Ability To Consume Alcohol May Have Shaped Human Evolution 89
sciencehabit writes Craving a stiff drink after the holiday weekend? Your desire to consume alcohol, as well as your body's ability to break down the ethanol that makes you tipsy, dates back about 10 million years, researchers have discovered. The new finding not only helps shed light on the behavior of our primate ancestors, but also might explain why alcoholism—or even the craving for a single drink—exists in the first place.
Of course it did (Score:5, Funny)
Anyone who has woken up next to someone they hooked up with while drunk can tell you that alcohol completely undermines selective breeding.
Re:Of course it did (Score:5, Insightful)
You speak as though 'selective breeding' is some sort of conscious thing where you do the selecting. Evolution has its own ideas (metaphorically - I'm not getting all teleological on you). But seriously, selectively breeding for what? Things change, selective pressures change, what's adaptive in your eyes might not be in the long run. Keep throwing the dice! ;-)
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Ahem.
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Thank you for posting that, Bruce. You don't mind if I call you Bruce to keep it simple, do you?
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North American aborigines did not drink...til..those rotten Euros landed. THEN you see an inability to process ethanol that has, to this day, plagued the "Indians", who never evolved around alcohol.
Some Aussie, with a bit of smack, should talk about their Aborigines and their experiences with battery acid...
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Nope.
http://www.todayifoundout.com/... [todayifoundout.com]
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THEN you see an inability to process ethanol that has,
This is a bit of an urban legend. Plenty of populations have similarly reduced abilities to process alcohol, but not a big problem with alcoholism.
A better explanation is that being invaded and outnumbered by a more sophisticated race that relegates your humiliated culture to the fringes would drive anyone to drink. I'm very nervous about SETI.
Re: Of course it did (Score:2)
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I've seen this phenomena in Texas. But noticeably Massachusetts is a FAIL even as likely as they consume twice the state of Texas.
These questions should be probed in further depth, with random samplings in the thousands,aclohol and women, from both states, by a team, I would assemble.
Their objectivity and focus would have to be completely on the job. With a grant or a kick start, the research could go on for years and provide valuable information, for anyone in the science community, who needed a drink or t
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How I Met Your Mom
Re:Of course it did (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone who has woken up next to someone they hooked up with while drunk can tell you that alcohol completely undermines selective breeding.
Funny -- TFA actually argues that "being a cheap date" was a disadvantage and selected against:
"If you were the ancestor without this new mutation in ADH4 [to metabolize alcohol], the ethanol would quickly build up in your blood and you'd get inebriated much faster," Carrigan says. "You'd be a cheap date." This easy inebriation, he says, would have been a disadvantage to the monkeys without the mutation, making them more easily get sickâ"or drunkâ"off fruit, enough so that they couldn't defend their territory and seek out food. Primates with the new mutation could get more food, his group hypothesizes, and the gene was selected for in the human and chimpanzee lineage.
But then the next paragraph makes a 180-degree turn and claims that alcoholism evolved to be associated with pleasure because, I guess, being drunk is fun (and, apparently, tasty). So, apparently "being a cheap date" is also something that is selected FOR in evolution, or alcoholism doesn't evolve, accroding to TFA:
Carrigan says the discovery might explain why human brains evolved to link pleasure pathways with alcohol consumptionâ"ethanol was associated with a key food source. "It's not a whole lot different from the addictions some people have towards food," he explains. "At the right dose, when you didn't have alcohol and candy at every corner, it was hard to get too much of this sort of stuff, so when you found it, you wanted to be programmed to overconsume."
Argh. Wasn't it just yesterday that I was complaining [slashdot.org] about evolutionary biologists making up random "just-so" stories that conveniently show how anything could evolve?
In TFA, wanting to get drunk is bad for natural selection, until it's good for natural selection... in the freakin' next paragraph. Really, guys?
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Not quite.
If ethanol was lethal, it would be undesirable, and avoided. There would be an inclination away from the fermenting fruit on the ground.
For those who could digest the food that is poisonous to their competitors, a desire for such things would lead to going to consume them more often.
It's not the ones without,, but rather with the tolerance gene that would benefit from being drawn to the fermenting fruit.
hawk
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It's not the ones without,, but rather with the tolerance gene that would benefit from being drawn to the fermenting fruit.
Uh, yeah. That's obvious. I wasn't at all disagreeing with that. What I'm pointing out is that TFA is talking about two separate evolutionary developments. On the one hand, evolution explains a gene that avoids constant drunkenness to process alcohol. On the other hand evolution explains the psychological tendency toward constant drunkenness in the form of alcoholism by connecting such a thing to a pleasure center. Obviously those who are able to process alcohol will get the biggest evolutionary advan
Re:Of course it did (Score:4, Insightful)
Obviously those who are able to process alcohol will get the biggest evolutionary advantage from eating food with it (as you say), but how does that lead to alcoholism unless you begin to select for people who can't control their alcohol intake and drink to excess (which is the opposite trend)?
Alcoholism isn't getting drunk easily, it's not being able to control your intake.
The article argues that alcohol tolerance made more food sources available. If this food was scarce but beneficial, a genetic craving for it would provide an advantage. It only turns into alcoholism when the source is no longer scarce, which is a (evolutionarily speaking) recent thing.
Re:Of course it did (Score:5, Interesting)
Your problem is you are missing the idea of balance.
If you get drunk too quickly, then you are open up to predation, or allowing the sick and weak to mate with you, creating weak and sick offspring.
However if you don't get enjoyment from the buzz, then you may starve due to not having a diverse food source.
Now balance isn't ying and yang or positive vs negative.
The function of benefit vs loss over consumption is not linear but much more complex.
Let's say the benefit of a buzz grows linerally, while the disadvantage grows exponetionally. You will be receiving a net benefit until you reach eqalibram. As there are point in a lineral function early on the exceed an exponential function.
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Your problem is you are missing the idea of balance.
I wasn't aware I had a "problem." I was in fact discussing those who "have a problem" with drinking -- and therefore are out of balance.
I have no problem with the idea of "balance." The problem in this situation is that the researchers are talking about two different evolutionary adaptations, and they are claiming opposite factors are driving them, including ones that are out of balance.
The function of benefit vs loss over consumption is not linear but much more complex.
I absolutely agree this is possible. But the problem is that the authors of this study are not that nuanced in their
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A joke told in Finland is that they'd have no birthrate at all if it were not for alcohol.
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Hey!!
Ugly chicks need loving too!!!
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Well of course alcohol affected human evolution. Without it, cavemen wouldn't have fucked the ugly cavewomen.
Birds Get Drunk Too, and maybe the squirrels (Score:5, Interesting)
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My dog got sloppy drunk, eating overripe mulberries off the ground. My wife pointed out he was staggering,aimlessly, falling, over and over. Then it hit me, I'd seen him eating some mulberries and put it together. He was a sorry dog the next day and hasn't eaten mulberries since. I notice that doesn't stop many people from repeatedly bashing their brains and organs with far too much alcohol. Hangover, vows of abstinence, shower, a short time cycle, tequila shooters or Long Island Iced Teas, silly behavior,
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greaaat, furnishing alcohol to these critters? You realize you're potentially liable for damages incurred due to inebriated wildlife right? You should at least start carding them.
Re:Birds Get Drunk Too, and maybe the squirrels (Score:5, Interesting)
Many animals have been known to get drunk. I once saw a nature special where a lot of African animals ate the fruit off a grove of trees and all got drunk. After this happened most of them passed out next to each other. So there was an awesome site of monkeys, zebras and lions all sleeping a few feet away from each other.
I think what the article is pointing out is that our ability to process more alcohol allowed us to eat more fruit without getting drunk, which allowed us to be more mobile and defend territory better while not getting drunk. It also probably helped us defend ourselves better against predators, than those that were drunk.
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"monkeys, zebras and lions all sleeping a few feet away from each other"
That doesn't really make much sense though. Lions are carnivores so wouldn't likely be eating the fruit. Maybe they got drunk from eating drunken monkeys?
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Also, certain apes, and elephants, IIRC...
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Unfortunately, elephants are generally violent drunks - they get into the fermented stuff and go on drunken rampages through villages and such. I sure wouldn't want to deal with a drunken elephant...
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an associate of mine in Kenya lives near a herd of elephants, he often tells of problems they have keeping them away from the squash plantation - they'll only go for the very ripe pumpkins, and get extremely pissed on them.
Apparently, the sight and sound of ninety tonnes of inebriated proboscidea is something to behold.
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On the street where I grew up there was a big mulberry tree that put out huge amounts of fruit. Which inevitably dropped on the ground and fermented - just walking past it you could smell alcohol. The birds used to get snot-hanging drunk off of this stuff, especially the bluejays. You'd see them walking down the street because they just couldn't get it together enough to fly. Nothing new under the sun.
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I knew a fellow who had a goose for a while that loved alcohol. Didn't care about water, coffee, soda, tea, etc - but anything alcoholic and he'd be hovering around trying to beg a sip or two - up to and past the point where he was falling over every few steps. So there's definitely a cross-species appeal.
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Actually, if you are lucky enough to catch it, this is common in Afrika. There you can see every imaginable animal getting wasted together, predators and pray alike. Nobody is eating anything but fermented berries. You see big cats, giraffes, gazelles, birds, monkeys, etc. all together as if they were best friends in a party.
The next day you can see the same animals with hangovers everywhere. Each trying to handle a pounding head. Quite the sight.
A quick search on "drunk animals in africa" gives you plenty
Re: Birds Get Drunk Too, and maybe the squirrels (Score:1)
I'm not sure that there's anything with enough nervous system to host a proper brain that doesn't appreciate the virtues of anesthetising it from time to time. Awareness is tough work and consciousness even worse.
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Yeah I think the article is overrated. Alcohol has been around for a long time, and so has the ability to process it AND its effects on brains.
See this: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03... [nytimes.com]
Train carrying corn crashed (Score:2)
A train carrying corn crashed and spilled it out on a very hot day. The authorities put out a warning to watch for inebriated bears!
So... (Score:2)
I drink, therefore I am?
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I'm pink, therefore I'm spam.
Yet this doesn't explain (Score:2)
Re:Yet this doesn't explain (Score:4, Insightful)
You don't need to cook when everything is pickled.
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or everyone . . .
hawk
Re:Yet this doesn't explain (Score:4, Insightful)
“You’d be a cheap date." (Score:2)
“You’d be a cheap date.”
I understood it as a "cheap date for a predator", like a lion, a crocodile, or anything else ready to eat you
They will... (Score:2)
They will kill you, rape you, then eat you. If you are lucky in that order.
Definition of human? (Score:1)
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Consuming Alcohol May Have Shaped Evolution. (Score:2)
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Maybe that's how humans evolved: Drunken apes selected the goofiest and silliest partners, eventually leading to humans. No true ape would tolerate Justin Beiber.
I doubt it. (Score:3)
Nonsense. I've known way too many animals, from way too many phylums, that will go to great lengths to get a good stiff drink (Or lick toads, etc.) to give any credence to the idea that the appeal of consuming mind-altering substances is tied to some human evolutionary shift.
If anything an ability to efficiently metabolize alcohol efficiently drastically reduces the effects, probably indicating that at some point in the past overripe fruit became a large portion of our ancestors diet, and the ability to "hold our liquor" gave a survival advantage whenever predators discovered the drunken tribe. Or perhaps rather than overripe fruit it's indicative of the time period when our ancestors first began intentionally fermenting things on a regular basis.
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'If anything an ability to efficiently metabolize alcohol efficiently drastically reduces the effects, probably indicating that at some point in the past overripe fruit became a large portion of our ancestors diet, and the ability to "hold our liquor" gave a survival advantage whenever predators discovered the drunken tribe. '
Dude, that was sort of the point of the article.
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They clearly suggested that this ability may be responsible for the appeal of alcohol - and it's that claim that I refute. If that were the case then alcohol would almost certainly not appeal to carnivores, and I can assure you it does.
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Nonsense. I've known way too many animals, from way too many phylums, that will go to great lengths to get a good stiff drink (Or lick toads, etc.) to give any credence to the idea that the appeal of consuming mind-altering substances is tied to some human evolutionary shift.
One thing I've discovered over the years is that any sentence that begins with "Man is the only animal who..." is probably incorrect.
No matter HOW bizarre it is.
Somewhere there's probably an animal species that files Income Taxes.
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QED. Men are animals, women are not.
Seinfeld had this figured out (Score:2)
Seinfeld had this figured out [youtube.com]. Wow, was the laugh track always that obnoxious, or is it this just a problem with that video...
Genetic defect? (Score:1)
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I also have a very high alcohol tolerance and don't care much for the taste, so I never understood why drinking was attractive at all. (With the exception of drinks that actually do taste good, mostly paired with good foods; I do like a nice sangria with my roquefort cheese).
I eventually discovered that I could get drunk if I combined hard liquor with caffeine. And I still didn't understand why that feeling would be appealing. Why would anyone enjoy having poor motor control and cloudy thinking?
Now a drug t
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The mold dies once it reaches my stomach anyway, and it's already there by the time the wine gets anywhere near it, so I don't know what you're talking about with "kill the fungus". But seriously, bread and water with a roquefort? That leaves a meal of the strongest savory-flavored food in the world, paired with no other flavors of note (depending on the bread you're thinking of). Gotta add some variety in there, and the sweet and sour notes of a rich fruity wine contrast the savory cheese beautifully.
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Noah (Score:1)