Quantum Biology 6: Bipedalism
‘For any quadruped to get up on its hind legs in order to run is an insane thing to do. It’s plain ridiculous.’ - Owen Lovejoy Today, we are going to talk about the one thing that really separates humans from all other mammals. We began to walk upright before we developed a big brain. It was our first defining evolutionary change from chimp to human. The reasons why our legs grew first is generally credited to our big brain needing a larger birth canal and causing changes in the genitourinary system. There is one big problem with this theory; We grew legs long before we developed a large complex brain. The brain did not drive bipedalism. Many modern evolutionary biologist take upright walking for granted because they can do it easily so it appears a natural progression of evolutionary progress. Not even Darwin could explain this evolutionary jump. There has never been another change like it in the biologic record. It might seem a poor topic for some, because many people have found it easy to explain in their own mind; After all, bipedalism did not strike the early evolutionists as a "difficult thing" to explain. When Darwin wrote 'The Descent of Man' he did not even bother to list it in his index. Fact check that. It is true. He choose to completely ignored it, because he could not explain it, and just thought going from all fours to two feet was natural for us! The sequence of events seemed clear enough at that time.