"Representative Trantis"  wrote in message
>
> There is a rather large gap between bipedalism and the emergence of
> intelligence and technology, certainly enough for it not to be a package.
>
There's a large gap between bipedalism and big braincases and worked stone
tools. This doesn't mean that there wasn't some increase in intelligence and
the use of primitive tools, maybe driving bipedalism.
>
> It seems to me, that if you accept the general view that organisms can't
> evolve into anything less fit, in order to get fitter, they can't go down
> the slope of mount improbable to get further up in the long run as one
> famous Zoologist would put it.
>
An organism can't preadapt. Humans can't become bipedal because free hands
will be useful in a million years when they develop technology. There has to
be an immediate advantage.
>
> Then something stares you in the face.
>
> This something (I finally get to the point) is that it seems clear that
> bipedalism evolved first, and that the intelligence developed later,
> having to simply make do with what it has, ie, an inadequatly narrow
> pelvis for such a large brain/skull.
>
It's pretty obvious that high intelligence was such a powerful selective
advantage that even a high death rate in childbirth and over a year's
helplessness as an infant was tolerated as the price.
>
> For me this seems to stare you in the face. Why wasn't this picked up >
upon much earlier? (Or am I missing something about the specifics of
> theanatomical requirements of bipedalism in apes/humans? )
>
Hominid fossils are quite rare, and Darwin had no way of knowing how quickly
intelligence had evolved. There is tendency to assume that organisms are
perfectly adapted to the environment they find themselves in. Human babies
show that there can be developmental constraints, and if parents can provide
a lot of protection to an infant then selection will only very slowly act to
make them less helpless.
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