A spine specialist trying to figure out why people so often have bad backs says he has come up with a new theory about when and how early humans evolved the ability to walk upright.
The uncannily human-looking backbone of a 21 million-year-old precursor of humans and apes gives the first clue, said Dr. Aaron Filler of the Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.
A major change in the vertebrae that allowed this pre-human to stand upright and carry things also made it easier to crush and strain the spongy discs between each vertebra, Filler, a medical doctor with a doctorate in anthropology proposes.
That, in turn, explains why back pain is a leading cause of disability, he said.
This research moves back – triples the timespan of the potential for upright bipedal locomotion. Now, if genomic science could just succeed in redesigning the spine…?
This is interesting, but I would guess that most back problems come from people NOT LIFTING CORRECTLY! Most people don’t lift with their legs. Even if you are bending over to pick up a feather, you MUST BEND AT THE KNEES. The human upper body is too heavy to put that stress on the lower back whilst bending over. In the gym, I see many guys doing the dead-lift wrong. Do not take your back for granted. BS study. Human stupidity is to blame.
The quickest way to get a back injury is to lean over and pick up something heavy. A perfect example of this is lifting something out of the trunk of a car or over the side of the bed of a pickup. Once I realized this, I haven’t caused my back any problems for many years.
It would also help if people exercised regularly in order to strengthen the various muscles that support their spines and mid-sections.
Does this mean insurance companies will start citing a genetic predisposition for claims associated with back problems and raise rates?
#1-3,
You are all correct about specific injury. However, the general aches and pains and the reason that humans have such frequent and chronic back problems is indeed evolutionary. This is also not news. I read about this years ago, possibly in The Third Chimpanzee from around 1986 or so, or possibly elsewhere.
The obvious architecturally difficult part of our evolution was not enlarging our brains or increasing the duration of our learning period. These can easily be explained by neoteny, the theory that we retain some childhood characteristics into adulthood.
The difficult part was in going from knuckle walking to upright posture in a geological instant. The old caricature of the stooping half-brain is completely invalid. The earliest hominid skeletons, such as Lucy (Australopithecus Afarensis) and probably even earlier were already walking fully erect.
This was a difficult transition. You may also notice that our close relatives all have straight spines and few back problems. Ours is curved in an awkward way that causes a significant percentage of the population to experience some level of chronic back pain.
This is evidence against intelligent design. See, a designer would have made us perfect. Imperfections like our backs and the blind spots in our eyes are good evidence that evolution cares only about numbers. Good enough for evolution is a very high standard. But, evolution still only cares about the numbers and good enough need not be perfect, merely good enough to survive.
It will be interesting to see if we truly are good enough for the long haul. So far, we have been on this planet a very short time, a geological instant, one might say, merely 200,000 years as a maximum, compared with horseshoe crabs at around 400,000,000 years.
#7 – pedro,
Interesting point. I think the next human patch needs better knees and backs, thumbs that are NOT opposable (to make guns harder to wield), and smaller brains that won’t let us get into the kind of trouble we get into. Eyes with rods and cones that point forward instead of backward so that the optic nerve bundle need not cause a blind spot getting from inside the eye to outside would also be a nice perk.
Personally though I do believe we have a slim chance at long term survival, I think we’re unlikely to get a patch. I think the product will just be cast aside, like the Edsel, New Coke, and the Apple Newton.
#6 “The old caricature of the stooping half-brain is completely invalid. “. Not true. Go look at the crowd at any pretty much any protest. You’ll see plenty of examples.
#8, #6.
I vote for a human patch that would fix the radical/extremist religious buffer overflow problem. Or a broader patch to fix the intent to kill those who disagree checksum error.
We can worry about lifting later.
#9 – Your information is false in this case. They will be standing upright. Also, why only at protests? You can find the upright half-brains in every crowd large enough to be a statistical universe. And, given the percentage of half-brains in society, probably in mosts crowds too small to be a statistical universe as well.
#10 – bs,
Why not just hope for a patch of reason? You know, one that disables the mythology module in the brain.
Have to agree with #11 – especially about #9. After all, it’s the cretins who need SUV’s to haul around their empty lite beer cans, Mickey D burger boxes, 7-11 slurpee cups caked with excess sugar – who think that driving also mandates text messaging all the meaningless phrases that collect on their lives like blowfly maggots – instead of looking where they’re going in a handbasket with spinners.
#9 – you don’t need to go that far. Just look at the nightly news and you’ll see the likes of Rove, Cheney, Bush, Gonzalez etc. etc. – a right bunch of stooped, half brained fsckwits.
And don’t get me started on John Howard – he even looks like an orangutan!!
Little Monkee Johnny Everywhere,
You can say that again !!!
#13, moss,
Very good point.
Scott. Well said in all your posts.
#14 – Little Johnny,
Mostly well said. But, don’t insult orangutans please. Funny how whenever people compare other people to non-human animals, it’s always the other animal that is really being insulted. Bush or Chimp, for example, is hilarious, but is highly insulting to chimps.
http://bushorchimp.com/
Gah – would you boneheads quit playing with theism? The designer made us flawed on purpose. You need obstacles to overcome in order to grow. Why would a creator bother to make a perfect creation (unless you want everything to be a static model)?
The part that sticks in my craw is that we’re made flawed, then we’re blamed for our shortcomings! I’m getting over that now that I’m older. It’s funny really. Except it’s a pain in the back.
This is another example in a long line of human ailments that merely show homo sapien was designed to die around age 27. The unexpected consequences of big brains was culture. Culture is extending our lives beyond Darwins Parameters. How many other cultural artifacts are brought on by Culture?? That is living beyond our time? Bad Backs and Religion to name two.
I blame christians and their preference towards the missionary sex position.
..And their unwillingness to buy a new matress because they f*cked too much and broke it.
As long as there’s robots to do my walking for me, its all good
I was just using protests as an example where about 90% of the participants fit the criteria.
#14 – You’re right! Just yesterday I saw Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Cindy Sheehan, Al Gore, Michael Moore and Paris Hilton among others. They’re everywhere.
#23 – iGlobalWarmer,
I think you’ll find it hard to find any statistically significant number of humans together where the percentage is as low as 90%. I’d still like to reiterate though, not stooping, just half-brained. (Though, it is possible that half is an overestimate.)
25–Im reading Kurt Vonneguts “Galapagos” right now. He seems to be blaming our eventual downfall on being “large brained” which tends to over think things in violation of common sense. Only on page 50 right now. *Later.
#25 – bobbo,
I read that many years ago. I seem to remember the concept being that humans have exactly the wrong size brain. If we had larger brains, perhaps we’d be smart enough not to get into all the trouble we do. If we had smaller brains, we wouldn’t be able to get into such trouble.
27—Either I need that larger brain right now, or I haven’t gotten that far yet. Maybe because I’ve read most of Vonnegut, this story isn’t as good? SlaughterHouse Five being my favorite. “Billy was as spastic in time as he was in space.” Chuckle!
#27 – It’s probably just me misremembering something I read 20 years ago or mixing it together with a bunch of other things. Galapagos was one of my favorites though. Breakfast of Champions was also right up there. In fact, I could go for one of those breakfast items right about now.
#28, Scott,
Aye, and some Kilgor Trout.