Could AS traits be useful for solo foraging/hunting?

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I agree.

Sadly, traits can sometimes be accentuated to the point at which they become maladaptive. This kind of phenomenon is seen in domestic purebred animals such as dogs. Advantageous traits are selected for by breeders, but this can lead to health problems in the pedigree dog breeds. Greyhounds can have hip problems; bulldogs can have respiratory problems and bloodhounds can have eye problems. You can have too much of a good thing.


As for modern day human foraging behaviours:

Perhaps making a music on the piano should really be called "foraging for notes".

Or going to the library and studying is like "foraging for knowledge".

Going to the supermarket is foraging for food.


Our brains are wired up to survive a hunter gatherer existence and yet we are surrounded by a crowded civillised western world cluttered with buildings and technology. Hunter gatherer brains are wired up to only work in relatively small groups and tribes.

There's definitely a mismatch between our bodies and our environment. I'm not sure if our current globalised industry fueled way of living is really sustainable.

ADHD as a Disorder of Adaptation

The many authors of this article echo Thom Hartmann's "Hunter in a Farmer's world" concept. They look at ADHD behavior through an evolutionary lens and describe how ADHD behavior may have been life-saving in earlier hunter/gatherer societies.

"Given the current estimated frequency of ADHD (3% to 5%), it is unlikely that such a "disorder" could be as prevalent in the human species if not maintained within the species by selection forces that conveyed certain advantages to some ADHD characteristics or other associated traits."

The three major diagnostic criteria of hyperactivity, impulsivity and attention differences were examined to see if these traits might actually have helped our ancestors to survive.

More at this website:

http://borntoexplore.org/hunter.htm

Let it be known that I find this discussion absolutely fascinating and will be following it with interest.

(Okay, it's true, I track threads that I like by looking at the "view your posts" link. Nonetheless.)

I do hunt and snare (too shrimpy to manage the springs on traps). I definitely think some of my more common aspie traits are beneficial. They are also useful in the observations necessary to my full-time work.

I've been lucky to be around people who, if not on the spectrum, are in work that requires the development of some traits. The ranching occupations are great for aspies, if you have the interest in animals or livestock.

I have found this document.

http://www.autismtheory.org/topotheory.html

It discusses the phenomenon of trait recycling and adaptive inertia.

A focus on objects rather than people would be advantageous for gathering food in sparsely populated areas. There is little need to have brilliant social skills if you live somewhere where there are few people.

Conversely a less acute sense perception and a good social sense would be advantageous in highly populated areas such as cities. In social centres, people obtain their food by bartering and selling farmed goods, not hunting.

I was always taught that evolution was like a tree branching upwards. Thinking of evolution as a steady "march of progress” might be misleading. There is no "next stage" in evolution planned out and man is not superior to all creatures. What traits survive depend on the organisms environment, hence different traits are selected for depending on the environment.

I’ve been wondering…

What if evolution could oscillate?


What about atavism?

Could earlier forms/traits be better adapated to harsh environmental conditions or catastrophies?

If evolution can oscillate, could this oscillation be a mechanism for the apparently sudden re-emergence of Lazarus taxa and other species in the fossil record?

I’m just throwing some ideas around here.

I agree with the "Hunter in a Farmer's World" hypothesis for ADHD.

In Hinduism there are holy "Old Soul" individuals who fit the ADHD description.

Perhaps this isn't too biologically off the mark.

Could "Old Souls" be examples of individuals showing behavioural atavism?

Perhaps we should start treating our own "Old Souls" a little better and with more understanding.

They could teach us things and offer glimpses of stages/adaptations to different environments and human evolution.

Last edited by AmberEyes on 27 Nov 2008, 2:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Agree with these ideas totally.

Cultural adaptations can jet through a human population in a very short time. Jared Diamond, author of "Guns, Germs, and Steel," has pointed out how a cultural change, the domestication of cattle, created a significant change in the human environment. This change selected for individuals with lactose tolerance. And this ability is now, after only a few thousand years, the norm for Eurasian populations--populations where domestic cattle-raising exists. Lactose intolerance is still the norm in populations where there are no domestic cattle. The availability of milk as a potential food source created a new enviroment. Adaptations/selection followed.

Cultural change/traits can alter collective human genetics, and far faster than natural environmental inputs.

So . . .

Did the radical demographic change in the human environment brought about by urbanization and agriculture alter collective human genetics? Almost certainly. But how?

Seems to me that the spectrum (arguably in its highest functioning manifestations, NOT the extremes), represents the pre-urban/aggy genetics. We are creatures of a low/sparse demographic environment.

1.) We are comfortable in small groups, close friends and family, but are decidedly NOT in larger groups/crowds, that, in fact, make us uncomfortable. LOW/SPARSE demographic environments are our comfort zone.

2.) We tend to scan and focus, in very much the same way as any mammalian carnivore.

3.) We have a seeming affinity with animals, especially dogs, which are first and foremost hunting companions. It's also no coincidence that cats are the other primary house pet, AND that both these animals STILL serve the purpose for which they were accepted into the human world--hunting. Cats hunt mice. I used to own one. I loved it that it kept my home mouse-free.

4.) Our communication tends to be to the point, largely honest, uncompromising. When hunting, this kind of communication is essential for a successful conclusion. The hunter who dissembles, exaggerates, or misses the point . . . won't survive. Effective, tight communication with the small group of associate hunters is the "right" way. There is little room for error in a rigorous, natural environment. Things move too fast for small talk.

When we consider the impact of human cultural traits, in this case hunting-as-a-way-of-life, quantitative thought can be enlightening. According to all the "hard" evidence, that is, the things that we find in the ground, things we can touch and are real and are beyond question, humans have been hunting a very long time. The last million years is not a conservative estimate. We have adopted the urban/aggy culture traits for only the last 10-12,000 years.

Which inputs do you think are most influential in constructing the human genome?

I think it can be good for many things. It is great for learning languages, I can tell you that!

I picked up fly fishing very quickly. It's immersive, sensory intense, with a lot of technical info.

If you have a mind where the sensory flow is saturated and immediate, you can be a great hunter or fisherman. You just have to overcome the motor clumsiness, if you have that.

I dont know about hunting but I am good at finding insects, I spent a lot of my childhood investigating shrubbery. Perhaps i would make a good insectivore. I should have been an anteater, or aardvark. I would have loved that.

I study herbalism and spend a lot of time wild crafting (collecting herbs growing in the wild) on private land.
I might gather at the land with other herbalists but we all split up when we venture out to the woods or field to gather herbs.

My acquaintances who hunt have all told me they spend a lot of time sitting in trees or blinds waiting for the game to reveal itself.

I'm not sure I'd have the patience for that.



Playing games is competitive.
I don't think I have that gene.

Fair enough, but their are some puzzle video games/modes of games where you can compete against yourself/play alone which don't require competition with others. There are also exploration and fiddling games like "Myst".

Perhaps finding items scattered around a game satisfies a gathering instinct?

In a biology class, there was a mirror with the caption "Wild Homo sapiens sapiens" beside it. I don't think I am a wild human. I believe that humans have unwittingly domesticated themselves as they have domesticated other animals and formed settlements. Evidence for this is the lactose tolerance in Eurasian populations referred to by Exile. I've studied this in biology and I strongly suspect that we are shaping our own evolution with our cultures.

Perhaps I should really be called Homo sapiens sapiens domesticus.

Hunting, fishing and trapping are three things I excel at. They require the ability to hyper-focus to the extreme. The time when I feel the most alive is when I am doing one of those three acticities.

Goodwill hunting topic

I never thought of researching, shopping and internet rowsing as foraging/hunting like behaviours. And they can be done alone!

I used to like fishing and looking for insects, small animals (and their tracks) and birds, etc. when I was a kid. Now I do this by visiting museums, science exhibits and hiking. Visual stuff!

This is one amazingly informative thread. Extremely insightful is the idea that people with ADHD/dyslexia were not maladaptive in their environment only a few hundred years ago when people did not need to read print and require higher abstract education, and certainly not in a hunter/gatherer culture. Many Apies who excel now have skills that are adaptive in the current NT milieu, such as computer sills and other extraordinary single focus skills as Temple Grandin posesses. (Remember, extreme NT skills involving people handling are the most in demand nowadays, and we aspies are not as savvy in this area.)

Hmmm...

I think that lots of kids are physically and mentally caged up because of fear/the current schooling system.

Perhaps by "acting out" kids are just trying to communicate that they want to escape from the four walls of the classroom and learn about the world by exploring/foraging.

I think it's kind of sad that some kids have to be drugged up just so that "pay attention".

Oh well, in the old days corporal punishment would have been used instead.

Maybe different people learn in different ways.

It's nonsense.



You merely strongly suspect we are shaping evolution with our traits? Every constituent of the environment is an evolutionary factor. Obviously if we are environmental constituents (and we are), and culture is a trait of ours (and it is) then culture is an evolutionary factor that effects the flow of evolution. This is nothing unique or special, nor does it mean we are domesticated. To domesticate in the sense you are using the word means "kept by or living with man". It is redundant to describe us as kept by or living with us.

I know a number of children with ADHD. The condition would probably prove fatal in most cases in the context of a hunter/gatherer subsistence environment and life-way. These are people with extreme impulsiveness and in hunter/gatherer contexts, no anti-venom (for example). What happens when the fearlessly impulsive ADHD child first encounters a poison snake while mother's back is to them (her front being occupied with a bush of berries)? Does ADHD confer immunity to snake bites, or merely the toxins they inject? I'm guessing neither.

I suspect a case could be reasonably made for sub-clinical levels of ADHD-like traits being adaptive in a hunting/gathering context, but not as it manifests in anyone who ought to receive diagnosis, and certainly not in those who are fitting recipients of medications (for ADHD).