4 ms·

We didn't have to be first. Other primates might have picked up the rock before we did, but eventually lost the race. Maybe the fire-cooking, rock-throwing dome

We didn't have to be first. Other primates might have picked up the rock before we did, but eventually lost the race. Maybe the fire-cooking, rock-throwing domesticating niche is just that competitive. So it might be more like "we are the ones that remain", but yeah, either variant is a spin on the old weak anthropic principle, which is never quite satisfying.

hyperpallium 7y ago
And we do seem to have wiped out/outcompeted Neanderthals etc. > fire-cooking, rock-throwing domesticating niche Just knowing if that was the evolutionary pressure along the path would be enough for me (even if it could have been another ape or a corvid or whatever - or maybe they are on that path now?) BTW Matt Ridley has the theory that division of labour (trade enabling specialization) was the gradient.