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Re:Fourteen Discoveries Made About Human Evolution in 2022 by JoeAltmaier on Wednesday December 28, 2022 @03:53PM (#34165814)
I'd add to the list of 'reasons why homo sapiens developed longer lifespans' the reason that grandparents sitting around the fire could teach young children. It's a social adaptation perhaps.
Re:Fourteen Discoveries Made About Human Evolution in 2022 by Jensson on Wednesday December 28, 2022 @04:16PM (#34166065)
Maybe to take care for grandkids if their daughter dies in childbirth. The chance of that happening is very high when you have many kids and each daughter have many kids, so having old people around to care for their orphan grandkids seems like a very advantageous evolution.
Re:Fourteen Discoveries Made About Human Evolution in 2022 by googlryas on Wednesday December 28, 2022 @04:50PM (#34166477)
Wouldn't the same effect be in play with family-living animals that aren't nearly as long lived? Like wolves for example. In fact all the other great apes only hit about 40 years before succumbing to old age, whereas humans are nearly double that.
Re:Fourteen Discoveries Made About Human Evolution in 2022 by eslaught on Wednesday December 28, 2022 @05:06PM (#34166644)
Four-legged animals don't have the same degree of birthing challenges as two-legged ones because of the way the birth canal is shaped. Consider for example how horses are able to be up and walking (both baby and mother) of some number of minutes of birth. That's because the baby comes out more developed, which is possible because of the larger birth canal (in relative proportions). Human have to come out underdeveloped because otherwise we wouldn't be able to give birth at all, and then that makes human infants especially helpless out of the womb.
Re:Fourteen Discoveries Made About Human Evolution in 2022 by sublinear on Wednesday December 28, 2022 @05:41PM (#34167003)
I just can't help but comment on the strange notion of a "list of reasons why".

The few correlations our feeble minds just happen to notice are not mystical decisions whereby nature slowly yields to the will of its creatures over many generations. Asking "why" is just anthropomorphizing for the sake of it.

Re:Fourteen Discoveries Made About Human Evolution in 2022 by hyperpape on Wednesday December 28, 2022 @06:10PM (#34167292)
"List of reasons why" isn't meaningfully different from "list of factors causing X". To ask "why" is to ask for an explanation, and doesn't imply any anthropomorphizing.

This isn’t absolutely obvious, because reason has two different characteristic uses: asking agents their reasons for acting, and asking the reason some event happened. Philosophers have spent a lot of time asking how those two uses are related.

Re:Fourteen Discoveries Made About Human Evolution in 2022 by raincom on Wednesday December 28, 2022 @06:49PM (#34167627)
One is called "intentional" explanation; the other, "causal" explanation.
Re:Fourteen Discoveries Made About Human Evolution in 2022 by elevaet on Wednesday December 28, 2022 @06:13PM (#34167321)
"Why" is shorthand for the minutae of actual selection pressures that take much longer to type out than "why".
Re:Fourteen Discoveries Made About Human Evolution in 2022 by edgyquant on Wednesday December 28, 2022 @09:48PM (#34168876)
>The few correlations our feeble minds just happen to notice are not mystical decisions

This is not an objective fact, it’s your interpretation. People are allowed to believe reality is divine and “anthropomorphism” is a strawman. Something you’re doing in your head and projecting onto others.

Re:Fourteen Discoveries Made About Human Evolution in 2022 by JoeAltmaier on Thursday December 29, 2022 @08:29AM (#34172388)
Um, we are talking about people, right? So 'anthropomorphising' is maybe not the word we wanted here?
Re:Fourteen Discoveries Made About Human Evolution in 2022 by mach1ne on Wednesday December 28, 2022 @07:02PM (#34167726)
That's fairly unlikely since it relies mostly on group selection, which is mostly a defunct theory.
Re:Fourteen Discoveries Made About Human Evolution in 2022 by SimDeBeau on Wednesday December 28, 2022 @07:36PM (#34168005)
Since when is group selection a defunct theory?
Re:Fourteen Discoveries Made About Human Evolution in 2022 by mach1ne on Thursday December 29, 2022 @02:21AM (#34170356)
Since we understood that it is the individual gene that is the unit of selection. Even Wikipedia reads: "The vast majority of behavioural biologists have not been convinced by renewed attempts to revisit group selection as a plausible mechanism of evolution."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_selection#Criticism

Re:Fourteen Discoveries Made About Human Evolution in 2022 by JoeAltmaier on Thursday December 29, 2022 @08:30AM (#34172396)
Group selection is as obvious as the nose on your face. So many, many animal populations have non-breeding members that benefit the community. Individual selection cannot possibly be used to support that.
Re:Fourteen Discoveries Made About Human Evolution in 2022 by mach1ne on Thursday December 29, 2022 @08:48AM (#34172537)
Name one where the system is not contingent on immediate family helping immediate family, or to be more precise, one which is not explained by Hamilton's Law.

There is no individual selection either, by the way, that's another commmon misconception. You don't push out copies of yourself. There is only the selection of individual genes.

Re:Fourteen Discoveries Made About Human Evolution in 2022 by JoeAltmaier on Thursday December 29, 2022 @09:53AM (#34173164)
And the genes are in a population pool, not standing by themselves. So the only selection is group selection, that is, the survival of that part of the group that contains advantageous genes.
Re:Fourteen Discoveries Made About Human Evolution in 2022 by mythhouse on Wednesday December 28, 2022 @10:06PM (#34168989)
why would grandpa be having sex then.
Re:Fourteen Discoveries Made About Human Evolution in 2022 by antiatheist on Thursday December 29, 2022 @01:19AM (#34170090)
This is a false premise.
Re:Fourteen Discoveries Made About Human Evolution in 2022 by deafpolygon on Thursday December 29, 2022 @02:48AM (#34170482)
"it takes a village" - younger adults who would give birth to children, then must go back to work and hunt/gather - leaving the older, less physically able to raise the children who are defenseless.
Re:Fourteen Discoveries Made About Human Evolution in 2022 by defrost on Thursday December 29, 2022 @03:02AM (#34170540)
> leaving the older, less physically able

At a guess, just out of interest, how old do you reckon Paen and Tawan are here [1] as they drop a tree and process it to make Sago?

That's physically demanding work with a lot of prep (weaving mats, strainers etc).

Hunter/gathers/agrarians typically work until they drop and take care of children through extended overlapping family, not to mention taking children out to gather and dig from the get go from being carried before they can walk to having them follow along and help as soon as they are upright.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VomE4GN9Z6I

Re:Fourteen Discoveries Made About Human Evolution in 2022 by deafpolygon on Thursday December 29, 2022 @05:18AM (#34171208)
This is just the two of them, and they are making flour to be sold to other people to fund things that they need. I think a better representation is to look to certain African tribes for a better insight on how family structures may have looked in terms of child rearing.

The 'nuclear' family structure is quite a recent development (in terms of human existence), and although far less common now, family structures typically included uncles and aunts and their children.

> It is a cohesive unit which ideally provides economic, social and psychological security to all its members. Adinlofu (2009) made mentioned that the extended family ensures procreation of children and provides for the early care and training of children. Degbey (2012) also added that this same family system defines “social and moral norms and safeguards both material and spiritual customs and traditions as well as providing a variety of role models preparing the way for adulthood”. Degbey (2012) emphasized that the dominance of the elders/aged has a relatively high degree of social control on the individual especially, the youth.

> https://www.intechopen.com/chapters/45760

Re:Fourteen Discoveries Made About Human Evolution in 2022 by defrost on Thursday December 29, 2022 @06:04AM (#34171475)
I realise it's just the two of them .. I was pointing out the work they were doing on a regular basis as "older, less physically able" people.

As for H-G family structure, I don't know much but most of what I know came from growing up in the Western Desert, Kimberley, and PNG talking to folk like the P-9 [1] and supply runs to Mike Alpers [2].

This, of course, is over 40 years back so <shrug>.

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-30500591

[2] https://royalsociety.org/people/michael-alpers-10987/

Re:Fourteen Discoveries Made About Human Evolution in 2022 by deafpolygon on Thursday December 29, 2022 @06:14AM (#34171524)
> I was pointing out the work they were doing on a regular basis as "older, less physically able" people.

I never said they were disabled. I just meant, they'd be less motile and likely to work on clothing, crafts, homesteading, care of the children, maybe even cooking and leading the tribe/group in religion and/or study. Given they'd have more experience and wisdom, it makes sense the elder of the family structure would be more closer at home to lead the way.