Your Paleofads Are Paleo-B.S.Along similar lines here are some comments from readers of the New York Times health blog Well:I am not suggesting that Glamour magazine or the readers of the New York Times have pinpointed the modern dilemma in its entirety. But it's hard to escape the recurring conviction that somewhere somehow things have gone wrong. In a time with unprecedented ability to transform the environment to make deserts bloom and turn intercontinental travel into the work of a few hours we are suffering from diseases our ancestors of a few thousand years ago much less our prehuman selves never knew: diabetes hypertension rheumatoid arthritis. Recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) suggest that for the first time in history the members of the current generation will not live as long as their parents probably because obesity and associated maladies are curtailing the promise of modern medicine.Some of this nostalgia for a simpler past is just the same old amnesia that every generation has about the good old days actually being all that good. The ancient Romans fretted about the young and their callous disregard for the hard-won wisdom of their elders. Several sixteenth- and seventeenth-century writers and philosophers famously idealized the Noble Savage a being who lived in harmony with nature and did not destroy his surroundings. Now we worry about our kids as digital natives who grow up surrounded by electronics and can't settle their brains sufficiently to concentrate on walking the dog without simultaneously texting and listening to their iPods.We cannot assume that evolution has stopped for humans.Another part of the feeling that the modern human is misplaced in urban society comes from the realization that people are still genetically close not only to the Romans and the seventeenth-century Europeans but to Neandertals to the ape ancestors Holland mentions and to the small bands of early hominids that populated Africa hundreds of thousands of years ago. It is indeed during the blink of an eye relatively speaking that people settled down from nomadism to permanent settlements developed agriculture lived in towns and then cities and acquired the ability to fly to the moon create embryos in the lab and store enormous amounts of information in a space the size of our handily opposable thumbs.Given this whiplash-inducing rate of recent change it's reasonable to conclude that we aren't suited to our modern lives and that our health our family lives and perhaps our sanity would all be improved if we could live the way early humans did. Exactly what we mean by the way early humans did is a point of contention but the preconception an erroneous one is the same: our bodies and minds evolved under a particular set of circumstances and in changing those circumstances without allowing our bodies time to evolve in response we have wreaked the havoc that is modern life.In short we have what the anthropologist Leslie Aiello president of the renowned Wenner-Gren Foundation called paleofantasies. She was referring to stories about human evolution based on limited fossil evidence but the term applies just as well to the idea that our modern lives are out of touch with the way human beings evolved and that we need to redress the imbalance. Newspaper articles morning TV dozens of books and self-help advocates promoting slow-food or no-cook diets barefoot running sleeping with our infants and other measures large and small claim that it would be more natural and healthier to live more like our ancestors. A corollary to this notion is that we are good at things we had to do back in the Pleistocene like keeping an eye out for cheaters in our small groups and bad at things we didn't like negotiating with people we can't see and have never met.I am all for examining human health and behavior in an evolutionary context and part of that context requires understanding the environment in which we evolved. At the same time we cannot assume that evolution has stopped for humans or that it can take place only ploddingly with tiny steps over hundreds of thousands of years. In just the last few years we have added the ability to function at high altitudes and resistance to malaria to the list of rapidly evolved human characteristics and the stage is set for many more. We can even screen the entire genome in great gulps of DNA at a time looking for the signature of rapid selection in our genes.To think of ourselves as misfits in our own time and of our own making flatly contradicts what we now understand about the way evolution works namely that rate matters. That evolution can be fast slow or in-between and that understanding what makes the difference is far more enlightening and exciting than holding our flabby modern selves up against a vision accurate or not of our well-muscled and harmoniously adapted ancestors.Our maladapted ancestors
The paleofantasy is a fantasy in part because it supposes that we humans or at least our protohuman forebears were at some point perfectly adapted to our environments. We apply this erroneous idea of evolution producing the ideal mesh between organism and surroundings to other life-forms too not just to people. We seem to have a vague idea that long long ago when organisms were emerging from the primordial slime they were rough-hewn approximations of their eventual shape like toys hastily carved from wood or an artist's first rendition of a portrait with holes where the eyes and mouth eventually will be. Then the thinking goes the animals were subject to the forces of nature. Those in the desert got better at resisting the sun while those in the cold evolved fur or blubber or the ability to use fire. Once those traits had appeared and spread in the population we had not a kind of sketch but a fully realized organism a fait accompli with all of the lovely details executed the anatomical t's crossed and i's dotted.To think of ourselves as misfits in our own time flatly contradicts what we now understand about the way evolution works.But of course that isn't true. Although we can admire a stick insect that seems to flawlessly imitate a leafy twig in every detail down to the marks of faux bird droppings on its wings or a sled dog with legs that can withstand subzero temperatures because of the exquisite heat exchange between its blood vessels both are full of compromises jury-rigged like all other organisms. The insect has to resist disease as well as blend into its background; the dog must run and find food as well as stay warm. The pigment used to form those dark specks on the insect is also useful in the insect immune system and using it in one place means it can't be used in another. For the dog having long legs for running can make it harder to keep the cold at bay since more heat is lost from narrow limbs than from wider ones. These often conflicting needs mean automatic trade-offs in every system so that each may be good enough but is rarely if ever perfect. Neither we nor any other species have ever been a seamless match with the environment. Instead our adaptation is more like a broken zipper with some teeth that align and others that gape apart. Except that it looks broken only to our unrealistically perfectionist eyes eyes that themselves contain oddly looped vessels as a holdover from their past.Even without these compromises from natural selection acting on our current selves we have trade-offs and good enough solutions that linger from our evolutionary history. Humans are built on a vertebrate plan that carries with it oddities that make sense if you are a fish but not a terrestrial biped. The paleontologist Neal Shubin points out that our inner fish constrains the human body's performance and health because adaptations that arose in one environment bedevil us in another. Hiccups hernias and hemorrhoids are all caused by an imperfect transfer of anatomical technology from our fish ancestors. These problems haven't disappeared for a number of reasons: just by chance no genetic variants have been born that lacked the detrimental traits or more likely altering one's esophagus to prevent hiccups would entail unacceptable changes in another part of the anatomy. If something works well enough for the moment at least long enough for its bearer to reproduce that's enough for evolution.We can acknowledge that evolution is continuous but still it seems hard to comprehend that this means each generation can differ infinitesimally from the one before without a cosmic moment when a frog or a monkey looked down at itself pronounced itself satisfied and said Voilà I am done. Our bodies therefore reflect a continuously jury-rigged system with echoes of fish of fruit fly of lizard and mouse. Wanting to be more like our ancestors just means wanting more of the same set of compromises.Humans were tweak from the natural primate to better interface with our alien over lord or GODS. As we humans are created to serve the GODS our biology did distant itself from being naturally harmonious with the environment. My above comment is opinionated synonymous the writer of this article which is also filled with opinions.Humans are the only species that hordes what it finds and is filled with abundance of greed curiosity to find more and more resources on the Earth than he needs. As it was recorded by the Sumerian history humans were created to serve and gather for the beings that came from above. Our communication skills were also enhancing to better understand and communicate the wishes of the GODS as well.The demise or doom of humans will be the exploration and exhaust of the planet resources while we pollute it at the same time making the planet uninhabitable for ourselves and other wild life.For the human species to continue we need to master our environment and deal with our toxic nature. Humans need to move off planet Earth establish ourselves in space to achieve this goal or face our programmed DNA doom.Maybe our GOD alien overlords might return at the last moment from above to save us.@ 12:  Alien God huh?  Maybe your god.  Personally I don't think assigning godhood to someone you don't know and don't actually know exists is idiocy so mebbe you really need this god.  Which of course comes as result of you volunteering to be slave to this 'god'.  Most everyone else would likely be engaged in killing your 'god' if the critter turned up but I'm sure you'd have other volunteer slaves for company until we got done killing your 'god'.None of these so-called gods from history have shown themselves to be much friend to man nor guiding light.  They seem to be more concerned with picking favorite races creating money concepts and conducting war.  And violating their own tenets of course.  And if the critter turned out to actually be a 'god'--whateverthehell that is--that I nor anyone else could kill;  I still wouldn't be worried for myself because the 'god' made us this way.  Kill the pagan-false god blah blah.  So we'd just be acting on the gods' orders and never have any chance of actually harming the critter.  And according to common belief the god would then have mercy on us as long as we were just looking to weed out the false god.  Then; once the true 'god' exposes itself-then I'd kill it.Good perspective. Keep in mind that the actual reasoning behind the paleolithic living is not to COPY our cavemen ancestors. The goal is to remove modern components in our lives that may interfere with our well being. The end result resembles what we are calling a Paleo lifestyle. Given this perspective we are merely cleaning up our modern lives - not reverting back.I dont necessarily  agree with a lot of the paleo stuff except for the paleo diet which actually makes functional/practical sense.On Topic ;  Agree 100% with the assessment that people like the Noble Savage were a fad.  We've found little evidence to suggest that any driving force other than weakness or strength of membership was germane to the peoples that lived some real code of coexistence and balance with nature.Those old clips where Chief Iron Eyes looks at the litter and cries?  His people were opportunists that would destroy one place and move to the next overburdening nature as they went.  I've known a lot of native Americans that are supposedly concerned with the environment.  They act out against the activities of 'The Whiteman' real swell.  Point fingers real swell.  Just don't look at how they have never lived it in their own Sovereign environments and you'll get along great.  They don't want to get past old issues or current bs because that might mean actually admitting that people are just people-and ain't no one special.  Ain't no one clean handed.This article doesn't disprove the paleo craze.  It just basically says that things weren't as awesome in the paleo era as we think.Maybe the title was misleading. Nothing was done to disprove the items in it.  Just siting a lot of other authors on their views of a historically accurate representation of the time.Barefoot running is a good thing.  It keeps you from heel striking thus turning your whole leg into a shock absorber.  Coaches have known this for decades and teach it on grass lawns to show proper form when running on the track.Paleo diet works pretty well.  It excludes processed foods forces you to eat more vegetables good fats and leaner meats.Maybe things weren't so awesome back in the day and maybe we are more quickly adaptive than what some people thing. On the other hand the article doesn't address or disprove the actual mechanics or benefit to these practices.  Kind of disappointed in this one popsci.He sounds upset that he didn't think of it first.Paleo diet works because it removes processed foods... period.And as far as working out like a caveman who looks better the dude with muscles or the fat/skinny guy without any?  Which one will live longer?  Obviously the fat guy will if he doesn't die of heart disease or some other ailment that befalls obesity.  Which one could survive escaping from a wild animal (we still have these by the way)?Just try it and you'll see.  We may not be perfectly adapted to the paleo era but we aren't perfectly adapted to the information era either.Even anti-evolutionists have to realize that humans were not always here so it entirely possible that we may die out like every other smart ape. I don't see anything wrong with trying to ensure our survival until evolution catches up.
Remember evolution works by survival of the fittest. The others will be dead.Look at how quickly we bred a poodle from a wolf.Now imagine how we transformed the dreaded tiger and the ferocious lion by culling the most dangerous maneaters from their gene pool for thousands upon thousands of years.So my guess is today's predators are a pale shadow of their ancient kin which prowled the darkened forests of the night made all the more dark by the poor diets of our ancestors.It must have been absolutely frightening for our ancestors to go out at night.quasi44
 I am more incline to believe the past visiting beings that came to Earth from above - called God or Gods by the locals - have pure morals or screwed up morals just like us human folk.@12
A little off topic but I wanted to clarify a point you made.Humans are the only species that hordes what it finds and is filled with abundance of greed.....Sure if you want to completely ignore evolution and species in their natural environments. Its not like squirrels are hoarders or foxes or ravens..... or many other animals that demonstrate distinctly Human qualities.It fit nice with your myth of the gods but doesn't quite stand up to the scientific method.So Squirrel away that little tidbit. Bury it good or I might dig up one of your hidden caches:)Yes you most correct many animals hord to get by for a season for NEED.Humans go way way beyond need and that is obvious to all.12 Actually I both agree and disagree with you.
Yes humans horde more than any animal but It is quite logical to do so if they want to have the best chance of survival.
We like to pretend the world is civilized but we all know that the more wealth you have the better your chance at a long and happy life. And wealth means taking an unequal share.killerT
 Your making a point of 'is excessive hording a good or bad thing' which was not point at all. I made the point of humans and the excessive hording is a sign that we humans DNA have been tweak from the natural primate and no longer  natural to this world. 'Excessive hording' is one of those traits of  being human that sets us apart from the natural world and was programmed into us for the benefit of serving our past 'beings that come from above' overlords. The locals at the time called them GODS and the name stuck.The author makes an excellent point here and I agree that some fads are getting a bit ridiculous but I think that he erroneously uses adaptation and evolution interchangeably. He says that we evolved to higher altitudes in a few years which is impossible. At one point he also says that humans are evolving all the time but this is misleading. For evolution to give rise to any trait the trait must be selected for meaning that the individuala without this trait must die before they reproduce and their genes must die with them. That being said humans can adapt to higher altitudes just like humans can adapt to not get seasick easily but evolution by definition cannot ooccur in one lifetime. Humans are evolving all the time but not like this statement leads one to believe. With the lack of selective pressure of predation or disease in many developed countries the minor genetic mutations that would give rise to evolutionary traits under natural circumstances simply stay in the population and compound. I'm not saying that there is no disease in developed countriesÚ just that it probably wont kill a human before he/she reproduces.
So instead of evolving to better handle the stresses of walking upright (for example) our evolutionary tree is simply branching out. Some mutation may make an individual have a stronger back but another one may just as soon make someone have a weaker back and both lineages will likely survive and reproduce just the same.It doesn't make reference here but I notice a huge pollen count today.  Allergies must be wanting dealt with for the day.As we remove ourselves from the natural environment we are getting more allergies.  It's been reported here just as in most other science outlets.  But here and now this is talking evolution.  So aren't we seeing common examples of our bodies as evolutionary machines in things like allergies from our choice not to be hanging out in the cow pasture long enough to stay desensitized?Evolution by force of will.  So Bigfoot really could be real.  And mermaids.this is what that makes me think:if we could change physical things about hummans for mordern life what would we do(not counting any difficlty of doing it or if it is illegel)i kept reading.. hoping for some trace of logic and proof (why it's all BS). all i red was BS. yes we can become lactose tolerant but we can also train our bodies to cope with poison. we've also become immune to various diseases.. at the cost of millions of lives.. so why is barefoot running BS? because we can 'evolve' to run in highly cushioned shoes without all those muscles that help us bounce rather than fall when we take a step? why is paleo BS? because you can always take in a heap of junk food and match it with another heap of chemicals to relieve your bowels?
pop? maybe. sci? definitely not.