In a recent article from Science Daily [1] we find a compelling bit of science. Evidently the thinking is that humans became the ‘hairless ape’ we are because we evolved in a really hot region in East Africa. You see, the need to “stay cool in that cradle of human evolution may relate, at least in part, to why pre-humans learned to walk upright, lost the fur that covered the bodies of their predecessors and became able to sweat more,” Johns Hopkins University earth scientist Benjamin Passey said. [2] These constituted an “evolutionary advantage” these pre-humans gained. What I find curious, however, is in what intelligible sense this granted an evolutionary advantage when other fauna in that region or similar climates supposedly evolved just fine, walking around on all fours and covered in hair, etc. (picture animals like buffalo, wolf, baboon and such).
Surely the Panthera genus had even more selection forces acting upon them, being not only covered in fur but walking around so close to the ground (which radiates absorbed heat, so they get cooked on both sides). What do you suppose they think of this robust evolutionary science?
- Johns Hopkins University. “Some Like It Hot: Site of Human Evolution Was Scorching.” Science Daily, 8 June 2010 (Accessed 10 June 2010.)
- Benjamin H. Passey, Naomi E. Levin, Thure E. Cerling, Francis H. Brown, and John M. Eiler. “High-temperature environments of human evolution in East Africa based on bond ordering in paleosol carbonates.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2010; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1001824107
