Physio-Anthropology Question

It's my guess it's a combination of gene and environment. If we look at the animal kingdom, the different species have similar long and short development spans. Some things have a life span shorter than one day, while others may live to be several hundred years old.

I think it is mostly because of culture and the knowledge which a common human being have to learn, including walking erectly, language, something basic.

Gorilla doesn't have to learn them, buffalo doesn't, shark doesn't, bacteria doesn't, wheat doesn't..

Re: Physio-Anthropology Question


Without modern medicine, civilization and culture, on average a "raw" human would live about 30 to 40 years and would reproduce at around 15 years.

If you start with a 15 year old, and assume it has to live long enough to raise offspring to the age of reproduction, that would take it to 30 years old which is just about right (with a few more years to raise a few more kids).

The ratio of reproduction age to lifespan is between 50% to 25%. I don't know what the ratio is for most other mammals (we need to compare mammals because mammals have an imperitive to nurse the offspring), but I bet it's pretty well matched to most other mammals.

I learned the long childhood stage we have is due too our high level of intellect and social complexity.

This topic brings us back to the ID vs Evolution queston. Here's a link that talks about this forum's topic. http://www.evcforum.net/cgi-bin/dm.cgi?action=msg&f=10&t=17&m=1

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I disagree, CI.

You see, for someone who supports (believes in) ID, many things appear to depend upon one's stance with regards to evolution/ID.

For a person who is not concerned with mystical answers and seeks only to know the scientific and rational answers to their questions, it seems completely tangential to bring ID into the issue.

Now, I don't disrespect you for your view. But, I do think that it degrades the quality of the discussion when everything is reduced to an ID vs. Evolution debate.

Still, if you have some specific applications of ID that shed light on the topic of this thread, please share them here so that we can understand better how ID is a part of this topic.

Thanks.

Waldo, I've never been a proponent of ID, but many with religious faith will not let it go. I wouldn't know how to support ID on its merits; logic or otherwise. I'm a 100 percent evolutionist - and a atheist.

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Ahhh. Then you were just offering equal time to the other point of view. That's admirable.

I think that one of the ID proponents on this site stated that micro-evolution is not rejected by designists (is that what they are called?).

In other words, it's okay with them to say that human development has changed as human life spans have lengthened. It would also be okay with them to assert that people in biblical times may have ben predisposed to differing behaviors than people of today. You could even attribute those predispositions to genetics.

What they seem to entirely reject is speciation, the possibility that one species could spawn another (or multiples). The poster I am referring to called that macro-evolution, and he considered it to be more far-fetched than the existence of prophets and performing of miracles.

One problem for DIists (maybe that's the nickname), is that not many of them REALLY know what they believe. Like with many atheists, the explanations that they offer only undermine the validity of the theory. When a dumb atheist begins to argue on my behalf (or on your's, CI), that's when I begin to cringe. The ignorant designist and the ignorant atheist actually become the straw man against which the arguments of their detractors are focused.

We who disagree with DI must remember to attack the BEST INCARNATION of the argument, rather than to attack the weaker versions put forth by some of those who claim to support the theory. So, I only attack DI when speciation becomes a part of the argument. There well may be other tenets of DI against which I'd argue, but I'm not familiar enough to know for certain.

Okay, enough tangent.

I'm still curious about human developoment, and now I've become familiar with a theory called Aquatic Ape Theory. I'm curious if there exist any telling differences between the cycle of maturation for land mammals relative to aquatic and semi-aquatic mammals.

I'm also reading accounts of feral children and this always brings me back to questioning just how much of a role "nurture" plays in development. Moreover, if genetics are somewhat a function of sexual strategy, then anything that takes place before reproduction would affect the selection process as I understand it. So, human development prior to the age of reproduction would seem to impact the gene pool moreoso than human development after the age of reproduction.

Potentially, as people wait longer to have kids, some of them will die or become unable to reproduce before they do so, whereas they would have been able to pass along their genes if they had done so at a younder age (like they would have 200 years ago).

So, the social changes and changes brought about by technology (medicine and lifespan for example) should impact genetics at some point. I just don't know how impactful it will be. Any thoughts?

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i'm being lazy and not reading up the discussions of ID here or elsewhere, but i assume most people who reject macroevolution totally believe in a recent origin of the earth as desribed in the Bible. (i assume so, because over 3 billion years or so, it would seem miraculous that no new species would arise by chance.) in that case, they also accept that the earliest humans, like Methuselah, had lifespans far longer than modern humans. so rather than account for lengthening lifespan, the proponent of ID should explain how some old testament patriarchs attained ages that only a few plants can now attain.

yitwail, That's easy to answer; a fictional book can tell any tale; to prove it is another matter entirely.

Some of the differences are perception. Our 14 pound poodle was full grown at 10 months, but increased to 22 pounds in a year or two and her personality is still changing at age 16. We will be fortunate if we have her another year as she sees and hears poorly and has moderate arthritis. We give here insulin for her diabeties at 6 AM and 6 PM daily.
Except for turtles, aligators, humans, elephants and a few other speicies, full size and offspring by the second year likely increases the total population and is thus a survial of the group stratagy. Neil

A Natural Age of Weaning

Primate Menstrual Cycle

The Primate Info Net includes some very interesting taxonomic info comparing primates ain general

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