"Even if this is an exaggeration, it should at least encourage us to look elsewhere for possible benefits of our unusual gait. It arouses the suspicion that, whatever non-locomotor benefits of bipedality we might propose as drivers of its evolution, they probably did not have to fight against strong locomotor costs."What might a non-locomotor benefit look like? A stimulating suggestion is the sexual selection theory of Maxine Sheets-Johnstone, of the University of Oregon. She thinks we rose on our hind legs as a means of showing off our penises. Those of us that have penises, that is. Females, in her view, were doing it for the opposite reason: concealing their genitals which, in primates, are more prominently displayed on all fours. This is an appealing idea but I don't carry a torch for it. I mention it only as an example of the kind of thing I mean by a non-locomotor theory. As with so many of these theories, we are left wondering why it would apply to our lineage and not to other apes or monkeys." Taken from :The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution By Richard Dawkins :91.
Original Storyteller : Maxine Sheets-Johnstone, of the University of Oregon
Re-storyteller : Richard Dawkins www.orionbooks.co.uk/extras/richarddawkins_theancestorstale.pdf
Storyteller: Prof Robin Crompton, Biomedical Sciences, Liverpool University.
Early humans 'learnt to walk in the trees
Story Research: http://mynym.blogspot.com/2006/02/nomogenesis.html
.jpg)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment