Origins of Mankind (Somewhat Experimental) (Pre-History)

[Hatty]

Paul was Jewish though. Perhaps his supposed aversion to washing was to distance himself from his erstwhile co-religionists, a proto-antisemitism. Cleanliness is central to Jewish godliness.

I'm not convinced that civilisation benefited from unwashed Christianity. Where would we be if Archimedes hadn't taken a bath?

[Ishmael]

Where does Paul discourage washing??????????????

[Chad]

If you don't know...

[Ishmael]

[Ishmael]

So I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about water contamination, the origin of disease, and the illusion of pandemic. This inspired me to make some observations of the world I had previously thought little of.

I recently observed a dog drinking foul water from a puddle. Dogs do that sort of thing. All the time. They don't suffer for it. Thinks me to myself; if a human did that, they would be laid up in bed for a week! While it is true that some humans have a stronger stomach for bad water---having grown used to it---even the sternest constitution could not drink from such a puddle and go unscathed. In fact, such behaviour would eventually prove fatal for any human who long indulged it.

So why is that? Why can dogs drink from puddles and humans can't?

Is this even a question often pondered?

If you search the internet on the subject, you might find an article like this one, How Can Wild Animals Drink Water From Dirty Ponds And Lakes And Not Get Sick?, which is filled with all manner of nonsense. It even concludes with the assurance that animals die all the time from drinking bad water. Were this true, dogs would die most-often from ingesting bad water instead of being run over by the neighbor's car.

So animals do not die from bad water. Humans do.

That seems rather significant.

The question then is, Why?

It turns out that the answer to this question may be key to understanding the very origins of the human race.

Allow me to explain....

....in a subsequent post.

(for now, you are free to speculate)

[N R Scott]

If anyone has 50 minutes to burn this Yale lecture is very good on the topic of disease and pandemic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6U_EUn8U6s

It deals with the debate between Contagionism and Anticontagionism in the 19th century. The parallels with today are quite striking. Britain was against quarantine and sided with the anti-contagion faction because it was against individual liberty and free trade, whereas Germany was in favour.

Groundwater features quite heavily too.

[Ishmael]

I will check this out! After I've outlined my own thinking. I prefer no contamination at this time.

[Ishmael]

The task then is two-fold.

First: Determine why and how humans are uniquely susceptible to water-borne diseases.

Second: Explore the evolutionary implications of this susceptibility. What does it tell us about the circumstances under which human beings emerged on the planet? Might we reconstruct much of our evolutionary history from this clue alone?

We might tackle these questions in either order but I took the first one first.

[Ishmael]

Why are Humans Uniquely Susceptible to Water-Borne Disease?

Seems to me we have two variables to start. (1) Humans. And (2) the Diseases humans catch from "bad" water. We are looking for something unique about each. What are some special properties of humans? What are some special properties of the diseases humans contract from bad water?

With respect to the second question, my mind naturally turned to Tuberculosis. It turns out, only humans get it. Well. Almost only humans get it. Some animals do rarely get it.

There is another disease that is most evident in animals. It's a disease cattle often get. And to confuse everyone, that disease is also called Tuberculosis. But the cattle disease is not caused by the tuberculosis bacteria. It's caused by another bacteria to which Cattle appear particularly susceptible. That bacteria is even named for cows. M. bovis. But, I contend that even cattle are not anywhere near so susceptible to M. bovis as are humans to the specific tuberculosis bacterium. Let's take that as a given for the sake of discussion.

What the two "tuberculosis" diseases have in common is that they are lung infections.

Does that tell us anything about why humans might be particularly vulnerable to bacteria in their drinking water?

I believe that it does---and the reason why becomes evident when we consider the unique properties of humans.

[Mick Harper]

I'm sure it isn't the tree you're barking up but if the Aquatic Ape thesis is correct then we evolved at the one place where contaminated water is not present, the tidal sea-shore.

[Ishmael]

[Ishmael]

I ask because I imagine the bottom of a river system being the part of the river most prone to contamination.

[Mick Harper]

[Ishmael]

I concluded from these data points that there should be something unique to human physiology that might make us susceptible to disease from ingesting impure drinking water.

I immediately had the answer.

[Ishmael]