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human hands evolved their square palms and long thumb to stabilise the fist and produce a compact club for use in combat

Uh huh. Because an opposable thumb wasn't useful for other things, like, say, gripping tools and manipulating items found in nature ... Characteristics that would give their owners a huge step up on the evolutionary ladder.

The fact is, the human fist, unless it's in the "hands" of someone like Mike Tyson, isn't a particularly formidable weapon. Just about any animal can do major damage to a man. The only thing that saves us is our brains, and in the case of a lot of Democrats, that would have consigned them to the category of "snack."

This strikes me as a couple of irrelevant revisionists looking for a vehicle to justify their salaries ...

The palm is more powerful than the fist, and once it has made contact, the fingers are there to seize and rip and tear. Take an early man's use of his bare hands as daily tools especially digging tools for roots, tubers, etc. and you have dextrous and tough digits that are very weaponized. Tiger Kung Fu practicioners strive to recreate this hand development by driving their hands and fingers into gravel, pushups on their fingertips, seizing canvas bags full of chains and tossing them in the air using their fingertips, etc. I once had a discussion with a University of Wyoming student who thought early man couldn't have processed meat before he had mastered toolmaking, and I countered that early man had much stronger fingers from daily use than I, and after using my teeth to make an initial hole in the hide, I could field dress, section and butcher out an antelope carcass with my fingers.

In addition, when primates strike with their "hands", it's also with the palm heel as the point of blunt contact, then once contact is made, the fingers to seize and tear. I refer to the unfortunate incidents where chimps seem to go for tearing people's faces off.

Psalm 144: "Blessed be the LORD my Strength; Who teaches my hands to war, and my fingers to fight."