RE: Cannibalism and evolution.
October 19, 2010 at 2:30 pm
(This post was last modified: October 19, 2010 at 3:23 pm by Anomalocaris.)
I don't like bacon, but I like tunafish and mushrooms. Human flesh does not taste like tunafish or mushrooms. Therefore we are not predisposed to seek out the taste of human flesh.
And yes, effects of cannibalism probably played a role in shaping human behavior and genetics. Certain spontanous mutations change some proteins to result is one of the several invariable fatal degenerative diseases. These diseases are transmissible only by cannibalism. Epidemics of these diseases have been observed in modern pacific island cannibal population. But it has never been seen in other settings. So cannibalist population would tend to either deselect itself through vulnerability to this family of fatal degenerative diseases, or evolve immunity against these diseases, unless even more severe selection pressures promotes it, such as frequent extreme famine even more damaging to successful reproduction than epidemics of these diseases.
There were proposal to study the degree to which human populations have evolved immunity to these diseases as indicators of how prevelent cannibalism had been in our past. I understand the degree of immunity was determined to be very low. Which suggest cannibalism was not the primary source of human diner menu.
Just to add to the gruesomeness of the topic, pacific island cannibals recognize the similarity in taste between human flesh and pork. They call their human victims "long pigs".
And yes, effects of cannibalism probably played a role in shaping human behavior and genetics. Certain spontanous mutations change some proteins to result is one of the several invariable fatal degenerative diseases. These diseases are transmissible only by cannibalism. Epidemics of these diseases have been observed in modern pacific island cannibal population. But it has never been seen in other settings. So cannibalist population would tend to either deselect itself through vulnerability to this family of fatal degenerative diseases, or evolve immunity against these diseases, unless even more severe selection pressures promotes it, such as frequent extreme famine even more damaging to successful reproduction than epidemics of these diseases.
There were proposal to study the degree to which human populations have evolved immunity to these diseases as indicators of how prevelent cannibalism had been in our past. I understand the degree of immunity was determined to be very low. Which suggest cannibalism was not the primary source of human diner menu.
Just to add to the gruesomeness of the topic, pacific island cannibals recognize the similarity in taste between human flesh and pork. They call their human victims "long pigs".
