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Short-Term Consequences of Long-Term Evolutionary Benefits:
Over the long-term, bipedal locomotion provides such a profound evolutionary advantage that it outweighs even significant negative consequences to the individual. In fact, many of the most common medical complaints of modern humans relate directly to the physiological realities of the transition of anatomical systems originally designed for quadruped locomotion to the later evolution of bipedalism. Chronic lower back pain, for example, afflicts approximately 80% of the human population. According to physiologists, this is a direct function of the changed role of a spinal column originally designed as an arched support connecting two sets of load-bearing limbs to a vertically- loaded column supporting the compression load required by the shift to bipedalism.
Likewise, the transition to the narrower hips necessary for efficient bipedal locomotion is the source of significant potential problems affecting the connective tissues, particularly in the knee. Specifically, the change in angle formed by limbs in relation to the narrower bipedal hips significantly increases the potential shearing force on the ligaments of the knee. In fact, this phenomenon...
In that regard, possibly the most dramatic modern consequences of the evolutionary adaptations necessitated by bipedal locomotion relate to the comparative difficulty which human females experience in childbirth compared to our closest simian relatives. Whereas other primates give birth relatively easily and without assistance, human birth requires complicated fetal movement corresponding to the extremely narrow and twisted shape of the human birth canal that until the modern medical era, made childbirth a significant risk to the life of the mother.
Conclusion:
The evolution of bipedal locomotion in humans illustrates the degree to which behavior generates adaptive evolution as well as the profound short-term consequences sometimes required to reap the long-term benefits of certain adaptations. Ultimately, many of our present day medical complaints can be directly traced to the fact that we walk upright on two legs rather than to our choices of life style and recreational pursuits.
Anthropology: The Fundamental Social Science Anthropology is, according the American Anthropological Association, "the study of humans, past and present" (AAA, 2011). Anthropology looks at what it means to be human; it is "a field of inquiry that studies human culture and evolutionary aspects of human biology, including cultural anthropology, archaeology, linguistics, and biological anthropology" (Jurmain, Kilgore, & Trevathan 2006: 6). It, therefore, is the fundamental social (and behavioral) science discipline that
Anthropology Career: Anthropology can broadly be defined as the study of humanity based on its evolutionary origins in the past millions of years and its current global diversity. Unlike other disciplines that focus on one or another aspect of humanity, anthropology focuses on how people plan their lives and relate to each other in interacting, interconnected groups or societies with similar beliefs and practices. Anthropologists share many interests with other disciplines
Bipedalism – Human Evolution Introduction Human evolution takes into account the biotic as well as cultural development of humans. Human philosophies of the manner in which evolution of man came to be is ascertained by beliefs that have been espoused by scientists and societies dating as back as 400 decades ago. Human species, scientifically referred to as homo sapiens has extremely evolved in the last number of billion years. There have been
" (Wikopedia, n.d.) The social scientists moved from Freud to the idea of Pramatism. "Theodore Porter argued in "The Rise of Statistical Thinking" that the effort to provide a synthetic social science is a matter of both administration and discovery combined, and that the rise of social science was, therefore, marked by both pragmatic needs as much as by theoretical purity." (Wikopedia n.d.) An example of how the social science movement continues
Since males of all sexually reproducing species are naturally drawn to signs of fertility in females (Zuk 2002), they naturally express more interest in females when they ovulate, or come into heat in the vernacular applied to non-human animals. In many other species that do not rely as much on a monogamous pair bond for the survival of the fetus (Barash & Lipton 2001), females exhibit very clear external signals