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Originally Posted by mr beer
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This is pretty huge, I mean humans are evolved to eat cooked food for example,.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by evileeyore
Eh? When did this happen?.
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Originally Posted by malloyd
Between 0.4 and 1.7 million years ago, depending on whose evidence you prefer. Though changes in dentation that imply an actual *dependence* on cooking for a substantial part of hominid diet aren't unambiguously present until later, say 0.2 MYA. In any case, fire is something Homo erectus used regularly, we really wouldn't be the same species without it.
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Changes in dentition are due to changes in behaviour (reduction in mandible size and processes being a classic example aka the modern overbite) but not indicative of any dependence. Well not until the changes are great enough to make one behaviour impossible (eating raw food) making us dependent on the other (eating cooked food).
Not sure I'd call that evolution in any meaningful way, unless your going to argue that people who eat a higher proportion of raw food have evolved in any meaningful away from people who's diet's included only cooked or processed food.
That said I certainly agree that fire is hugely involved in our development of technology and society (and that will have a knock on physiological effects).
Hmm I guess maybe you could call that ongoing evolution, but then that would then include everything we do (which actually I guess isn't an unfair point)!