Just yesterday when my nails had grown longer I was finding difficulty to do certain things. Then I realized how crucial the Thumb and Finger ratio is in our day to day chore.
Yes the perfect ratio between the Thumb and Fingers played a crucial role in human history. Monkeys and Apes too have Thumbs and Fingers but the ratio is not good enough to allow them to have such a fine manipulation which we humans have. This perfect ratio allowed the ancient people to make tools which eventually made them the masters of this planet. Human brain eventually evolved in a direction where the large part of the brain is devoted to the control of our thumbs and fingers and that’s why we can make such a fine manipulation with our hands.
Human brain also devotes lot of its power in controlling vocal muscles which gives us the capacity to create different types of sound.
So these two specialities gave the human race great advantage since the knowledge created by one generation could be passed to the next generation. The accumulation of created knowledge has enabled us to a point of development where I can communicate to everyone of you who is reading my posting.
Re: Perfect Thumb and Fingers Ratio made all the difference
its interesting....it is blurry whether our BIOLOGY (thumb and finger position) led to tool-making (culture), .....or the culture and the leaning towards certain ways of life led to a certain form and biology that eventually led to the formation of the thumb and hand ratio....
to this day we continue to debate how much of a person is shaped by culture and how much by biology......very interesting
Re: Perfect Thumb and Fingers Ratio made all the difference
ever wonder what would happen if a chimp was given a similar finger/thumb ratio through surgery??hmmmmmm....i wonder if there would be any change in their behavior after a while...or if a whole community of chimps was given hands like ours through surgery?
Re: Perfect Thumb and Fingers Ratio made all the difference
Oh dear, what a wonderful and great lateral thought you got. The idea is really good.
But evolutionary changes take thousands of years. Imagine our own evolution. Hominids branched off from apes seven million years ago. It took us seven million years to come to this form. Of course, there are many missing links in the course of our evolution and scientists are trying their best to piece together all these missing links. Our specy is just one hundred sixty thousand years old. If you consider the life on earth as equivalent to twenty four hours then we have arrived just ten seconds before.
So your suggested experiment will give result only after several thousand years.
Re: Perfect Thumb and Fingers Ratio made all the difference
regardless.....it can be one way they can test if evolution works right? and who knows ...maybe they can come up with a way to somehow speed the process?? it took us millions of years because our thumb finger ratio developed gradually. u never know what surgically implanting it in its fully developed form might result in. it could very well cause problems too...
Re: Perfect Thumb and Fingers Ratio made all the difference
but the most important, and key to hominids evolution is brain!!
we can use that wonderfull hand because we have the mental background to know how to use…and i think that our hand evolved, because the curiosity of hominids, that stimulated them to start walking, use fire, and so on made him want to shape tools, and with time our hads shaped to be that fit…of course a positive feebback enabled hominids to evolved more rapidly thanx to better tools.
Re: Perfect Thumb and Fingers Ratio made all the difference
that is the most epinous problem of evolution theory…time is incompressible and impatient humans would like to make experiments that last less than a life time…sorry but it can’t be…we humans have to be modest and accept the boundaries of our knowledge
the researchers are using tricks to prove their points, and not everyone believe in those tricks…hence the relativity of our scientific knowledge…
Re: Perfect Thumb and Fingers Ratio made all the difference
but still it’s strange. I agree that the human generation takes up 30 years. But what about species that procreate much faster, such a bacteria? I mean in 1 yer you’d have ten of thousands of generations and hence mutations (?). Why doesn’t a bacterium transform into another?
Re: Perfect Thumb and Fingers Ratio made all the difference
^but doesnt mutation occur. I dont know wheather virus can be called a living thing but it still contains some coding material. It does evolve doesnt it. Look at what happened in HIV virus. Its virus that was transmitted in apes and then soon on contact with humans it mutated and start to spread among humans.
And researchers believe that the avian flu virus, also if on large contact with humans would develop mutation and finally find a way to communicate with other humans.
Re: Perfect Thumb and Fingers Ratio made all the difference
well if those bacteria we have today had to give brith to others forms of life they would have one that earlier....and that is what evolutionist think they did...so the remanent bacteria are those who do not have that capacity, maybe...just a quick thought
Re: Perfect Thumb and Fingers Ratio made all the difference
Simple manipulation. I found that manipulating to do fine work was becoming difficult with long nails. Even with regular practice, the efficiency of those manipulations won't be as good as that with that perfect ratio of thumbs and fingers.
