Man Vs Wild.... Are Homo Sapiens the best physically endowed climbing species around? (mammalian)

thomas ellis wrote:I think what you are failing to comprehend mister yarp is that although a few exceptional humans are able to perform on a level with animals......all animals of said breeds perform at top levels. we overall suck as a species. fat fucks don't climb or run..... edit: well played evan and you type faster than my dog!

I see you spent a lot of time checking out the links that I posted. Amazing how stupid Homo Sapiens can be considering the capacity we have for brilliance in our huge brains.

You don't have a clue what you are talking about in your statement and you obviously haven't read the research on this subject so I'm gonna have to bow out of this extremely interesting conversation and go to work. Have fun!

Evan Sanders wrote:Here's another thing to keep in mind. Many of the arguments for humans being better long distance runners are comparing the freaks of nature to the average animal. Sure a couple people can probably run 120 miles a day over 10+ days, sure some people can run 7 mph for 20 hours. But can YOU? Compare the average Arabian horse to the average human. Who do you think wins in a long distance race? I'd put my life savings that the Arabian would win.

I'll see your $.37 cents and raise you a dollar. Call your Mom and see if she'll loan it to you if you wanna stay in this hand Evan.

hey non monkey...seeing is believing. have you ever raced an antelope. I have! in my vw westy and a herd kept an even 35mph for 15 minutes and they kept going out into the fields after jumping a five foot brab wire fence in two feet of snow. I will never see a human do that. sorry homo...we suck physically. the only thing we excel at is trolling

thomas ellis wrote:hey non monkey...seeing is believing. have you ever raced an antelope. I have! in my vw westy and a herd kept an even 35mph for 15 minutes and they kept going out into the fields after jumping a five foot brab wire fence in two feet of snow. I will never see a human do that. sorry homo...we suck physically. the only thing we excel at is trolling

Tom, you're just making a fool out of yourself here. You should stop.It's a little embarrassing that you continue to defend your viewpoint with only your silly anecdotal story of chasing "antelope", by which I assume you mean pronghorns, in your "westy for ...hold on ... let me do the math... yup, that right... 8.75 miles. Um, OK. That lends a lot of weight to your argument.

Yeah I know I said I was going to work. So I'm a liar as well. BTW..what's with all the homophobia in your post's?

I thought leaving out the sapien was funny but....take it anyway you want yarp. Other than listing extremely biased research(humans proving humans are superior....what egos)how much have you witnessed in the real world to lead you into believing humans are so amazing. vertical leap sucks. Land speed...weak. Licking our own balls...

not to prolong this adventure too much more, but i think the idea with persistence hunting and humans is that long distance running was used to outrun weak buffaloes or hamsters or whatever, by an intermediate species of homo sapiens and apes, so the average human might not have the same trait

jhartzheim wrote:not to prolong this adventure too much more, but i think the idea with persistence hunting and humans is that long distance running was used to outrun weak buffaloes or hamsters or whatever, by an intermediate species of homo sapiens and apes, so the average human might not have the same trait

I believe african tribesman still practice persistence hunting. And lest not forget that on an evolutionary scale, we are not that far removed from our ancestors that started this form of hunting, i.e. the average human could likely adapt if forced to.

Something I never see discussed regarding persistence hunting is that the whole philosophy is based on the prey overheating and that is the justification for humans being "the best" distance runners...

What if the climate is not tropical heat, but cold enough that overheating isn't a concern?

outsideonline.com/fitness/e…

This is an interesting article about the fitness of Iditarod dogs. They have a VO2 max of over 200, when compared to ultra runners etc. in the 70's or so.

Excerpt from the article talking about one of the dogs:
"when he's competing in the Iditarod, he'll be able to run an average of 100 miles a day over eight or nine days, working at 50 percent of his VO2 max for hours on end. As part of a team, he can run sub-four-minute miles for 60 or 70 miles."

Oh, and that's while pulling a load. Running in snow/ice.

I don't think any human ever would catch a dog like that...

FWIW I'm an ultrarunner and I have very athletic dogs so I always enjoy this discussion.

Yarp wrote: Google turned THIS up for me in less than half a second and "Why We Run" by Bernd Heinrich does a pretty good job of making you look like an idiot as well. That's a really nice story Dave, unfortunately it is you that is missing the point. (And the facts) I'd suggest the work of Barry Lopez if you'd like to get some learnin in that frontal lobe of your's. You don't have a strong grasp on the concept of evolution do you?

Yarp, independent of my thoughts on your comment, this is hilarious (from your first link)

Quote from Leiberman (Dr. from Harvard...):
"“Humans are terrible athletes in terms of power and speed, but we’re phenomenal at slow and steady. We’re the tortoises of the animal kingdom,” Lieberman said."

Um... aren't tortoises the tortoises of the animal kingdom?