[Home] [Site map] [Updates] [Projects] [Contents; 1. Introduction; 2. Philosophy (1), (2), (3), (4) & (5); 3. Religion (1) & (2); 4. History (1), (2) & (3); 5. Science; 6. Environment (1), (2) & (3); 7. Origin of life (1), (2) & (3); 8. Cell & Molecular (1), (2) & (3); 9. Mechanisms (1), (2) & (3); 10. Fossil Record; 12. Plants; 13. Animals; 14. Man (2); 15. Social; 16. Conclusion; Notes; Bibliography A-C, D-F, G-I, J-M, N-S, T-Z] [Book "Problems of Evolution"]
"PROBLEMS OF EVOLUTION": 14. MAN (1) 1. Uniqueness 1. Intelligence 1. Brain size 2.Mental feats 3. Mind 2. Bipedalism 3. Hairlessness 1. Head hair 4. Longevity 5. Learning 6. Tools 7. Language 1. Universal grammar hardwired 2. Cause of "The Great Leap Forward"? 8. Mathematics 9. Music 10. Altruism 11. Cooperation 12. Culture 13. Economics 14. One species 15. Total package 2. Other problems of human evolution 1. Darwinian evolution is not true of our species 2. Competition 3. Gap between anatomically and behaviourally modern H. sapiens
"PROBLEMS OF EVOLUTION": 14. MAN (1) 1. Uniqueness Man is as uniquely different from all other animals, as had been traditionally claimed by theologians and philosophers (Mayr, 2001, p.252). [top] 1. Intelligence Darwin realised that "Natural selection tends only to make each organic being as perfect as, or slightly more perfect than, the other inhabitants of the same country with which it comes into competition" (Darwin, 1872, p.187). Therefore, Alfred Russel Wallace, Darwin's co-discoverer of natural selection, though "an ardent selectionist who far out-Darwined Darwin in his rigid insistence on natural selection" (Gould, 1978, p.50), later came to realise that natural selection could not explain the human brain, specifically its "artistic, mathematical, and musical abilities" (Macbeth, 1971, pp.102-103). Wallace pointed out that "Natural selection ... could only have endowed the savage with a brain a little superior to that of an ape" (Wallace, 1869; Eiseley, 1958, p.311). Yet as leading evolutionist Ernst Mayr conceded, "Human intelligence surpasses that of even the most intelligent animals by orders of magnitude" (Mayr, 2001, p.253. My emphasis). So great is the gulf between man's intellectual powers and that of his nearest presumed living relatives, the apes, that intellectually "the human species" represents the equivalent of "a kingdom level `speciation'" (Wilcox, 1990, p.7.3; Templeton, 1994, p.175; Templeton & Herrmann, 1994, p.140). 1. Brain size The increase of the human brain relative to body weight, is by far the highest among any animal:"To judge the size of our brain, we must compare it with the expected brain size for an average mammal of our body weight. On this criterion we are, as we had every right to expect, the brainiest mammal by far. No other species lies as far above the expected brain size for average mammals as we do. This relationship between body weight and brain size provides important insights into the evolution of our brain. Our African ancestor (or at least close cousin), Australopithecus africanus, had an average adult cranial capacity of only 450 cubic centimeters. Gorillas often have larger brains, and many authorities have used this fact to infer a distinctly prehuman mentality for Australopithecus. A recent textbook states: "The original bipedal ape-man of South Africa had a brain scarcely larger than that of other apes and presumably possessed behavioral capacities to match." But A. Africanus weighed only 50 to 90 pounds (female and male respectively - as estimated by Yale anthropologist David Pilbeam), while large male gorillas may weigh more than 600 pounds. We may safely state that Australopithecus had a much larger brain than other nonhuman primates, using the correct criterion of comparison with expected values for actual body weights. The human brain is now about three times larger than that of Australopithecus. This increase has often been called the most rapid and most important event in the history of evolution. But our bodies have also increased greatly in size. Is this enlargement of the brain a simple consequence of bigger bodies or does it mark new levels of intelligence? To answer this question, I have plotted cranial capacity against inferred body weight for the following fossil hominids (representing, perhaps, our lineage): Australopithecus africanus; Richard Leakey's remarkable find with a cranial capacity of nearly 800 cubic centimeters and an antiquity of more than two million years (weight estimated by David Pilbeam from dimensions of the femur); Homo erectus from Choukoutien (Peking Man); and modern Homo sapiens. The graph indicates that our brain has increased much more rapidly than any prediction based on compensations for body size would allow. ... The slope is the highest ever calculated for an evolutionary sequence. ... My conclusion is not unconventional, and it does reinforce an ego that we would do well to deflate. Nonetheless, our brain has undergone a true increase in size not related to the demands of our larger body. We are, indeed, smarter than we were." (Gould, 1978, pp.183-184).However,"The sophistication of the human brain is not simply the result of steady evolution, according to new research. Instead, humans are truly privileged animals with brains that have developed in a type of extraordinarily fast evolution that is unique to the species. "Simply put, evolution has been working very hard to produce us humans," said Bruce Lahn .... "Our study offers the first genetic evidence that humans occupy a unique position in the tree of life." Professor Lahn's research, published this week in the journal Cell, suggests that humans evolved their cognitive abilities not owing to a few sporadic and accidental genetic mutations - as is the usual way with traits in living things - but rather from an enormous number of mutations in a short period of time, acquired though an intense selection process favouring complex cognitive abilities. Evolutionary biologists generally argue that humans have evolved in much the same way as all other life on Earth. Mutations in genes from one generation to the next sometimes give rise to new adaptations to a creature's environment. Those best adapted to their environment are more likely to survive and pass on their genes to the next generation. The evolution of a large brain in humans, then, can be seen as similar to the process that leads to longer tusks or bigger antlers. In general terms, and after scaling for body size, brains get bigger and more complex as animals get bigger. But with humans, the relative size of the brain does not fit the trend - our brains are disproportionately big, much bigger even than the brains of other non-human primates, including our closest relatives, chimpanzees. Prof Lahn's team examined the DNA of 214 genes involved in brain development in humans, macaques, rats and mice. By comparing mutations that had no effect on the function of the genes with those mutations that did, they came up with a measure of the pressure of natural selection on those genes. The scientists found that the human brain's genes had gone through an intense amount of evolution in a short amount of time - a process that far outstripped the evolution of the genes of other animals. "We've proven that there is a big distinction," Prof Lahn said. "Human evolution is, in fact, a privileged process because it involves a large number of mutations in a large number of genes. "To accomplish so much in so little evolutionary time - a few tens of millions of years - requires a selective process that is perhaps categorically different from the typical processes of acquiring new biological traits." As for how all of this happened, the professor suggests that the development of human society may be the reason. In an increasingly social environment, greater cognitive abilities probably became more of an advantage. "As humans become more social, differences in intelligence will translate into much greater differences in fitness, because you can manipulate your social structure to your advantage," he said. "Even devoid of the social context, as humans become more intelligent, it might create a situation where being a little smarter matters a lot. "The making of the large human brain is not just the neurological equivalent of making a large antler. Rather, it required a level of selection that's unprecedented." (Jha A., 2004; Dorus , 2004; von Radowitz, 2004).But natural selection can only `select' mutations that occur - in the right lineage, in the right order, at the right time. But, according to "Haldane's Dilemma," a high rate of gene substitution cannot be borne by a higher animal like a mammal. In any event, what matters in the rate of gene substitution is generation times, and primates, especially humans, have one of the slowest generation times, having longer gestations, longer intervals between pregnancies, and fewer offspring. However, if "variation has been led along certain beneficial lines, as suggested by Harvard botanist Asa Gray (Gray A., 1861, pp.121-12) in a form of theistic evolution or progressive creation, then that would account for this evidence better than fully naturalistic evolution. [top] 2. Mental feats Examples of human mental feats, that far surpass that of any other animal include: "the Reverend Robert Evans" has found 36 supernovae, by spotting a "faintest twinkle," and comparing it with the star chart in his head, a feat that is comparable with spotting a new single grain of salt on fifteen hundred standard dining-room tables, in a single line two miles long, after each table had a handful of salt thrown randomly upon it (Bryson B., 2003, pp.27-28)! Or "Gert Mittring, a 38-year-old German" who "needed only 11.8seconds to solve" entirely by mental calculation "the 13th root of a hundred-digit number" ("the number which, when multiplied by itself 12 times, equals the number selected"), which had been "chosen at random," and leaving "Spectators using electronic calculators ... minutes behind" (Boyes R., 2004). "Mittring ... has become an astonishing example of the capacity of the human brain," his other "achievements include memorising a 22-decimal figure inside four seconds and 30 binary figures within three seconds, and also identifying "within 38 seconds, the days of the week of 20 random dates in a century" (Boyes R., 2004)."A 24-year-old French student has claimed a world record, becoming the first person to figure out the 13th root of a 200-digit number by mental arithmetic alone. Alexis Lemaire ... took 48 minutes and 51 seconds to arrive at the 16-figure answer. ... In December, Mr Lemaire set a world speed record of 3.625 seconds for finding the 13th root of a 100-digit number. The previous record of 11.8 seconds had been held by a 38- year-old German, Gert Mittring. ... Mr Lemaire described the 200-digit task as "the most difficult challenge in mental arithmetic in history", as there were a potential 400,000 billion permutations in the answer. He said his calculation method would be published next month in the French magazine Sciences et Avenir, which hosted the event. The 13th root is a number that must be multiplied by itself 13 times in order to equal a given value." (Brainy student gets to root of 200-digit number," ABC April 7, 2005)"A French computer science student has stunned the world of mathematics by working out the 13th root of a 200- digit number in his head in under nine minutes. By arriving at the 16-digit answer from 390 trillion possibilities, Alexis Lemaire, 24, pulled off the most difficult feat of mental arithmetic ever attempted. Mr Lemaire was presented with a random 200-digit sprawl on a computer and asked to work out its 13th root. The answer, multiplied by itself 13 times, would match the figure on the screen. Thirteenth roots are a yardstick in mental arithmetic, because 13 is a prime number whose roots cannot be obtained by combining those of other numbers. Yet Mr Lemaire appeared only mildly satisfied by his feat. At his next record attempt, he said, his brain would work even faster. "As this was my first attempt, I was cautious." On June 3, he will try to find the right answer in less than three minutes. In a few months, he believes that he will break the oneminute barrier. "If I do that, without being pretentious, it will probably be the best piece of mental calculation ever," he said. ... In December, he took only 3.62 seconds to find the 13th root of a 100digit number, obliterating the previous record of 13.55 seconds held by a German, Gert Mittring. ... "It's all about thinking visually," he said. "I have a map or matrix in my head of thousands of tables that I have learned side by side. I can scroll through them and pick out the numbers I need. ..." (Samuel H., "Do you know what the 13th root of 8368956688236956939837328662225645224 7267804664938366774973575581573035075 7040896252880238578315683768029349382 0105634336385559593151445041514949070 9419097704449305660268402771869624155 688082648640933 is?," Daily Telegraph, 24/04/2005)Woman With Perfect Memory Baffles Scientists: Patient Remembers Every Day and Almost Every Detail of Her Life, ABC, News, March 20, 2006 -- James McGaugh, is one of the world's leading experts on how the human memory system works. But these days, he admits he's stumped. McGaugh's journey through an intellectual purgatory began six years ago when a woman now known only as AJ wrote him a letter detailing her astonishing ability to remember with remarkable clarity even trivial events that happened decades ago. Give her any date, she said, and she could recall the day of the week, usually what the weather was like on that day, personal details of her life at that time, and major news events that occurred on that date. Like any good scientist, McGaugh was initially skeptical. But not anymore. "This is real," he says. Soon after AJ took over his life, McGaugh teamed with two fellow researchers at the University of California at Irvine. Elizabeth Parker, a clinical professor of psychiatry and neurology (and lead author of a report on the research in the current issue of the journal Neurocase), and Larry Cahill, an associate professor of neurobiology and behavior, have joined McGaugh in putting AJ through an exhaustive series of interviews and psychological tests. But they aren't a lot closer today to understanding her amazing ability than they were when they started. ... "the woman who can't forget" remembers trivial details as clearly as major events. Asked what happened on Aug 16, 1977, she knew that Elvis Presley had died, but she also knew that a California tax initiative passed on June 6 of the following year, and a plane crashed in Chicago on May 25 of the next year, and so forth. Some may have had a personal meaning for her, but some did not. ... Some people are able to recall past events by categorizing them. Certain events, or facts, are associated with others, and filed away together so that they may be easier to access. .... AJ does have "some sort of compulsive tendencies. She wants order in her life," McGaugh says. "As a child, she would get upset if her mother changed anything in her room because she had a place for everything and wanted everything in its place. "So she does categorize events by the date, but that doesn't explain why she remembers it." Also, her degree of recall is so much greater than any other person's in the scientific literature that it seems unlikely to be the complete answer, McGaugh adds. She is also quite different from savants who have surfaced from time to time with extraordinary abilities in music, art or memory. ... By contrast, AJ is a " fully functioning person," McGaugh says. The researchers are preparing to take their work in a new direction in hopes of understanding what is going on here. It's possible AJ's brain is wired differently, and that may show up through magnetic resonance imaging. Testing is expected to begin within six months. "We will be looking at her brain, using brain scanning techniques, to see if there's anything that is dramatically different that we can point to," McGaugh says. Those of us with normal, very fallible memories function somewhat like a computer in that different areas of our brains are interconnected and thus better-suited for general memories. We know where we live and how to get to work, but we may not know what the weather was like on this date four years ago. It's possible that AJ's brain has some "disconnections" that help her recall past events from her memory bank without interference from the parts of her brain that act as general processors. But the problem is that even if they find some interesting wiring through brain scans, the researchers will be limited in their conclusions by the fact that AJ seems to be unique. So unique, in fact, that the Irvine team has given her condition a new name. They call it hyperthymestic syndrome, based on the Greek word thymesis for "remembering" and hyper, meaning "more than normal." Some day, the researchers say, they hope to know what's different about AJ's brain, but they are still a ways off. ... [See also: Researchers Identify New Form of Superior Memory Syndrome, ScienceDaily, March 14, 2006 & UCI studies woman who can't forget, MSNBC, Gary Robbins, March 13, 2006][top] 3. Mind"There can be no doubt that the difference between the mind of the lowest man and that of the highest animal is immense. An anthropomorphous ape, if he could take a dispassionate view of his own case, would admit that though he could form an artful plan to plunder a garden- though he could use stones for fighting or for breaking open nuts, yet that the thought of fashioning a stone into a tool was quite beyond his scope. Still less, as he would admit, could he follow out a train of metaphysical reasoning, or solve a mathematical problem, or reflect on God, or admire a grand natural scene. Some apes, however, would probably declare that they could and did admire the beauty of the coloured skin and fur of their partners in marriage. They would admit, that though they could make other apes understand by cries some of their perceptions and simpler wants, the notion of expressing definite ideas by definite sounds had never crossed their minds. They might insist that they were ready to aid their fellow- apes of the same troop in many ways, to risk their lives for them, and to take charge of their orphans ; but they would be forced to acknowledge that disinterested love for all living creatures, the most noble attribute of man, was quite beyond their comprehension." (Darwin C.R., "The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex," [1871], John Murray: London, Second edition, 1874, Reprinted, 1922, pp.192-193)"Man is a primate, and in some ways not a very special one. He can do more than any other creature, but has not changed much to do so. The strangest thing about human evolution is how little there has been. Nothing else is so widespread and nobody fills so many gaps in the economy of nature. Many animals carry out tasks almost as wonderful as those achieved by men, but through biology rather than intellect. For them, success at one task means failure at all others. In the past hundred thousand - in the past hundred - years, human lives have been transformed, but bodies have not. We did not evolve, because our machines did it for us. As Darwin put it in The Descent of Man: 'The highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognize that we ought to control our thoughts'. Human progress has made a simple but crucial move, from body to mind. That mind is built from genes but what it can do has long transcended DNA. Many sociologists (and a few biologists) hope for a comparative anatomy of the mind; but that can never succeed. When it comes to what makes us different from other creatures, science can answer all the questions except the interesting ones. The human intellect stands alone. As there is nothing else like it, the rules of classification come into play. If an object is one of a kind, it is impossible to know where to put it. The problem with the mind, or any uniquely human attribute, is simple: it is, like the narwhal's tusk or the female hyena's penis, unique." (Jones J.S. (Steve), "Almost Like a Whale: The Origin of Species Updated," Doubleday: London, 1999, p.351) [top]2. Bipedalism Humans are "not the only animal that is bipedal (birds are, too), but we are the only primates who are so structured-we have a skeleton adapted for standing upright and walking" (Nelson & Jurmain, 1991, p.11. My emphasis). "The bipedal stride is unique in the animal kingdom" (Wilson, et al., 1973, p.974). While "there is a general tendency in all primates for erect body posture and some bipedalism," "efficient bipedalism as the primary form of locomotion is seen only in hominids" (Nelson & Jurmain, 1991, p.428. Emphasis original). "Functionally, the human mode of locomotion is most clearly shown in our striding gait, where weight is alternately placed on a single fully extended hindlimb ... to a point where energy levels are used to near peak efficiency (Nelson & Jurmain, 1991, p.428). "Such is not the case in nonhuman primates, who move bipedally with hips and knees bent and maintain balance in a clumsy and inefficient manner" (Nelson & Jurmain, 1991, p.428). For example, apes and monkeys can walk upright, but they do not have an "upright (orthograde) striding gait" and therefore are "neither bipedal nor orthograde(Nelson & Jurmain, 1991, p.12; Waldman, 2004). Bipedalism therefore is not just being able to walk on two legs, but having a "body structured for standing upright and walking on two legs" (Nelson & Jurmain, 1991, p.12. My emphasis). "Owen Lovejoy," perhaps the world's leading authority on human bipedalism, "has noted. ... `The move to bipedalism is one of the most striking shifts in anatomy you can see in evolutionary biology ... There are important changes in the bones, the arrangement of the muscles that power them, and the movement of the limbs" (Leakey, 1994, pp.13-14). "The striding, bipedal gait with alternating support placed on a single hindlimb has required significant structural modifications in the pelvis and leg" (Nelson & Jurmain, 1991, p.254). "In order to maintain a stable center of balance in this complex form of locomotion many drastic structural/functional alterations are demanded in the basic primate quadrupedal pattern (Nelson & Jurmain, 1991, p.429). "Functionally, the foot must be altered to act as a stable support instead of a grasping limb" (Nelson & Jurmain, 1991, p.429). "In addition, the leg must be elongated to increase the length of the stride and lower the center of gravity" (Nelson & Jurmain, 1991, pp.429-430). "The lower limb must also be remodeled to allow full extension of the knee and to allow the legs to be kept close together during walking, thereby maintaining the center of support directly under the body" (Nelson & Jurmain, 1991, p.430). "... significant changes must occur in the pelvis to permit stable weight transmission from the upper body to the legs and to maintain balance through pelvic rotation and altered proportions and orientations of several key muscles" (Nelson & Jurmain, 1991, p.430).978). "... modifications for upright posture and bipedal stride" include "straight leg, curved spine, flattened chest and positioning of head all serve to align weight of body along a vertical axis. Broad pelvis provides attachment for powerful striding muscles, and together with curved coccyx, supports the viscera. Shortened toes facilitate heel-and-toe walking motion." (Wilson, et al., 1973, pp.978-979). "The major structural changes that are required for bipedalism are all seen in the australopithecines in East and South Africa" (Nelson & Jurmain, 1991, p.430). "the remarkable footprints from Laetoli show unequivocally a bipedal adaptation" (Nelson & Jurmain, 1991, p.430). However, "they may not have been as efficient bipeds as has previously been suggested" (Nelson & Jurmain, 1991, pp.431,435). "man's erect posture and bipedal locomotion ... appeared full blown long before the great enlargement of the brain that truly characterizes our species" (Wilson, et al., 1973, p.975). But "How two-legged walking, or bipedalism, evolved and what type of locomotion preceded it are among the oldest unsolved questions in biological anthropology" (Boaz & Almquist, 2002, p.15; Boyd & Silk, 2000, p.334). "Darwin ... suggested that humans became bipedal to free their hands in order to make and use stone tools ... . But we now know from the fossil record that humans began to walk upright about 4 million years ago - long before they started making such sophisticated tools ... 2.6 million years ago" (Ward, 1998). "Another theory ... suggests that early hominids needed to stand upright to look over tall grasses to spot predators and potential prey," but "there is new evidence that shows that the earliest human ancestors were not out on the savannah, but still in the woods" (Ward, 1998). The theory "that hominids started to stand upright for improved thermal regulation when living in open country" suffers from the same "problem in assuming that early hominids were living in open country before they had these adaptations" (Ward, 1998). "The African savannas, with their great migrating herds, are relatively recent in the environment, developing less than 3 million years ago, long after the first human species evolved" (Leakey, 1994, pp.13,15). Yet another "explanation for hominids becoming bipedal" to "free... up the hands for something - carrying simple tools (sticks, stones and other found objects), food or water" (Ward, 1998). But the "evidence" cited in support of that theory, that "Chimps ... stand erect when they are carrying food" and "move on two feet when they’re carrying a branch or throwing sticks and stones," suffers from the obvious problem that chimps did not in fact become bipedal. The problem is that these "theories are ... based on logical arguments" (Ward, 1998), rather than on evidence. "as with all the other suggestions about the origins of bipedalism. Each has its advantages, and its own proponents, as well as its detractors and drawbacks. In short, the jury is still out on the origins of humanity's upright gait" (Stringer & McKie, 1997, p.18) "Bipedalism certainly was not without costs" (Boaz & Almquist, 2002, p.271). Indeed, "The cost of habitual plantigrade bipedalism is high," being "the most unstable method of mammalian progress known to zoology," and humans "only perfect the art after years of practice and innumerable tumbles. Even in their prime, damage to one leg can cripple them; once past it, equilibrium again becomes a problem. The bipedal posture, with viscera and male sex organs exposed to attack, is ill designed for confronting an enemy or predator" (Morgan, 1991, p.10). The problem is that "by becoming bipedal" a quadruped would be "giving up some real advantages to running on all fours. ... you become a very slow runner," and "can’t outrun a chicken, much less a lion" (Ward, 1998). Also, "you give up grasping feet, so you can’t seek refuge in trees as easily" (Ward, 1998). It has been claimed that "over long distances, bipedal running is an advantage to a human hunter because his four-footed quarry becomes exhausted sooner than he does." (Morgan, 1991, pp.10-11). The most recent resurrection of this claim was by a biologist and anthropologist in Nature (Bramble & Lieberman, 2004; Hopkin, 2004). They rightly point out, amongst other things, that apes have no buttocks (gluteus maximus muscles) (Reaney, 2004a). But the problem for their proposal and indeed for evolution, is that a fully functional gluteus maximus muscle complex is necessary even for a walking bipedal striding gait, let alone running. Indeed "The major structural changes that are required for bipedalism are all seen in the earliest hominids" (Jurmain, et. al., 2004, p.183). A problem for evolution is that "the development of physical features that enabled humans to run entailed a trade-off: the loss of traits useful for climbing trees (Reaney, 2004a). But this trade-off took place in "Australopithecus at least 4.5 million years ago" yet it was not until after "2.5 million to 3 million years of bipedal walking" that its advantages were fully realised (Reaney, 2004a). Bramble and Lieberman claimed there "were 26 specific traits that they say distinguished the human-like Homo habilis, about 2.3 million years ago, from the earlier ape-like Australopithecines ... who, some 4.5 million years ago, were the first primates to walk (Perlman, 2004b). Those traits listed by Bramble and Lieberman included: "Those structural changes that uniquely shaped humans for their long arm-swinging stride (Hotz, 2004) that are not found in apes, include: large, strong buttock muscles (gluteus maximus) that connect the femur - the large bone in each upper leg - to the trunk for stabilization in order to keep the body from over-balancing with each step (Connor, 2004; Hotz, 2004, Perlman, 2004b); longer legs to take longer strides (Connor, 2004, Perlman, 2004b; Reaney, 2004a); long ligaments and tendons - including the Achilles tendon - serve as springs that store and release mechanical energy in each step (Connor, 2004; Hotz, 2004; Perlman, 2004b; Reaney, 2004a); feet that act like springs (Reaney, 2004a); including the stiff arch of the human foot that pushes off the ground more efficiently and utilizes ligaments on the bottom of the feet as springs (Hotz, 2004); an enlarged heel bone for better shock absorption (Hotz, 2004), as well as shorter toes (Hotz, 2004); shorter forearms to enable the upper body to counterbalance the lower body (Perlman, 2004b; Reaney, 2004a); a more biomechanically well-balanced head with a flatter face, smaller teeth and short snout which made it easier for it to bob up and down rather than having the head sway awkwardly from side to side (Hotz, 2004; Perlman, 2004b); skull features that help prevent overheating (Reaney, 2004a); a nuchal ridge at the base of the skull attached to a broad mass of tissue that keeps the head steady when running (Connor, 2004); a ligament that runs from the back of the skull and neck down to the thoracic vertebrae, which acts as a shock absorber and helps the arms and shoulders counterbalance the head and allowed the body to rotate while the head remained facing forward (Hotz, 2004; Perlman, 2004b); a flexible neck (Connor, 2004), and larger vertebral discs relative to body mass, allowing the body to take a bigger load when the runner's feet hit the ground to give better shock absorption. Perlman, 2004b; Reaney, 2004a); wide shoulders that allow the body to rotate (Hotz, 2004); a narrow trunk, waist and pelvis that allow the upper body to counteract the movement of the legs (Hotz, 2004). Bramble and Lieberman just assume that these "26 specific traits" were the result of "strong selection for running" But like most evolutionists they conveniently forget that it is supposed to be the "natural selection" of random mutations. So what needs to be explained is why there were all those random mutations, that just happened to arrive on cue, at the right time, in the right place, in the right order, in the right lineage, for "natural selection" to select? As the great French zoologist Pierre Grasse noted, "The opportune appearance of mutations permitting animals and plants to meet their needs seems hard to believe. Yet the Darwinian theory is even more demanding: A single plant, a single animal would require thousands and thousands of lucky, appropriate events. Thus, miracles would become the rule: events with an infinitesimal probability could not fail to occur. Much as in The Swiss Family Robinson, which I used to read in my childhood, rescue would always occur at the right moment, and this would have had to have happened throughout the ages. One could admit that one bacterium out of billions and billions can be the `lucky preadapted' one, but the number of reptiles evolving into mammals or of primates evolving into men, did not exceed a few tens of thousands and often fewer; the chances of the appearance of `useful' mutations therefore decrease in the same ratio and become almost nonexistent." (Grasse, 1977, p.103. My emphasis). Also, while running "may well have been a fortunate consequence of bipedalism, but it is very unlikely to have been the cause, firstly because the fossil discoveries suggest that bipedal walking was well established before there was any evidence of hunting, and secondly because animals capable of covering short distances bipedally (for example, apes, bears, vervets, beavers) invariably revert to quadrupedalism when speed is required" (Morgan, 1991, p.11. My emphasis). "To justify the contention that game-hunting led to bipedalism, it is not enough to demonstrate that modern Homo sapiens runs more effectively on two legs: it is necessary to demonstrate than an unadapted pre-Australopithecine anthropoid could have run more effectively on two legs than on four." (Morgan, 1991, p.11). "Lovejoy's argument is that, because so drastic an anatomical rebuilding is required to transform a quadruped into a biped, an animal in which the evolutionary change is still incomplete would be an inefficient biped" (Leakey & Lewin, 1992, p.87). But, "while Darwinism can and does encompass many elements which do not directly conduce to survival or reproduction ... what it cannot countenance are variations which are harmful (O'Hear, 1989, p.142. Emphasis mine). "Every edition of The Origin of Species contains the following words, which may be taken as the fundamental axiom of the theory: `... we may feel sure that any variation in the least degree injurious would be rigidly destroyed" (O'Hear, 1989, pp.142-143; Stove, 1994; Darwin, 1872, p.81. Emphasis O'Hear)."The prehistoric record in Africa is now extensive, no longer the quip about fewer fossils than would cover a dining room table. By my count there are fossilized fragments of about a thousand human individuals from the early part of our evolution, and I wouldn't even try to count the number of stone tools. All this shows clearly that the earliest stone tools appear in the record about 2.5 million years ago, some five million years after the origin of the human family. Of one thing we can therefore be certain: the Darwinian package of bipedalism, tool making, and intelligence marching in evolutionary concert is not correct." (Leakey R. & Lewin R., "Origins Reconsidered: In Search of What Makes Us Human," [1992], Abacus: London, 1993, reprint, pp.80-81)"The evolutionary shift from quadrupedalism to bipedalism would have required an extensive remodeling of the ape's bone and muscle architecture and of the overall proportion in the lower half of the body. Mechanisms of gait are different, mechanics of balance are different, functions of major muscles are different-an entire functional complex had to be transformed for efficient bipedalism to be possible. That this transformation occurred at all indicates to me two things: first, the pressure for change through natural selection was keen; and second, the transformation itself was, on the evolutionary time scale, rapid." (Leakey R. & Lewin R., "Origins Reconsidered: In Search of What Makes Us Human," [1992], Abacus: London, 1993, reprint, pp.83-84)"The images we all have of the great plains of Africa, darkened by huge migrating herds, are indeed dramatic. So powerful are they that we tend to project them into the past, thinking that the landscape must always have been like that. Once again, it is all too easy to allow the power of present images to distort our pictures of the past. There's no doubt that the images of the plains intruded themselves into traditional ideas of human origins: our ancestors striding out onto the open savannah, there to become noble hunters. In fact, the great plains and the immense herds on them are relatively recent aspects of the African environment, much more recent than the origin of the human family." (Leakey R. & Lewin R., "Origins Reconsidered: In Search of What Makes Us Human," [1992], Abacus: London, 1993, reprint, pp.84-85)"WHATEVER THE REASON for the evolution of bipedality, recent fossil discoveries seem to indicate that hominids were already bipedal at a date which is pushing disconcertingly close to Rendezvous 1, the fork between ourselves and chimpanzees (disconcerting because it seems to leave little time for bipedality to evolve). In the year 2000, a French team led by Brigitte Senut and Martin Pickford announced a new fossil from the Tugen Hills, east of Lake Victoria in Kenya. Dubbed `Millennium Man; dated at 6 million years and given yet another new generic name, Orrorin tugenensis was also, according to its discoverers, bipedal. Indeed, they claim that the top of its femur, near the hip joint, was more human-like than that of Australopithecus. This evidence, supplemented by fragments of skull bones, suggested to Senut and Pickford that orrorins are ancestral to later hominids and that Lucys are not. These French workers go further and suggest that Ardipithecus might be ancestral to modern chimpanzees rather than to us. Clearly we need more fossils to settle these arguments. Other scientists are sceptical of these French claims, and some doubt that there is enough evidence to show whether Orrorin was or was not bipedal. If it was, since 6 million years is approximately the time of the split from chimpanzees according to molecular evidence, this raises difficult questions about the speed with which bipedality must have arisen. If a bipedal Orrorin pushes back alarmingly close to Rendezvous 1, a newly discovered skull from Chad in southern Sahara, found by another French team led by Michel Brunet, is even more disturbing to accepted ideas. This is partly because it is so old, and partly because the site is far to the west of the Rift Valley (as we shall see, many authorities had thought early hominid evolution confined to the east of the Rift). Nicknamed Toumai (Hope of Life in the local Goran language) its official name is Sahelanthropus tchadensis after the Sahel region of the Sahara in Chad where it was found. ... If their discoverers are right that Orrorin and Toumai were bipedal, this poses problems to any tidy view of human origins. The naive expectation is that evolutionary change spreads itself uniformly to fill the time available for it. If 6 million years elapsed between Rendezvous 1 and modern Homo sapiens, the quantity of change ought to be spun out, pro rata one might naively think, through the 6 million years. But Orrorin and Toumai both lived very close to the date identified from molecular evidence as that of Concestor 1, the split between our line and that of chimpanzees." (Dawkins, 2004, pp.94-96).Note this admission that "the ability to walk on two feet (bipedality) evolved *only once* because *it requires so many anatomical changes in the pelvis, knees, lower legs and feet*." that they "find it difficult to believe that *all of these changes could occur more than once*", and "there was no three-limbed transitional phase" (which means that Darwinian natural selection of micromutations didn't do it):Early Humans Walked Peculiarly?, Discovery News, Jennifer Viegas, Feb. 27, 2006 - At least two species of early humans were knock-kneed and walked rather uniquely, according to a new study on seven anklebones that belonged to various early human ancestors from eastern and southern Africa. The study, which will be published in the April issue of the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, suggests that although the early humans walked on two feet, they did not always do so with our relatively smooth stride. .... While the researchers think such early human relatives "had some gait peculiarities," they believe the ability to walk on two feet (bipedality) evolved only once because it requires so many anatomical changes in the pelvis, knees, lower legs and feet. "We find it difficult to believe that all of these changes could occur more than once," Gebo said. The scientists think bipedality must have occurred very quickly in human evolution, particularly since there was no three-limbed transitional phase. During the period of evolution, our ancestors lost their grasping big toe muscles. This "toe" in African apes, such as chimpanzees, helps in climbing trees. Gebo said we also developed platform-like, weight-bearing bodies, short toes, stocky foot bones and joints that can lock up so we do not need muscle power to remain erect. Bruce Latimer, executive director of The Cleveland Museum of Natural History, agrees bipedality evolved no more than once within the human lineage ...The problem for evolution is that if if it is so highly unlikely that a sequences of indendent major changes towards a single end (bipedalism) could naturalistically evolve "more than once," then maybe it didn't naturalistically evolve even "once"! [top] 3. Hairlessness Man's is unique among the over 4 thousand species of living mammals in his hairlessness (Morris, 1967, pp.14-16). [top] 1. Head hair"Long ago, humans had fur. Over time we lost it. What remains is, for some at least, a tuft of hair atop the head and a little more in other places. But is hair the same thing as fur? Not so, say researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. They found practically no studies on the topic. But they point out that human leg hair doesn't grow when transplanted to the head, but head hair on the leg (somebody tried this -- we don't know why) needs constant trimming. Further, our head hair has a different keratin content than chimpanzees which, the scientists point out, never need haircuts. Why did we evolve to look so naked, but with those sometimes curly locks? "If I had to guess, I would think a lot of this somehow has to do with sexual selection," said anthropologist Glenn Conroy. "But how continuously growing hair plays into sexual selection is anybody's guess." ...." ("Why Chimpanzees Don't Get Haircuts", Livescience, December 31, 2004)[top]4. Longevity Man's longevity far exceeds that of any other mammal (Asimov, 1963, pp.304-306). [top] 5. LearningAnts Are First Non-Humans to Teach, Study Says, Washington Post, Shankar Vedantam, January 16, 2006 ... The ants ... raced along a tabletop foraging for food -- and then, remarkably, returned to guide others. Time and again, followers trailed behind leaders, darting this way and that along the route, presumably to memorize landmarks. Once a follower got its bearings, it tapped the leader with its antennae, prompting the lesson to literally proceed to the next step. The ants were only looking for food, but the researchers said the careful way the leaders led followers -- thereby turning them into leaders in their own right -- marked the Temnothorax albipennis ant as the very first example of a non-human animal exhibiting teaching behavior. "Within the field of animal behavior, we would say an animal is a teacher if it modifies behavior in the presence of another, at cost to itself, so another individual can learn more quickly," said Nigel R. Franks ..., whose paper on the ant educators was published last week in the journal Nature. But defining even common behaviors such as teaching is complex, and it is even harder to understand what is happening in the brains of other animals. So it is no surprise that the paper has sparked debate over what constitutes learning and teaching in the non-human world. ... Bennett G. Galef Jr. ... said ants were unlikely to have a "theory of mind" -- meaning that leaders and followers may well have been following instinctive routines that were not based on an understanding of what was happening in another ant's brain. He warned that scientists may be barking up the wrong tree when they look not only for examples of humanlike behavior among other animals but humanlike thinking that underlies such behavior. Animals may behave in ways similar to humans without a similar cognitive system, he said, so the behavior is not necessarily a good guide into how humans came to think the way they do. ... [This is a reductio ad absurdum of those studies which simplistically infer from external behaviour in animals (e.g. tool-using, etc) that they are doing essentially the same thing as humans. See also my previous post commenting on dolphin's `music appreciation'.] [top]6. Tools The best that chimpanzees can do with tools in the wild, falls far short of what humans can do. "Six months of continuous videotaping deep in the forests of the Republic of Congo have provided the most detailed look yet at the use of tools by chimpanzees to extract termites from their nests. The videotapes show the chimps using three tools - short and long probes, depending on the size of the nest, to puncture the nest and expose termites, and a third stick to fish out the insects. The fishing probe was most often made of a type of wood generally found at some distance from the nests ... The animals modify the end of the probes with their teeth to give it a feathery surface much like a paintbrush's, thereby allowing it to capture more termites. .... Mothers were often observed teaching their infants how to fish and showing them the proper way to use the tools" (Maugh, 2004). "They [the chimps] arrive at these nests and they are carrying their tool sets with them. So they know the location that they're going to. And they're prepared. They've gathered the appropriate materials. And they arrive there ready to extract the termites from that underground nest or that elevated nest." ... a chimpanzee using a sturdy stick to make a hole in a termite nest. That done, the chimps would switch to a much thinner twig. They would flatten out the end with their teeth and use it to scoop out termites to eat. The chimps would sometimes leave their stick tools in place to share with other chimps from their group. Other times, said Sanz, they would take the tools with them, apparently to reuse them elsewhere. ... Why does it matter if a chimp changes tools? Fuentes ... says that until now, we've only known of one other species smart enough to do such a thing: human beings. "We're not going to see chimpanzees flying airplanes; we're not going to see chimpanzees opening bank branches," said Fuentes .... "We are, however, going to see chimpanzees doing the kinds of stuff we think our ancestors did." So don't worry, say the scientists, we humans are still smarter; for one thing, the chimps depend on us to protect their forests. ... (Potter, 2004a) "Quite clearly, the use of sticks in termite fishing and hammerstones to crack nuts is hardly comparable to modern human technology. However, modern human technology had its beginnings in these very types of behaviors we observe in other primates" (Jurmain, et. al., 2004, pp.146). On the contrary " the line between human and animal ... just got a little" clearer! The point is, that after ~6 million years, chimps are no further advanced in using tools than making sticks to poke into termite nests, yet humans are "flying airplanes", "opening bank branches" and trying to "protect their [chimps] forests"!] Why, if starting from the same common ancestor, sharing 98% of the same DNA, are "chimpanzees" still doing the kinds of stuff we think our" and their "ancestors did", while we humans are "flying airplanes" and "opening bank branches"? While "using tools" is not, as "once thought to be exclusive to humans", there is still an immense gap between the tools used by animals and humans:Wild gorillas seen using tools for first time, ABC/Reuters, September 30, 2005 ... Two female gorillas have been photographed using sticks as tools to get through swampy areas, the first time the apes have been seen doing so in the wild, researchers report. "This is a truly astounding discovery," said Thomas Breuer of the Wildlife Conservation Society and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, who led the study. The findings can help shed light on how human beings came to use tools, and also broaden the understanding of how animals use them, the researchers said. "Although there are reports of tool use by captive gorillas, including object throwing and use of tools in feeding, there has been to our knowledge no reported case of tool use in by wild gorillas, despite decades of field research," they wrote in their report, published in the Public Library of Science Biology [Breuer T., Ndoundou-Hockemba M., Fishlock V., "First Observation of Tool Use in Wild Gorillas," Public Library of Science Biology, 3(11), November 2005. ], an online journal. All great apes use tools in captivity, but scientists have worried this does not necessarily reflect natural behaviour, just something copied from humans. "Tool usage in wild apes provides us with valuable insights into the evolution of our own species and the abilities of other species. Seeing it for the first time in gorillas is important on many different levels," the report said. They describe the two instances in the northern rain forests of the Republic of Congo. "We first observed an adult female gorilla using a branch as a walking stick to test water deepness and to aid in her attempt to cross a pool of water at Mbeli Bai, a swampy forest clearing in northern Congo," Mr Breuer and his international colleagues wrote. In the second case, they saw another pull up a dead shrub. "She forcefully pushed it into the ground with both hands and held the tool for support with her left hand over her head for two minutes while dredging food with the other hand," they wrote. "Efi then took the trunk with both hands and placed it on the swampy ground in front of her, crossed bipedally on this self-made bridge, and walked quadrupedally towards the middle of the clearing." Chimpanzees, closely related bonobos and other apes have also been seen using tools in the wild - for instance, to catch termites. Other animals such as crows have been seen using them. But never wild gorillas. "Information on tool use and factors favouring tool use in wild apes helps us to understand its importance in the evolution of our own species," Mr Breuer and his colleagues, Mireille Ndoundou-Hockemba and Vicki Fishlock wrote. The gorillas live in a protected area, and the researchers said this was key. "These protected areas are not only important for the conservation of species they contain, they also hold the key to comparing our own development as a species with our next of kin," Mr Breuer said. ... [Also at: The Australian, BBC, CBS, CNN & Livescience. This minimal use of tools (if one can call a stick even that) is the best that primatologists have seen in apes in the wild, only underlines the uniqueness of humans.]"CHIMPS do it, crows do it, elephants do it and now wild dolphins have been spied using tools, a skill once thought to be exclusive to humans. The newfound toolmakers are a single lineage of female bottlenose dolphins in Western Australia's Shark Bay who stick sponges on their nose to help them forage for food in the muddy seabed. It is rare for marine mammals and it is also evidence of socially learned and transmitted "material culture" as the dolphins pass the trick on - mostly to their daughters - researchers claimed yesterday in the US journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "Dolphins use other foraging techniques such as sonar and co-operative hunting, but 'sponging' is the only technique to involve tool use," said team leader Michael Kruetzen .... Sea otters also use rocks in their daily foraging to break open shellfish, and whales use bubbles to herd fish. Colin Groves ... says the discovery is a reminder that tools aren't unusual in the animal kingdom. "Tool use is one of the manifestations of high learning and problem-solving ability," he said. "It's an emergent behaviour that happens at a certain level of intelligence." Scientists have studied the Shark Bay dolphins continuously since 1984, occasionally noting the sponge-on-nose trick. But it was not known that sponging probably originated with a single "sponging Eve" until Dr Kruetzen and his colleagues, including ... Bill Sherwin, studied the dolphins' genetics. The team analysed DNA from 13 spongers -- only one of which was male -- and 172 non-spongers. The spongers were closely related, suggesting the technique was recent. Professor Sherwin said sponging was a cultural, not genetic, trait. "There's no known mechanism of genetic inheritance that fits the pattern we've seen," he said. "We can also rule out that they do it because of the ecology, say mud or currents, because other dolphins at the same place don't sponge." Professor Sherwin said it was not clear why only some dolphins sponge and why they are predominantly females. ..." (Dayton L., "Sponge-using dolphins an industrial evolution," The Australian , June 08, 2005)The Mars rovers are an example of man's far superior tools compared to those of animals:"The rovers are in good shape despite showing some signs of wear The US space agency (Nasa) has approved up to 18 months of further operations for its twin Mars Exploration Rovers. Solar-powered robot geologists Spirit and Opportunity have both found signs of a watery past on Mars since landing on the Red Planet in January 2004. The rovers are showing signs of wear ... but otherwise remain in good shape. They were originally meant to carry out missions lasting just three months. But Nasa scientists and engineers knew that if the robots did not suffer unexpected failures, they could go on for much longer..." ("Nasa extends Mars rover lifespan," BBC, 11 April, 2005) [top]7. Language Only humans have true language, containing syntax and grammar (Mayr, 2001, p.253). The `languages' of animals are just systems of sending and receiving signals (Mayr, 2001, p.253). All attempts over half a century to teach language to chimpanzees have failed (Mayr, 2001, p.253). Chimpanzees lack the neural equipment to adopt syntax (Mayr, 2001, p.253). They cannot talk about the future or the past (Mayr, 2001, p.253). Claims that apes have been taught American Sign Language (ASL) are false Pinker, 1994, 2000), and are caused by the `Clever Hans' effect (see Broad & Wade, 1982, pp.110-112; Sagan, 1974, pp.61-62), where humans provide the meaning that they then attribute to the `speaking' animal. Hominids like Homo erectus lacked language and so were not truly human (Walker & Shipman, 1996, pp.234-235)Darwin theorised that human language was just "the imitation and modification of ... the voices of other animals":
"With respect to the origin of articulate language ... I cannot doubt that language owes its origin to the imitation and modification of various natural sounds, the voices of other animals, and man's own instinctive cries, aided by signs and gestures." (Darwin C.R., "The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex," [1871], John Murray: London, Second Edition, 1922, reprint, p.135)But in fact, as the Darwinist linguist Pinker points out, it is a completely different system:
"Language is ... different from other animals' communication systems ... Nonhuman communication systems are based on one of three designs: a finite repertory of calls ..., a continuous analog signal that registers the magnitude of some state ... or a series of random variations on a theme .... As we have seen, human language has a very different design. The discrete combinatorial system called `grammar' makes human language infinite ..., digital ..., and compositional ... "Even the seat of human language in the brain is special. The vocal calls of primates are controlled not by their cerebral cortex but by phylogenetically older neural structures in the brain stem and limbic system ... Human vocalizations other than language, like sobbing, laughing, moaning, and shouting in pain, are also controlled subcortically. ... Genuine language ... is seated in the cerebral cortex ..." (Pinker S., "The Language Instinct: The New Science of Language and Mind," [1994], Penguin: London, 2000, reprint, pp.365-366)[top]1. Universal grammar hardwired"Linguists studying a signing system that spontaneously developed in an isolated Bedouin village say they have captured a new language being generated from scratch. They believe its features may reflect the innate neural circuitry that governs the brain's faculty for language. The language, known as Al Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language, is used in a village of some 3,500 people in the Negev desert of Israel. They are descendants of a single founder, who arrived 200 years ago from Egypt and married a local woman. Two of the couple's five sons were deaf, as are about 150 members of the community today. .... A team led by Dr. Wendy Sandler of the University of Haifa says in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences today that the Bedouin sign language developed spontaneously and without outside influence. It is not related to Israeli or Jordanian sign languages, and its word order differs from that of the spoken languages of the region. ... Dr. Steven Pinker, a cognitive scientist at Harvard, said the Bedouin sign language was "unquestionably an important finding." Together with the work on Nicaraguan sign language and other studies, he said, it "suggests that the human mind has the motive and means to create an expressive grammatical language without requiring many generations of fine tuning, trial and error, and accumulation of cultural traditions." (Wade N., "A New Language Arises, and Scientists Watch It Evolve," The New York Times, February 1, 2005) [More evidence of Chomsky's `language module' thesis, that humans uniquely are `hardwired' for language.]"For 40 years Noam Chomsky's ideas on language have held. Now ... there's a new theory to get our tongues round. Every healthy child is born with the vocal and mental equipment necessary to learn a language. Indeed, language as opposed to simple sound communication - is one attribute that distinguishes humans from all other animals. And yet scientists find it difficult to understand why we speak so many different languages, with such a panoply of sounds and grammatical constructions. For 40 years, the study of languages has been dominated by Noam Chomsky's idea of "universal grammar", a basic set of linguistic rules that are determined ultimately by our genes. Steven Pinker developed the idea further in his 1995 book The Language Instinct, in which he argued that language is not simply a cultural invention but a biological system, partly learned and partly innate. According to this idea, we are each born with a template for grammatical construction and it is our upbringing that determines which language we end up speaking as a mother tongue. Not all linguistics scholars, however, are entirely happy with this idea. ... the linguist Professor Andrew Wedel .... challenged the Chomsky model of universal grammar with his own view that language has an innate property of selforganisation. In a nutshell, says Wedel, self-organisation is when a system evolves a large structure from repeated small-scale interactions between its smaller elements." (Connor S., "Is this the last word in linguistics?," The Independent, 2 March 2005). [One of the main items of evidence supporting Chomsky's `hardwired' universal grammar theory was the rapidity with which children learned one or more languages. Anyway, is this "self-organisation" model really all that different? Whether it is a "universal grammar" or a system for generating a vast (if not infinite) range of human languages seems largely a play on words. The bottom line is that "language - as opposed to simple sound communication - is one attribute that distinguishes humans from all other animals."]Brains built for grammar: study, CBC, 6 Feb 2006 ... The properties of grammar may be hard-wired in our brains, according to a study of people who are deaf and isolated from conventional language. Young children normally learn language through exposure to a spoken or signed language, as well as their innate abilities to acquire certain types of language patterns. To tease out the effect of each influence, researchers turn to people who aren't exposed to conventional language. For three years, researchers at the University of Rochester studied three young men in Nicaragua who were completely deaf since birth. The men had no exposure to formal sign language, never had contact with another signer and weren't exposed to written Spanish in school. Nevertheless, the boys developed a unique form of gesture communication. "Our findings suggest that certain fundamental characteristics of human language systems appear in gestural communication, even when the user has never been exposed to linguistic input and has not descended from previous generations of skilled communicative partners," said Elissa Newport, a professor of brain and cognitive sciences and linguistics. Newport and her colleagues found the signers used the same rules of grammar as other users of language, such as the grammatical concept of a "subject." The signers were tested by watching 66 short videos of actions, such as a woman walking. Researchers asked the boys to explain what they had seen in their own sign language. The findings suggest the "grammatical concept of 'subject' is part of the bedrock in which languages form," Newport said. The study appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. ... [See also EurekAlert! & ScienceDaily.] [top]2. Cause of "The Great Leap Forward"? "What happened at that magic moment in evolution around 40,000 years ago, when we suddenly became human? (my emphasis):"THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD What happened at that magic moment in evolution around 40,000 years ago, when we suddenly became human? As we saw in Chapter One, our lineage diverged from that of apes millions of years ago. For most of the time since then, we have remained little more than glorified chimpanzees in the ways we have made our living. As recently as 40,000 years ago, Western Europe was still occupied by Neanderthals, primitive beings for whom art and progress scarcely existed. Then there was an abrupt change, as anatomically modern people appeared in Europe, bringing with them art, musical instruments, lamps, trade, and progress. Within a short time, the Neanderthals were gone. That Great Leap Forward in Europe was probably the result of a similar leap that had occurred over the course of the preceding few tens of thousands of years in the Near East and Africa. Even a few dozen millenia, though, is a trivial fraction (less than one per cent) of our millions of years of history separate from that of the apes. Insofar as there was any single point in time when we could be said to have become human, it was at the time of that leap. Only a few more dozen millenia were needed for us to domesticate animals, develop agriculture and metallurgy, and invent writing. It was then but a short further step to those monuments of civilization that distinguish humans from animals across what used to seem an unbridgeable gulf- monuments such as the 'Mona Lisa' and the Eroica Symphony, the Eiffel Tower and Sputnik, Dachau's ovens and the bombing of Dresden. This chapter will confront the questions posed by our abrupt rise to humanity. What made it possible, and why was it so sudden?" (Diamond J., "The Rise and Fall of the Third Chimpanzee," Vintage: London, 1992, p.27)"Some crucial ingredients still had to be added before the Third Chimpanzee could conceive of painting the Sistine Chapel" (my emphasis):"Readers unfamiliar with details of our evolution might be forgiven for assuming that the appearance of Homo sapiens constituted the Great Leap Forward. Was our meteoric ascent to sapiens status half-a-million years ago the brilliant climax of Earth's history, when art and sophisticated technology finally burst upon our previously dull planet? Not at all: the appearance of Homo sapiens was a non-event. Cave paintings, houses, and bows and arrows still lay hundreds of thousands of years off in the future. Stone tools continued to be the crude ones that Homo erectus had been making for nearly a million years. The extra brain size of those early Homo sapiens had no dramatic effect on our way of life. That whole long tenure of Homo erectus and early Homo sapiens outside Africa was a period of infinitesimally slow cultural change. In fact, the sole candidate for a major advance was possibly the control of fire, of which caves occupied by Peking Man provide one of the earliest indications in the form of ash, charcoal, and burnt bones. Even that advance - if those cave fires really were man-lit rather than natural - would belong to Homo erectus, not Homo sapiens. Thus, the emergence of Homo sapiens illustrates the paradox discussed in Chapter One: that our rise to humanity was not directly proportional to the changes in our genes. Early Homo sapiens had progressed much further in anatomy than in cultural attainments along the road up from chimpanzeehood. Some crucial ingredients still had to be added before the Third Chimpanzee could conceive of painting the Sistine Chapel." (Diamond J., "The Rise and Fall of the Third Chimpanzee," Vintage: London, 1992, p.31"Despite their almost modern bodies, these Africans were still missing that vital something necessary to endow them with full humanity " (my emphasis):"I mentioned that the Neanderthals of Europe and Western Asia were just one of at least three human populations occupying different parts of the Old World around 100,000 years ago. A few fossils from Eastern Asia suffice to show that people there differed from Neanderthals as retell as from us moderns, but too few bones have been found to describe these Asians in more detail. The best characterized contemporaries of the Neanderthals are those from Africa, some of whom were virtually modern in their skull anatomy. Does this mean that, 100,000 years ago it Africa, we have at last arrived at the watershed of human cultural development? Surprisingly, the answer is still 'no'. The stone tools of these modern looking Africans were very similar to those of the decidedly unmodern looking Neanderthals, hence we refer to them as 'Middle Stone Age Africans'. They still lacked standardized bone tools, bows and arrows nets, fishhooks, art, and cultural variation in tools from place to place. Despite their almost modern bodies, these Africans were still missing that vital something necessary to endow them with full humanity. Once again, we face the paradox that almost modern bones, and presumably almost modern genes, are not enough by themselves to produce modern behaviour." (Diamond J., "The Rise and Fall of the Third Chimpanzee," [1991], Vintage: London, 1992, pp.38-39)"The evidence for an abrupt rise is clearest in France and Spain ... around 40,000 years ago .. modern anatomy had at last been joined by modern innovative behaviour":"Thus, the scene that the human world presented from around 100,000 to somewhat before 50, 000 years ago was this. Northern Europe, Siberia, Australia, the oceanic islands, and the whole New World were still empty of people. In Europe and Western Asia lived the Neanderthals; in Africa, people increasingly like us moderns in their anatomy; and in Eastern Asia, people unlike either the Neanderthals or Africans but known from only a few bones. All three of these populations were, at least initially, still primitive in their tools, behaviour, and limited innovativeness. The stage was set for the Great Leap Forward. Which among these three contemporary populations would take that leap? The evidence for an abrupt rise is clearest in France and Spain, in the Late Ice Age around 40,000 years ago. Where there had previously been Neanderthals, anatomically fully modern people (often known as Cro-Magnons, from the French site where their bones were first identified) now appear. Had one of those gentlemen or ladies strolled down the Champs Elysees in modern attire, he or she would not have stood out from the Parisian crowds in any way. As dramatic to archaeologists as the Cro-Magnons' skeletons are their tools, which are far more diverse in form and obvious in function than any in the earlier archaeological record. The tools suggest that modern anatomy had at last been joined by modern innovative behaviour." (Diamond J., "The Rise and Fall of the Third Chimpanzee," [1991], Vintage: London, 1992, p.40)"The replacement of Neanderthals by modern people occurred somewhat earlier in Eastern Europe, and still earlier in the Near East":"So much for the Great Leap Forward in Western Europe. The replacement of Neanderthals by modern people occurred somewhat earlier in Eastern Europe, and still earlier in the Near East, where possession of the same area apparently shifted back and forth between Neanderthals and modern people from 90,000 to 60,000 years ago. The slowness of the transition in the Near East, compared to its speed in Western Europe, suggests that the anatomically modern people living around the Near East before 60,000 years ago had not yet developed the modern behaviour that ultimately let them drive out the Neanderthals." (Diamond J., "The Rise and Fall of the Third Chimpanzee," [1991], Vintage: London, 1992, pp.45-46)"What tiny change in genes could have had such enormous consequences? ... I can think of only one plausible answer: the anatomical basis for spoken complex language":"Some groups of humans who lived in Africa and the Near East over 60,000 years ago were quite modern in their anatomy, as far as can be judged from their skeletons, but they were not modern in their behaviour. They continued to make Neanderthal-like tools and to lack innovation. The ingredient that produced the Great Leap Forward does not show up in fossil skeletons. There is another way to restate that puzzle. We share ninety-eight per cent of our genes with chimpanzees ... The Africans making Neanderthal-like tools just before our sudden rise to humanity had covered almost all of the remaining genetic distance between us and chimps, to judge from their skeletons. Perhaps they shared 99.9% of their genes with us. Their brains were as large as ours, and Neanderthals' brains were even slightly larger. The missing ingredient may have been a change in only 0.1 % of our genes. What tiny change in genes could have had such enormous consequences? Like some other scientists who have speculated about this question, I can think of only one plausible answer: the anatomical basis for spoken complex language." (Diamond J., "The Rise and Fall of the Third Chimpanzee," [1991], Vintage: London, 1992, pp.46-47)"Like a Swiss watch, all of whose many parts have to be well-designed for the watch to keep time at all, our vocal tract depends on the precise functioning of many structures and muscles" (my emphasis):"Given this capability for symbolic communication using sounds, why have apes not gone on to develop much more complex natural languages of their own? The answer seems to involve the structure of the larynx, tongue, and associated muscles that give us fine control over spoken sounds. Like a Swiss watch, all of whose many parts have to be well-designed for the watch to keep time at all, our vocal tract depends on the precise functioning of many structures and muscles. Chimps are thought to be physically incapable of producing several of the commonest human vowels. If we too were limited to just a few vowels and consonants, our own vocabulary would be greatly reduced. For example, take this paragraph, convert all vowels other than `a' or `i' to either of those two, convert all consonants other than `d' or `m' or `s' to one of those three, and then see how much of the paragraph you can still understand. Therefore, the missing ingredient may have been some modifications of the proto-human vocal tract to give us finer control and permit formation of a much greater variety of sounds. Such fine modifications of muscles need not be detectable in fossil skulls. It is easy to appreciate how a tiny change in anatomy resulting in capacity for speech would produce a huge change in behaviour. With language, it takes only a few seconds to communicate the message, `Turn sharp right at the fourth tree and drive the male antelope towards the reddish boulder, where I'll hide to spear it.' Without language, that message could be communicated only with difficulty, if at all. Without language, two protohumans could not brainstorm together about how to devise a better tool, or about what a cave painting might mean. Without language, even one proto-human would have had difficulty thinking out for himself or herself how to devise a better tool." (Diamond J., "The Rise and Fall of the Third Chimpanzee," [1991], Vintage: London, 1992, pp.47-48)"The human voice box or larynx is like a Swiss watch, with dozens of tiny muscles, nerves and pieces of cartilage working together to produce sounds":"The human voice box or larynx is like a Swiss watch, with dozens of tiny muscles, nerves and pieces of cartilage working together to produce sounds. Thus, a small change in the structure of the larynx, which lets us pronounce dozens of distinct sounds instead of just a few, may have been the trigger for complex language and hence for the Great Leap Forward, and this may have been the missing prerequisite for the development of human inventiveness. With languages we can invent. For that reason it is almost inconceivable that those uninventive humans of 100,000 years ago could have had language as we know it." (Diamond J.M., "The Evolution of Human Creativity," in Campbell J.H. & Schopf J.W., eds., "Creative Evolution?!: Proceedings of a symposium sponsored by the Center for the Study of Evolution and the Origin of Life at the University of California, Los Angeles, in March, 1993," Jones & Bartlett: London, 1994, p.79)"Clear evidence of a Great Leap Forward in our behaviour appear suddenly in Europe around 40,000 years ago, coincident with the arrival of anatomically modern Homo sapiens from Africa via the Near East (my emphasis):"The first indications that our ancestors were in any respect unusual among animals were our extremely crude stone tools that began to appear in Africa by around two-and-a-half million years ago. The quantities of tools suggest that they were beginning to play a regular, significant role in our livelihood. Among our closest relatives, in contrast, the pygmy chimpanzee and gorilla do not use tools, while the common chimpanzee occasionally makes some rudimentary ones but hardly depends on them for its existence. Nevertheless, those crude tools of ours did not trigger any quantum Jump in our success as a species. For another million-and-a-half years, we remained confined to Africa. Around a million years ago we did manage to spread to warm areas of Europe and Asia, thereby becoming the most widespread of the three chimpanzee species but still much less widespread than lions. Our tools progressed only at an infinitely slow rate, from extremely crude to very crude. By a hundred thousand years ago, at least the human populations of Europe and western Asia, the Neanderthals were regularly using fire, but in other respects we continued to rate as just another species of big mammal. We had developed not a trace of art agriculture, or high technology. It is unknown whether we had developed language, drug addiction, or our strange modern sexual habits and life-cycle, but Neanderthals rarely lived beyond the age of forty and hence may not yet have evolved female menopause. Clear evidence of a Great Leap Forward in our behaviour appear suddenly in Europe around 40,000 years ago, coincident with the arrival of anatomically modern Homo sapiens from Africa via the Near East. At that point, we began displaying art, technology based on specialized tools, cultural differences from place to place, and cultural innovation with time. This leap in behavior undoubtedly been developing outside Europe, but the development must have been rapid, since the anatomically modern Homo sapiens populations living in southern Africa 100,000 years ago were still just glorified chimpanzees, judging by the debris in their cave sites. Whatever caused the leap it must have involved only a tiny fraction of our genes, because we still differ from chimps in only 1.6% of our genes, and most of that difference had already developed long before our leap in behaviour. The best guess I can make is that the leap was triggered by the perfection of our modern capacity for language." (Diamond J., "The Rise and Fall of the Third Chimpanzee," Vintage: London, 1992, pp.328-329)"These convergent parallels suggest some genetic hard wiring of a universal grammar inside our brains":"These convergent parallels suggest some genetic hard wiring of a universal grammar inside our brains. We fall back on that genetically hardwired universal grammar if we do not hear another complex grammatical language being spoken around us when we are growing up as children. If, however-like most people-we grow up hearing a normal complex language around us, we learn that language and its grammar, which override our genetically hard-wired universal grammar available under conditions of default." (Diamond J.M., "The Evolution of Human Creativity," in Campbell J.H. & Schopf J.W., eds., "Creative Evolution?!: Proceedings of a symposium sponsored by the Center for the Study of Evolution and the Origin of Life at the University of California, Los Angeles, in March, 1993," Jones & Bartlett: London, 1994, p.81) [top]8. MathematicsGeometry ability may be innate, ABC/Reuters, 20 January 2006 ... Amazonian hunter-gatherers who lack written language and who have never seen a maths book do well on basic geometry tests, researchers say in a study that suggests geometry may be hard-wired into the brain. Adults and children alike showed a clear grasp of concepts such as where the centre of a circle is and the logical extension of a straight line. This was despite not having words for these concepts, the researchers report today in the journal Science. Professor Stanislas Dehaene ... and colleagues tested 14 children and 30 adults of an Amazonian group called the Munduruku, and compared their findings to tests of US adults and children. "Munduruku children and adults spontaneously made use of basic geometric concepts such as points, lines, parallelism, or right angles to detect intruders in simple pictures, and they used distance, angle, and sense relationships in geometrical maps to locate hidden objects," they write. "Our results provide evidence for geometrical intuitions in the absence of schooling, experience with graphic symbols or maps, or a rich language of geometrical terms." Geometry is an ancient field and Dehaene's team postulated that it may spring from innate abilities. "Many of its propositions -- that two points determine a line, or that three orthogonal axes localize a point -- are judged to be self-evident and yet have been questioned on the basis of logical argument, physical theory, or experiment," the researchers write. There was no way the Munduruku could have learned these ideas, they add. "Most of the children and adults who took part in our experiments inhabit scattered, isolated villages and have little or no schooling, rulers, compasses, or maps," they write. "Furthermore, the Munduruku language has few words dedicated to arithmetical, geometrical, or spatial concepts, although a variety of metaphors are spontaneously used." ... They designed arrays of six images, each of which contained five conforming to a geometric concept and one that violated it. "The participants were asked, in their language, to point to the weird or ugly one," the researchers write. "All participants, even those aged 6, performed well above the chance level of 16.6%." The average score was nearly 67% correct, identical to the score for US children. "The spontaneous understanding of geometrical concepts and maps by this remote human community provides evidence that core geometrical knowledge, like basic arithmetic, is a universal constituent of the human mind," they conclude. ...
We're hard-wired for geometry: Tests with Amazon villagers hint at innate geometrical sense, MSNBC, Daniel B. Kane, Jan. 19, 2006 WASHINGTON - Even if you never learned the difference between a triangle, a rectangle and a trapezoid, and you never used a ruler, a compass or a map, you would still do well on some basic geometry tests, according to a new study. Using a series of nonverbal tests, scientists claim to have uncovered core knowledge of geometry in villagers from a remote region of the Amazon who have little schooling or experience with maps and speak a language without the mathematical language of geometry. This research appears in Friday's issue of the journal Science, published by AAAS, the nonprofit science society. For thousands of years, people have wondered if the basics of geometry came naturally to all humans or if they were something you had to learn through instruction or cultural experiences. According to Plato's writings, Socrates attempted to determine how well an uneducated slave in a Greek household understood geometry, and eventually concluded that the slave's soul "must have always possessed this knowledge. ..." [See also Livescience]."`I hope you have not murdered too completely your own and my child.' So wrote Darwin to Alfred Russel Wallace, the biologist who had independently discovered natural selection. What prompted the purple prose? Darwin and Wallace were mutual admirers, so like-minded that they had been inspired by the same author (Malthus) to forge the same theory in almost the same words. What divided these comrades was the human mind. Darwin had coyly predicted that `psychology will be placed on a new foundation,' and in his notebooks was positively grandiose about how evolutionary theory would revolutionize the study of mind ... But Wallace reached the opposite conclusion. The mind, he said, is overdesigned for the needs of evolving humans and cannot be explained by natural selection. Instead, `a superior intelligence has guided the development of man in a definite direction, and for a special purpose.' ... Wallace became a creationist when he noted that foragers-'savages,' in nineteenth-century parlance-were biologically equal to modern Europeans. Their brains were the same size, and they could easily adapt to the intellectual demands of modern life. But in the foragers' way of life, which was also the life of our evolutionary ancestors, that level of intelligence was not needed, and there was no occasion to show it off. How, then, could it have evolved in response to the needs of a foraging lifestyle? Wallace wrote: `.... Natural selection could only have endowed savage man with a brain a few degrees superior to that of an ape, whereas he actually possesses one very little inferior to that of a philosopher.' [Wallace A., "Natural Selection and Tropical Nature," 1895, p.202] Wallace's paradox, the apparent evolutionary uselessness of human intelligence, is a central problem of psychology, biology, and the scientific worldview. Even today, scientists such as the astronomer Paul Davies think that the `overkill' of human intelligence refutes Darwinism and calls for some other agent of a `progressive evolutionary trend,' perhaps a self-organizing process that will be explained someday by complexity theory. Unfortunately this is barely more satisfying than Wallace's idea of a superior intelligence guiding the development of man in a definite direction. ... Stephen Jay Gould, in an illuminating essay on Darwin and Wallace, sees Wallace as an extreme adaptationist who ignores the possibility of exaptations: adaptive structures that are `fortuitously suited to other roles if elaborated' ... `Objects designed for definite purposes can, as a result of their structural complexity, perform many other tasks as well. A factory may install a computer only to issue the monthly pay checks, but such a machine can also analyze the election returns or whip anyone's ass (or at least perpetually tie them) in tic-tac-toe.' [Gould S.J., "The Panda's Thumb," 1980, p.50] I agree with Gould that the brain has been exapted for novelties like calculus or chess, but this is just an avowal of faith by people like us who believe in natural selection; it can hardly fail to be true. It raises the question of who or what is doing the elaborating and co-opting, and why the original structures were suited to being co-opted. The factory analogy is not helpful. A computer that issues paychecks cannot also analyze election returns or play tic- tac-toe, unless someone has reprogrammed it first.'" (Pinker S., "How the Mind Works," [1997], Penguin: London, 1998, reprint, pp.299-301) . [top]9. Music"Scientists have taught dolphins to combine both rhythm and vocalisations to produce music, resulting in an extremely high-pitched, short version of the Batman theme song. The findings, outlined in two studies, are the first time that nonhuman mammals have demonstrated they can recognise rhythms and reproduce them vocally. "Humans are sensitive to rhythms embedded in sequences of sounds, but we typically consider this skill to be part of processing for language and music, cognitive domains that we consider to be uniquely human," says Professor Heidi Harley, lead author of both studies. "Clearly, aspects of those domains are available to other species." ... The researchers first had an adult male bottlenose dolphin position itself in front of an underwater sound projector, called a hydrophone, that produced six different 14 kiloherz, 4 second rhythms. The dolphin was rewarded for performing a certain behaviour to each rhythm. For example, when rhythm 1 played, it waved its pectoral fin and when rhythm 2 played, it tossed a ball. The various rhythms were played at different frequencies and tempos to ensure the dolphin was recognising rhythms instead of just frequencies or sound durations. Another adult male was trained to produce similar rhythms using a pneumatic switch, essentially a small, air-filled ball connected to a computer that then generated sounds whenever the dolphin pressed the switch. "The dolphin was reinforced for producing a specific rhythm to a specific object," .... The dolphin spontaneously vocalised to the rhythms, so the researchers started to reward the male with fish whenever it matched its 'singing' to the rhythms. By the end of the studies, the scientists could show an object, such as the Batman doll, which represented a certain rhythm-vocalisation combo to the dolphin, and it would create the correct sounds both vocally and using the switch. .. Gordon Bauer ... says, "This is the first report, to my knowledge, of a nonhuman mammal's ability to discriminate rhythmic patterns." But Bauer doubts that dolphins realise they are producing what people consider 'music'. "I think music is a human construct," he says. "I doubt that it has pertinence to animals, although the elements of music, such as pitch, time, timbre, rhythm, etc, may be incorporated into animal communication." Harley agrees ..." (Viegas J., "Dolphins sing 'Batman' theme," ABC/Discovery News, 3 October 2005).[It is refreshing to hear an animal behaviourist acknowledge that while animals may appear to be doing something similar to humans (in this case "to combine both rhythm and vocalisations to produce music") it is not really music in the sense that the animal is just producing sounds without realizing that it is music.] [top] 10. AltruismSelfish chimps don't give a monkey's , ABC/Reuters, 27 October 2005. Chimpanzee ... Chimpanzees share many traits with humans but altruism, it seems, is not one of them, scientists say. Although chimps live in social groups and co-operate and hunt together, when it comes to helping non-related group members, they don't put up with any monkey business. When given the opportunity to help themselves and other chimps they often choose the selfish option, scientists report in today's issue of the journal Nature . "This is the first experiment to show that chimps don't share the same concern for the welfare of others as do humans, who routinely donate blood ... volunteer for military duty and perform other acts that benefit perfect strangers," says Professor Joan Silk , a US anthropologist at the University of California, Los Angeles. To test how altruistic chimps are, Silk and her colleagues studied the behaviour of two separate groups of chimps in captivity. They devised an experiment in which chimps on one side of a window could pull a handle to provide a tray of food for themselves or to also give the same reward to a monkey in another room on the opposite side of the window. Both groups of unrelated chimpanzees behaved in a similar way. They decided to reward themselves but not others. The scientists say chimps may have not understand they could deliver food to the other room. "Yet, potential recipients sometimes displayed begging gestures, suggesting that at least they had some understanding of the other's role in delivering reward to them," Silk says. "Nevertheless, chimpanzees were clearly motivated to obtain rewards for themselves, but not to provide rewards for other group members ...Chimps fall down on friendship , BBC 27 October 2005 ... Captive chimpanzees fail to help others in their social group, even when it causes no inconvenience, a behavioural study in Nature journal has found. Helpfulness is prevalent in humans, even when it may harm the helper's own interests to aid another. Humanlike attributes shown by chimps include tool use and maybe rudimentary language skills, but this study suggests altruism is not among them. But other researchers said that captive chimps may be less socially inclined. A team led by Joan Silk ... set captive chimpanzees tests in which they obtained a food reward. The chimps were presented with two reward options. One option allowed a chimp only to serve itself with food. The other secured the same reward, but also delivered food to another chimpanzee in an enclosure next door. Dr Silk's team found the 29 chimps tested in the study were no more likely to pick the second option than the first, even though it allowed them to do a "good deed" at no cost to themselves. The result was surprising because the chimps had been living together in the same group for 15 years. They were not related, but might have been expected to be very close. Food sharing has been demonstrated in groups of wild chimpanzees. So the Nature study raises questions about how this behaviour arises. Other researchers suggest that the result could be down to the unnatural situation or to differences in behaviour brought on by captivity ...Generosity Is No Monkey Business, Finds UCLA-Led Study , UCLA News, October 26, 2005 ... Given the opportunity to spread random acts of kindness, chimps would just as soon pass, finds a new UCLA-led study. The study, published in the Oct. 27 issue of the journal Nature, suggests at least one way in which humans differ from their closest living relatives in the animal kingdom. "Because chimps participate in collective activities such as cooperative hunting and food sharing and they console injured group members and human caregivers, their capacity for empathy and altruism has been an object of considerable curiosity," said UCLA anthropologist Joan Silk, the study's lead author. "This is the first experiment to show that chimps don't share the same concern for the welfare of others as do humans, who routinely donate blood, tithe, volunteer for military duty and perform other acts that benefit perfect strangers." Silk led a team of researchers ... as they conducted experiments with two separate groups of chimps. They first studied seven adult chimps in captivity in Louisiana. Although the chimps were not related, they were quite familiar with each other, having lived together for 12 years. The chimpanzees were brought into a small testing room with a window in it. Behind the window was a feeding device attached to two trays of food. When the chimp pulled a handle, one of the trays moved toward him and the other tray moved toward another chimp in a room on the opposite side of the window. The chimps with access to the handle faced two choices: They could continue delivering food to both themselves and the other chimp or they could pull a handle that delivered food only to themselves. Each of the chimps had the chance to dispense rewards to each of the other chimpanzees in the group. As a control, all of the dispensers of rewards were offered the same choice without a chimp in the other room. At another site in Texas, the researcher tested 11 other adult chimps. The animals had rich social experiences and were members of stable social groups, but they had not participated in cognitive testing before. They worked with a slightly different apparatus, but confronted the same sets of choices. The results from both these sites were similar: The presence of a potential recipient of the food had no impact on the chimpanzees' choice. The chimps in Louisiana chose this option about 56 percent of the time when another chimp was present and about 58 percent when another chimp was absent. The chimps in Texas chose the option that provided rewards to the other chimp 48 percent of the time, exactly the same percentage of time that they delivered rewards to an empty enclosure. "It is possible that the chimpanzees in our experiments understood how to obtain food for themselves, but did not understand that they were responsible for delivering rewards to the chimpanzee in the adjoining enclosure," Silk and her colleagues wrote in the Nature paper. "Yet, potential recipients sometimes displayed begging gestures, suggesting that at least they had some understanding of the other's role in delivering rewards to them. Nevertheless, chimpanzees were clearly motivated to obtain rewards for themselves, but not to provide rewards for other group members." The findings add mystery to the origins of human altruism, a popular research topic among economists and anthropologists. "Had the chimps shown signs of altruism, researchers looking to explain the origins of altruistic behavior in humans would have known to look at other species with whom we share a common ancestor," Silk said. "This study suggests that concern for the welfare of unrelated group members and strangers may be a trait that has emerged in humans, but not in other closely related species, like great apes. Alternatively, perhaps a better place to look for prosocial preferences would be in species that rely more heavily on cooperation, such as cooperatively breeding mammals." ...Joan Silk is no lightweight, being the co-author of one of my anthropology textbooks (Boyd R. & Silk J.B., "How Humans Evolved," [1997], W.W. Norton & Co: New York NY, Second Edition, 2000), which is strongly Darwinist. So this sounds like a major problem for Social Darwinist (aka Sociobiology/ Evolutionary Psychology/ Behavioral Ecology) theory which regards human altruism (i.e. "perform other acts that benefit perfect strangers") as no different in kind from that which seems to occur in some animals (but which may be only towards relatives). The explanation that "the result could be down to the unnatural situation or to differences in behaviour brought on by captivity" would invalidate any other experiments done on chimps in captivity! Also, it would seem likely that in the wild, what seems to be altruistic behaviour in chimps and other animals may in fact be towards their relatives. In these experiments in captivity, the chimps were known not to be relatives of each other. So it seems that the minority view mentioned in my main biology textbook may be right that "true altruism never really occurs, except ...in humans":"Some animals occasionally behave altruistically toward others who are not relatives. A baboon may help an unrelated companion in a fight, or a wolf may offer food to another wolf even though they share no kinship. Such behavior can be adaptive if the aided individual returns the favor in the future. This sort of exchange of aid is called reciprocal altruism and is commonly invoked to explain altruism in humans. Reciprocal altruism is rare in other animals; it is limited largely to species with social groups stable enough that individuals have many chances to exchange aid. It is likely that all behavior that seems altruistic actually increases fitness in some way. Thus, some behavioral ecologists argue that true altruism never really occurs, except, perhaps, in humans." (Campbell N.A., Reece J.B. & Mitchell L.G., "Biology," [1987], Benjamin/Cummings: Menlo Park CA, Fifth edition, 1999, p.1078)..More evidence that humans are `hardwired' for altruism:Study Shows Babies Try to Help: Study Suggests That the Capacity for Altruism Emerges As Early As 18 Months of Age, ABC News/AP, Lauran Neergaard WASHINGTON Mar 2, 2006 (AP) - Oops, the scientist dropped his clothespin. Not to worry a wobbly toddler raced to help, eagerly handing it back. The simple experiment shows the capacity for altruism emerges as early as 18 months of age. Toddlers' endearing desire to help out actually signals fairly sophisticated brain development, and is a trait of interest to anthropologists trying to tease out the evolutionary roots of altruism and cooperation. Psychology researcher Felix Warneken performed a series of ordinary tasks in front of toddlers, such as hanging towels with clothespins or stacking books. Sometimes he "struggled" with the tasks; sometimes he deliberately messed up. Over and over, whether Warneken dropped clothespins or knocked over his books, each of 24 toddlers offered help within seconds but only if he appeared to need it. Video shows how one overall-clad baby glanced between Warneken's face and the dropped clothespin before quickly crawling over, grabbing the object, pushing up to his feet and eagerly handing back the pin. ...[top] 11. Cooperation"Despite the fact that humans sometimes fight fiercely among themselves, one of our most distinctive human traits is our willingness to cooperate with others. Why we are like that is one of the really big questions confronting evolutionary psychologists. "The fact that people cooperate is quite mysterious," says Robert Kurzban .... "People are constantly talking about how organisms are competing, but one thing that humans do that's distinctive is they cooperate in groups." Other animals, from ants to wolves, also cooperate to a degree, but not as extensively as humans. As evolutionary psychologists, Kurzban and Daniel Houser ... are trying to figure out why. ..." (Dye L., "All For One?: Why Humans Cooperate Cooperation Makes Humans Unique, But Study Finds Most Are Reluctant Cooperators," ABCNEWS, Feb. 15, 2005) [top]12. CultureHomo erectus "1.66 million-year-old stone tools in northern China" and "stone tools near the Black Sea in Georgia" "1.75 million years ago" show "little progress in toolmaking in the 100,000 years between the two sites" (Wilford, 2004). "The ...characteristic tool kit of the Neanderthals, the Mousterian culture... appeared around 100,000 years ago, and remained basically uniform across Europe for 65,000 years. In this cultural stasis Neanderthal ... resembled H. erectus rather than the Cro-Magnon people (anatomically modern) which followed them. Cro-Magnon culture changed continuously from one technique to another (Mellars, 1989). In less than half the tenure of the Neanderthals, they were walking on the moon!" (Wilcox, 1990, p.7:12; Templeton & Herrmann, 1994, p.135; Davis & Kenyon, 1993, p.111)."Dr. Robert Boyd tends to discount the "nature versus nurture" debate. Over a 30-year career, Dr. Boyd ... has made it his task to show how contemporary human behavior is rooted in the cultures that humans developed as they lived the evolutionary process. In the recent book "Not by Genes Alone: How Culture Transformed Human Evolution," Dr. Boyd and his co-author ... explained why culture was "essential to human adaptation, as much a part of human biology as bipedal locomotion." ... Q. ... What makes your theory new? A. Unlike the conventional nature-nurture view, we explain why culture is adaptive, and why it causes people to behave so differently from other animals. We say that while in the long run all organisms adapt by genes, only humans can accumulate knowledge over long periods of time and transfer it so that the next generation can improve on it. It's this trick that has allowed people to be as successful as we are. We have the widest range of any mammal. We occupy every inch of the globe basically except Antarctica. We were able to do it because different human populations can acquire from the previous generation the special tools and ways you need to live in such a wide variety of places. There's no way that genes can teach an Inuit how to make a kayak, but others in the community can. Humans are animals who evolved in the tropics, but who now hunt for seals in the Arctic. We've been able to do that because we have culture. Q. Don't animals have culture? A. Not in the sense that they have traditions that change as they are transmitted. O.K., chimpanzees in one forest in Africa use short sticks to fish for ants. In another, they use longer ones. Yes, this seems to be socially transmitted. But what doesn't happen is an accumulation of knowledge. What they don't get is something that gets better and better through time. In human cultures, things change with each generation. Populations create things that are useful in their survival and these things evolve and get better so that people can flourish. No single individual could have created something as complex and functional as the kayak. Q. There are biologists who think that a lot of our behavior is hard-wired into our genes. Do you? A. I don't think anything is hard-wired. Even the number of fingers on your hands isn't hard- wired. Even the genes that get expressed as your limbs develop depending on environmental circumstances. The thalidomide babies of the 1950's know that rather directly." (Dreifus C., "How Culture Pushed Us to the Top of the Food Chain," New York Times, May 10, 2005) [top]13. Economics"ECONOMISTS often like to speak of Homo economicus-rational economic man. In practice, human economic behaviour is not quite as rational as the relentless logic of theoretical economics suggests it ought to be. When buying things in a straight exchange of money for goods, people often respond to changes in price in exactly the way that theoretical economics predicts. But when faced with an exchange whose outcome is predictable only on average, most people prefer to avoid the risk of making a loss than to take the chance of making a gain in circumstances when the average expected outcome of the two actions would be the same. There has been a lot of discussion about this discrepancy in the economic literature-in particular, about whether it is the product of cultural experience or is a reflection of a deeper biological phenomenon. So Keith Chen, of the Yale School of Management, and his colleagues decided to investigate its evolutionary past. They reasoned that if they could find similar behaviour in another species of primate (none of which has yet invented a cash economy) this would suggest that loss-aversion evolved in a common ancestor. They chose the capuchin monkey, Cebus apella, a South American species often used for behavioural experiments. ... First, the researchers had to introduce their monkeys to the idea of a cash economy. They did this by giving them small metal discs while showing them food. The monkeys quickly learned that humans valued these inedible discs so much that they were willing to trade them for scrumptious pieces of apple, grapes and jelly. Preliminary experiments established the amount of apple that was valued as much as either a grape or a cube of jelly, and set the price accordingly, at one disc per food item. The monkeys were then given 12 discs and allowed to trade them one at a time for whichever foodstuff they preferred. Once the price had been established, though, it was changed. The size of the apple portions was doubled, effectively halving the price of apple. At the same time, the number of discs a monkey was given to spend fell from 12 to nine. The result was that apple consumption went up in exactly the way that price theory (as applied to humans) would predict. Indeed, averaged over the course of ten sessions it was within 1% of the theory's prediction. One up to Cebus economicus. The experimenters then began to test their animals' risk aversion. They did this by offering them three different trading regimes in succession. Each required choosing between the wares of two experimental "salesmen". In the first regime one salesman offered one piece of apple for a disc, while the other offered two. However, half the time the second salesman only handed over one piece. Despite this deception, the monkeys quickly worked out that the second salesman offered the better overall deal, and came to prefer him. In the second trading regime, the salesman offering one piece of apple would, half the time, add a free bonus piece once the disc had been handed over. The salesman offering two pieces would, as in the first regime, actually hand over only one of them half the time. In this case, the average outcome was identical, but the monkeys quickly reversed their behaviour from the first regime and came to prefer trading with the first salesman. In the third regime, the second salesman always took the second piece of apple away before handing over the goods, while the first never gave freebies. So, once again, the outcomes were identical. In this case, however, the monkeys preferred the first salesman even more strongly than in the second regime. What the responses to the second and third regimes seem to have in common is a preference for avoiding apparent loss, even though that loss does not, in strictly economic terms, exist. That such behaviour occurs in two primates suggests a common evolutionary origin. It must, therefore, have an adaptive explanation. What that explanation is has yet to be worked out. One possibility is that in nature, with a food supply that is often barely adequate, losses that lead to the pangs of hunger are felt more keenly than gains that lead to the comfort of satiety. Agriculture has changed that calculus, but people still have the attitudes of the hunter-gatherer wired into them. Economists take note. ..." ("Monkey business-sense," The Economist, June 23, 2005)[An experiment with only one species of monkey, that is far removed from man, proves nothing. This could be a result of game theory that works whenever there is an animal that can remember rewards and penalties. But I will add it as another unique feature of man, that among all "species of primate (none of which has yet invented a cash economy)" except man.] [top] 14. One species"Humans ... belong to the one remaining genus of the superfamily Hominoidea, a genus that today consists of only one species Homo sapiens" (Nelson, 1991, p.253). That is, man is one species, despite being separated by continents, yet apes, separated by lesser barriers, have fragmented into two or more species, e.g. orang utans (Kirby, 2004). [top]15. Total packageNo naturalistic theory of evolution is able to plausibly explain the simultaneous emergence of a number of completely separate biological systems that distinguish human beings from the higher primates, includng bipedalism (with all the changes that required), a dexterous hand with fingerprints; language (again with all the changes that required) (Schutzenberger M-P., 1996). [top]
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Created: 3 November, 2003. Updated: 8 October, 2006.