Posted on 11/17/2004 11:06:41 AM PST by ElkGroveDan
LONDON (Reuters) - Humans were born to run and evolved from ape-like creatures into the way they look today probably because of the need to cover long distances and compete for food, scientists said on Wednesday.
From tendons and ligaments in the legs and feet that act like springs and skull features that help prevent overheating, to well-defined buttocks that stabilize the body, the human anatomy is shaped for running.
"We do it because we are good at it. We enjoy it and we have all kinds of specializations that permit us to run well," said Daniel Liberman, a professor of anthropology at Harvard University in Massachusetts.
"There are all kinds of features that we see in the human body that are critical for running," he told Reuters.
Liberman and Dennis Bramble, a biology professor at the University of Utah, studied more than two dozen traits that increase humans' ability to run. Their research is reported in the science journal Nature.
They suspect modern humans evolved from their ape-like ancestors about 2 million years ago so they could hunt and scavenge for food over large distances.
But the development of physical features that enabled humans to run entailed a trade off -- the loss of traits that were useful for being a tree-climber.
"We are very confident that strong selection for running -- which came at the expense of the historical ability to live in trees -- was instrumental in the origin of the modern human body form," Bramble said in a statement.
AGAINST THE GRAIN The conventional theory is that running was a by-product of bipedalism, or the ability to walk upright on two legs, that evolved in ape-like human ancestors called Australopithecus at least 4.5 million years ago.
But Liberman and Bramble argue that it took a few million more years for the running physique to evolve, so the ability to walk cannot explain the transition.
"There were 2.5 million to 3 million years of bipedal walking without ever looking like a human, so is walking going to be what suddenly transforms the hominid body?" said Bramble.
"We're saying 'no, walking won't do that, but running will."'
If natural selection did not favor running, the scientists believe humans would still look a lot like apes.
"Running has substantially shaped human evolution. Running made us human -- at least in the anatomical sense," Bramble added.
Among the features that set humans apart from apes to make them good runners are longer legs to take longer strides, shorter forearms to enable the upper body to counterbalance the lower half during running and larger disks which allow for better shock absorption.
Big buttocks are also important.
"Have you ever looked at an ape? They have no buns," said Bramble.
Humans lean forward when they run and the buttocks "keep you from pitching over on your nose each time a foot hits the ground," he added.
Mr. Cha and Mr. Lobo?
Mr. Lobo was first identified as the lead author of the study. Whoops! He was outed as having never heard of the study till almost a year AFTER the study and served mainly to get the study published. Of course his position on the JRM didn't ease the process, would it? No conflict of interest there ...
You do remember that JRM did, finally, pull the article.
I thought you said you were familiar with the reports having read them yourself.
Yes, if you remember, the report was generated in 1988. If I can dig out my library from the boxes my books are in, I'll happily provide chapter and verse.
Until then, you won't admit you're running interference from someone else's opinion, or where you got the scurrilous claim.
I have not been posting opinion. I have been posting facts. You have been countering with opinion.
Mark Twain:
"There's lies, damn lies, and then there's statistics."
Think much has changed with regard to 'facts' and 'statistics'?
So, you wrote all of your 'fact' responses by yourself? Impressive.
No need to. YOU stated that 6 of 26 parameters showed improvement with prayer. That is only 23%. You would think that if prayer worked, God would be batting above 23%, right? That means that for SEVENTY-SEVEN percent of the criteria, prayer did NOT work!
You don't believe in God?
Why?
So, it is your conclusion that since 6 of 26 criteria improved with prayer, that prayer is effective. How then, do you account for the almost same number of criteria that were worse with prayer? Does that mean that God heard the prayers and decided to punish certain 'receivers' of prayer? Were they evil people and deserved the worst in spite of the prayers?
I suppose that if any assistance were to be had, I'd be willing to engage in it as long as it wasn't unethical and immoral.
It beats 0% doesn't it?
Do you believe that God listens to a person that is instructed (paid?) to pray?
I would say it equals zero percent since you have a 25% chance that it will help but have the same 25% chance that it will make the condition worse! hmmm.
My religious beliefs are not relevant to the arguments. The fact that you have proposed a study that shows that prayer causes medical conditions to worsen is enough to blow your case.
Knowing that you would have the same chance that the prayers would worsen your condition?
No, it is my conclusion, based on personal observation, and reading the experiences and work of others, that prayer is effective for the individual and, sometimes, for the people for whom people, and I, pray.
"Why" is a mystery.
Can I quantify the amount of assistance I provide when I pray for others? No. Can I guarantee repeatable, reproducible results each time I pray? No.
"Why" is a mystery.
But, can I observe that people's lives are sometimes 'miraculously' helped in unexplainable ways? Yes.
And so I pray.
I pray for you, too, that life will be beneficent to you and your family, and that you will find peace and fulfillment in your career and endeavors.
"Why"? Because I believe that somehow, somewhere, someday, it may help. God chooses as He chooses. He owes us nothing. Therefore, how can we 'demand' anything of Him?
If that's based on faith, fine. But, it's based on observation, too.
Quantum physicists are familiar with the absurd, too. They just think it has something to do with the higher understanding of the way things work. Average people look at what they propose, and see nothing but faith.
So, if faith convicts me... great. But, I can no more propose a theory of God's beneficence that would be all-encompassing, for all time, than can you or any other scientist propose a theory for why there was stuff extant at the beginning of the universe that went 'bang' in the first place.
Intellectual honesty demands that we all plead guilty to 'faith'.
You have stated this claim numerous times, without corrobating documentation or evidence.
Either provide the docs or recognize that your claim of validity has no foundation.
Your inattention to this request over the past few hours has been astonishing.
As if anyone other than you and I cares. There's no traffic on this thread.
You were the one that claimed expertise and possession of the report. It is all in there. You should be able to disprove my arguments easily, if, if fact, you have the document and the expertise AND if my arguments were false. But, have fun!
Absolutely.
It's the reason that people who have 'incurable' diseases subject themselves to medical studies that have the proviso that the drugs are experimental and may actually have adverse affects.
When you go into surgery, the surgeon is careful to mention that there are no guarantees, and that you may die as a result of invasive procedures. But you get your gall bladder taken out, anyway.
Here it is from your earlier post. ONLY 23% of the criteria showed improvement! hmmmm. You failed to include what happenedd to the other 77%! hmmmm. Seems like pure random chance would work these odds!
First, Yes, Byrd's methodology has been criticized, but of the 26 criteria per patient that he monitored, several criteria showed improvement, as determined by the statistical analysis of the proofs set up prior to the experiment.
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