'Man the Hunter' theory is debunked in new book

Washington University in St. Louis ^ | February 2, 2005 | By Neil Schoenherr

[Pharmboy]

First, Pat Shipman and her colleagues tried to turn the anthropologists away from the hunting hypothesis with "Man the Scavenger." BS.

Now, Sussman has "Man the Hunted." The PC crap is so thick these "scientists" can't see their own noses.

[Slainte]

I guess our ancesters needed that running ability because those early nuts and fruits were pretty fast...

Perhaps they were running from the eagles.

[longtermmemmory]

must be from the same people who said there were no guns during revolutionary times.

This is just an effort to make men into a bunch of p**si*s.

Do these idiots have tenure?

[LRS]

Perhaps they were running from the eagles.

"Well, I'm a-runnin' down the road tryin' to loosen my load..."

[El Gato]

Anyway even at that I think you'll find even America is largely peaceful when Law and Order is in place. If there are 250m Americans and the vast majority are good, decent Christian people, who would never dream of violence against another person, then I think you may be forgetting reality.

Of course America is a relatively peaceful place, but that doesn't change the fact that there are bad people in the world, such as Osama and Saddam. Doing violence in self defense against such as they is a moral duty, even for good decent Christian people. The same is true with respect to domestic thugs of whatever stripe.

There have even been a good many Christian people who were more than a bit aggressive in a military sense. Sometimes they fight over their interpretation of the bible, or the details of the Church. That doesn't mean they are the majority, or at all representative of Christians in general. But such people much be opposed with violence if necessary. A surprising number of the long service Army folks that I've met of late are extremely religious Christians, of various stripes. Are they not "good Christians" because their profession is that of controlled violence? I don't think so.

[Redcloak]

I suppose then that all of that protein detected in the Neanderthal diet was from tofu.

[Reeses]

"peaceful, cooperative and social animals"

Why the emotionally angry response to such a nice statement?

To help keep a tribe alive a member must have these qualities as well as the ability to kill outsiders with angry abandon. Being peaceful, cooperative, social, and moral are traits of all animals that hunt in packs. These traits greatly increase the amount of success over what an individual can accomplish. If a member is not moral, hides and does not share in the kill, they are ejected from the pack. They may survive but won’t as likely pass on their personal genes and culture.

The invention of murder of a non-tribe member, a killing not for food, set off a high speed evolutionary chain reaction. As tribes shifted from just killing food to killing each other over limited resources, it required increasing amounts of brain development to organize, communicate, cooperate, and pass on culture and war technology to future generations. It also required a longer lifespan well beyond breeding years to develop wisdom, and the ability to walk great distances carrying weapons to fight. Just about every human genetic advancement and cultural experiment has been time tested for its advantages at war.

The moral of this story: those of us alive today the best of the best warriors and war makers. It is woven into everything we are. We can pretend this isn’t true, out of narcissism or a desire to be lazy and shift spending priorities for more selfish purposes, but this just gets the tribe high unemployment, high taxes, and a washed up culture. The former empires of Rome, Spain, France, Germany, and England come to mind.

[wardaddy]

more science out to prove their own bias.

i have spent a lot of time around primitives...this author apparently has not.


violence and predatory behavior is common....period.

[wardaddy]

Chimp society is somewhat different than early man's probably was.

Yep...the good ol days. Now we are converging with the great apes again.

[Dan from Michigan]

One word. Incicors.

Who wrote this tripe? Michael Belieilles (SP)

[nopardons]

Glad I read before I posted the same thing you did. :-)

And besides the fact that nonhuman primates also engage in wars,cannibalism,and hunt down other species,it would behoove these PC addled nutters to read up on ALL classes of primates,before writing such disingenuous claptrap.

[nopardons]

Correct.

[HP8753]

We had to hunt theses things down before they got us.

When people fled Hyenas

[HP8753]

Perhaps they were running from the eagles.

Or carnivorous moose

[Question_Assumptions]

Leftist need humans to be peaceful by nature because if we aren't, their entire world view that humans are perfectable and naturally good simply falls apart. See Thomas Sowell's A Conflict of Visions for a good overview of the difference in world views between the left and right.

[Calamari]

Some time along the way these meek, frightened and frail men said enough!and invented or dicovered(not necessarily in order):

The wooden club
Wooden club with rock tied on
methods to harness and control fire
team work (hunting parties)
how to make rocks sharp(flint knapping)
Wooden club with sharp rock tied on
Pointed stick
pointed stick with very sharp pointed stone attached
Device for hurling sharp stone pointed stick farther and more forcefully than could be thrown by bare hand.(atlatl)
Smaller sharp stone tipped dart propelled from a curved flexible stick and string combination that could penetrate tough hides from long range(bow and arrow) thus not exposing the meek, frightened, and frail ancestor to hand to claw combat with what ever they stuck with the sharp dart
blow gun and poisoned dart--just stick it and wait!
metal smelting and even better sticking and cutting instruments
gun powder-even an elephant can't stand up to this stuff
and the inventing and dicovery continued until those meek, terrified and frail men now have thermo-nuclear warheads, M1 main battle tanks that no saber-toothed anything could punture, aircraft, aircraft carriers,etc.

[Fiddlstix]

BTTT

[nopardons]

Yes,I am familiar with Sowell's work and know that one.:-)

But you also left out the feminazi canard that claims that women wouldn't engage in wars and are more "peaceful" then men are. LOL

[SunkenCiv]

Well said.