[extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solved & Unsolved Riddles

[Don Dartfield]

On Wed, 12 Nov 2003, Don Dartfield wrote:

> I read an evolutionary biology book that claimed we started standing
> erect mainly to help keep our expanding brains cool, via increased
> exposure to air currents and decreased sun exposure.

After thinking a bit further on this, I find myself wondering if it wasn't
just easier, once we left the trees for the savannah, to modify the
hunched-over gait that tree-dwelling apes use into our full-fledged
bipedalism, than it would have been to revert to the same full
quadrupedality that the other savannah animals had.  In addition to
whatever other benefits may have been derived from walking upright, that
is.  Because when you look at the way a chimpanzee or a gorilla walks, it
sure looks like it would be easier to adjust their skeleton into ours than
to turn them into quadrupeds ... and perhaps in the absence of any grave
disadvantages, the advantages of bipedalism didn't have to be tremendous
to win out.

Anyway, that was a thought I had while thinking about the evolution of 
bipedalism.  (Bipedality?  Bipedalousness?)