Humans: The World's Greatest Endurance Runners

Runner Usain Bolt compared with a cheetah

            The author launched into yet another tangent in Chapter 28, this time about the studies and findings of David Carrier, an undergraduate at the University of Utah. During one of these studies, David noticed that the rabbit he was studying had very strong muscles on its diaphragm. He came to the conclusion that these muscles allowed the rabbit to run faster than its predators and into safety by providing it with more air. By applying this same air-consumption principle to human evolution, David realized that humans had begun to walk upright so that they could breathe better than any other animal on the planet, which meant that they evolved in this way so that they could run better. Not faster, of course, but more efficiently and for a longer period of time. This allowed humans to relentlessly pursue an animal until it collapsed to the ground due to excess heat and lack of time to catch their breath.

Neanderthals compared to primitive and modern man

            I enjoyed reading about this, as I had taken an anthropology course earlier in the year, which stated as much, albeit with a much shorter and more concise explanation. The entire theory makes a lot of sense, because a creature wouldn’t logically evolve into a weaker animal- it would adapt traits to help it survive in its environment. When the book speaks of Homo Sapiens’s triumph over Homo Neandertalensis, however, I don’t really see the source of its information. Most of the information about Neanderthals is speculation, as we can never actually know how they interacted with each other within their society. But I appear to be going off on a tangent, like McDougal so often does, at this point. Anyways, the chapter was intriguing and informative for the most part and, as a result, I now know more about human evolution.