disrupter
09-26-2007, 09:29 AM
Modern Humans Retain Caveman's Survival Instincts
Jeanna Bryner
LiveScience Staff Writer
LiveScience.com Tue Sep 25
Like hunter-gatherers in the jungle, modern humans are still experts at spotting predators and prey, despite the developed world's safe suburbs and indoor lifestyle, a new study suggests.
The research, published online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, reveals that humans today are hard-wired to pay attention to other people and animals much more so than non-living things, even if inanimate objects are the primary hazards for modern, urbanized folks.
The researchers say the finding supports the idea that natural selection molded mechanisms into our ancestors' brains that were specialized for paying attention to humans and other animals. These adaptive traits were then passed on to us.
"We're assuming that natural selection takes a long time to build anything anew and that's why this is left over from our past," said study team member Leda Cosmides, an evolutionary psychologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB).http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20070925/sc_livescience/modernhumansretaincavemanssurvivalinstincts;_ylt=A r09xqHAmV3pr62QEM8crS.s0NUE
Is this really news?
Pretty obvious if you ask me.
Might explain the popularity of first person shooter video games,
& the inability to appropriately assign priorities & relevance to social, economic & political issues.
You can take a monkey out of the jungle,
but you can't take the jungle out of the monkey.
Jeanna Bryner
LiveScience Staff Writer
LiveScience.com Tue Sep 25
Like hunter-gatherers in the jungle, modern humans are still experts at spotting predators and prey, despite the developed world's safe suburbs and indoor lifestyle, a new study suggests.
The research, published online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, reveals that humans today are hard-wired to pay attention to other people and animals much more so than non-living things, even if inanimate objects are the primary hazards for modern, urbanized folks.
The researchers say the finding supports the idea that natural selection molded mechanisms into our ancestors' brains that were specialized for paying attention to humans and other animals. These adaptive traits were then passed on to us.
"We're assuming that natural selection takes a long time to build anything anew and that's why this is left over from our past," said study team member Leda Cosmides, an evolutionary psychologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB).http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20070925/sc_livescience/modernhumansretaincavemanssurvivalinstincts;_ylt=A r09xqHAmV3pr62QEM8crS.s0NUE
Is this really news?
Pretty obvious if you ask me.
Might explain the popularity of first person shooter video games,
& the inability to appropriately assign priorities & relevance to social, economic & political issues.
You can take a monkey out of the jungle,
but you can't take the jungle out of the monkey.