Why We Walk on Two Legs: It's Easier

[Klingan]

This isn't really purely archaeological news but I believe it's well fitting here anyway.

 

Why did humans evolve to walk upright? Perhaps because it's just plain easier. Make that "energetically less costly," in science-speak, and you have the conclusion of researchers who are proposing a likely reason for our modern gait.

 

Bipedalism

[Marcus Caelius]

Bipedalism

Edited July 17, 2007 by Marcus Caelius

[caldrail]

Two legged locomotion isn't so suprising. Reptiles discovered that long before dinosaurs - there's a recent discovery of a reptile (that incidentially resembles later dinosaurs - spooky!) that was featured in National Geographic. Dinosaurs themselves made good use of two legs especially where speed was essential, either in attack or retreat, and their descendants the birds use two legs as standard.

[Klingan]

Two legged locomotion isn't so suprising. Reptiles discovered that long before dinosaurs - there's a recent discovery of a reptile (that incidentially resembles later dinosaurs - spooky!) that was featured in National Geographic. Dinosaurs themselves made good use of two legs especially where speed was essential, either in attack or retreat, and their descendants the birds use two legs as standard.

Do you know if there's anything about that on the net Caldrail?

[M. Porcius Cato]

Actually, there's nothing that we do that isn't done by at least one other species, primarily chimps and bonobos although not exclusively. The defining characterisic, if there is one, is the degree to which we do something, combined with our comparative hairlessness.

 

Despite repeated attempts to teach them to do so, non-human primates have never been shown to spontaneously invent rules for grammatically marking number and aspect, or to engage in ternary relational reasoning with perceptual distractors, which are tasks that young human children can learn almost effortlessly and often with no (effective) direct instruction.

[The Augusta]

Actually, there's nothing that we do that isn't done by at least one other species, primarily chimps and bonobos although not exclusively. The defining characterisic, if there is one, is the degree to which we do something, combined with our comparative hairlessness.

 

Despite repeated attempts to teach them to do so, non-human primates have never been shown to spontaneously invent rules for grammatically marking number and aspect, or to engage in ternary relational reasoning with perceptual distractors, which are tasks that young human children can learn almost effortlessly and often with no (effective) direct instruction.

 

Thank you for that explanation, MPC. I have now officially labeled myself a non-human primate!

[ASCLEPIADES]

Actually, there's nothing that we do that isn't done by at least one other species, primarily chimps and bonobos although not exclusively. The defining characterisic, if there is one, is the degree to which we do something, combined with our comparative hairlessness.

 

Despite repeated attempts to teach them to do so, non-human primates have never been shown to spontaneously invent rules for grammatically marking number and aspect, or to engage in ternary relational reasoning with perceptual distractors, which are tasks that young human children can learn almost effortlessly and often with no (effective) direct instruction.

 

Thank you for that explanation, MPC. I have now officially labeled myself a non-human primate!

Salve, guys! That makes two of us, and counting, TA.

[M. Porcius Cato]

Thank you for that explanation, MPC. I have now officially labeled myself a non-human primate!

 

From the lady who has previously compared two hypothetical counter-factuals (which is at least a quaternary relation) and has beautiful grammatical skills, I'd say you're much smarter than any bonobo.

[ASCLEPIADES]

Salve,guys!

HERE links to an recent article of National Geographic News about Robin Crompton's team work that suggests bipedalism can be adaptive in the trees, predating hominids.

What do you think about it?

[Marcus Caelius]

Actually, there's nothing that we do that isn't done by at least one other species, primarily chimps and bonobos although not exclusively. The defining characterisic, if there is one, is the degree to which we do something, combined with our comparative hairlessness.

 

Despite repeated attempts to teach them to do so, non-human primates have never been shown to spontaneously invent rules for grammatically marking number and aspect, or to engage in ternary relational reasoning with perceptual distractors, which are tasks that young human children can learn almost effortlessly and often with no (effective) direct instruction.

 

I see no conflict with what I said. Non-human primates think, just not to the degree and development that we do. We are, essentially, highly-developed primates, and maybe not even highly-developed since we have diminished in other areas where non-humans are superior. In fact, given where our thinking is taking us in respect to weaponry and the environment, it may be that our advanced thinking skills are outstripping our emotional development to the point where the human branch of the family is approaching an evolutionary dead end. After all this time, we have yet to definitively demonstrate that human intelligence is an evolutionary advantage.

 

I believe it was Richard Dawkins who said that evolution does not demand perfection, only adequacy. Natural selection may yet prove that ape-level intelligence is the optimum.

[M. Porcius Cato]

Actually, there's nothing that we do that isn't done by at least one other species, primarily chimps and bonobos although not exclusively.

Despite repeated attempts to teach them to do so, non-human primates have never been shown to spontaneously invent rules for grammatically marking number and aspect, or to engage in ternary relational reasoning with perceptual distractors, which are tasks that young human children can learn almost effortlessly and often with no (effective) direct instruction.

I see no conflict with what I said. Non-human primates think, just not to the degree and development that we do.

 

But this assumes that all differences in thinking are a matter of degree, not kind. In contrast, the specialization of neural circuitry for distinct mental processes shows that there are kinds of thoughts not shared by non-human primates.

 

Needless to say, none of this implies evolutionary discontinuity with primates or some kind of absolute human superiority. All over the animal kingdom, genera of the same family can differ enormously due to specialization of function. Just look at birds, where you can find both the songless and the flightless. Yet, no one dreams of arguing (with Darwinian indignation) that the difference in flight between an ostrich and an eagle is merely one of degree.

[ASCLEPIADES]

This isn't really purely archaeological news but I believe it's well fitting here anyway.

 

Why did humans evolve to walk upright? Perhaps because it's just plain easier. Make that "energetically less costly," in science-speak, and you have the conclusion of researchers who are proposing a likely reason for our modern gait.

 

Read more here.

This LINK goes to another post of the same story, but with 2 additional links to a couple of cool videos about BIPEDAL DOGS. Have some fun!

Edited July 18, 2007 by ASCLEPIADES

[Marcus Caelius]

But this assumes that all differences in thinking are a matter of degree, not kind. In contrast, the specialization of neural circuitry for distinct mental processes shows that there are kinds of thoughts not shared by non-human primates.

 

(shrug) My neighbor has kinds of thoughts I don't share.

 

I was being facetious. Seriously, I have never maintained that apes and men think alike, merely that the difference between them is the degree and coherence of their thinking. Both, for example, are able to plan ahead, but humans can plan further ahead while also providing for contingencies. That each has specializations outside the similarities would seem to be a no-brainer.

 

Just look at birds, where you can find both the songless and the flightless. Yet, no one dreams of arguing (with Darwinian indignation) that the difference in flight between an ostrich and an eagle is merely one of degree.

 

Yet the overall difference between the two birds is merely one of degree. Similarly, the overall difference between human and ape is merely one of degree.

[Nephele]

This isn't really purely archaeological news but I believe it's well fitting here anyway.

 

Why did humans evolve to walk upright? Perhaps because it's just plain easier. Make that "energetically less costly," in science-speak, and you have the conclusion of researchers who are proposing a likely reason for our modern gait.

 

Read more here.

This LINK goes to another post of the same story, but with 2 additional links to a couple of cool videos about BIPEDAL DOGS. Have some fun!

 

Thanks for the bi-pedal dog stories, Asclepiades! (You know I can't resist a good dog story.)

 

I couldn't get those links to work, but I found these on You Tube (in case anyone else is also having trouble with those links):

 

Faith and

 

I hadn't heard of Faith before, but the Dominic video is currently being shown at the newly re-opened Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum at NYC's Time Square, which is where I first saw it.

 

Unlike humans having evolved to walk upright because it's easier, for these dogs the learned behavior was a matter of survival. And no less extraordinary -- if not more so.

 

-- Nephele

[M. Porcius Cato]

the overall difference between human and ape is merely one of degree

OK, you've gone from "there are zero qualitative differences" to "there are some qualitative differences, but overall the difference is merely one of degree." I still don't agree with you, but your new claim is too vague to prove wrong. In my opinion, if we consider the "overall" differences--climbing trees versus traveling to the moon, picking nits versus nearly wiping out polio, using a stick to get termites versus building robots and supercomputers--these are so vast that it's wrong to say that there are "merely" difference in degree: when we talk about cognition and behavior, there are not only differences in kind, there are also VAST differences in degree. And, really, what is the point of denying this?