Your Hands Were Made For Punching According To New Study 240
They are capable of delicate surgery, creating beautiful works of art, and comforting someone feeling down, but according to a new study your hands evolved to smash someone in the face. From the article: "Human hands evolved so that men could make fists and fight, and not just for manual dexterity, new research finds.
The study, published in the Journal of Experimental Biology, adds to a growing body of evidence that humans are among the most aggressive and violent animals on the planet.
'With the notable exception of bonobos, great apes are a relatively aggressive group of mammals,' lead author David Carrier told Discovery News. 'Although some primatologists may argue that chimpanzees are the most aggressive apes, I think the evidence suggests that humans are substantially more violent.''"
Not for jacking off? (Score:5, Funny)
Not for jacking off?
Re:Not for jacking off? (Score:5, Funny)
If God didn't want us to masturbate, he wouldn't have given us such long arms.
Re:Not for jacking off? (Score:5, Funny)
But God was mad at T-Rex?
http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=1637#comic [smbc-comics.com]
Re:Not for jacking off? (Score:5, Funny)
don't forget the red dot [smbc-comics.com].
Re:Not for jacking off? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not for jacking off? (Score:5, Funny)
Fascinating! I did a quick scientific survey of my colleagues and it seems that some peoples faces are evolved for punching too!
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Blasphemy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMj0sJPlB48 [youtube.com]
Re:Not for jacking off? (Score:4, Insightful)
You, sir. (Score:2)
Re:You, sir. (Score:5, Funny)
Just don't shake his hand.
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Not for jacking off?
No, that's the current stage of evolution.
Re:Not for jacking off? (Score:5, Interesting)
As a guy that has suffered from various bacterial infections of the prostate and other reproductive parts, masturbation was one of the keys toward clearing out infections.
See, the ejaculate is designed to be a nutrient bath for sperm cells. And it's good at keeping OTHER cells alive too.
But it acts like mucus (snot) to clear things out if you are ready to dump lots of it.
Masturbation (twice a day if possible) is one of the key things to do if you've got prostatitis. So yeah, it's not good to hold your load too long. Why do you think wet dreams occur? Why bother doing that while asleep, couldn't it be completely confined to dreaming?
If you want to successfully reproduce, you need to be wanking it often, especially if there isn't modern medical care available.
Ps, I am better now.
Explains a lot (Score:4, Funny)
Fist walking (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Fist walking (Score:4, Funny)
The point of walking was to free up the hands to punch more people. Just like the point of jumping was to do scissors kicks to the neck. Cause that's just awesome.
Re:Fist walking (Score:4, Insightful)
It wasn't "for" anything.
In terms of the size and shape of hand anatomy, the scientists point out that humans could have evolved manual dexterity with longer thumbs, but without the fingers and palms getting shorter.
What a bunch of nonsense. You postulate something on the basis of a weak anatomical correlate study and then you open it up to an evolutionary mechanism. There isn't anything to suggest that reproductive fitness (the thing that drives evolution) has anything to do with punching out competitors.
I see your fist and raise the ante with a club.
Re:Fist walking (Score:5, Insightful)
There isn't anything to suggest that reproductive fitness (the thing that drives evolution) has anything to do with punching out competitors.
You've never watched stags or bulls in mating season then....
Re:Fist walking (Score:5, Insightful)
Absolutely. Also, study author should watch less movies and punch someone for real. He will realize that human hands are really bad for punching, you get open bleeding knuckles in no time, and injuries if your fists and arms are misaligned. It's not an accident that martial arts that use punches spend a lot of practice to getting it right, and many don't use closed-fist punches with exposed first phalanges at all.
Re:Fist walking (Score:4, Insightful)
Agreed. The conclusions are idiotic. Punching something isn't nearly as effective as bashing something over the head with a rock.
Look at all the things for which modern humans use their thumbs. It's a multifunction device and whether your talking tool use or weapon use, thumbs made our species much more likely to survive.
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If you get open bleeding knuckles you're doing it wrong. Doesnt take long to develop the calluses and shrunken knuckles that deliver a more powerful impact. And if predecessors did knuckle walk, they would have naturally developed both features. And something tells me, if your mating rights a million ago depended on being able to hit, you would probably spend more time "learning" than martial artists today do, and learn it quicker.
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Fifty years of martial arts experience here - the human body has a lot of armor and can take more punishment than the occasional KTFO video might indicate. Against armored targets, a punch can be as ruinous to the puncher as to the one being punched. In a fluid situation, it can be difficult to deliver an accurate, solid punch without injury to yourself. (This is why, although I teach beginners to punch to give themselves a sense of "power", for actual fighting, I don't use punching.)
The study showing peak
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40 ton humpback whales leap out of the water and body slam each either in competition over females, sometimes causing fatal internal injuries.
Hippos fight each other mating rights, sometimes fatally slicing each others necks open with their tusks.
So yeah. There is nothing to suggest that reproductive fitness has anything to do with punching out competitors. Not a thing. Nope. Females never select only the agressive winner to breed with.
Re:Fist walking (Score:5, Interesting)
Orangutans are the only great ape that walks like that, though, and they're primarily brachiators. Chimps and gorillas walk on the second knuckle rather than the first.
Speaking of chimps and violence (Score:2)
It was great when Chimp Team Six took out Bin Laden!
It's all about masturbation, Mr. Carrier (Score:5, Informative)
Then arms were made for masturbation. Otherwise why would they not be that length? If they were made for punching, they would be very much longer to minimize the risk to oneself from an attacker. Hands were then made for masturbation as well, otherwise why put them at the end of the perfect length of arm?
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Re:It's all about masturbation, Mr. Carrier (Score:4, Interesting)
Not having to impregnate women you don't even like just because you feel horny, for one.
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The whole purpose of becoming horny is to have sex and reproduce.
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"purpose" ? Whose purpose ? Surely you're not implying that nature as such has a purpose ?
Re:It's all about masturbation, Mr. Carrier (Score:5, Insightful)
And the "purpose" of not having blue balls, or kids with the first woman you saw the day you reached puberty, is to increase our fitness *vastly* beyond what humping everything would... at least I assume that's the reason we came up with it. We as a species invest a lot in our kids, we don't just lay 20 eggs and let them fight amongst themselves. I mean, our kids are extremely helpless for a very long time, compared to most animals we're hilarious in that sense. This implies the need for society and a bond between the parents that goes beyond mere hornyness. After all, the same person will never make you repeatedly as horny as a person of equal hotness you haven't slept with, if there is nothing else.
Also, these days we mostly procreate by information and power. When you think you're procreating you're really mostly just making vessels filled by others, how's that for a cheerful thought? Sure, your kids might have your genes, but they mostly do what a handful (in comparison to all the people who are "just parents") of inventors and leaders/owners came up with. They don't run around with cell phones because it was your idea, do they, or fight random shitty wars for with random shitty justifications because you recommended it. The concepts they use to interact with the world they won't get from you for the most part either, nor the movies or the songs or the hygiene products they will associate with their childhood just as much as they will associate it with you. I don't say this to be mean, at least not only; I really have to say "PFFFFFF!!" to the whole gene thing, that's like 10000 years past - a number I completely pulled out of my ass.
I say we humans don't live in our genes, we live in that tiny percentage of them that makes us have these brains, in which we have ideas, knowledge, language, personality and ownership constructs. The hardware is really not the point of us. Sure, our genes may be selfish and our higher level things just a result of that blind selfishness ultimately, but now that these higher level things have arisen, they do influence and select genes as well, not just the other way around. And I'd say what is going on in our wetware, the current state, is way more important than our genes. There even was a slashdot story about this a while ago I think, about how we haven't really changed a lot biology wise. Our progress is mostly in culture "lately". Not that I'd need a scientist to know that, I looked it up in my gut; but it's always neat to have that gut feeling confirmed.
Re:It's all about masturbation, Mr. Carrier (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, these days we mostly procreate by information and power. When you think you're procreating you're really mostly just making vessels filled by others, how's that for a cheerful thought? Sure, your kids might have your genes, but they mostly do what a handful (in comparison to all the people who are "just parents") of inventors and leaders/owners came up with. They don't run around with cell phones because it was your idea, do they, or fight random shitty wars for with random shitty justifications because you recommended it. The concepts they use to interact with the world they won't get from you for the most part either, nor the movies or the songs or the hygiene products they will associate with their childhood just as much as they will associate it with you. I don't say this to be mean, at least not only; I really have to say "PFFFFFF!!" to the whole gene thing, that's like 10000 years past - a number I completely pulled out of my ass.
I think you are profoundly underestimating the influence a parent who is nurturing and has a positive relationship with their kid, has on that child's personality. That child may be influenced greatly through non-parental channels, but they will most likely hold similair beliefs and values, which may match societal norms as well, but be closer to their family.
My point is that, their parents values may overlap with societal values but their parent's influence is greater. I'm specifically talking about people who would rate their relationship as very close.
If what you say is true I would think everyone would be grey and generic.
Re:It's all about masturbation, Mr. Carrier (Score:5, Interesting)
Values, yes. For example, there surely were many of loving parents in Nazi Germany, and the sense of duty and honor they instilled in their kids -- with the best and most loving of intentions --made those perfect fodder for the Nazis. Of course, there was also the resistance. You know, the ones who died a lot, too. While Nazi scientists kind of went on to continue their career in the US. Gotta lurv me some values!
Values can be routed around and used for whatever if you couple it with deception, and even then there is the whole external forces stuff... You can instill values that would make your kid rather starve than become a murderer, but wether they will have to make such a choice is not up to you or them, ultimately. You can keep your kid from participating in war or slavery, but not from catching a bullet or being enslaved.
It's kind of ironic: unless we care for all people, our own children (and their children, and theirs..) don't really stand much of a chance, and will not have much of a say. They will pick from choices others engineered and think they are their own. That's even worse than being in prison, where you even know you are.
We are embedded in society, we breathe it, and the question is, who drives it. Special interest groups, or all? Whom does it serve for the most part? We are being driven, probed, manipulated, divided and conquered, and you tell me your parenting is going to win out? I mean, I get your point, and I agree with it in the scope it applies, but do you hear me, too?
Even when you say "your beliefs" I have to ask, how many of those are yours, how many have you adopted without looking too closely? And never mind you, how about most people?
Likewise, if what you said was true, that either means a lot of parents raise their kids to be tools for robbery, murder, and being experimented on.
And yes, I am exaggerrating. To make a point, because this cute little "my family tree" stuff is boring me to death. I appreciate the love, but I hate the naivity. Put bluntly, even the most successful kid is still just a slave and cannonfodder with mostly lies, toys and non-sequiturs in the brain, with so few exceptions they're not worth mentioning. It's not worth mentioning until it's at least two thirds, if you ask me :P I know we can't all be super duper grownups all the time, but this is abysmal bullshit. The whole last 100 years have been, at least.
And yes, once you see through a bunch of patterns [youtube.com] you'll find the world, in some ways, IS very grey and generic. Well, the human world, anyway. It's like the emperor has ten thousand outfits, and they all consist of his wrinkly dick swinging in the wind. And pretending otherwise doesn't make it actually colorful, it kinda dooms us... so let's kick the emperor in the nuts. He'll thank us when he snapped out of it, I bet you.
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Man I gotta lay off the ranting :/
"That's even worse than being in prison, where you even know you are." == "That's even worse than being in prison, where you at least know you are."
[cue Cypher from the Matrix with his line about steak, cue roundhouse kick to the head]
Re:It's all about masturbation, Mr. Carrier (Score:5, Insightful)
We as a species invest a lot in our kids, we don't just lay 20 eggs and let them fight amongst themselves.
That's how Libertarians breed, you insensitive clod!
Re:It's all about masturbation, Mr. Carrier (Score:5, Interesting)
But convincing women to have sex with you requires not being a pathetic drooling moron, which means having a way of bleeding off the excess horniness during sexless courtship. Low horniness means you don't try and drop out of the gene pool, high unrelieved horniness means you don't succeed and drop out of the gene pool. Horniness + ability to masturbate means you can select your level of horniness to fit the situation. Win.
But there was a side effect: When women breast-feed, it lowers their sex drive on average. A normal horny animal would just go off and find another mate. This limits the resources available for the child, so the species evolves young that are independent early, which limits intelligence. However, because masturbating human males could relieve their horniness, it reduced their need to constantly find other mates. This increased the resources for children, allowing the minor evolutionary pressure for greater intelligence to finally overcome the greater evolutionary pressure to reduce resource use. Thus modern humans evolved.
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http://www.cartoonstock.com/newscartoons/cartoonists/dms/lowres/dmsn47l.jpg [cartoonstock.com]
I google-imaged "caveman sex". I expected Raquel Welch. I didn't get Raquel Welch. TIL.
Context is important! (Score:3, Interesting)
Context is important. Violence is not ubiquitous. See this:7 Things Bonobos Can Teach Us About Love and Sex
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sex-dawn/201202/7-things-bonobos-can-teach-us-about-love-and-sex
As a boxer... (Score:5, Insightful)
From years of boxing this couldnt be more obvious.
Your hands will fracture, break, bend, and sometimes emulsify... Especially the forefinger middle knuckle and the top pinky knuckle = 'the boxer break.' Over and over.
But each time calcifying over and becoming stronger. After a while you literally have 'hands of stone.'
Now of course my dexterity isnt what it used to be. Typing and fumbling for computer screws reminds me of my favorite pastime often.
Re:As a boxer... Ewwwwww (Score:3, Funny)
mishandling relatively short, small diameter, objects reminds you of your favourite pastime ............ just ewwww
Re:As a boxer... Ewwwwww (Score:5, Funny)
mishandling relatively short, small diameter, objects reminds you of your favourite pastime ............ just ewwww
If you haven't played with a clit, you're missing out.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
It's above the b and below the g and h.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
touch: cannot touch ‘/dev/clit’: Permission denied
:(
Re:As a boxer... Ewwwwww (Score:4, Funny)
sudo!
Re:As a boxer... Ewwwwww (Score:5, Funny)
It says:
"User Horndog is not a member of the super users group", and that "my access violation will be reported"!
I think I hear sirens....
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Bullshit, your fists are not properly adapted to bare knuckle boxing, which is what TFS implies. The human face has tons of small muscles, each muscle is anchored by tiny bone ridges. The skull itself is adapted to handle whatever knocks it takes.
So, what you end up with is breaking your fingers and similar damage. If you really must hit somebody in the face, you do that with the heal of your hand which is much sturdier than your knuckles anyways. It's braced for times when you fall forward and need to use
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If landing punches is breaking your fingers then you're doing something wrong.
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Pick a soft spot to punch, not the head. If you need to hit them in the head, use a utensil.
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After a while you figuratively have 'hands of stone.'
FTFY
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Calcium isn't a stone now? he said literally, he meant literally.
Re:As a boxer... (Score:4, Informative)
Bone is a calcium phosphate complex bound with protein molecules, which form an extracellular matrix. Calcium is an alkaline earth metal. Phosphorus is a nonmetal, and oxygen is a gas. Calcium phosphate, all by itself, is a mineral which usualy only forms under unusual and arrid conditions.
The calcium phosphate complex that comprises bone cannot be classified as a mineral, because it is formed via a biological process. (Similar caveat for coal. Not a mineral.) /pedant
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These lead me to believe that hands weren't intended for punching stuff. There's way too much technique required so I don't hurt myself (and even technique isn't enough, which is where the taping comes in).
Re:As a boxer... (Score:4, Interesting)
Your hands will fracture, break, bend, and sometimes emulsify... Especially the forefinger middle knuckle and the top pinky knuckle = 'the boxer break.' Over and over.
Strange, I would take this as evidence that our hands are NOT evolved for punching, but rather that our bodies are amazingly adaptable to what we put them through.
It's hard to see the thumb as an adaptation used for fighting, as the article suggests.
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It's hard to see the thumb as an adaptation used for fighting, as the article suggests.
Though it works marvels once a sturdy stick comes involved
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Your hands will fracture, break, bend, and sometimes emulsify... Especially the forefinger middle knuckle and the top pinky knuckle = 'the boxer break.' Over and over.
Strange, I would take this as evidence that our hands are NOT evolved for punching, but rather that our bodies are amazingly adaptable to what we put them through.
It's hard to see the thumb as an adaptation used for fighting, as the article suggests.
Really? I find the thumbs can press down into the eyes very well in a fight, and it's hard to get them out when rest of the hand is gripped about the skull.
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But each time they grow stronger, more flexible, and capable of independent action. After a while you figuratively become one with the piano.
And yet your fingers didn't evolve to play the piano. It's just a convenient side-effect.
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According to my vegan, feminist ex... (Score:5, Funny)
We were living in a peaceful vegetarian world, munching on salad until the bronze age. Of course, all evidence for this was wiped out by the evil patriarchy.
I call BS (Score:5, Informative)
Your hands are full of very small bones. It's very easy to break your hand by punching something hard and dense (such as a skull or face for instance).
If you want to strike someone in the face, it's smarter to use other parts of the body such as your knee, elbow or to use an open hand strike (such as a palm strike). That way you have the edge of a very long bone delivering the blow.
Re: (Score:3)
Some martial arts teach striking with the heel of the palm, gaining the 'end-of-long-bone advantage and protecting the fingers.
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Re:I call BS (Score:5, Insightful)
But then he'll get a bigger stronger branch. And you'll respond by attaching sharpened flint to your branch. Then he invents a system where he can make others fight you while he is protected. So you invent a system where you personify the sun or a volcano and convince others that it's the personification that wants them to fight his defenders...
Where does it all end?
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Re: (Score:2)
But then he'll get a bigger stronger branch. And you'll respond by attaching sharpened flint to your branch. Then he invents a system where he can make others fight you while he is protected. So you invent a system where you personify the sun or a volcano and convince others that it's the personification that wants them to fight his defenders...
Where does it all end?
In a Quake 3 deathmatch?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Where does it all end?
1. CHESS
2. POKER
3. FIGHTER COMBAT
4. GUERRILLA ENGAGEMENT
5. DESERT WARFARE
6. AIR-TO-GROUND ACTIONS
7. THEATERWIDE TACTICAL WARFARE
8. THEATERWIDE BIOTOXIC AND CHEMICAL WARFARE
9. GLOBAL THERMONUCLEAR WAR
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Your hands are full of very small bones. It's very easy to break your hand by punching something hard and dense (such as a skull or face for instance).
If you want to strike someone in the face, it's smarter to use other parts of the body such as your knee, elbow or to use an open hand strike (such as a palm strike). That way you have the edge of a very long bone delivering the blow.
Pick up a stick or a rock. If the article had read, we evolved tool use from weapons then yes. By that benchmark we are the most violent species.
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Or don't target the head, the most protected part of the body. There are many other organs to choose from.
Level the playing field. (Score:4, Funny)
Although some primatologists may argue that chimpanzees are the most aggressive apes, I think the evidence suggests that humans are substantially more violent.
Set the chimps down in front of a few Windows systems and we'll see...
[ Sorry, just finished working on my Windows 7 system and reading the recent Windows 8 thread and am feeling a little violent. ]
Re:Level the playing field. (Score:5, Funny)
I predict that they will start throwing chairs.
These hands were made for punching (Score:3)
And that's just what they'll do
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One of these days these hands are gonna punch all over you.
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One of these days these hands are gonna punch all over you.
Nancy!
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Are you ready, hands? Start whacking!
Hulk (Score:2)
Oh yeah? (Score:5, Funny)
Oh yeah? I bet he wouldn't say that to my face!
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And if any one disagrees with me, I'll punch their face in.
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Only because of the balance of negative consequences to positive successes through other choices. Look at places where the rule of law has faltered or where unemployment is so high that it's exceedingly difficult to make an honest living, people often turn savage. A "bad neighborhood" is an example of this on the lower end of the spectrum, and places like northern Mexico are the other end.
Civilization is a Non-Zero-Sum Game (Score:3)
Well, I guess somebody has to go against the flood of neurological research showing that humans tend greatly towards the altruistic. "Fists, yeah, that's the ticket. People are inherently violent, and so we're justified being bad to them, because they need to be controlled." Augustine of Hippo called - he wants his Original Sin back.
Troll "research" is troll.
I wouldn't say humans are more violent (Score:4, Interesting)
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"Humans are gradually getting less violent."
But is this because humans are less violent, or tools of war (WMD) are acting as a check on how violent we can be and not suffer total annihilation in the process? Consider if Japan had nukes when truman dropped the bomb, would he have dropped the bomb? Probably not.
Humans are violent in calculated ways and their still exists lots of violence in modern societies the violence just takes different forms (bullying, being ripped off, etc).
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who funded this? (Score:3)
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Glad to see it. (Score:3)
More quality research from the Chuck Norris Institute of Bodily Harm. I predict the findings of their next study will either focus on the advantages of delivering a roundhouse kick while wearing jeans.
Yes (Score:2, Insightful)
The actual article is free to read (Score:2, Informative)
http://jeb.biologists.org/content/216/2/236.full
this is a joke (Score:3, Interesting)
Other articles she wrote:
Suggested related articles:
The monkey speaks his mind (Score:2)
The monkey speaks his mind
And three monkeys sat in a coconut tree
Discussing things as they are said to be
Said one to other now listen, you two
“There’s a certain rumour that just can’t be true
That man descended from our noble race
Why, the very idea is a big disgrace, yea”
No monkey ever deserted his wife
Starved her baby and ruined her life
Yea, the monkey speaks his mind
And you’ve never known a mother monk
To leave her babies with others to bunk
And passed them on fro
What should Liam Neeson Punch Next? (Score:2)
Liam Neeson will be glad to hear this news as he decides what to punch next.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2012/01/25/145837558/what-should-liam-neeson-punch-next [npr.org]
Specious "evidence", imo.... (Score:2)
This line is the only thing that I can find in the article that even slightly resembles evidence suggesting that the hand actually evolved for that purpose, but it seems to make the flawed assumption that since a part of our body is better at doing X one particular way than another, perhaps more natural or obvious way, then the act of doing X must have been the most domi
Smashdot! (Score:2)
There. I've said it.
Re: (Score:2)
There. I've said it.
Super Smashdot!
There. I expanded upon what you said.
wwitty ending... come on! (Score:2)
Not so convinced (Score:2)
Not true, for gripping and minimizing damage (Score:2)
Re:and...your boots were made for walking (Score:2)
and that's just what they'll do [youtube.com]...