The evolution of bipedalism

[Gerrard Farrell]

Re: The evolution of bipedalism

People look at the modern chimp ,pick out tasks that the chimp performs in an upright , bipedal stance ,and then suggest that this behaviour or group of behaviours ,combined in the last common ancestor ,led to bipedalism . The problem with this type of argument is that modern chimps can easily perform bipedal tasks whilst retaining the advantages of their present phenotype and this was also probably true of the last common ancestor . Evolving into an obligate biped limits options and would only be selected for if it also produced abilities that are not available to chimps . In the first instance ,before an effective running phenotype evolved ,this would have been ground up ,high speed , high kinetic energy tool use .

[Ross Miller]

Re: The evolution of bipedalism

My uninformed backseat-evolutionary-biologist opinion is that there are so many theories on specific things that drove our evolution from an ancestor who was ostensibly more like a modern chimp than a modern human, most of them having some merit, that it was likely a combination of things more than any single specific overwhelming benefit.

Given that it now seems clear chimps can and do use tools in the wild, I sometimes wonder if freeing up the hands for use of tools/weaponry was a major driving factor or more of a nice side-effect.

Ross

[Edmund Cramp]

Re: The evolution of bipedalism

Great picture, Edmund, but I think the image on the right is wrong: it should be looking down at the smartphone in its hand, oblivious to the fact its about to fall off a cliff!

Actually I was thinking more along the lines that the questions in this forum are often more interesting than the answers - which is not to say that the answers are not interesting, it's that the questions make me think much harder. I think that Gerrard makes an excellent argument, although I'm slightly skeptical that evolution is quite so directed ... maybe we evolved to bipedalism simply to escape being another animals lunch? If Gerrard is correct, where does the future lead us since his evolutionary thrust no longer exists in our modern world?

[Drew Smith]

Re: The evolution of bipedalism

Great picture, Edmund, but I think the image on the right is wrong: it should be looking down at the smartphone in its hand, oblivious to the fact its about to fall off a cliff!

[Edmund Cramp]

Re: The evolution of bipedalism

Evolution is always so much clearer in retrospect - I wonder what the future holds for us?
human-evolution.jpg

[Gerrard Farrell]

Re: The evolution of bipedalism

Hi Musa , many thanks for the note and reference . Professor Latimer does raise some interesting points in his article and for early bipedal apes there would have been many downsides to this phenotype and , in my opinion ,only one very distinct advantage ,tool use , and in particular , high energy kinetic energy tool use . No other animal can summate the forces produced by the entire body as well as we can ,and then deliver them into a hand held object . It defines us physically .

[Musa Audu]

Re: The evolution of bipedalism

An addition to the discussion will be the interesting and cogent issues raised by Prof. Latimer in his article "The Perils of Being Bipedal" which appeared in Annals of Biomedical Engineering, Vol. 33, No. 1, January 2005. pp. 3–6. Musa.

[Gerrard Farrell]

Just wondered what people thought of the "ground up kinetic " theory of the origins of bipedalism . Basically, what I am saying in this thread on Podiatry Arena (below) is that bipedalism was selected for because of the enormous forces that a biped can develop in a hand held object , by a leg driven , uncoiling action of the body .

The evolution of bipedalism | Podiatry Arena

https://podiatryarena.com › Forums › Misc › Podiatry Trivia



Any thoughts ?