Book Review: Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human, by Richard Wrangham

[inverarity]

One-line summary: Presents the thesis that control of fire was not merely a side effect of our evolution, but an essential component of it; humans have evolved to eat cooked food.

Comments

[kerneyhead]

Haven't read this book and probably won't. But I'm not surprised at it's findings. It reminds me of a very good argument that suggests that ADHD may have had a role in the success of our species in the Stone age (look up Hunter/Farmer theory, the DNA and other evidence is starting to back it up).

Thing is we're finding, more and more of these little things make a big, sometimes decisive, role in deciding the fate of our species.

There is more and more evidence that these little things, whether it be cooking, whether you and your ancestors were exposed to the flu or not, changes in crop yields due to climate changes seem to have invisibly decisive more often then we, humans, the so called masters of our own destiny, would like to admit.

On one hand, I'm disturbed that the denial of this reality is rather common. Then again, perhaps that denial and willful blindness is what allowed us to triumph and survive. I also once read that depressed people have the most factually accurate assessment of reality. Denial may be good for us.

[ebilgatoloco]

You read too much. Yeah, I said it.

[inverarity]

[ebilgatoloco]

I don't even know what the hell this is supposed to mean. -___-

[inverarity]

UR SO MEAN!

[ardys_the_ghoul]

I'm sure he totally ignores the fact that not all modern human societies are divided gender-wise as Western society is.

I have to say, though, that he has a point, in that it is more dangerous than otherwise for humans to eat raw meat.

[inverarity]

I'm sure he totally ignores the fact that not all modern human societies are divided gender-wise as Western society is.

He doesn't ignore it, but he does claim that it's pretty much a modern phenomenon -- the gendered distribution of labor -- in particular, with cooking falling to women -- is almost universal among pre-modern societies.

I have to say, though, that he has a point, in that it is more dangerous than otherwise for humans to eat raw meat.

True, but his claim is that cooked meat is not just safer, but also more nutritious, in that it takes less time to chew and digest, which is why both apes and humans have evolved to prefer it.

[ardys_the_ghoul]

I would disagree, in that there are pre-modern societies in which women have no part in preparing meals, quite aside from societies that have arisen as matriarchies. There are even pre-modern societies that recognize more than two genders--in some cases, up to five. I'm not sure how he would explain that within the bounds of his hypothesis.

The cooked meat versus raw sounds a bit like a Chicken-and-Egg situation to me. Can we be sure that humans evolved to prefer cooked meat because it's more nutritious, or that cooked meat is more nutritious because we evolved to prefer it? The amount of nutrition isn't as important as our ability to absorb it, and for all we know, early humans just decided cooked meat tasted better, and our digestive system evolved to compensate.

[inverarity]

I would disagree, in that there are pre-modern societies in which women have no part in preparing meals, quite aside from societies that have arisen as matriarchies. There are even pre-modern societies that recognize more than two genders--in some cases, up to five. I'm not sure how he would explain that within the bounds of his hypothesis.

Probably that they fall into the 0.1% exception to "almost universal," though I'm personally skeptical that such societies exist -- a lot of them turn out to be either fairly recent developments or based on scanty evidence.

The cooked meat versus raw sounds a bit like a Chicken-and-Egg situation to me. Can we be sure that humans evolved to prefer cooked meat because it's more nutritious, or that cooked meat is more nutritious because we evolved to prefer it? The amount of nutrition isn't as important as our ability to absorb it, and for all we know, early humans just decided cooked meat tasted better, and our digestive system evolved to compensate.That's pretty much how evolution works. If some