Reddit reviews The Story of the Human Body: Evolution, Health, and Disease
We found 6 Reddit comments about The Story of the Human Body: Evolution, Health, and Disease. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
Vintage Books
There are two great books that talk about exactly this.
The you may really enjoy Daniel Lieberman's The Story of the Human Body: Evolution, Health, and Disease. Here. I'm enjoying it immensely.
This book is really interesting and it brings exactly this subject: https://www.amazon.com/Story-Human-Body-Evolution-Disease/dp/030774180X
I'd be interested in this topic as well.
I did however read a book called the the story of the human body
https://www.amazon.com/Story-Human-Body-Evolution-Disease/dp/030774180X
Pretty great read. It explains where we came from and what caused us to evolve to the current state we are in.
I'm actually not done with it unfortunately but I'm in the process still.
You can also look at how we've evolved physiologically, with regards to our bodies and how they're adapted for persistence hunting techniques. We have several other adaptations that aid running, big buttock muscles that only really engage fully when running, the pinch in the hip only seen in later Homo sp to help balance when running, and tendons like the Achilles are adapted for running, evolution of the nuchal ligament etc. We have little body hair, and far more sweat glands than any other primate to prevent hyperthermia. Our bodies have pigmentation (we were totally black during our evolution, even up until 10k years ago - first Britons were black) that is universal, which would protect us in heat of the day from skin cancers, etc. We "exchanged" our ability to climb trees, for the ability to run long distance, something no other primate can do. People like to say “we cant hunt, go and hunt a rabbit and see” – Not all animals hunt in the same fashion. https://youtu.be/826HMLoiE_o Running prey down over long distance - humans are the best long distance runners on the planet. No animal can match us. Some might say, isn't our ability to run for running away from predators? No. We do not have fast acceleration like a gazelle, we couldn't outrun an ensuing predator at all – they’re fast over short distances.
Our shoulder also evolved for throwing, throwing that would've been used for throwing weapons/spears. Not for throwing paper airplanes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1y__4xX8xp8&t=62s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_bYlY6AHew&t=1s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zb2wsgYNwk&t=5s
We can generate far greater throwing speeds than any other primate. As can be read here: https://scholar.harvard.edu/ntroach/evolution-throwing
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3785139/
Even our teeth. There are other primates with huge canines, but there is a significant (lots of differences, not just this one) difference between us and other primates, behaviour. We do not display our teeth for defensive, or mating purposes. Male gorilla's will often show their canines as a show of dominance, thus it is evolutionary advantageous for them to have bigger canines - not only for a show of dominance, but also to win over impressionable females. Similar to how stags with largest antlers are the most attractive to females. Our canines existence is purely for the tearing or ripping through tough fibrous material like meat. Why are they so small? Our canines have gradually been getting smaller, along with our teeth in general (and jaw) from the early Australopiths. Basically down to tool use, extra processing outside of the mouth meant that it wasn't necessary to have big powerful jaws or huge flat molars like in earlier species, or massive canines. If you look at our teeth in more detail - our teeth became smaller and our enamel became thinner which allows for microscopic breakages creating sharp edges, both which aid shearing of meat. Even our molars are very adept at slicing through meat, which you wouldn't think at first. There is plenty of shearing action in our jaw motion. This is demonstrated by this video: https://youtu.be/hdBQG8lKszk
To say meat consumption was sparse or only in small amounts, is wrong and misleading, the above points and more clearly point towards a significant increase in meat intake and it was vital to get us to the point we are at today. Haven't got the time to sit here and explain it in even more detail, but I can recommend these books as a starting point if you're at all genuinely interested in the subject.
https://www.amazon.com/Processes-Human-Evolution-hominins-Neanderthals/dp/0198739915/ref=mp_s_a_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1530356167&sr=8-5&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=Human+evolution&dpPl=1&dpID=51ihhNFeyIL&ref=plSrch
https://www.amazon.com/Story-Human-Body-Evolution-Disease/dp/030774180X/ref=mp_s_a_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1530356167&sr=8-6&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=Human+evolution&dpPl=1&dpID=41oZy7BlFpL&ref=plSrch
https://www.amazon.com/Evolutions-Bite-Story-Teeth-Origins/dp/0691160538/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1530356353&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=Teeth+evolution&dpPl=1&dpID=51m-p9AT1CL&ref=plSrch
https://www.amazon.com/Mammal-Teeth-Origin-Evolution-Diversity/dp/0801896681/ref=mp_s_a_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1530356386&sr=8-4&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=Teeth+evolution&dpPl=1&dpID=51hDV7cQ%2B6L&ref=plSrch
Check out the book by Daniel E. Lieberman, a Harvard evolutionary biologist. The Story of the Human Body: Evolution, Health, and Disease. I read it in there originally.
https://www.amazon.com/Story-Human-Body-Evolution-Disease/dp/030774180X
https://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/27/health/27well.html?_r=0