I have read the introduction and first chapter of Paleofantasy and I am enjoying it. In this first chapter, Zuk compares us to "cavemen" meaning our close ancestors and looks back at what early life was like for early hominids and how it compares to our modern day life. One interesting point that Zuk pointed out was that there is less of a variety in humans genetically than in other species which is usually the opposite of what people tend to think. When we see how us humans are all individually different from one another it is easy to tell each other apart. But we think every chimp in the zoo looks alike when in reality, if we looked at the DNA of any two random people their DNA would differ less than two chimps at the zoo. Looking at Zuk's presentation of the evolutionary concepts, Zuk brings up that evolution can occur without natural selection which I'm looking forward to reading more about since I know Zuk is looking at evolution with a broader lens than just natural selection.
This section really got me thinking about what evidence Zuk is going to show to demonstrate that natural selection isn't the only way evolution can occur. What evidence will Zuk use? I agree with her statement but I'm just curious on where she'll go from that.
Interesting point about the similarity of human genomes vs. chimp genomes...I hadn't thought about it that way.
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