51–60 of 60 posts
Basically, weed rewards us for its continued safe domestication.
Try as I might, I cannot find a way to disprove this theory. The more I test it, the more it seems absolutely correct.
The same of course, is true of coffee and tobacco, albeit the means of domestication differ in magnitude and effect in each case.
The jury is still out on Triffids, however.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't remember the details of their arguments, but Graeber and Wengrow think this is a misleading image. IIRC one of their main thrusts was that over long periods of history, groups of humans have adopted and abandoned stationary agriculture at will, as conditions indicate. I suppose that makes us as domesticated as e.g. lions or chimpanzees, which have been known to e.g. share food with humans ("work for them") in…
> IIRC one of their main thrusts was that over long periods of history, groups of humans have adopted and abandoned stationary agriculture at will, as conditions indicate. In general they still totally depend on it. So this would be like saying dogs aren't domesticated, because some left their owners or bit them, or there are groups of stray dogs here and there.
I read something similar on Yuval Harari's Homo Sapiens, where he suggests wheat domesticated humans not the other way around. An excerpt can be found here [1]. Whole essay is great but I especially liked this part: > The word “domesticate” comes from the Latin domus, which means “house.” Who’s the one living in a house? Not the wheat. It’s the Sapiens. [1] https://www.ynharari.com/topic/ecology/
I read something similar on Yuval Harari's Homo Sapiens, where he suggests wheat domesticated humans not the other way around. An excerpt can be found here [1]. Whole essay is great but I especially liked this part: > The word “domesticate” comes from the Latin domus, which means “house.” Who’s the one living in a house? Not the wheat. It’s the Sapiens. [1] https://www.ynharari.com/topic/ecology/
It's not up to wheat. Humans invented Latin and get to define domestication.
What's the point of the ugly genAI interstitial images? The blogging equivalent of wearing a dunce-cap.
Yea as a gardener I enjoyed the themes but the images really threw me off. They don’t add anything. I always thought that stock images in blogs seemed unnecessary but at least they didn’t have glaring errors in them.
I read something similar on Yuval Harari's Homo Sapiens, where he suggests wheat domesticated humans not the other way around. An excerpt can be found here [1]. Whole essay is great but I especially liked this part: > The word “domesticate” comes from the Latin domus, which means “house.” Who’s the one living in a house? Not the wheat. It’s the Sapiens. [1] https://www.ynharari.com/topic/ecology/
I don't remember the details of their arguments, but Graeber and Wengrow think this is a misleading image. IIRC one of their main thrusts was that over long periods of history, groups of humans have adopted and abandoned stationary agriculture at will, as conditions indicate. I suppose that makes us as domesticated as e.g. lions or chimpanzees, which have been known to e.g. share food with humans ("work for them") in…
Domestication of plants was "easy" when tested in a controlled setting selecting seeds carefully at a university. Estimated that wheat in the agricultural "revolution" (a much scoffed about term in the book) could have been domesticated in 200 years if purposeful. Instead agriculture took something like 3000 years to become dominant versus mixed food sources (mostly gathering, fishing and hunting, with some low-effort planting on riverbanks).
And yes to your point, the idea that there is some sort of progression in human societies is contradicted by the recent decades of evidence in archeology -- every arrangement you can imagine seems to have been tried (stationary+hunter/gather, nomadic farmer, alternating back and forth, shifts toward farming for hundreds of years and then back to fishing for thousands). Humans time on the earth has been much longer than our recorded history, with more variety and less boring than we usually assume.
Anyway I hope that inspires someone to pick up the book, it really is a good read.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nope, the fruit is for the humans or whatever pollinators, as a reward, in a similar way that pollen is a reward for bees. The food for the seed is inside of the seed, which is often not the fruit. Most fruits are different anatomically, but you will find that an apple has little seeds, you open it and you will find endosperm in it, mostly food for the little embryo in the seed. For stuff like wheat we really do eat…
Nectar is the reward for bees to get them to carry the pollen.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't remember the details of their arguments, but Graeber and Wengrow think this is a misleading image. IIRC one of their main thrusts was that over long periods of history, groups of humans have adopted and abandoned stationary agriculture at will, as conditions indicate. I suppose that makes us as domesticated as e.g. lions or chimpanzees, which have been known to e.g. share food with humans ("work for them") in…
I lent out my copy of the Dawn of Everything so I can't get exact quotes or pages but this reminded me of a point in the book (which I highly recommend) which I'll attempt to summarize: Domestication of plants was "easy" when tested in a controlled setting selecting seeds carefully at a university. Estimated that wheat in the agricultural "revolution" (a much scoffed about term in the book) could have been domesticat…
“But fruits aren’t just for us. They’re a clever evolutionary strategy. By making themselves tasty and appealing, plants ensure that animals (including humans) will eat them and disperse their seeds.” I thought fruits are nutritious because they are there to support the seed during its journey.
Nope, the fruit is for the humans or whatever pollinators, as a reward, in a similar way that pollen is a reward for bees. The food for the seed is inside of the seed, which is often not the fruit. Most fruits are different anatomically, but you will find that an apple has little seeds, you open it and you will find endosperm in it, mostly food for the little embryo in the seed. For stuff like wheat we really do eat…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
He also talked about this "reverse chain of command" in the recent talk at Peking university: Human evolves from worm. Human brain is originally a bunch of neurons centered around the worm's mouth to search for food. It is natural to think human is still controlled by stomach to this day (or spinal cord for that matter).
Do you have a link?