Predators 'Drove Human Evolution'

BBC ^ | 2-19-2006 | Paul Ricon

[AndrewC]

"Primates that are edge species, even today, are basically prey species, not predators," Professor Sussman explained.

Well, gee, could that possibly be due to the fact that primates, in general, are not predators.

[null and void]

Ah aims to please...

[nomorelurker]

Except for the one we are.

[AndrewC]

Except for the one we are.

Implied with the "in general".(Chimps also eat meat, but only rarely --- no pun intended)

[GovernmentShrinker]

Wowzer! I thought I'd been around a while. They must not post very often.

They post often enough, but the threads they frequent are prone to getting banished to the Religion forum, or sometimes to the Smoky Backroom forum when things get out of hand. But they also pop up frequently on threads about the currently hot topic of "intelligent design".

[NicknamedBob]

"... they also pop up frequently on threads about the currently hot topic of "intelligent design"."

Intelligent design will become inarguable when we design robots and send them out into the galaxy.

I worded it that way to avoid argument. However, for the sake of argument, I've never heard anyone explain, if they believe in intelligent design, just where the designer came from, and which entity designed the designer, and so forth.

Our limp rationale that things "just happened" is certainly no worse than the limp rationale that an entity or entities unknown caused them to happen, because then how do you explain that beginning?

I'm not denying the existance of any possibility, or any entity. I simply like to cut to the chase with Occam's razor.

[GovernmentShrinker]

Precisely. Personally I'm a big advocate of including "intelligent design" in school curricula, as long as it's the how-to variety. I'm sure we currently have the ability to engineer various one-celled organisms that could survive and thrive on Mars, and eventually evolve into more complex organisms. Quite possible that we are derived from some such venture, but that has no bearing, as you pointed out, on the question of "how it all started".

[Defiant]

I understand that people are still eaten by crocs, but that is where there are millions of people and someone makes an occasional mistake. It's a one out of millions risk. I am talking about early hominids, traveling in small bands. If they see someone eaten at a water source, they were hopefully smart enough to stay away from that source. We have two legs for a reason. Crocs require a certain size water hole, and we don't have to use those water holes. That humans are still here is an indication that we were smart enough to avoid crocs, in spite of what this writer thinks.

Other predators could not be avoided, they would find you. Tigers, cave lions, african lions, bears, hyenas, wolves, etc. Nothing we can do about them except band together and fight and lose the occasional family member. But others are more easily avoided by having half a brain, and that is what we probably had back then.

[Positive]

Not in defense of the study or the premise..just semantics...losely speaking, I believe that a Saber Tooth Tiger would be a "cat." As a Wolf would be a dog. Now an Eagle...

[Junior]

I've seen Animal Planet programs that show crocs living in any old mud hole they can find, especially if it is the only mudhole in the area and local fauna have to come down to drink there.

We are talking a region that has frequent droughts, and water holes can be few and far between.

[NicknamedBob]

I think the author of the article overemphasizes the role of predation in actually changing us.

Certainly it was one of the pressures mitigating against our survival, but competition for resources would have had a more selective function.

Migration, climactic change, and the need to find alternate forms of nourishment would have had a more direct effect in selecting for intelligence.

[Junior]

Predation was a major driving factor in the evolution of such divers creatures as the sauropods and the armadillo. I'm not certain why it wouldn't be a major fact in human evolution, too.

[NicknamedBob]

"... not certain why it wouldn't be a major fact in human evolution, too."

Predation is a major driving factor in any species' evolution.

My point is that it is not necessarily a major driving factor in making the species more intelligent.