[ExI] super bowl and EP

[Keith Henson]

On Sat, Feb 5, 2011 at 11:29 PM,  Mike Dougherty <msd001 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Sat, Feb 5, 2011 at 11:27 AM, Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com> wrote:
>> If anyone wants to try, the rule is that the selection of whatever is
>> involved had to happen in the stone age or, if post agriculture, it
>> need to be rather strong.
>
> Mock combat with elaborate rules.  Two football teams could be seen as
> competing tribes.

This has been a standard explanation dating back centuries.  it's not
what I was talking about.

My question is what evolutionary forces in the stone age equipped
people with the desire to watch sports events?  Sports event were
*NOT* part of our evolutionary history, any more than chasing laser
spots was part of the evolutionary history of cats.

> Not sure you could convince many people to admit their trash-talk
> about opposing teams is Xenophobia

Which gives you an idea of how disconnected I am.  I didn't know they did that.

 Kelly Anderson <kellycoinguy at gmail.com> wrote:

snip

> Keith, I think the evolutionary roots of sport are quite easy to surmise.
>
snip
>
> In addition to persistence hunting, our ancestors were involved in
> many other types of hunting that required significant physical skill,
> particularly in running, throwing, fast judgment, and other elements
> that we see in today's sport.
>
> Since we learn from watching others, it is pretty easy to imagine
> young hunters going out and watching older hunters track down prey.
> The leap from there to sports seems pretty small. If you put the Roman
> Coliseum as an intermediate step, it is even easier to see the
> progression, and to understand the evolutionary pressure that would
> lead us to want to watch others participate in "sporting" activities.

Perhaps.  All primates are intensely interested in action events
involving others of their species.  That's also true of herd animals
in general.  It is probably of evolutionary significance to be
strongly aware of these kinds of events to avoid being accidentally
hurt if nothing else.

In any case, whatever makes people go watch modern sporting events has
an origin much further back than the the Roman Coliseum.

Keith