What you need to know about Ardi: Owen Lovejoy is a twit
Ardipithecus ramidus
You’ve probably seen the stories about “Ardi” — Ardipithecus ramidus — the fascinating new skeleton that was published today. She’s a million years older than Lucy, but her anatomy shows a mix of primitive and advanced characteristics, rendering her less chimp-like and more human-like than expected. She may have been a human ancestor (though that can’t be known with certainty yet); she may have been bipedal (opinion is divided). But regardless, she’s a fascinating specimen.
What you need to be aware of in reading about Ardi, though, is that one of the prominent scientists on the team has an axe to grind. Owen Lovejoy made a splash thirty years ago with his theory that humans (or really male humans) evolved bipedalism as a way for men to carry food home to women in exchange for sex. And what were the women doing while the guys were evolving? Apparently they were lying around in the caves, so hugely pregnant with big-brained, bipedal babies (growing ever more brainy and bipedal with every generation) that they couldn’t even waddle out to get dinner. It’s a silly theory because it ignores how primates, including humans, actually function. In human hunter-gatherer tribes, it’s the women who provide the bulk of the sustenance for everyone, including men. And the females of other primate species certainly manage to feed themselves and their babies just fine, thank you very much. It’s difficult to imagine why hominid evolution would have included a bizarre interlude during which the females of the species were unable to manage basic food provisioning. Nor is it easy to sort out exactly how this dance of pair-bonding and bipedal evolution is supposed to have worked. But if you think the whole scenario sounds an awful lot like the socioeconomic structure of 1950s suburban America, with housewives at home and men taking the train into the city every morning for work, you’re in good company. People have been ridiculing Lovejoy’s theory for years.
What the theory really seems to be about, frankly — and it’s called the theory of male provisioning, if you’re interested — is maintaining a central role for males in human evolution. Lovejoy published his article in 1981, just as the old idea of “Man the Hunter” was finally being laughed into obsolescence. Oh, said the anthropologists, so it was all about scavenging and foraging then, is that it? Okay — “Man the Gatherer”! Problem solved.
At any rate, bear that in mind when you’re reading about Ardi. She’s a fascinating fossil, no doubt, and there are many intriguing questions about where and how she fits on the human family tree. But when the article starts in with the “walking for sex” stuff, with Lovejoy using the find to once again flog his theory about male provisioning, put up your bunkum antennae.
39 Responses to “What you need to know about Ardi: Owen Lovejoy is a twit”
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Lolopolooza says:
Never mind. Soon it will be over:
http://video.google.com/videop.....597358451#
October 2nd, 2009 at 12:42 am EST -
Violet says:
That is a very, very silly film.
Good review: “The Disappearing Male” – A Pinch of Science, a Pound of Speculation
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madaha says:
how in the world do people think that two genders of the same species evolved separately? I wonder if humans are the only species to which this argument is applied.
We are the SAME SPECIES WOMEN AND MEN. HOWEVER WE EVOLVED WE DID IT TOGETHER.
What is wrong with these people?? It makes no sense.
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Violet says:
Oh, Lovejoy and his ilk don’t really think males evolved while females didn’t. They just think that male fitness was the driver of the evolutionary changes. Females were becoming bipedal too, of course, but it was just a kind of side effect.
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Alison says:
It makes no sense also if you understand pregnancy. One doesn’t really slow down until around the 8th month. I mean, I worked till 8 and half months and lived in the city and walked and walked everywhere. I would have been bored to tears sitting around in my cave of an apartment and waiting for husbando to come home with the burgers to fry up.
The whole thing is ludicrous.
Another reason we need 52 percent representation - in every field!
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myiq2xu says:
how in the world do people think that two genders of the same species evolved separately?
Perhaps they think men and women are actually two closely related species that are symbiotes of each other.
I remember reading a (semi) humorous essay to that affect many years ago.
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yttik says:
Many men within the patriarchy have been taught that women are a different species, not quite human. That’s why they believe it is okay to try and control women’s choices, their opinions, their lives. That’s why they believe it is acceptable to perpetuate the rape culture by making derogatory comments about women’s bodies, to joke and make fun of women being raped. They don’t believe they are demeaning and oppressing human beings, they believe they are oppressing a separate species, a species they do not believe is as valuable or worthy as them.
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Kiuku says:
oh-my-god. What a hilarious show of how Patriarchy works. Hunting is important. Men hunted. Wait? Hunting wasn’t important? Gathering was the actual driver of human evolution? Men gathered! Obviously! Nice job, Violet.
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gxm17 says:
All one has to do is look around the world to see that women do the bulk of the work. Why would anyone think it was any different 4 million years ago? I have always contended that the human male’s aggressive (and disastrous) pursuit of gender superiority is based on his inherent subordinacy.
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sonia says:
“What the theory really seems to be about, frankly — and it’s called the theory of male provisioning, if you’re interested — is maintaining a central role for males in human evolution.”
yes, dude. thank you very much. in fact, I would see you and raise you one “all of patriarchal society seems to be about maintaining a central role for males in human evolution.” well said, Doctor. well said.
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lolopolooza says:
You’re implying there is science on this matter, somewhere?
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Michele Braa-Heidner says:
There is another theory that is frankly more believable: The female of the human species was the one who prompted evolving features such as bipedalism because she had to carry her child in one arm and forage/gather with the other; consequently, walking upright was absolutely necessary.
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Violet says:
I really wonder if the reconstruction of Ardi as bipedal will hold up. I am 100% unqualified to even have an opinion on the matter, but those limb proportions sure look chimp-like to me. And those feet!
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quixote says:
My specialty is botany (evolution of terrestrial orchids, if you want to get really precise), but I studied primate evolution, so I know a little bit about this fossil.
Bipedalism is not all-or-nothing. Ardi is more bipedal than a chimp. Less bipedal than us.
And, as far as I know, Michele is right. The best current guess about one of the main drivers for the evolution of bipedalism and human-like hands was the inability of the infant to hold onto the mother properly. (Human infants are born more “premature” than other primates.) Since the infant couldn’t hang on, the female had to be able to hold her or him.
Re calories supplied: it’s not just hunter-gatherer societies. In agrarian societies women also provide about 70% or more of the calories.
(And then, don’t get me started on what the actual evidence is on who invented spinning, weaving, sewing, and planting food to grow food aka agriculture. That’s *minus* any wishful thinking on some golden matriarchal age.)
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Violet says:
The best current guess about one of the main drivers for the evolution of bipedalism and human-like hands was the inability of the infant to hold onto the mother properly. (Human infants are born more “premature” than other primates.) Since the infant couldn’t hang on, the female had to be able to hold her or him.
Well, but that links premature big-brained newborns with bipedalism, and that link was destroyed with Lucy. Hominds have been bipedal for millions of years, since long before our brains got big and our babies had to be born prematurely. Or before we lost our fur or started relying on tools.
Nobody really knows why our ancestors became bipedal. Bipedalism made a lot of things possible down the road, like carrying helpless infants, but the original driver is mysterious.
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Violet says:
Bipedalism is not all-or-nothing. Ardi is more bipedal than a chimp. Less bipedal than us.
Yes, I know, but I’m talking about the way her discoverers have reconstructed her. I’ve already heard some people disputing it, so we’ll see. Of course the guys on this team are the tops in the world.
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quixote says:
I realize that hands come before brains, and what Lucy taught us. You don’t need to have the full 1300+cc of cranial capacity (well, 800 cc or whatever it is for newborns) before head size becomes a consideration. Even neonate chimps can barely hold their heads up. The difference with them is that in a matter of hours or days, they’re at a point a human baby only reaches at 6 months. (In terms of neck strength) Lengthen that period of vulnerability from a couple of days to a couple of weeks, and there’s already a lot of selective pressure for increased maternal care. At least, that’s what I’ve understood the thinking on this topic to be. As I say, evolution is my research specialty, but not specifically human evolution.
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quixote says:
re prematurity, I didn’t mean to imply that we’d reached current levels 4 million years ago. Ardi infants were probably a bit more “premature” than chimps, less than us. That species is really a fascinating missing link. I’m just waiting for the creationists’ heads to explode. Or for them to start insisting that since it’s not missing it doesn’t count as a missing link. Or something.
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madaha says:
Have you guys read The Caveman Mystique? It’s pretty awesome.
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Violet says:
You don’t need to have the full 1300+cc of cranial capacity (well, 800 cc or whatever it is for newborns) before head size becomes a consideration.
Right. But just to be clear for anyone following the discussion (since my earlier comments were far from clear): most workers see bipedalism as leading to helpless infants, not the other way around. Our forebears stood up for some reason, but in that posture (especially becoming obligate bipeds) the pelvic girdle was constrained. Eventually, to fit the babies’ heads through, they had to be born earlier. (This prematurity increased even more when our brains got bigger.)
The mystery is why our forebears stood up. It was probably something to do with exploiting the environment, though the old savannah theory is pretty much obsolete. Our ancestors were in a mixed forest environment, but why didn’t they stay in the trees? Probably to access food sources on the ground and to move around between clumps of vegetation. Some locomotor experts point out that bipedalism is an energy-efficient development for apes (which are designed to climb trees) who are starting to spend time on the ground. But there’s a lot of debate on the topic.
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LabRat says:
What really baffles me is how a professional biological anthropologist can seriously put forth a theory that essentially requires predators not to exist, or if they do exist, to be willing to completely pass up a rich and defenseless meal out of some sort of predator code of honor.
If she can’t walk and gather, she can’t fight or flee either. Does Lovejoy imagine an ancient gender ratio of several males to each uselessly gravid female, one or more to provision her and one or more to defend her? Does he study hominids, or ants?
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Violet says:
He might do better with ants.
Origins research is one of the most retrograde, sexist fields in anthropology. It is still a male-dominated bastion of old-boyism. Women like Sarah Hrdy and Kristen Hawkes have made some dents in the edifice, but the old-boy theories still seem to be the default position.
Lovejoy’s theory is very much of a piece with its “Man the Hunter” predecessor, which located all key elements of human evolution in the importance of male hunting. Lovejoy just shifted it to male carrying. What he’s trying to do is link the pair-bond, concealed ovulation, and bipedalism. He argues that men walked upright so they could carry food to the women back home, who were too busy being pregnant and taking care of babies to feed themselves or their children. But men would only offer this provisioning if they could be sure the babies were theirs, hence the pair-bond. And concealed ovulation, which Lovejoy sees as being linked to monogamy.
But as I suggested, the problem is that there’s no evidence for any of this. It doesn’t match what we know about humans or any other primates. It’s like an imaginary Flintstones world, with monogamous nuclear families and helpless women relying on men — it’s just nuts.
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LabRat says:
Origins research is one of the most retrograde, sexist fields in anthropology. It is still a male-dominated bastion of old-boyism. Women like Sarah Hrdy and Kristen Hawkes have made some dents in the edifice, but the old-boy theories still seem to be the default position.
I know, unfortunately. I just have this ridiculous expectation that while they may be incredibly sexist, it doesn’t make sense for them also to be so incredibly stupid or incompetent in their fields as to propose theories that satisfy stereotype but are also blatantly impossible unless you propose that hominids evolved in a way completely separate and special from any other species on the planet. I also really love it when the theorizers reveal by accident that they have absolutely no clue how living outside of civilization actually works; they might like the idea of Man the Hunter, but most of them seem to have every bit as much idea of what hunting and foraging for more stationary food is actually like as they do of the mechanics of walking on the moon.
It doesn’t match what we know about humans or any other primates. It’s like an imaginary Flintstones world, with monogamous nuclear families and helpless women relying on men — it’s just nuts.
My personal favorite is the “male parental investment” explanation of why women are supposedly drawn to “status indicators” while men are drawn to healthy-looking bodies. Never mind that for both female apes and women in band-and-tribe societies female relatives tend to help and provision far more with a baby than their mates do, and that THEIR status within the female heirarchy therefore matters a lot more to the child’s advantages than the father’s does- the Cleaver family OBVIOUSLY represents the biological template of humanity.
Have you read Wrangham’s book on cooked food’s relation to human evolution? I read interviews in which he claims it’s some sort of cultural universal that women cook and men consume and all sorts of cultures get more upset over “feeding” infidelity than sexual, but I’ve been too busy being annoyed reading Coppinger to get annoyed reading Wrangham in depth.
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Violet says:
Have you read Wrangham’s book on cooked food’s relation to human evolution?
No, but I’m familiar (somewhat) with his theory. Actually, I think it’s a good bet that women invented cooking, since it’s a good bet that women have always been the prime food producers, and they seem to have invented or discovered everything else (fiber arts, pottery, agriculture, etc.). Kristen Hawkes is very persuasive with her emphasis on women’s cooperative food-gathering, particularly of tubers, and its impact on human evolution. And cooking enables us to exploit the nutritional value of far more foods, and feed a wider range of people (old people, young babies).
So I don’t see a problem with the theory that women invented cooking.
Where Wrangham goes too far is in trying to pin all of human social development on cooking. He’s got silver bullet syndrome: trying to make his theory explain everything. He gets male dominance and the nuclear family and everything out of cooking, which is just wild.
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Northwest rain says:
See — I knew a degree in Anthropology would come in handy someday!
If you look at the Native Americans (agricultural based tribes/nations/cultures) — it was the women who own the land or the fields — and if you look at cultures where agriculture is still important — it is the women who mostly work in the fields and bring in the crops. (It is difficult to generalize because of the huge variation in cultures). My area of interest (and heritage) is North American anthropology and I’ve studied the Pacific Island cultures. In Hawaii — the women worked in the fields and agriculture was quite advanced by the time Capt. Cook “discovered” Hawaii. Men cooked the meals and the grand parents raised the children. Both the Pacific cultures and Native Americans had powerful female gods — I believe that the gods are a reflection of the roles that the humans had in the culture.
This lone male god religion is really some sort of “modern” invention — by insecure males who “cannot keep their goddamn dicks in the pants”. snicker.
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Kiuku says:
I will write the book “Men haven’t done jack shit, and screwed everything up” by Kiuku. Look forward to it.
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Tabby Lavalamp says:
how in the world do people think that two genders of the same species evolved separately? I wonder if humans are the only species to which this argument is applied.
We are the SAME SPECIES WOMEN AND MEN. HOWEVER WE EVOLVED WE DID IT TOGETHER.
What is wrong with these people?? It makes no sense.
My favourite example of this is a creationist, Ray Comfort.
http://raycomfortfood.blogspot.....exist.html
Of course he sees “male” as the default, because in his world view, God created Adam then presented him with Eve as an afterthought
Which makes me wonder why creationists cling so tightly to Genesis. In a book filled with unflattering depictions of their deity, this one paints “him” as someone who gets so pooped after creating the world, not only does “he” have to rest for a whole day, but anyone who dares labour on that same day should be put to death (Exodus 31:15), and this deity is someone who is so addle-brained that “he” created an apparently functioning male (if there was only one person, why would that person need a sex at all?) without any means to carry on the species and only thought of making women after the lonely man couldn’t find a “help meet” amongst all the other species (Genesis 2:18-22).
The god of the bible is a tired, cranky, murderous, befuddled misogynist. Teach the controversy. -
LabRat says:
Christ on a powered pogo stick, Tabby, that post is so full of stupid it should come with a warning label. I think I have intellectual whiplash.
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orlando says:
The impetus for developing bipedalism doesn’t seem that mysterious if you consider humans likely to have developed in littoral environments. That is, around the edges of bodies of water, or in areas where there was shallow water close by. If you’re being chased by a leopard and you can’t outrun or outfight it, guess where is the safest place to be. And if you have to breathe and hold your baby above water, it gives you some serious motivation to get up on your back legs.
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Tabby Lavalamp says:
LabRat, you should check out his video where he uses bananas as an example of a food made by his god for humans (they’re shaped perfectly for the human hand, you see). He has since backpedaled when it was shown to him that bananas would still be pretty much inedible if it weren’t for human agricultural intervention.
That is, I hope it was Comfort’s post you were referring to. But considering that’s a common reaction to his work, I feel safe in that hope. :) -
LabRat says:
That’s the banana guy? I think I’m actually somewhat reassured there’s one fewer clanking idiot in the world than I thought earlier today.
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gxm17 says:
orlando, yeah, I was gonna mention the aquatic ape idea but, as much as I love it, I don’t know that the theory is held in high regard. It really ties up some loose ends nicely though.
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orlando says:
Of course it’s not held in high regard - a woman came up with it. Never heard it convincingly refuted, though.
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Violet says:
Elaine Morgan didn’t invent the Aquatic Ape theory, though she’s the person associated with it. She popularized it and continues to promote it (almost alone).
Anthropologists don’t hold the theory in high regard because it just isn’t a very good theory. There’s no evidence for it; it’s just based on a superficial comparison of features between humans and some water-dwelling mammals. Nor is it parsimonious:
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Hedgepig says:
I don’t think John Hawks refuted the hypothesis very well. His main argument seemed to be that if early humans adapted to a semi-aquatic environment, then why did they retain these adaptations when they returned to land? Surely the answer is because evolution doesn’t work like that. Once humans were bi-pedal, had lost their fur and developed sub-cutaneous fat, as long as these adaptations did not cause them to die out once they were back on land (which they obviously didn’t)the forces of natural selection would not guarantee us a return to the superior adaptations of our fellow mammals.
I’ve often thought we would be so much better off if we’d kept our fur and stayed on four legs.
And don’t get me started on the consequences of losing detectable oestrus! -
Violet says:
I don’t think he was trying for a ringing refutation so much as just explaining that the theory, such as it is, is baroque and unnecessarily complex.
Believe it or not, Wikipedia actually has a decent page on this (as of right this moment, at the time I’m posting this comment — no telling what will happen in the future):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A.....hypothesis
The aquatic ape hypothesis explains nothing that isn’t more readily explained by other evolutionary developments. Nor does it match any fossil evidence. And the alleged “aquatic” characteristics of humans are grossly overstated in the first place.
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Violet says:
As for the charge that anthropologists only reject the aquatic ape hypothesis because of sexism: that’s the kind of thing that makes feminist anthropologists wince. Yes, anthro is a sexist field, but that’s not why the AAH is rejected. It’s rejected because it’s silly — and most everybody thinks so, including feminist anthropologists.
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slythwolf says:
Revisiting this post and comment thread because I was watching “Discovering Ardi” on the Discovery Channel last night, and it was very interesting until about 10:30 when I had to shut it off because these bunch of white dudes were sitting around making noises about how bipedalism must have had some kind of reproductive advantage and I knew where they were probably going with it.
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Violet says:
My work here is done.
