Social Development and Weapons Propelled Human Achievement. Still, humans are vastly different from other animals, however hard the difference may be to define.
A cascade of events, some the work of natural selection, some just plain accidents, propelled the human lineage far from the destiny of being just another ape, down an unexpected evolutionary path to become perhaps the strangest blossom on the ample tree of life. And what was the prime mover, the dislodged stone that set this eventful cascade in motion? It was, perhaps, the invention of weapons — an event that let human ancestors escape the brutal tyranny of the alpha male that dominated ape societies. Biologists have little hesitation in linking humans’ success to their sociality. Human evolution: Homo economicus? Evolution. Mice with fully functioning human brains. I wouldn’t usually discuss politics in a blog like this, but a recent story caught my eye, as it provides an example of the depressing and sometimes bizarre level of scientific illiteracy among elected officials or some people who hope to be elected.
The example is from the United States, which is an easy target in this regard, but we have had a similar episode in Ireland recently so I don’t think we (or indeed any other non-Americans) can feel particularly smug about it. This one is especially funny, though. Christine O’Donnell has recently won the Republican nomination in Delaware for the upcoming election to the Senate.