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Posted on 10/19/2009 7:14:17 AM PDT by chessplayer
Exactly, and that’s the standard for ‘manliness’ that this clownish thread/article puts forth.
“The human body is very plastic and it responds to stress. We have lost 40 percent of the shafts of our long bones because we have much less of a muscular load placed upon them these days.”
“We are simply not exposed to the same loads or challenges that people were in the ancient past and even in the recent past so our bodies haven’t developed. Even the level of training that we do, our elite athletes, doesn’t come close to replicating that.”
Hell, the day may not be too far off where the human race won`t have the skeletal/muscular strength to stand up.
For the past several years, I've adopted a regimen of walking 10 miles or more each day (20,000 steps on the pedometer). I get up at 5AM and walk four miles before breakfast. It takes me three hours a day of solid walking to get to the 10 mile minimum. People I tell this to think this is some kind of incredible achievement. But it's really nothing at all and people from an earlier era would scoff because not too long ago, it was normal for humans to be on their feet pretty much every waking moment and many people would walk 10 miles just to fetch water and food.
I HAVE BEEN LED TO BELIEVE THAT LAWN BOWLING IS GAINING A LOT MORE POPULARITY THAN SOCCER IS!
“Why has the human life expectancy increased so much over the past
couple of centuries if we are getting weaker?”
I’d humbly suggest: the long hours put in by a bunch of
“pencil-necked geeks”
in research laboratories and medical research foundations.
Probably 10-15 years ago, PBS (as much as I dislike their funding scheme)
produced a short series on medical advances that have prolonged
human life-spans (and improved “quality of life”).
It’s STUNNING to see what happened when the action and need for insulin
was discovered. That episode showed a girl that looked like an escapee
from a concentration camp: skin and bones. And she was saved by
insulin injections that became available “in the nick of time”
(IIRC, she was the daughter of a prominent politician; impotent to
save the life of his beloved daughter, but for the contribution of
some geeks.)
Also, the show covered the eventual cure of pelagra (sp?) when it
was learned folks subsisting on a common diet in “The South”
(fat-back?) were not getting enough some vitamins.
Overall: the PBS series showed how a bunch of lab/medico geeks
that might have trouble bench-pressing a typewriter of their day
did a disproporionate amount to help humanity.
All that said, I do feel like I should get out in the sun, run, labor
with working on my lawn, exert my muscles...
just to stay in touch with “the human condition”.
Soon,,, we will all look like this;
http://tinyurl.com/kmt24s
Yes if and when necessary of course.
I once had the opportunity to observe a US Army Ranger class being tested to determine which of them would graduate and earn their ranger tab & beret.
The Roman legions had nothing on any of those guys.
Many of our SOF units, of all services, could give the a run for their money.
The Roman Legionnaires were a well trained and highly skilled and the best of their time. Their tactics I think was what also helped them conquer ‘their’ known world and defend the Empire.
The PJ’s I worked with in USAF Air Rescue were the same way. Their idea of fun was to fly 15 miles offshore over the Gulf of Mexico, do a free fall jump, and then swim back to the base.
True, but then brain volume among individual homo sapiens does not appear to be a good indicator of IQ. Neanderthals are quite an enigma. Speaking of which, I highly recommend "The Neandertal Enigma" by James Shreeve.
I didn't make that analogy, marstegreg did.
Vector ping ...
26 miles, but the legions didn’t run them, they walked. Our soldiers today carry a lot of weight and can cover that much distance in a day also(would be about 39 miles).
“Why has the human life expectancy increased so much over the past couple of centuries if we are getting weaker?”
Because of improvements in sanitation. Most of the life expectancy increase has to do with lowering infant mortality. Despite what you are taught, people have always lived to about 80-90 years, just there were fewer of them because more children died in infancy.
As for the Romans, they were trained to stand behind their shields and poke holes in whomever charged them. You die of sepsis back then, as a cut was as good as death.
Personally, I disagree with the author’s contention. I don’t see any evidence (beyond anecdote, which is unreliable), that ancient man was more physically capable.
There is another picture of him, on another thread, that shows the arm better. It is quite muscular but not quite as grotesque as it appears in this picture. His left arm is also muscular but much smaller, evidently he works the he** out of his right arm and not so much his left. Kinda stupid IMO, but what ever floats his boat.
I remember reading the Journals of Lewis and Clark years ago. They talked about sending out a hunter in the morning while all the other men were busy at camp. The hunter would return with three deer or two deer or an elk. I well know the chore of bringing in a deer or elk, he was bringing in multiples. Think about pulling a boat from St Louis to western Montana.
Look at some of those old hand dug canals back east. Imagine people today trying to do work on that scale by hand.
To compare a soldier of today with one even 100 years ago makes little sense. Today a soldier has to know how to operate a GPS, thermals, NVGs, sat com, understand the fundamentals of NBC, maybe parachutes in, or he drives around in an armored vehicle that alone is a complex machine, etc etc etc. Todays soldier has to be more well rounded and smarter than ever before, while in the distant past he was nothing more than a weapons carrying platform, a guy that took orders and formed up a line, even shooting on command when told to do so. A continental soldier and a mule had a lot in common.
A soldier today has to be proficient with an AT4, Javelin, M9, 249, M4, 240, various mines, he has to operate radios, know First Aid, understand how to conceal himself from GSR and IR systems, maybe how to deploy CAS........ The problem with all these comparisons is simply that the best soldiers out there are those that have the best "mix" of overall characteristics. Physical fitness like rifle marksmanship are but two very limited aspects, and like a car that has a high top end or accelerates well but can be an overall poor sports car, these aspects alone do not make a good soldier. In some places they lay a lot of importance on hand to hand combat, is that really the end all when other aspects are neglected?
The Neandertal EnigmaFrayer's own reading of the record reveals a number of overlooked traits that clearly and specifically link the Neandertals to the Cro-Magnons. One such trait is the shape of the opening of the nerve canal in the lower jaw, a spot where dentists often give a pain-blocking injection. In many Neandertal, the upper portion of the opening is covered by a broad bony ridge, a curious feature also carried by a significant number of Cro-Magnons. But none of the alleged 'ancestors of us all' fossils from Africa have it, and it is extremely rare in modern people outside Europe." [pp 126-127]
by James Shreeve
in local libraries
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Gods |
Thanks Fractal Trader. |
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· Discover · Nat Geographic · Texas AM Anthro News · Yahoo Anthro & Archaeo · Google · · The Archaeology Channel · Excerpt, or Link only? · cgk's list of ping lists · |
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