I heard that the problem with the pygmies hunting for 10 hours a week was that this figure was noted by anthropologists that were driving the pygmies around in trucks!

survival of the fittest? hunter/gatherers were replaced by settlers largely because of lack of resistance for deceases spread from animals to settlers. pretty painful way of becoming fitter and quite odd way of defining the word.

What do you think Darwinian fitness is?

i am fully aware of what it means, which i think is obvious from what i wrote.what i was trying to communicate was that it was a step backwards for most people in most ways which makes it misleading to speak of fitness.of course you can argue that societies takes the place of organisms in this case but i think the term would be misleading even then, since it happened quite circumstantial

Interesting, however, the following quote makes me suspect the researchers made the usual error of using average life expectancy, which is very distorted because of high child mortality. Would be interesting to see more precise numbers.

"Pygmies around the world are short in life expectancy as well as height, with the average adult dying at 16-24 years of age. Only 30-50% of children survive to the age of 15 and less than a third of women live to see menopause at 37."