(December 7, 2016 at 1:35 am)Minimalist Wrote:

Quote:False. The caring of those with a broken bone is probably reflective of heritable behavioral trait which enhances the social support network of the bearer of the trait, which confers a survival advantage upon the bearer. This is Darwinian evolution red in tooth and claw, as evidenced by most human societies now having hospitals.

I disagree.  For a small HG band - the care of an unproductive mouth would have been a serious drain on resources.

That might be, yet the band survived.  And their descendant flourished.  So the benefit must outweigh the drain.   Evolution is about propagation of the heritable benefit that outweigh attendant drawbacks.

Indeed, human tempering of our survival odds is not a avoidance of evolution and natural selection.  It IS evolution in action. We vaingloriously conceive what we do to be "unnatural". Therefore when we select using what we style as "intelligence", we deem it is not "natural selection". Nothing can be farther from the truth. We are part of nature and can never be but a part of nature, everything we do is natural, when we select, we do so because we have been so selected by nature, and our selection is itself natural selection.

(December 7, 2016 at 1:04 am)Anomalocaris Wrote: Yes, but it probably also allowed more babies with more highly developed brains to not die with their mothers at the moment of birth.

Can these larger brained people start voting in US elections please. At the moment it looks like its going the other way.

(December 7, 2016 at 5:21 am)downbeatplumb Wrote: Can these larger brained people start voting in US elections please. At the moment it looks like its going the other way.

Or even better, we could create one or two to resolve pressing scientific problems like solution for clean energy (maybe they could even solve nuclear fusion) and perhaps solve interstellar travel. I mean sure scientists today could do it if they were united, but there are obviously monetary/political barriers for it that won't be overcome in any time soon. So it would perhaps be cheaper to create one of that bloated brain human and give him/her few science books to read and he/she will figure it out in no time.

Now of course this would have to be done in China where Christianity has no influence what so ever, or it could be done in US under premise "Our enemies will do it so we have to before them."

(December 7, 2016 at 5:21 am)downbeatplumb Wrote:

(December 7, 2016 at 1:04 am)Anomalocaris Wrote: Yes, but it probably also allowed more babies with more highly developed brains to not die with their mothers at the moment of birth.

Can these larger brained people start voting in US elections please. At the moment it looks like its going the other way.

They survived birth but died when exposed to the American secondary education system.

It really is incredible how strongly the human species' evolution led to development over ease of birth. I mean. . . millions of years of high, high, high infant mortality rates in exchange for bipedalism and big brains. What an incredible evolutionary tight-rope we must have walked that even today, so many truly natural child births might be fatal. I don't know the stats on live births for other animals, but I'm guessing they must be better than those of humans?

Quote:That might be, yet the band survived.

That's an assumption.  For all you know that particular band died out.

The question is, did HE survive?  Did they evolve further?  Or, (and as a multi-regionalist this is my feeling ) did they evolve into HSS?

(December 7, 2016 at 11:50 am)bennyboy Wrote: It really is incredible how strongly the human species' evolution led to development over ease of birth.  I mean. . . millions of years of high, high, high infant mortality rates in exchange for bipedalism and big brains.  What an incredible evolutionary tight-rope we must have walked that even today, so many truly natural child births might be fatal.  I don't know the stats on live births for other animals, but I'm guessing they must be better than those of humans?

Yeah, but it also draws speculations how people started believing in witches.
Since women were baby-machines, until quite recent times and if one child did not kill her in its coming forth, the next one might, so old women were even rarer than old men. Their role was to have baby after baby and to stay indoors. Mere age, therefore, did not lend old women the valuable leadership qualities it lent old men. Therefore when some woman did manage to get to the old age people were scared at the sight (because they could not hide their face behind beard) and imediatly started having hallucinations that they're withces.
Therefore, while one could speak of old men's wisdom, one laughed at and scorned "old wives' tales." This is done even in the Bible, where the godly are warned to keep away from foolish superstition. "But refuse profane and old wives' fables, and exercise thyself rather unto godliness".
Add to that women, having to deal with children's illnesses, would pass on to each other a great many home remedies, most of which did no harm, at least, and helped psychologically. An old woman was, therefore, very often the village doctor, and was the local expert in herbs, infusions, decoctions, and spells (like Grannie in "The Beverly Hillbillies").
Although they should have been respected they had to be feared as well. After all, spells and medicine can kill as well as cure and, with such powerful control over human life in her withered old hands, who could tell what an old woman might choose to do? In this balance between respect and fear, fear won the day.
And even if you go to some older cities in Europe you can see on some older buildings (that managed to be managed) devices on the roofs, from the past centuries, with spikes so that witches can't land on them.

(December 7, 2016 at 11:54 am)Minimalist Wrote:

Quote:That might be, yet the band survived.

That's an assumption.  For all you know that particular band died out.

The question is, did HE survive?  Did they evolve further?  Or, (and as a multi-regionalist this is my feeling ) did they evolve into HSS?

The apparently increasing prevalence of caring behavior for the incapacitated as humans evolved  suggested whether that particular band survived is a mere quibble.  That trait, survived and prospered.

Homo erectus survived and go by names like trump, bannon, pence, and others in the coming administration.

I was caesarian born. You can't really tell, except that when I leave my house I go out through a window.

Quote:The apparently increasing prevalence of caring behavior for the incapacitated as humans evolved  suggested whether that particular band survived is a mere quibble.  That trait, survived and prospered.

I'm not convinced that it is a "trait" as much as a cultural phenomena which was itself an outgrowth of the development of language/symbolic thinking.  Again, where else does that appear in the natural world?  In this humans are quite unique... not because of some stupid god story!