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Location: Visitation between Wal-Mart & Home Depot
8,309 posts, read 38,784,973 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jtur88
I don't think you can make that leap. Our genus evolved from something, it did not just magically appear out of thin air, full equipped as modern man. In every organism, the mechanism for feeding is paramount in its development, obviously predating any later structures including prehensile hands, which in any case, evolved according to the survival value of just transporting prey to the mouth. The most primitive living things are reproductive organs with mouths. Everything else came later, to supplement and fine tune the basics.
After re-reading, I'm not sure that I properly addressed your points with my first post.
Homo Habilis is considered by some (not all) to be the earliest species included in the Homo genus. Their fossil remains are typically found with primitive stone tools. The idea is that these guys used stone flakes to butcher scavenged meat, opening the door to a very big world full of protein. They certainly would not have been accomplished hunters and probably were not very sophisticated, but it isn't a stretch to see how a scavenging ancestor could give rise to hunting progeny. The problem with that idea is that there seems to be some evidence that Homo Erectus (a real hunter) co-existed with Habilis. So rather than being direct decendants of Habilis, its more likely that there is another common ancestor in the primate family that gave rise to bipedal, toolmaking hunters with sophisticated brains.
Whatever the driving forces for the primate hands was, I think it was something totally different that led to the toolmaking brain in concert with opposable thumbs.
Location: Visitation between Wal-Mart & Home Depot
8,309 posts, read 38,784,973 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TKramar
Heck, even birds and squirrels can use "tools" to get what they're wanting. Or maybe that was coons.
I've definitely heard of birds adding rocks to get water to rise high enough to drink.
I've heard of that as well. It was in Aesop's fables.
There was a confirmed case of a crow bending a copper wire into a hook and using it to fish a piece of meat out of an empty bottle. What was interesting was the crow learned the trick simply by watching a human do it.
I think there is a qualitative difference, however, between using elemental tools, like twigs and sticks, to extract termites and weaver ants from their mounds and fashioning a cutting instrument from a rock. It takes a quantum leap to be able to "see" a blade in a rock.
Location: Visitation between Wal-Mart & Home Depot
8,309 posts, read 38,784,973 times
Reputation: 7185
Quote:
Originally Posted by Apples&Oranges
I have been vegetarian for 20 years, ever since I learned about the awful concentration camp conditions of factory animals. Sickening.
Plus, meat is filled with hormones and is very fattening. Beef raises your chance of getting cancer!
That's more like it.
What would you say to someone who has not consumed any store bought meat in over a year? My freezer stays stocked with game meats. Deer harvested off the hoof is extremely lean, has free-grazed its entire life, has never been subject to a hormone treatment and is not fattening in proper portions.
Wild dove, duck and quail are in the freezer as well. Its amazing how different the meat of a wild, migratory bird is from a farm raised chicken. Dark, flavorful, lean. Almost more like red meat.
At any rate, the most organic beef available off of any shelf can't hold a candle to wild venison. And no concentration camps.
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