On Thu, 7 Jan 2016 18:05:41 -0600, Sqwertz > wrote:

>Its widely accepted that cooking of food was responsible for the
>greatest leaps in the evolutionary ladder.

No, it is not. There is a lot of controversy over Wrangham's theory. Others
feel the turn to meat eating -- which is very nutrient dense -- was
responsible for the greatest leaps. Wrangham's theory is that cooking
brought us more calories. Not more nutrients.

Meat is edible raw. Cooking does nothing to enhance it.

Wrangham does not eat red meat. He isn't going to come up with a theory
with red meat behind it.

We started eating meat 2.6 million years ago. Initially we were scavengers,
going after the carcasses that carnivores left behind. Carnivores cannot
get into the skull. Our ancestors learned to crack open the skulls and
scrape the brains out. On large animals carnivores can't get to the
underside. Our ancestors could gang up and turn it over. And get inside the
rib cage.

Homo erectus appeared, roughly 1.8 million years ago. One major weakness of
Wrangham's theory is the evidence of fire used for cooking going back that
far is very weak for our line of ancestors. His theory is mostly based on
having to come up with a reason why we leaped to being the smartest, and he
doesn't believe in red meat.

Don. www.donwiss.com (e-mail link at home page bottom).