attention? (Or Pixie Dust and Moonbeams)

[jess tauber]

Steve Long ti:kama:nude:

<<No species out in the wild shows the morphological diversity we see in the domesticated dog and that diversity was acheived in a few thousand years at most (think Chihuahua versus Great Dane versus wolf).

Oh, I dunno- aren't the Cichlid fishes of the African great lakes supposed to be extremely diverse both morphologically and behaviorally, and naturally evolved in a very short time after the lakes refilled at the end of the Ice Ages to take advantage of the many different microenvironments that the expansion of the lake system created? Unless hypothetical Homo Aquaticus (where are you when we need you Kevin Costner...?) was into breeding tropical fish.

<<Pre-wired appears to have come first. Plasticity, not automaticity, was the next big step in biological adaptation.

Not so fast- evidence from genes over phylogenesis seems to indicate slow cumulation of hard-wiring over very long stretches of time, as systems became much more interactive and less 'modular'. This would imply that earlier on, morphology and behavior were more flexible in response to the environment (if not necessarily in control). Late, derived, flexibility is due to losses in the cumulative system- genes shut off, nonworking proteins, and other broken links. Witness neotenization, where earlier life stages become reproductively successful, and the older later stages just drop out entirely. One step forward is in many ways two steps back. Retro is in.

As for 'muddling'- there is still controversy about the Hobbit from Indonesia and the size of its brain- how could such a creature be 'human' with such reductions. The answer may be (assuming one doesn't take these forms to be simply retarded moderns) that it automated the relevant prehuman behaviors- hunting, cave dwelling, and so on. Robo-erectus. With a limited and stable environment, no Sapiens competition, and with loads of TIME, such things are possible, and help one optimize one's potential fit in the stultifying monotony. Be the best you can be, with blinders on.

Neotenization and similar processes, on the other hand, would do best in unstable environments where there was pleny of competitive threat in a short time, which would be to the detriment of specialists. The Toba eruption and its aftermath would certainly have provided the kind of pressures on the environment needed to get the ball rolling- and I'd imagine the comet that hit North America leading to the Younger Dryas event did as well. Sometimes all one needs is a good kick in the pants, on a planetary scale.

Overall, one might want to look for evidence of repeated episodes of increased/decreased automation in behavior through the eons.

Jess Tauber
phonosemantics at earthlink.net