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Interesting. Wonder if this conflicts with the idea that human brains grew as a result of eating more meat. That instead human brains grew due to evolutionary n

Interesting. Wonder if this conflicts with the idea that human brains grew as a result of eating more meat. That instead human brains grew due to evolutionary need of harder to catch meat sources.

bazooka_penguin 6y ago
Not directly related, but I find myself to be mentally sharper when hungry, if on edge a little.
airhead969 6y ago
As protohumans and humans invaded lands, they likely extincted megafauna and flora calorie and protein sources that were easiest to access. This then likely required more mental effort and creativity to solve food security problems with hunting and gardening.
- tashoecraft 6y ago
  It's interesting as it's a common argument that "meat caused us to have big brains, meat good", but that analysis might not be so clear cut. If this paper is right it may be more of the search for meat is what caused our brains to grow and less so meat protein.
  - marshray 6y ago
    It seems nonsensical to me that simply eating meat protein could somehow cause a genetic change leading to great-grandchildren with larger brains.
    - jjk166 6y ago
      It doesn't cause the genetic change, the genetic change is random. But if you were, simply by chance, born with a bigger brain that required more calories to support, you would be at a disadvantage to everyone else, and your mutation would quickly die out unless you were in a situation where you had excess calories available, such as by eating meat.
    - yellowapple 6y ago
      It doesn't seem that nonsensical to me when considering things like epigenetics. It also doesn't seem all that nonsensical if you flip the causality to "some genetic change resulted in more brain activity/growth and necessitated more protein consumption as a result".
      - marshray 6y ago
        Right, phrasing it as "meat causes brains" confuses the direction of causality and fails to explain all the meat-eating animals that didn't grow large brains.
- Maursault 6y ago
  > As protohumans and humans invaded lands, they likely extincted megafauna... It is not as certain as most non-experts believe and a controversial subject among experts why megafauna seems to have died out globally rather quickly. So to use "likely" is too strong. "Possibly," is a far better descriptor here: did a global human population of only 1M-15M at the end of the last ice age really kill all of the megafauna everywhere, at once? Humans possibly contributed, but with only sticks and stones technology, how could so few kill every last one of what must have been enormous populations of megafauna? And why?

Interesting. Wonder if this conflicts with the idea that human brains grew as a result of eating more meat. That instead human brains grew due to evolutionary need of harder to catch meat sources.

bazooka_penguin 6y ago

Not directly related, but I find myself to be mentally sharper when hungry, if on edge a little.

airhead969 6y ago

As protohumans and humans invaded lands, they likely extincted megafauna and flora calorie and protein sources that were easiest to access. This then likely required more mental effort and creativity to solve food security problems with hunting and gardening.

tashoecraft 6y ago
It's interesting as it's a common argument that "meat caused us to have big brains, meat good", but that analysis might not be so clear cut. If this paper is right it may be more of the search for meat is what caused our brains to grow and less so meat protein.
- marshray 6y ago
  It seems nonsensical to me that simply eating meat protein could somehow cause a genetic change leading to great-grandchildren with larger brains.
  - jjk166 6y ago
    It doesn't cause the genetic change, the genetic change is random. But if you were, simply by chance, born with a bigger brain that required more calories to support, you would be at a disadvantage to everyone else, and your mutation would quickly die out unless you were in a situation where you had excess calories available, such as by eating meat.
  - yellowapple 6y ago
    It doesn't seem that nonsensical to me when considering things like epigenetics. It also doesn't seem all that nonsensical if you flip the causality to "some genetic change resulted in more brain activity/growth and necessitated more protein consumption as a result".
    - marshray 6y ago
      Right, phrasing it as "meat causes brains" confuses the direction of causality and fails to explain all the meat-eating animals that didn't grow large brains.
Maursault 6y ago
> As protohumans and humans invaded lands, they likely extincted megafauna... It is not as certain as most non-experts believe and a controversial subject among experts why megafauna seems to have died out globally rather quickly. So to use "likely" is too strong. "Possibly," is a far better descriptor here: did a global human population of only 1M-15M at the end of the last ice age really kill all of the megafauna everywhere, at once? Humans possibly contributed, but with only sticks and stones technology, how could so few kill every last one of what must have been enormous populations of megafauna? And why?