So I was just noticing that human faces are equipped with an ability to emote a wide variety of things, usually emotions. Then I was thinking about other animals and how, apparently, few have similar capabilities. Now, it’s possible we don’t understand their facial expressions or equivalents, but I find it hard to imagine a quicker way of emoting than through a face. Dolphins might use complex swimming patterns, but that still takes a while longer than smiling or frowning or whatever. Is it possible that our faces with all their many muscles are the cause of our early steps into language? Perhaps all animals have the same basic emotions, but can only express them so well, and so the emotions don’t develop. Our ability to express emotions made having them evolutionarily viable? Group cooperation is prevalent in many animal species that apparently have no special ability to quickly display their thoughts and feelings. There are other ways of communicating quickly I suppose. Smells and sounds specifically. I dunno, kinda interesting thought though.
I heard an interview a few weeks back of a guy who wrote a book about a theory as to how human society developed. As I gather it, it goes something like this. First, we stood up for some reason he doesn’t know. (I’ve heard the theory that it was so we could be marathon runners and scavange a lot of meat to support our high protein diet needed for our large brains) Then our brains grew really really fast. Like a pound in 300 million years I think is what it is. The combination of standing up (small pelvic cavity), big heads, and the single child per birthing, lead to a lot of women dieing before producing offspring. Very dangerous for a species. So, the theory goes, somewhere along the line, some woman figured out that her friend used to bleed, then she did the dance with the man, and then she stopped bleeding, and then she tried to have a kid, and died. He sites all sorts of things about blood being important and traumatic for a primitive animal, especially given the large volume of blood loss in humans as compared to other mammals. Almost no other mammals even have a menstrual cycles etc. etc. So this woman figures out the connection between doing the dance with the man, and possible death in 9 months. This is a huge leap because up until now no animal has been able to fathom time for longer than like 3 minutes. With this new awareness she is able to stop having sex. She is no longer controlled by her hormones. There is a lot of evidence about women not being aware of their sexual cycles, where as most other mammals go into heat and are keenly aware of when they are most fertile, and are also incapable of controlling mating urges. At the same time women are gaining the ability to not have sex, men are becoming hornier and hornier. If you think about it, few other species have males as horny as humans. In most mammalian species the system works like this, 1) female goes into heat 2) male take cue from female through one means or another (pheramones, dances, posturing) 3) copulation 4) birth 5) rearing (maybe) 6) repeat. In humans it turned into females turning men away, and men constantly propositioning. Woman control their destiny and so forth. Rule world. Anyway, eventually women figure out time even better from their menstrual cycles, and then relate that to the rest of the world via the moon. (The average menstrual cycle in human women is 29.5 days, the complete lunar cycle is 29.5 days) Then they teach the men. The men don’t care much until they figure out that they will die. Studies show men fear death much more than woman. The men want immortality in the form of knowing who their offspring are. Thus marriage type arrangement spring up in every known culture. Complex systems are laid out for keeping track of your women, and your offspring. From knowledge of time and mortality, and from marriage, springs the rest of society.
His theory is a little better thought out that mine. Technically there’s no evidence directly supporting it. Yeah, just thought you all should know.