Examples of bad "design" in humans

[gumboot]

The animals people chase down can breath throught their mouths too

True, many of them can theoretically, but many of them don't in practice. Even those animals that do, it's usually a sign of extreme stress rather than a normal response to heightened cardiac activity. For others their mouth is primarily used for other things (cats generally only breath through their mouth when they want to use their taste senses, for example).

And a lot of them can't. Horses, antelope, deer, etc. cannot breathe through their mouths - instead during periods of heightened exercise their nasal cavities increase in size allowing more air flow. (Humans used to cut slits in horse nostrils to expand them and increase air flow).

Possible, but I would like to see that the it was heat exaustion and not more general exaustion that was generaly the reason why humans can win such endurrance races.

As pointed out, humans only utilise it in hot conditions. Animals can be run down in very short spaces of time - African Wild Dogs use the same heat exhaustion method and their hunts are usually over in a couple of miles. Yet the prey in question certainly hasn't exhausted their physical capacity in that short a time. They over heat.

Kangaroos got around this by using far less energy to move, thus not heating up as much (their hopping is powered more by elastic tendons than by muscle effort).

Sled dogs, the other impressive long distance runners, perform in freezing temperatures where over heating just isn't an issue.

 

[gumboot]

I am not saying it is especialy well designed, but argument initialy presented was that humans where significantly inferior to quadropeds in general, and that really isn't true, humans are good a endurrance running and not the sprinting running most quadropeds are much better than humans at.

No, the initial argument was that a bipedal design, and in particular the human one, is a poor design because it's inherently unstable.

The debate on running is an interesting side issue, but irrelevant to the original point because "better runner" does not equal "more stable". Indeed you might argue the opposite is true - Cheetahs are rather unstable animals, all things considered.

It is human instability that makes us so utterly ineffective at locomotion for over a year of life while other animals are walking confidently in a matter of hours. We have to learn how to walk. Other animals just do it. Why? Because our configuration is inherently unstable. Crap design.

 

[ponderingturtle]

As pointed out, humans only utilise it in hot conditions. Animals can be run down in very short spaces of time - African Wild Dogs use the same heat exhaustion method and their hunts are usually over in a couple of miles. Yet the prey in question certainly hasn't exhausted their physical capacity in that short a time. They over heat.

This is not shown well. Because technology has made such methods impractical for most societies, you can hunt with out almost killing yourself as well.

This thought process would also indicate that overheating is the biggest concern of marathon runners and that the cooler the area they run in the faster their times should be.

 

[gumboot]

I find this a very curious argument given that the pinnacles of human stability are competing with each other right now in Beijing, doing things that no other creature can even come close to doing.

In Beijing the top 0.0001% of humans are doing things (as far as stability goes) that all other animals in the wild do on a daily basis. Not impressed.

 

[ponderingturtle]

No, the initial argument was that a bipedal design, and in particular the human one, is a poor design because it's inherently unstable.

But this started as a reaction to

I don't believe it exists. Most animals out there have no trouble outrunning us, even if they have shorter legs than us

Admittedly tying any of this to stability is just wrong

It is human instability that makes us so utterly ineffective at locomotion for over a year of life while other animals are walking confidently in a matter of hours. We have to learn how to walk. Other animals just do it. Why? Because our configuration is inherently unstable. Crap design.

Not entirely the instability though, it is also the head size that forces birth to take place at a comparatively undeveloped state.

It is not that infants could walk if they had stable methods of locomation, that is why newborns can not crawl even though it is stable.

If it was just instability humans would crawl around right after being born and spend a few months learning to stand and walk. As that is not what happens it is not simply instability that is the issue.

 

[ponderingturtle]

In Beijing the top 0.0001% of humans are doing things (as far as stability goes) that all other animals in the wild do on a daily basis. Not impressed.

Personaly I would love to see a canid on the uneven bars.

 

[gumboot]

This thought process would also indicate that overheating is the biggest concern of marathon runners and that the cooler the area they run in the faster their times should be.

That's not necessarily true, because a lot of other factors come into play, the biggest one being humidity. However you'll note if you look through the world record marathon time progression that all of the recent records have been in Europe or North America during Spring or Autumn. So yes, marathon runners do run faster times in cooler conditions.

(I'm not a marathon runner but I can attest that I tend to run faster times over a fixed distance in cold dry weather).

 

[Herzblut]

Take any athlete from Beijing. Any. Single. One.

Like Huaiwen Xu?

 

[GreyICE]

Like Huaiwen Xu?

[qimg]http://www.spox.com/de/sport/olympia/0808/Bilder/xu-514.jpg[/qimg]

What does that have to do with the price of tea in China?

 

[gumboot]

But this started as a reaction to

Ah I see what has happened... two similar discussions have merged due to their similarity. You were discussing the human ability to outrun things, and whether this came from the spine (roughly speaking) and I was discussing with someone else inherent human instability. They came back with a comment about humans being good endurance runners, thus merging the two arguments into one.

Ignore everything I have said in the thread.

Not entirely the instability though, it is also the head size that forces birth to take place at a comparatively undeveloped state.

It is not that infants could walk if they had stable methods of locomation, that is why newborns can not crawl even though it is stable.

If it was just instability humans would crawl around right after being born and spend a few months learning to stand and walk. As that is not what happens it is not simply instability that is the issue.

You're quite right that instability isn't the only issue, but the mere fact that we have to learn how to perform our default form of movement whereas other animals do not indicates a problem with stability.

Other animals don't learn to crawl first. They just stand. Straight away. We can't. Obviously we have the setback of having to further develop motor function so we can move ourselves, but if we were like other animals (accepting that we aren't as developed when we're born), we wouldn't crawl and then walk, we'd just go straight from immobile baby to toddler.

Of course it doesn't actually require any theoretical stuff about development to show humans are a less stable design. Stability is a physical trait and physics can use calculation to demonstrate our instability. We have a tall upright frame, with a high center of gravity (higher in males than females) supported on two very small close together surface areas (our feet). This is unstable. In contrast a snake, for example, has a low height with a very low center of gravity supported on a very broad base. This is stable.

It's not biology. It's physics.

 

[Herzblut]

What does that have to do with the price of tea in China?

You suggested to take any athlete, didn't you?

And Badminton does not say anything about demonstrated stability of human motion, you think. Very interesting.

 

[technoextreme]

But we're not. We're useless on all terrain except dead flat.

As Adam Savage would say that's wrongity wrong wrong. Besides insects like cockroaches the only species that really can fit into any niche are humans. A jack of all trades but a master of none which is why for all intents and purposes we have the brain.

 

[technoextreme]

The debate on running is an interesting side issue, but irrelevant to the original point because "better runner" does not equal "more stable". Indeed you might argue the opposite is true - Cheetahs are rather unstable animals, all things considered.

All things considered you are ignoring the fact that Cheetahs only have two legs on the ground when they are running. In fact I would guess most animals that you have brought up only have two legs on the ground when they are running.

It's not biology. It's physics

It is biology. Your just not putting two and two together to get four. Though I just realized something after looking at papers. We are forgetting the fact that humans are undeniably more flexible when it comes to gaits than most animals.

 

[robinson]

Okay, no other creature?

Take any athlete from Beijing. Any. Single. One.

Now pit it against a racehorse. Doesn't even have to be a prizewinner. Who wins that? Oh yeah, not the human.

Every year since 1980, Llanwrtyd Wells has hosted the Man Versus Horse Marathon, which pits hundreds of runners against dozens of horses with riders. On two legs or four, contestants take on 22 miles of challenging trails laced across a dazzling green countryside. They trot through fragrant pine forests, scramble up mountainous rock-strewn sheep trails, cross rolling moorlands, and ford rivers. In June 2004, for the first time ever, the human won. The innkeeper was delighted—and so were University of Utah biologist Dennis Bramble and Harvard University paleoanthropologist Daniel Lieberman. That summer the two scientists were putting the finishing touches on a theory with a new view on how conditions millions of years ago molded the way humans move today. The standard explanation among physical anthropologists has long been that early hominids left life in the trees to forage on the open savanna and that walking upright was the key to surviving in that new environment. Bramble and Lieberman do not dispute this general theory, but they have identified a suite of traits in the human anatomy that add a dramatic twist to the story line.
The traits appear to be specifically adapted for running—and for jogging for long distances. So Bramble and Lieberman were not at all surprised that a man won the Man Versus Horse Marathon. It fits their hypothesis.

http://discovermagazine.com/2006/may/tramps-like-us/article_view?b_start:int=0&-C=

In Beijing the top 0.0001% of humans are doing things (as far as stability goes) that all other animals in the wild do on a daily basis. Not impressed.

Nonsense.

 

[robinson]

It was to be expected, a thread about design flaws, turns into an argument involving the Olympics.

 

[technoextreme]

I'll take the race against the horse up to the top floor of the Empire State building. Muahahhaah... I win. Wait wait wait.... Best two out of three. I'll let it go down the stairs. Muahahahah... I win by default. Hell I could win a race against an emu to see who can run backwards the fastest. Here's a question for the forumites.... Why are there no tripeds?

It was to be expected, a thread about design flaws, turns into an argument involving the Olympics.

Someone should extend Godwin's law to include the fact that any discussion will invairiably go off topic.

 

[GreyICE]

You suggested to take any athlete, didn't you?

And Badminton does not say anything about demonstrated stability of human motion, you think. Very interesting.

Wow, you can't read. At all. Please try next time.

What are humans good at? Dexterity. None of those animals are good at Archery, target shooting, object manipulation, any of the things we're great at.

That's a quote by, gasp, me.

In the post.

That you quoted.

There are sentences beyond the first I'm guessing you're in the part of the population that's dragging down the 30 second attention span we have for TV ads?

 

[technoextreme]

There are sentences beyond the first I'm guessing you're in the part of the population that's dragging down the 30 second attention span we have for TV ads?

Screw the quasi-intellectual discussion. FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT. But it can't be any fight now. Who will volunteer to fight a bear?

 

[gumboot]

As Adam Savage would say that's wrongity wrong wrong. Besides insects like cockroaches the only species that really can fit into any niche are humans.

That's because we manipulate our environment and make things to help us survive. Left to fend on their own humans would die in practically every climate on earth.

What has any of that got to do with stability anyway?

 

[gumboot]

All things considered you are ignoring the fact that Cheetahs only have two legs on the ground when they are running. In fact I would guess most animals that you have brought up only have two legs on the ground when they are running.

Humans only have one leg on the ground while running. Does that make us monopeds? No. Kangaroos spend most of their running time with no feet on the ground. Does that mean they don't have legs?

It is biology. Your just not putting two and two together to get four.

Physical stability of a physical object is about physics, not biology. Physics determines that an object is less stable the easier it is to move the centre of mass of the object outside the animal's footprint. The smaller the footprint and the higher the centre of gravity, the easier this is. The larger the footprint and the lower the centre of gravity the harder it is. This is very simple physics.

Though I just realized something after looking at papers. We are forgetting the fact that humans are undeniably more flexible when it comes to gaits than most animals.

What do you mean by "more flexible when it comes to gaits"?