do many other things; such as carrying objects long distances and endurance walking. So whose to say that they evolved specifically for endurance running?…archaeological evidence shows that persistence hunting doesn’t seem to have been that common; suggesting endurance running wasn’t one of the primary benefits.”
The GM hardly activates while walking, suggesting it’s purpose is for endurance running (not sprinting, as others have argued, because we are poor sprinters).
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4273057/
Looking at the things like thermoregulation and when we lost our fur are huge clues. Erectus had the ability to sweat. Erectus had a large gluteus maximus. Erectus had a humanlike gait and posture. Erectus lived in bands. Erectus cooked food controlled fire. Erectus hunted. Along with all of the hormones released from endurance running such as VEGF, IGF-1 and BDNF, we can say that all of this begun with Erectus. Lucy had the beginnings of a modern pelvis and Erectus had one. You’ve also got to think about the advantages of sweating—thermoregulation. Putting this all together and you have ER driving a large part of our morphology.
The nuchal ligament is completely absent from Lucy. Erectus has one. We have one. It stabilizes the head while running. The GM prevents us from falling over, firing just before our foot hits the ground to prevent us from falling. It also is involved in energy transmission between the legs and the pelvis as a whole. Shorter toes also aid in endurance running, it’s less metabolically costly.
Nice job. This is talking about women.
So? Selection for women can’t drive human evolution? The philosopher is not going pleased with such sexism RR 🙂
What do you know about anatomy PP?
Not a damn thing, but you know who does? Thomas Greiner, a physical anthropologist at the New York Chiropractic College in Seneca Falls, N.Y. and “Dr. Greiner believes that a larger and stronger gluteus maximus, and a longer hipbone for it to attach to, help keep the body upright.”
And even if Greiner is wrong and the large GM is better explained by running, why does it have to be ENDURANCE running? I would imagine speed running would have been more selected because if a cheetah is chasing you and your friend, you don’t need to outrun the cheetah, you just need to outrun your friend. I just think a lot of the adaptations Lieberman cites are more likely to be adaptions to hot savannah living and efficient quick bipedalism in general, rather than endurance running specifically, which I think was just a spandrel. It just seems farfetched for him to argue that we were directly selected to be good at endurance because, as wikpedia noted:
modern hunters in Africa do not use persistence hunting as a foraging method, and most often give up a chase where the trail they were following ends in vegetation. The rare groups of hunters who do occasionally participate in persistence hunting are able to do so because of the extremely hot and open environments. In these groups, a full day of rest and recovery is required after a hunt, indicating the great toll persistence hunts take on the body, making them rare undertakings.
Finally, in critique of Liebenberg’s research on modern day persistence hunting, it was revealed that the majority of the hunts initiated were prompted for filming rather than spontaneous, and that few of these hunts were successful. The hunts that were successful involved external factors such as the hunters being able to stop and refill water bottles
Now a while back Phil mention that Lieberman responded to these criticisms, but Phil didn’t give specifics, so my guess is the rebuttal wasn’t compelling enough to crisply summarize.
Don’t get me wrong, you’ve done a great job writing about Lieberman’s theory, and you might be right, but scientists are people too and they have their own biases. Lieberman is a runner so he naturally is going to think more about running when doing his research and this could skew his interpretation.
For RR.
The proof is in the pudding. No one with a working knowledge of evolutonary theory would use a single-variable explanation. Hence, you do not have such knowledge.
As for the charge of racism, again, it has nothing to do with motive. As an example, why is the “black” normal distribution so much lower and smaller than the “white” in your graph? Were the sample sizes that different? And if it has that shape, is it in fact a normal distribution? No? And the iq of a relevant population sample is always a normal distribution? So… You cannot even represent your racist views honestly (or just have no clue about statistics. The distributions should be the same size (area). And this, then, suggests that maybe you got the data for this ( and likely the graph! Lazy racist!) from a not-exactly unbiased source? And that the data are bullshit? Why, yes, that seems likely.
If you want not to be called a racist, be at least less *transparently* and *stupidly* racist. Or just less, you know, racist.
Thank you, you’ve been …unscientific.
As an example, why is the “black” normal distribution so much lower and smaller than the “white” in your graph? Were the sample sizes that different? And if it has that shape, is it in fact a normal distribution? No? And the iq of a relevant population sample is always a normal distribution?
In fairness, RR got that image from the book The Bell Curve. The black curve was small because the black American population is much smaller. The distribution is not perfectly normal because the Gaussian curve is a mathematic ideal, seldom perfectly observed in real life, but it’s usually close enough for most purposes.
“Now a while back Phil mention that Lieberman responded to these criticisms, but Phil didn’t give specifics, so my guess is the rebuttal wasn’t compelling enough to crisply summarize.”
Here,
“Finally, we agree that PH is not practiced by the Hadza and
only rarely by Bushmen and other foragers. But Pickering and
Bunn are wrong to contend that PH is ineffective. Approximately
50% of the persistence hunts documented by Liebenberg
(2006) were successful, leading to an approximately 70%
higher yield of meat per day than hunting using a bow and arrow.
Persistence hunting is now rare not because it is ineffective,
but because hunters no longer need to rely on the strategy, which
is obviously more time- and energy-consuming than other currently
available methods. Thus, it makes little sense to extrapolate
how early Homo would have hunted without specialized
projectile weapons, hunting dogs, or the other technological
aids used by recent foragers. That said, PH has been documented
for the Kalahari Bushmen (Schapera, 1930; Marshall,
1958; Washburn, 1960; Shostak, 1981; Liebenberg, 1990,
2006), the Tarahumara of northern Mexico (Bennett and Zingg,
1935; Balke and Snow, 1965; Groom, 1971; Pennington, 1963),
the Navajo and Paiutes of the American Southwest (Nabokov,
1987), and Australian Aborigines (McCarthy, 1957). The fact
that recent hunters occasionally use PH in spite of the other
methods available to them is a testament to the strategy’s effectiveness
and minimal risk. Also, according to Marshall Thomas
(2006), the Bushmen have moved away from a significant dependence
on hunted game since the 1960s. Thus, the frequency
of PH documented by Liebenberg (2006) is not a good estimator
of its frequency prior to the arrival of agriculturalists and
pastoralists, let alone the invention of the bow and arrow.”
But Pickering and Bunn are wrong to contend that PH is ineffective. Approximately 50% of the persistence hunts documented by Liebenberg (2006) were successful, leading to an approximately 70%
higher yield of meat per day than hunting using a bow and arrow.
Yes but, as I already quoted, “in critique of Liebenberg’s research on modern day persistence hunting, it was revealed that the majority of the hunts initiated were prompted for filming rather than spontaneous, and that few of these hunts were successful. The hunts that were successful involved external factors such as the hunters being able to stop and refill water bottles”
So, not only is raceracist is racist, but also a sexist…
What happened RR? Where did it go wrong? Were you dropped on your head as a child? Was your father an abusive alcoholic?
Just curious.
You’re hilarious Philosopher, but any future trolling of RR will be moderated. He comes here for serious scientific discussion, not jokes.
“So? Selection for women can’t drive human evolution? The philosopher is not going pleased with such sexism RR”
It has to do with a curvature in the 3rd lumbar vertebra (L3). It’s saying that we don’t like big butts per se, we like the curvature in the spine which allow women to carry out multiple pregnancies. Our GM was already large 1.9 mya. We can tell since Erectus had a pelvis the same size as ours. Since Lucy et al have different pelvic morphology and the GM is linked to the pelvis and the rest of the posterior chain, then obviously they had a different musculature due to a slightly different morphology.
“Not a damn thing, but you know who does? Thomas Greiner, a physical anthropologist at the New York Chiropractic College in Seneca Falls, N.Y. and “Dr. Greiner believes that a larger and stronger gluteus maximus, and a longer hipbone for it to attach to, help keep the body upright.””
Nope.
A humanlike posture may have preceded the appearance of humanlike musculoskeletal morphology.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF02436430
“I would imagine speed running would have been more selected because if a cheetah is chasing you and your friend, you don’t need to outrun the cheetah, you just need to outrun your friend.”
Yet we are poor sprinters. Sprinting for more than 30 seconds depletes glycogen stores at an alarming rate; 24 percent of glycogen stores are depleted in the vastus lateralis (VL). The VL is the largest muscle in the quadricep, extending the lower leg as well as allowing the body to arise from a squatting position.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1155653/
Then think of running at maximal speed and exhaustion (glycogen depletion also affecting other muscles involved with sprinting). We aren’t ‘built’ for sprinting. The assumption is that since our GM is big then it must have evolved for sprinting, therefore our morphology is adapted to sprinting and not endurance running. That is the argument.
It is wrong since it’s it’s an argument from design.
Meanwhile, as outlined in my article, there is ample evidence of morphological changes that aided in endurance running compared to chimpanzees, our ancestors and us.
“I just think a lot of the adaptations Lieberman cites are more likely to be adaptions to hot savannah living”
One major need for savanna living is the ability to sweat. Our loss of fur facilitated this.
“The rare groups of hunters who do occasionally participate in persistence hunting are able to do so because of the extremely hot and open environments.”
This is ridiculous.That’s the point of persistence hunting.
“In these groups, a full day of rest and recovery is required after a hunt, indicating the great toll persistence hunts take on the body, making them rare undertakings.”
Who knew that endurance running is taxing on the body requiring rest for things such as muscle fibers and the CNS?
“Finally, in critique of Liebenberg’s research on modern day persistence hunting, it was revealed that the majority of the hunts initiated were prompted for filming rather than spontaneous, and that few of these hunts were successful. The hunts that were successful involved external factors such as the hunters being able to stop and refill water bottles.”
Lieberman (2006) writes:
For the purpose of filming the hunters were allowed to refill their two-liter plastic water bottles during the hunt, since it was felt that it was unjustifiable to risk their lives for the sake of a film and the objective was to show not that they could perform the persistence hunt but how they did it. The film crew followed the hunters in the vehicle. While the filming expeditions provided an opportunity to get good data, working with film crews can be exhausting and distracting. On three of the hunts (including two successful hunts) I did not take detailed field notes.
Click to access Liebenberg-2006-Persistence-Hunting-Modern-Hunter-Gatherers.pdf
He writes honestly. Is risking their lives for the sake of a study a good idea PP?
Further, persistence hunting has a higher success rate than bow and arrow hunting; endurance running 30 to 50 percent more costly than walking but with much higher energetic returns. But thermoregulation is key, and Kalahari Bushmen are able to persistence hunt by drinking a lot of water before the hunt.
Pickering and Bunn also wrongly state that the point of PH is to tire the animal, when the point is to put it into a state of hyperthermia—a condition of having a body temperature above normal.
“Don’t get me wrong, you’ve done a great job writing about Lieberman’s theory, and you might be right, but scientists are people too and they have their own biases. Lieberman is a runner so he naturally is going to think more about running when doing his research and this could skew his interpretation.”
Thanks. But I’m not a runner and I have no bias. I’m a powerlifter.
Rushton had his biases too. Rushton was in the PF, so he naturally had a bias towards genetic explanations for most every trait.
See how it works when reversed? Who cares about all that? Arguing about the data is more important.
Here’s a better example.
Lucy had a wider pelvis. Erectus had a modern pelvis. Our pelvis got narrower over time. Without a narrower pelvis, we also wouldn’t have been able to run/become bipedal.
Think about the differences in hip/pelvis size between the races. Say that Eurasians are chimpanzees and Africans are humans. That’s the difference in morphology here. We have a lot of derived features from our ancestors that occurred due to ER.
Kristian, learn some anatomy.
Kristian,
I agree that RR’s post only presents one side of the argument, I did a similar post that I knew would be subjective, that’s why I chose not to refer to studies. That would have been straight up confirmation bias.
But the thing is that RR was writing to us, the regular readers, and he knows very well that many of us hold different views and he is perfectly open to discuss our opposing arguments. You should read the thread from the start. You, however, are just attacking the methodological aspect, not the real substance of the post. RR is waiting on you to show him contradictory evidence to his claims. He also knows straight away that your speculations on the alternative functions of GM make no sense because he knows the thing better.
I agree with what you say on racism, RR and I have been talking a lot about the hypocrisy of phrases like “race realist” and we never agreed. But if you knew how far he came from. One year ago, he was still an utter nazi and I simply denied him the right to talk to me. Now we talk like two grown up men and find many common grounds.
To PP,
“That would explain why it’s especially large in Africans per Rushton’s r/K theory.”
As usual, all the roads you take come back to the Pioneer Fund clique.
But tell me, how is it explanatory of anything ? And if one trait that mattered to survival (fast locomotion in the case of GM) has been sexually selected, what about the other uniquely human traits ?
Melo,
I will return to our conversation by Friday. Having too much fun with this ‘Kristian’ person (I won’t be a sexist bigot and assume he/she is a female based on xer’s name).
Anyway, I thought about you while writing this the other night.
https://notpoliticallycorrect.me/2017/03/28/diet-or-socializing-what-caused-primate-brain-size-to-increase/
Nice, but there are some issues.
Indeed as you said it isn’t really applicable to humans. Most Social hypothesis proponents and their critics erroneously assume group size is linearly correlated with social ability. Interestingly I’m not really sure how you failed to recognize the parallels of your criticism with pumpkins against my hypothesis. Social cooperation is a method to allocate necessary resources, competition can exasperate the need for social intelligence. Climate is correlated to food scarcity. As I’m sure you would agree it’s not really how much you eat but what you eat that is the actual factor in brain size development. While a pride of lions and a clan of humans both eat large animals, clearly the humans have an intellectual advantage which directly stems from their reliance on more complex social groups, because lions simply evolved bigger muscles, teeth and claws.
You have even demonstrated before, that sociality creates our culture which is how we learn and invent. Cooking requires intelligence to begin with and so does the ability to extract more nutritious food. In reality it’s a feedback loop. Pumpkin and I have discussed this millions of times.
As you can see the authors of the paper seem to have a misconception(almost in the form of a strawman) on how sociality affects brain size or at least the relationship between brain size and intelligence:
“First, complex social behaviours (for example, coalitions, reciprocation) that were previously assumed to be unique to primates have now been found in other taxa that do not exhibit relatively large brains compared to other members of their order (such as spotted hyenas39). Therefore, the premise that social complexity necessarily requires cognitive complexity may not always hold”
The issue here is that they assume brain size is an absolute measure of intelligence across the entire animal kingdom. As you showed me the other day, Corvids supposedly have more tightly packed neurons than primates.
In relation, I have an interesting speculation for you. What if when humans started agriculture, the malnutrition that followed selected against bigger brains, but the higher demand for cognition selected for more efficient wiring?
I did love the paper though, they are absolutely right that the majority of literature on the social brain hypothesis is severely outdated.
“Most Social hypothesis proponents and their critics erroneously assume group size is linearly correlated with social ability.”
It really does. But I’m not too interested in correlations. I’m interested in utimate, not proximal, causes.
“Interestingly I’m not really sure how you failed to recognize the parallels of your criticism with pumpkins against my hypothesis.”
I didn’t pay attention.
“Social cooperation is a method to allocate necessary resources, competition can exasperate the need for social intelligence.”
I can agree with that. But as I’ve said too many times to count, the reason why we can have a brain with so many neurons—especially so many cortical neurons—is due to cooking and high-quality nutrients.
The same holds for other primates. Omnivores had larger brains than frugiovres who had larger brains than frugivores/folivores who had larger brains than folivores. This is directly related to the brain/body size trade-off. You can either have brains or brawns, you can’t have both.
What the others talk about in the paper—and what Lieberman has written about in his papers and his book The Story of the Human Body: Evolution, Health, and Disease is that when we came out of the trees we could get more kcal on the ground foraging fruits and nuts—high in fructose and healthy fats—in order to power brain development. Glucose consumption was a primary factor in brain development—and it shows in the primates who had larger brains than those who had smaller brains (who were folivores).
Frugivorous primates have larger brains because frugivory provides additonal cognitive selection pressures—as well as a large amount of ample nutrients for foetal brain growth and compensates for the metabolically expensive brain since higher-quality nutrients and kcal are available—as I’ve said countless times.
” As I’m sure you would agree it’s not really how much you eat but what you eat that is the actual factor in brain size development.”
Which is what the study looked at.
“While a pride of lions and a clan of humans both eat large animals, clearly the humans have an intellectual advantage which directly stems from their reliance on more complex social groups, because lions simply evolved bigger muscles, teeth and claws.”
I don’t disagree but I’m talking about other primates—humans were excluded from the analysis since we are extreme outliers.
“You have even demonstrated before, that sociality creates our culture which is how we learn and invent. Cooking requires intelligence to begin with and so does the ability to extract more nutritious food. In reality it’s a feedback loop. Pumpkin and I have discussed this millions of times.”
You need to have the ability to first BE ABLE TO extract enough nutrients FOR a larger brain. If you have shit nutrition you will have a shit brain size which is what the study basically said (and corroborates similar things I’ve written about in the past, mainly the ups and downs of primate brain size).
Look at the frugivores. They can’t get bigger brains due to their food quality. We can due to ours.
“The issue here is that they assume brain size is an absolute measure of intelligence across the entire animal kingdom. As you showed me the other day, Corvids supposedly have more tightly packed neurons than primates.”
And then say right after:
Observational and simulation studies have suggested that simple associative rules may actually explain many complex patterns of behaviour.
Providing this citation:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2346517/
“In relation, I have an interesting speculation for you. What if when humans started agriculture, the malnutrition that followed selected against bigger brains, but the higher demand for cognition selected for more efficient wiring?”
Maybe. Any empirical evidence?
As I’ve said a billion times before, brain size—and evolution, really—is predicated on diet. With a shit diet you’ll go nowhere. The perfect example is floresiensis.
“I did love the paper though, they are absolutely right that the majority of literature on the social brain hypothesis is severely outdated.”
They threw the ball on the other side of the fence here. As I’ve said before—and will say a trillion times more—diet drives evolution.
And brain size—not EQ—is the best measure of non-human primate intelligence, remember? So this is, yet again, some solid evidence.
“It really does.”
What does what?
“the reason why we can have a brain with so many neurons—especially so many cortical neurons—is due to cooking and high-quality nutrients.”
The reason we know how to cook and find high quality nutrients is because we have so many neurons in our brain.
See how that works?
“Omnivores had larger brains than frugiovres who had larger brains than frugivores/folivores who had larger brains than folivores.”
I hope you realize that literally the only thing this paper proves is this statement you just made.
“This is directly related to the brain/body size trade-off. You can either have brains or brawns, you can’t have both.”
Aren’t you the one who said Absolute brain size was a better predictor of intelligence than EQ? It seems in figure 1 of the study, EQ is what they’re measuring.
“larger brains because frugivory provides additonal cognitive selection pressures”
Finding fruits is more cognitively demanding than finding leaves, meat is harder to find than fruit and so on and so forth. Primates live in large social groups, these social groups can make it easier to find food, as well as hinder it. Finding food is a selection pressure, but sociality is more or less what we use to find it. We create tools and hunt in groups, this creates a culture which allows us to learn off of others selecting for increased plasticity. So it doesn’t surprise me that this doesn’t apply to humans.
“You need to have the ability to first BE ABLE TO extract enough nutrients FOR a larger brain.”
And to do that you have to have a large enough brain to begin with. Diet is not a selection pressure, finding food is.
“Providing this citation:”
? What is your point? Or more specifically, what did that have to do with my criticism. Using less social creatures as a proxy for how complex sociality is seems very arbitrary.
“Maybe. Any empirical evidence?”
That’s a little irritating. I specificaly just said it was speculative but it is rooted in emprical evidence. Delay gratification should have increased with the advent of agriculture which implies an increased demand for higher cognition, but if our diet could not sustain a big brain then then maybe it compensated by packed our neurons even tighter.
“They threw the ball on the other side of the fence here.”
I actually don’t think they were that critical of the SBH. Their main point seemed to derive from using the SBH’s parameters and turning it against them, effectively showing how outdated it was. But as they do update it I bet more evidence will point in the SBH direction.
“What does what?”
Group size correlates with socialization on paper, the more people around, the more likely you are to socialize.
“The reason we know how to cook and find high quality nutrients is because we have so many neurons in our brain.
See how that works?”
Yes but to be able to have a larger brain to be able to power the neurons that a larger (primate) brain would have. See how that works?
I fully get where you’re coming from. However, as I’ve said time and time again, a disaster would alter our ‘path’ (for lack of a better word). There are ups and downs in primate brain evolution—which is predicated on what is available to eat, asomething we’ve both both agreed upon.
“I hope you realize that literally the only thing this paper proves is this statement you just made.”
Right. Because of diet quality. What would happen (over time) if the omnivore began eating a complete folivore diet?
“Aren’t you the one who said Absolute brain size was a better predictor of intelligence than EQ? It seems in figure 1 of the study, EQ is what they’re measuring.”
Yes, which I also reiterated in my previous comment.
They were measuring EQ and diet quality.
They cited what I have cited in the past on brain size being the best indicator of cog ability in non-human primates.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/6321027_Overall_Brain_Size_and_Not_Encephalization_Quotient_Best_Predicts_Cognitive_Ability_across_Non-Human_Primates
Click to access 10.1037%40a0018894.pdf
Brain size, not EQ, for non-human primates intelligence measure.
You can see as diet quality increases, so does brain weight, total neurons and therefore intelligence increases in primates.
If we started eating a folivorous diet, at, say, 1000 kcal a day, we’d quickly shrink in size—and lose our brain power.
“Finding fruits is more cognitively demanding than finding leaves, meat is harder to find than fruit and so on and so forth”
And you can only have a bigger brain with eating meat, which would be bigger than one who ate fruit, which would be bigger than one who ate fruit/plants which would be bigger than one who ate plants. It’s directly related to diet quality and how much of the kcal and nutrients is able to be extracted by the body.
Bigger brain=more kcal to power that brain. Not enough kcal to power that brain=brain size decrease.
” Primates live in large social groups, these social groups can make it easier to find food, as well as hinder it. Finding food is a selection pressure, but sociality is more or less what we use to find it. We create tools and hunt in groups, this creates a culture which allows us to learn off of others selecting for increased plasticity. So it doesn’t surprise me that this doesn’t apply to humans.”
Do primates who live in large social groups that are folivorous have larger brains than primates who live in smaller groups and are omnivorous/frugivorous?
“And to do that you have to have a large enough brain to begin with. Diet is not a selection pressure, finding food is.”
I know that diet isn’t a selection pressure, but as I’ve been saying for the past 6 months, without enough high-quality kcal/nutrients, a bigger brain/body/muscles won’t be able to grow. This holds throughout life and evolutionarily speaking. Less kcal=smaller body. You need kcal/nutrients to power bodily processes and to aid hormones in growth—such as for production of HGH.
“? What is your point? Or more specifically, what did that have to do with my criticism. Using less social creatures as a proxy for how complex sociality is seems very arbitrary.”
Not to be a grammar Nazi, but it’s ‘Using fewer social creatures.’
OK, so neocortex data aren’t available for all 140 species they looked at, but as we know, the neocortex scales hyper-allometrically with brain size. Frugivores had 25 percent more brain tissue by weight. Therefore, diet explains brain size since a brain can only grow so big depending on the diet that is eaten.
When comparing diet with three measures (group size, social system, and mating system) the sociality measures were nil/insignificant compared to the dietary measures.
“I actually don’t think they were that critical of the SBH. Their main point seemed to derive from using the SBH’s parameters and turning it against them, effectively showing how outdated it was. But as they do update it I bet more evidence will point in the SBH direction.”
Eh. I guess you can say that. But they showed that diet was a better measure than three sociality measures—measures that are used.
And your contention would be correct, except the originator of the hypothesis—Dunbar (2009)—uses the three measures of sociality that DeCasien, Williams, and Higham (2017) use.
Sorry for the late reply I’ve been busy with work lately/
“Group size correlates with socialization on paper, the more people around, the more likely you are to socialize.”
It can yes, but what a lot of people don’t get is that group size isn’t completely indicative of the depth within the social structure itself. It takes a higher levels of TOM depending on what task is it at hand. Waging war is arguably more socially demanding than finding a rabbit to eat.
“Brain size, not EQ, for non-human primates intelligence measure.”
Right so why in this instance is EQ being used as a measure of cognitive potential within primates?
“If we started eating a folivorous diet, at, say, 1000 kcal a day, we’d quickly shrink in size—and lose our brain power.”
Technically couldn’t you eat your required Kcal for that day with just leaves? It would just take a longer time.
“And you can only have a bigger brain with eating meat,”
Well The study claimed Frugivores and folivores had the biggest discrepancy between them not omnivores.
“Do primates who live in large social groups that are folivorous have larger brains than primates who live in smaller groups and are omnivorous/frugivorous?”
I don’t know, but having a larger social group can be meaningless if there is no actual complexity in the interaction.
” but as I’ve been saying for the past 6 months, without enough high-quality kcal/nutrients, a bigger brain/body/muscles won’t be able to grow.”
You don’t know if that’s true though. Why wouldn’t the brain just compensate with a decreased body size?
“(group size, social system, and mating system) ”
Which was what the point of the article. Those 3 are not good axioms for what should define the social brain hypothesis. There is a difference between polyamory and being promiscuous. Group size has been irrelevant, which dunbar even admits himself. and the unfortunately the article is closed now so I can’t go back and criticize the “social systems” part. It had to do with coalition forming right?
“And your contention would be correct, except the originator of the hypothesis—Dunbar (2009)—uses the three measures of sociality that DeCasien, Williams, and Higham (2017) use.”
Yes it’s pretty sad when Dunbar doesn’t eve know his own theory?
“It can yes, but what a lot of people don’t get is that group size isn’t completely indicative of the depth within the social structure itself. It takes a higher levels of TOM depending on what task is it at hand. Waging war is arguably more socially demanding than finding a rabbit to eat.”
I agree with that. But to wage war you need to opposing sides with sizeable populations and certain pretexts (on a human scale). But you need sizeable numbers to be able to wage war.
“Right so why in this instance is EQ being used as a measure of cognitive potential within primates?”
It wasn’t for cog ability. It was mapping the growth of brain size over time with diet.
“Technically couldn’t you eat your required Kcal for that day with just leaves? It would just take a longer time.”
How is the nutritional quality of raw leaves compared to meat? You can eat much less volume of meat, get more nutrients and kcal, spend less time chewing, have more time to do things. Eating meat is a win-win. If we were folivores, it’d take us 9.5 hours a day to eat the amount of kcal just to power our brains.
On a raw diet, it’d take us over 9.5 hours of feeding to afford our brain mass and number of neurons. Another group says humans would have to feed 48 percent of the day. No thanks.
http://www.pnas.org/content/109/45/18571.full
I don’t know about you, I like spending thirty minutes a day eating one huge meal and I’d hate to eat for over 9.5 hours a day.
“Well The study claimed Frugivores and folivores had the biggest discrepancy between them not omnivores.”
Right, frugivores and folivores did have the biggest discrepancy and it was slightly smaller between omnivores and frugivores. This is due to higher quality kcal (glucose powers brain development. The addition of cooked tubers and other starches powered brain development.
Bigger brains need high-quality diets to sustain them. Since bigger brains mean more neurons and they have a higher metabolic cost.
“I don’t know, but having a larger social group can be meaningless if there is no actual complexity in the interaction.”
I want to know the answer to that question so I’ll look into it.
If there is a large social group, then the interactions have a higher chance to be more complex than if the group were smaller. Therefore, large social groups lead to more complex social interactions.
“You don’t know if that’s true though. Why wouldn’t the brain just compensate with a decreased body size?”
If we stopped eating a high-quality diet, say we go from eating 2300 kcal/day to 1000 kcal/day with lower quality foods and a lower quality of overall nutrients that power both our brain and body development. We’d decrease in stature and brain size. A high-quality diet is key to evolution.
“Which was what the point of the article. Those 3 are not good axioms for what should define the social brain hypothesis.”
So what are good ways to describe the SBH?
“There is a difference between polyamory and being promiscuous”
I know.
“Group size has been irrelevant, which dunbar even admits himself. and the unfortunately the article is closed now so I can’t go back and criticize the “social systems” part. It had to do with coalition forming right?”
Coalition forming based on mating systems.
Damn it. It’s not on sci-hub. Wait a few days and it should be there.
“On a raw diet, it’d take us over 9.5 hours of feeding to afford our brain mass and number of neurons”
On a raw diet, it’d take us over 9 hours of feeding to afford our body mass and number of neurons *
“But you need sizeable numbers to be able to wage war.”
But you also need large numbers for more menial situations.
“It wasn’t for cog ability. It was mapping the growth of brain size over time with diet.”
Right, which is what they used to infer the correlation between diet and brain size. Isn’t brain size equated with intelligence in this context? Didn’t they also say they were controlling for body size?
“How is the nutritional quality of raw leaves compared to meat?”
How many Kcal of leaves is worth how many kcal of meat?
“This is due to higher quality kcal (glucose powers brain development.”
So fruit is better for you than meat? I mean nutrition and energy wise. I assumed Omnivorous means literally anything and chimps do in fact eat meat.
“Bigger brains need high-quality diets to sustain them.”
Exactly, but it isn’t what really drives a need for a big brain it only releases the constraints and drawbacks of having one.
“then the interactions have a higher chance to be more complex than if the group were smaller. ”
That’s not actually true and at some point groups can be too big. I mean you and I both know we wouldn’t be able to coordinate with 7 billion other people at once. Not to mention you’re disregarding fission-fusion tactics.
“A high-quality diet is key to evolution.”
No, it makes encephalization easier. You’re starting to sound like pumpkin.
“So what are good ways to describe the SBH?”
It’s not really how dunbar defined what sociality is, it’s how he was trying to measure it. Complex interaction, neuroplasiticity/ life history, and risk of failure are more appropriate proxies(though probably not perfect) than group size, mating systems, and coalition forming.
“I know.”
You misunderstand friend. The reasons humans were not included in this study is because they would completely throw off the results. Humans do not have to be monogamous to take care of children for a long time, this is even more vindicated by studies on non-shared environments. Pair types have a small correlation to the life history of offspring.
“Coalition forming based on mating systems.”
Oh, well isn’t that kind of just a form of EGI?
“But you also need large numbers for more menial situations.”
Right. Then you need larger numbers for sociality.
“Right, which is what they used to infer the correlation between diet and brain size. Isn’t brain size equated with intelligence in this context? Didn’t they also say they were controlling for body size?”
Yea brain size is equated with intelligence in the context. They stated that brain size not EQ best predicts cog ability as well. Fact of the matter is, diet explained it better.
They controlled for phylogeny and body size.
“How many Kcal of leaves is worth how many kcal of meat?”
Depends. Look at the amount of energy in raw foods and then look at the volume of food you’d need to hit nutritional recommendations. Then think about all of the nutrients you’re not getting. It’s a huge difference.
“So fruit is better for you than meat? I mean nutrition and energy wise. I assumed Omnivorous means literally anything and chimps do in fact eat meat.”
Not really. Omnivorous meant fruits/leaves/meat. They had a bigger brain than frugivores. Fruit isn’t ‘better’ for you. And some of the fruits that primates eat we wouldn’t be able to eat.
“Exactly, but it isn’t what really drives a need for a big brain it only releases the constraints and drawbacks of having one.”
Right. But without it a bigger brain wouldn’t be possible. It’d be too energy-expensive and not enough energy would be able to be consumed without talking more than a third to half the day eating—effectively making the big brain useless.
“That’s not actually true and at some point groups can be too big. I mean you and I both know we wouldn’t be able to coordinate with 7 billion other people at once. Not to mention you’re disregarding fission-fusion tactics.”
Right. But I said they would have a “higher chance” of being more complex. Which I don’t doubt isn’t true. Fission-fusion is compatible with predation.
“No, it makes encephalization easier. You’re starting to sound like pumpkin.”
Is it not? If nutrition quality declined then what would happen?The fact that we don’t have to chew all day was a huge help in becoming human, you know that.
“It’s not really how dunbar defined what sociality is, it’s how he was trying to measure it. Complex interaction, neuroplasiticity/ life history, and risk of failure are more appropriate proxies(though probably not perfect) than group size, mating systems, and coalition forming.”
I still say that group size is a good proxy for complex group interaction. Life history/mating systems go hand-in-hand. Risk of failure? Like, if it would be a big blow to the band if an individual died?
“You misunderstand friend. The reasons humans were not included in this study is because they would completely throw off the results.”
I know.
“Humans do not have to be monogamous to take care of children for a long time”
Right. But paternal/maternal care is still needed for a child to survive past infancy.
“this is even more vindicated by studies on non-shared environments.”
Source?
“Pair types have a small correlation to the life history of offspring.”
Source?
“Oh, well isn’t that kind of just a form of EGI?”
Meh, I guess. But the fact of the matter is, mating type is strongly related to coalition forming.
The authors concluded that both human and non-human brain size was driven by increased foraging capacity which may have provided the ‘scaffolding’ for socializing. Clearly, the factor at work here is (1) increased caloric consumption and (2) increased nutrition due to higher-quality food consumption.
“Right. Then you need larger numbers for sociality.”
We’re talking about the complexity of sociality not sociality itself.
“They controlled for phylogeny and body size.”
Doesn’t diet influence body size too?
“Yea brain size is equated with intelligence in the context. They stated that brain size not EQ best predicts cog ability as well. Fact of the matter is, diet explained it better.”
Again, explains why they did not include Homo or even Australopithecus. Their neurons do not scale linearly with their body size. Primates rarely engage in cooperative hunting or war.
“Depends. Look at the amount of energy in raw foods and then look at the volume of food you’d need to hit nutritional recommendations. Then think about all of the nutrients you’re not getting. It’s a huge difference.”
What i’m saying is that two species can both have the same diet but different size brains and vice versa.
“Not really. Omnivorous meant fruits/leaves/meat. They had a bigger brain than frugivores”
Sorry I read your statement wrong.
“Is it not?”
You said it was key to evolution. It’s not.
“But I said they would have a “higher chance” of being more complex. Which I don’t doubt isn’t true.”
How so? Examples?
“Life history/mating systems go hand-in-hand. ”
No they don’t. There is no proof for that. Orangs and chimps have the largest brains and neuronal density of any apes and they are not monogamous. Parental investment has more to do with Life history and neural plasticity has even more to do with it.
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~phyl/anthro/mating.html
“Risk of failure? Like, if it would be a big blow to the band if an individual died?”
Not quite. Coalition forming, whether it be for mating or social hierarchies(or even both) comes with a “risk of failure”. Risk of failure can be exasperated by multiple independent factors. Effectively increasing the cognitive demand for a social situation.
“Right. But paternal/maternal care is still needed for a child to survive past infancy.”
Only one parent is needed, which makes mating systems almost irrelevant.
“Source?”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3147062/
http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/03/16/non-shared-environment-doesnt-just-mean-schools-and-peers/
“Meh, I guess. But the fact of the matter is, mating type is strongly related to coalition forming.”
I think we are talking about two completely different things. Competition in general induces the formation of cliques.
Click to access Widdig_et_al_AJP.pdf
“The authors concluded that both human and non-human brain size was driven by increased foraging capacity which may have provided the ‘scaffolding’ for socializing.”
They did not say that and if they did they were lying.
“We’re talking about the complexity of sociality not sociality itself.”
How would larger numbers not lead to a higher chance for more complex interactions?
“Doesn’t diet influence body size too?”
Yea. If we wouldn’t have eaten meat our stomachs wouldn’t have shrank. Cooked, soft food was part responsible for that. Look at great apes and what they eat. If we were to eat like them then we would be big like them with smaller brains.
“Again, explains why they did not include Homo or even Australopithecus. Their neurons do not scale linearly with their body size. Primates rarely engage in cooperative hunting or war.”
The human brain is a scaled-up primate brain in its neuronal composition. It has the number of neurons expected for a brain that weighs 1.5 kg. As you know, I don’t take the brain/body difference, I look at the neuronal scaling.
“What i’m saying is that two species can both have the same diet but different size brains and vice versa.”
Like?
“You said it was key to evolution. It’s not.”
It pretty much is. They showed that Diets support bigger brains which in turn support more complex social societies along with the type of kcal consumed.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3257695/
“How so? Examples?”
More specific, and partly as you said, it’s driven by climate and predation, if they vary, so does the diet.
https://books.google.com/books?id=XJ1lNYXGjFsC&pg=PA265&lpg=PA265&dq=fission-fusion+tactics+predation&source=bl&ots=iX8vO1zxh2&sig=PptOW5PiB8VPIGaZnCuoQYfIo9w&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiTg4q8h4jTAhWBOyYKHYDvAc8Q6AEIGjAA#v=onepage&q=fission-fusion%20tactics%20predation&f=false
“No they don’t. There is no proof for that. Orangs and chimps have the largest brains and neuronal density of any apes and they are not monogamous. Parental investment has more to do with Life history and neural plasticity has even more to do with it.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3192902/
Their ability to vary what they eat has a lot to do with their pop density.
“Only one parent is needed, which makes mating systems almost irrelevant.”
A lot of monkeys care for children though.
>non-shared environment
yea i knew that. the diet discussion is about non-humans though (diet of course explains human brain size as well)
“I think we are talking about two completely different things. Competition in general induces the formation of cliques.”
And a larger group means more chance for those types of interactions.
“They did not say that and if they did they were lying.”
Yes they did say that. So you don’t agree with what they said, that means they’re lying?
“How would larger numbers not lead to a higher chance for more complex interactions?”
How would they? Density not number is what causes competition. Numbers could be simply for predation risk. Herding animals are somewhat of a good example.
“The human brain is a scaled-up primate brain in its neuronal composition. ”
No it’s not. Hominin evolution did not have a gradual increase in body size like the paper states. Australopithicus was vritually the same size as chimps but had a bigger brain, Homo habilis’ brain size increased little but went through neurological change, Cro magnon had a larger brain than us and was smaller etc, etc, The ratio between body and brain size has never been constant and trying to infer that from the paper is beyond fallacious.
“Like?”
I thought you read a lot? Do I really have to show you an example of two meat eating species with different size brains? Again you’re the one who showed me the corvid example. What is so hard about understanding the trade off systems in evolution? Whether you admit it or not the brain IS an expensive tissue, and if it is a species’ primary use of problem solving then it’s completely possible that either higher neuronal density or decreased body size will be selected for. The only reason Diet is highly correlated with a species intelligence is because it sustains a big brain. You have not given any reason for the causal direction except for “just cuz”
“It pretty much is.”
Whatever you say pumpkin.
“Their ability to vary what they eat has a lot to do with their pop density.”
Exactly, density not size.
“A lot of monkeys care for children though.”
So? We do it the most and even the bastard children are smarter than monkeys.
“(diet of course explains human brain size as well)”
No, it doesn’t.
“And a larger group means more chance for those types of interactions.”
Not as much as you think.
“Yes they did say that. So you don’t agree with what they said, that means they’re lying?”
I’m talking about the original article I was discussing. You even agreed that they were specifically talking about non-human primates.
“How would they? Density not number is what causes competition. Numbers could be simply for predation risk. Herding animals are somewhat of a good example.”
You’re right. I didn’t add density with numbers.
“No it’s not.”
If your claim is that the human brain is not a linearly scaled-up primate brain in its neuronal composition, then you’re wrong.
http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/neuro.09.031.2009/full
“Hominin evolution did not have a gradual increase in body size like the paper states. Australopithicus was vritually the same size as chimps but had a bigger brain, Homo habilis’ brain size increased little but went through neurological change, Cro magnon had a larger brain than us and was smaller etc, etc, The ratio between body and brain size has never been constant and trying to infer that from the paper is beyond fallacious.”
I never claimed any of this. I said I don’t accept the EQ, I accept neuronal scaling. That’s it. I said that the human brain is a linearly scaled-up primate brain in its neuronal composition. This is true.
“I thought you read a lot? Do I really have to show you an example of two meat eating species with different size brains?”
You made a claim. Claims need evidence and arguments.
“Again you’re the one who showed me the corvid example. What is so hard about understanding the trade off systems in evolution? Whether you admit it or not the brain IS an expensive tissue”
…… when have I said anything to the contrary? I’ve stated that the brain is one of the most expensive organs in the body too many times to count.
“The only reason Diet is highly correlated with a species intelligence is because it sustains a big brain. You have not given any reason for the causal direction except for “just cuz””
In regards to the study we are currently speaking about, finding fruit is more cognitively demanding. Leaves are everywhere. It takes more cognitive complexity to find fruits in comparison to leaves. Further, as you know, higher quality diets lead to metabolic constraints being released on brain size allowing for growth to occur.
So if it’s more cognitively demanding finding fruits due to fruits being more spread out in the ecosystem compared to foliage, then primates that have bigger brains will be frugivores/omnivores. Frugivores/omnivores have the biggest brains (a 25 percent tissue difference between frugivores and folivores. Therefore, frugivores have bigger brains due to needing them for obtaining fruits and seeds, spatial information storage and retrieval. The energy obtained from the fruits/seeds was needed to fuel bigger brains/brains in vitro. So the selection pressure was finding and remembering where the fruit was. This also goes with what Lieberman says in his book about when we came out of the trees needing to find fruits.
“Whatever you say pumpkin.”
They showed that diets support bigger brains which in turn support more complex social societies along with the type of kcal consumed.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3257695/
Proper nutrients were imperative for the evolution of our brains. The paper points at diet and the need to find food being a driver in evolution, chucking the SBH out.
“So? We do it the most and even the bastard children are smarter than monkeys.”
Right but bastard children have worse life outcomes compared to children reaered in a two-parent home.
“No, it doesn’t.”
If the constraint on brain size weren’t released by our high diet quality, then we wouldn’t be here today.
“Not as much as you think.”
Whatever you say melo.
“I’m talking about the original article I was discussing. You even agreed that they were specifically talking about non-human primates.”
Correct.
So, tldr: Frugivores have larger brains than folivores due to the need for information storage and retrieval on fruit sites and the cognitive demands of extracting fruits and seeds. Therefore, higher-quality food allows larger brains to grow and if higher-quality food is harder to obtain, then that is a selection pressure on the need for larger brains, with the higher-quality food driving the brain growth due to the higher-quality nutrients.
“If your claim is that the human brain is not a linearly scaled-up primate brain in its neuronal composition, then you’re wrong.”
No, I’m not. They use pseudo calculations based on correlations to create nonexistent data, exactly what you accused Lynn of doing. brain size and body size ratio has never been linear, and by extension the number of neurons have not either.
“I said I don’t accept the EQ”
You literally have no reason to doubt it’s credibility, besides your own confirmation bias. It is the Occam’s Razor when measuring of intelligence between species.
“In regards to the study we are currently speaking about, finding fruit is more cognitively demanding. ”
Based on what, besides a “just so story”? Yes, I said that phrase again, get over it. I don’t just mean in relevance to folivores because that is not the only alternate nutritional option in hominid diets.
“They showed that diets support bigger brains which in turn support more complex social societies along with the type of kcal consumed.”
How does that debunk my social hypothesis? Food is not a selection pressure. Sociality is a tool for gathering food.
“Right but bastard children have worse life outcomes compared to children reaered in a two-parent home”
irrelevant .
“and if higher-quality food is harder to obtain, then that is a selection pressure on the need for larger brain”
No, our ancestral environment was not the most resource deprived area.
Sorry for long response time. Had to do some more reading into this.
“No, I’m not. They use pseudo calculations based on correlations to create nonexistent data, exactly what you accused Lynn of doing. brain size and body size ratio has never been linear, and by extension the number of neurons have not either.”
I believe this is the study you’re referring to, correct?
http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fnins.2016.00167/full
If so… oh man….
Just a disclaimer right now: I will spend (probably an unhealthy amount of time) attacking the diet part of the study on mice.
Fonseca-Azevedo and Herculano-Houzel (2012) do say that their Z score of 70 (which was found by applying Kleiber’s law to body mass (minus brain mass; Kleiber’s law is the observation that an animal’s metabolic rate scale’s to the power of 3/4s of its mass. They even state that they may underestimate the actual energy needs of the body sans the brain.
Click to access 10.1002%40cne.21974.pdf
“You literally have no reason to doubt it’s credibility, besides your own confirmation bias. It is the Occam’s Razor when measuring of intelligence between species.”
Not really. There is no ‘expected brain size’ for species since brain/body allometry is specific to each taxon. The Q is also dependant on which animals you choose to include in the analysis.
And I’ve shown that, at least for primates, brain size is a better measure of cog ability in non-human primates—not EQ.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/6321027_Overall_Brain_Size_and_Not_Encephalization_Quotient_Best_Predicts_Cognitive_Ability_across_Non-Human_Primates
Furthermore, it is assumed that large mammalian brains are scaled-up versions of smaller brains—which is not true.
Click to access 10.1111%40j.1749-6632.2011.05976.x.pdf
Brain to neuron scaling is only the same within species—not between.
So, the authors say that more higher-quality foraging with more food foraged per hour can meet the caloric demands of larger brains. You can ‘say’ anything to that effect—would it hold up in reality?
Thus, the present model suggests that brain size evolution in the human lineage would heavily depend on strategies to increase foraging efficiency, rather than on a tradeoff between brain and body size.
Right, you can say that foraging efficiency would need to increase—but you can say anything, would it hold up in the real world? Would AMH have been able to forage enough kcal to power our brains as we know them today? No.
I should also point you to the point of chewing along with foraging time. It takes more energy/time to chew raw food.
Now to touch on the diet part (my fave!):
They say that raw- and cooked-food diets give the same amount of energy. That’s so, so, wrong.
https://academic.oup.com/gbe/article/8/4/1091/2574082/Genetic-Evidence-of-Human-Adaptation-to-a-Cooked
Cooking meat gelatinzes the protein making it easier to chew. It’s the same with plant foods. Most of the nutrients are locked behind cell-walls, and cooking is a way around that. Cooking also changes the nutritional profile of foods. Here is a perfect example.
Looking at one oz of almonds, you’d assume that you’d get 170 kcal. However, looking at 18 subjects, they ingested 20 percent fewer kcal. Why?
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=almonds+atwater
Look into the Atwater system. It estimates easily our body digests protein, fat, and carbs.
The body also uses more energy to process raw food.
I also don’t need studies to tell me that cooked food increases the how many kcal you can ingest from it.
Think about cooking. Cooking softens food, denatures and gelatanizes proteins to make it eaiser to chew. Also, more energy from raw food goes to our gut microbiota.
I’d now need to talk about how differing foods contribute to differing species of gut microbiota and the diversity in that specific organism but that’s going wayyyy off base and I have some shit to do at the moment so I may return to that point in my next comment (trust me, it matters!).
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2013/02/have-we-been-miscounting-calories
Quality > quantity
One last thing: How would this apply to humans? At a certain point, pop size will overwhelm what is available to eat by foraging—ie, raw foods. So then the higher-quality nutrients need to be gotten elsewhere.
In all honesty, though, this is far and away my specialty (though some of my speciality is involved), so I await Herculano-Houzel’s response.
“Based on what, besides a “just so story”? Yes, I said that phrase again, get over it. I don’t just mean in relevance to folivores because that is not the only alternate nutritional option in hominid diets.”
No, not a ‘just-so story’. Finding fruit is more cog demanding than finding leaves right?
And we are still talking in the context of the study by DeCasein et al, remember.
“How does that debunk my social hypothesis? Food is not a selection pressure. Sociality is a tool for gathering food.”
I agree with you. But finding and remembering exactly where the higher-quality food is. Frugivorous primates who were not able to find the trees got selected against, etc etc.
Keep in mind I do agree that sociality did have an effect on our brain evolution, but without more and higher quality kcal, larger brains would not have evolved—the constraints must first be broken on brain size with higher-quality diet.
Still waiting on you to show me primates with high sociality that are folivorous….
And see this:
Incorporation of fossil data further reveals that no association exists between sociality and encephalization across Carnivora and that support for sociality as a causal agent of encephalization increase disappears for this clade.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2695124/
Ow SBH…
“irrelevant .”
Sure Pumpkin.
Remember that this we are discussing DeCasein et al (2017), who did not use humans in the model.
The reason that was a measure used in the study was that numerous studies have shown that polyamorous species have larger brains. The point is, studies that show that polygamous and monogamous specie have larger brains—and both invoked the SBH as the reason which made DeCasein look into it. Mating systems were used as part of the overall sociality measure.
“No, our ancestral environment was not the most resource deprived area.”
Are we still talking about DeCasein et al 2017 or have we suddenly added humans into the mix?
Re: DeCasein et al 2017: Frugivorous primates have larger brains because finding fruit is mor cognitively demanding than finding leaves—something I know you agree with. There is over 25 percent more area to cover to look for food while being a frugivore. You need to remember where the good trees are, etc.
Also see:
http://www.cell.com/trends/cognitive-sciences/fulltext/S1364-6613(12)00082-4
“I believe this is the study you’re referring to, correct?”
Not at all, honestly you should wait to confirm that before wasting time ranting about it. Truthfully, Im over this debate, Diet isn’t a selection pressure and saying resource allocation can increase intelligence is such a “no shit” answer.
“it is assumed that large mammalian brains are scaled-up versions of smaller brains—which is not true.”
That IS true. At least in size. You being semantic does not actually make it more accurate. Truth is EQ is a great predictor of intelligence within mammals.
“Brain to neuron scaling is only the same within species—not between.”
I seriously doubt that is true.
“And we are still talking in the context of the study by DeCasein et al, remember.”
So then you admit this has no real bearing on the validity of the SBH?
“Still waiting on you to show me primates with high sociality that are folivorous….”
Lmao don’t be stupid. That would literally prove nothing for either of our cases.
“Ow SBH…”
And that one is just embarrassing, It shows you actually didn’t learn anything or read any of my responses. Sociality is not a universal encephalization factor it is a tool used by specific organisms as a way to survive, within this interaction sociality induces a self selecting feedback loop. The fact that you lack the ability to comprehend this deeper level of conceptual understanding of this is further exemplified by your incessant parroting of information you don’t actually understand.