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And you thought that the human evolution folk were fresh out of ideas? Now chimps flinging poop help explain our origins

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In “Poop-Throwing Chimps Provide Hints of Human Origins” (Wired Science, November 29, 2011), Brandon Keim reports,

From brain scans of chimps that threw most often and accurately, Hopkins found heightened development in and connections between the motor cortex, where physical actions are coordinated, and the Broca’s area, which in humans is central to speech production. Better throwing meant more sophisticated, left hemisphere-reliant brains.

“It supports the idea that these areas could have been selected for as a consequence of throwing,” said Hopkins. “If you imagine that throwing started off as left hemisphere-dominant, before the emergence of speech, then speech and language would have co-opted that side of the brain.”

In behavioral tests, true-throwing chimps also proved especially apt in social intelligence and communication. Intriguingly, they fared no better than poor-throwing chimps on physical problem-solving tests, suggesting that throwing behaviors emerged not for hunting, as is commonly assumed, but to interact with peers.

In other words, they were too stupid to get past throwing poop and do something useful.

Do you ever get the feeling that the human evolution folk are stuck in a pile of …

Comments
Wasn't there a Chinese book translated into English: "Brown Spots on (the) Wall" by Who Flung Poo?Joe
December 1, 2011
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Do you ever get the feeling that the human evolution folk are stuck in a pile of …
bureaucratic science?englishmaninistanbul
November 30, 2011
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Too Funny,,, as to:
suggesting that (poop) throwing behaviors emerged not for hunting, as is commonly assumed, but to interact with peers.
So PZ Myers, Panda's Thumb, Dawkins, and company, are just trying to gain acceptance of peers when they 'throw poop' instead of honestly engaging the crushing evidence against neo-Darwinian processes??? Trouble is that the committed neo-Darwinist will accept this 'poop throwing' against reasoned discourse as conclusive proof of his atheism and throw more poop to provide more evidence.bornagain77
November 30, 2011
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How funny! Who woulda thunk? Oh, maybe that's our problem. We've lost our ability to think objectively.tjguy
November 30, 2011
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