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Scientific American contains considerable speculation regarding the advantages that an adaptation such as walking on two legs might have brought with it. Yet, for some reason, this claim consists of speculation rather than hard evidence. The paleontologist Pat Shipman has this to say on the matter in a paper published in the journal American Scientist:
There is no shortage of ideas about the essential nature of the human species and the basic adaptations of our kind. Some say hominids are fundamentally thinkers; others favor tool-makers or talkers; still others argue that hunting, scavenging or bipedal walking made hominids special. Knowing what the First Hominid looked like would add some meat to a soup flavored with speculation and prejudice.6
References
- "Hunting the First Hominid," Pat Shipman, American Scientist, January-February 2002, p. 25 ↩