> human body [...] has only been around for a vanishingly short period of time in evolutionary terms.
"as far as we know." Every few years, I see in the headlines stuff like "oldest 'human' ever found in X." The theory of evolution itself has morphed since Darwin [0], and is probably far from being in its definitive form.
The timeline remains astronomical w.r.t. a human life, and the perception of a single human. A few centuries ago, we may have burnt people for proposing something like the theory of evolution.
> [...] can be attributed to our very recent move to full bipedalism
Admittedly. But it's still not contradictory with this still having unknown roles. Actually, multi-causality feels like a good way to ensure the stability and solidity of a design: "don't put all your eggs in the same baskets", portfolio diversification, etc.
Thinking about painful pregnancies and birth, [1] hints at the "need" for pain/discomfort. If it's indeed some sort of a necessity, then it may be more of a feature than a bug for us to experience pain directly, through the womb, etc.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_evolutionary_though...
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink
"as far as we know." Every few years, I see in the headlines stuff like "oldest 'human' ever found in X." The theory of evolution itself has morphed since Darwin [0], and is probably far from being in its definitive form.
The timeline remains astronomical w.r.t. a human life, and the perception of a single human. A few centuries ago, we may have burnt people for proposing something like the theory of evolution.
> [...] can be attributed to our very recent move to full bipedalism
Admittedly. But it's still not contradictory with this still having unknown roles. Actually, multi-causality feels like a good way to ensure the stability and solidity of a design: "don't put all your eggs in the same baskets", portfolio diversification, etc.
Thinking about painful pregnancies and birth, [1] hints at the "need" for pain/discomfort. If it's indeed some sort of a necessity, then it may be more of a feature than a bug for us to experience pain directly, through the womb, etc.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_evolutionary_though...
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink