Our Skulls Didn’t Evolve to be Punched • Hacker News Board

Re: Our Skulls Didn’t Evolve to be Punched

#91

Post by Peaker » Sat, Jun 14, 2014, 8:00 PM UTC

monochr wrote: post #90

Peaker wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saying that "legs evolved for walking" is a completely legitimate statement. Something can be said to have evolved for a purpose -- as a short-hand for saying that random changes that helped that purpose increased fitness and were selected for by natural selection.

If legs evolved for walking why are they so useful for swimming? There is a set of genes that encodes for the behavior of walking or allows us to learn it and a whole other host of adaptations from our vestibular system to the angle at which our neck connects to our skull that taken together as a whole are adaptations for walking. Each on its own has many, many other uses that have nothing to do with walking and prov…

I agree that legs didn't actually evolve for walking exclusively. They evolved for a myriad of purposes, including walking, running, jumping, swimming, and more.

The fact other parts of the body also evolved to facilitate these features is not a contradiction.

Evolution is like a parallel computation looking for a local optimum. When climbing the hills of the possibility landscape, various features that exist at the top of these hills can be described as the purpose of a particular search path.

Re: Our Skulls Didn’t Evolve to be Punched

#92

Post by tim333 » Sat, Jun 14, 2014, 8:14 PM UTC

x86_64Ubuntu wrote: post #79

araes wrote: post #4

Honestly, this article just feels like an overreaction / rant the other direction. That there is No way that fist combat could have affected skull morphology. Like alot of evolution, it mostly comes down to a) does a trait make you more likely to have sex / better or more effective sex? b) does a trait make it more likely you'll survive to have sex? I find it hard with this amount of evidence to say that fistfights c…

The problem is that humans are woefully designed for combat. Our hands break, and our skulls are paper thin. Compare these aspects to animals that actually fight with horns, cushioned brains, fangs and so on, it's clear to see that fighting is a spectator sport for us.

My guess on the contrary is we are well designed for combat but designed to use weapons. Look at the historic interaction between humans and pretty much any large animals - usually we wipe them out.

Re: Our Skulls Didn’t Evolve to be Punched

#93

Post by tim333 » Sat, Jun 14, 2014, 8:32 PM UTC

dbbolton wrote: post #60

I honestly can't even read the article because that GIF is so annoying. I have two different GIF-stopping extensions and neither of them works because of the way the elements are nested (I guess). I'm actually so irritated that I'm binding giphy to 0.0.0.0 in my hosts file. /rant

Clearly (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/clearly/iooicodkii...) is pretty effective for a wide range of internet reading irritations. It even kind of works on G+

Re: Our Skulls Didn’t Evolve to be Punched

#94

Post by alexeisadeski3 » Mon, Jun 16, 2014, 10:12 PM UTC

aResponder52 wrote: post #84

alexeisadeski3 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, fisticuffs were common for impromptu human fights. But the stuff with evolutionary implications usually resulted from ambushes: People hiding in the bushes with sticks and stones, waiting for one and his buddies to walk by. Or just hitting him over the head with a rock while he slept. Forager societies more closely resemble middle school than modern life. In modern life, you can get in a fight at the bar and not…

You guys know that the type of fight that goes like "guys get angry, guys punch each other a few times" aren't always the same as "guys get angry, one guy kills the other"? I'm not one for hypothesizing based on hunches that look evolutionarily plausible, but, given that for a long time humans lived to 20, 25 years old, consider the types of fights teenagers and kids get into these days. A few punches, somebody (or b…

Which type of fight has greater implications for the evolution of human facial bone structure?