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https://youtu.be/2BO-DYcJ7Uc?si=mfPGYZe5TwF_sDE9
NDT is an entertainment personality first and a scientist second. I don't think he's a grifter, but no one in the astrophysics community would regard him as a leading scientist.
Kind of the same situation as Fauci really.
First, just to get this out of the way, NDT has an extremely annoying habit of making statements and claims that are far outside of his wheelhouse. He is a man who loves to hear himself talk and is the smartest man in the room because he will tell you that he is...
As a popularizer of science, in basic, general, terms, he deserves some credit. He's good when he's in front of a microphone talking about simple things outside of his lane and when explaining more complex issues with astronomy and the like. The camera likes him.
But... because he's so often wrong when getting into more complex subjects that he does not have a lot of experience with, be critical of it and find other sources to confirm it. If you may not believe me, that's fine - Go see what others have to say and you'll see them complaining about him making claims and giving instruction that is just plain wrong about subjects he doesn't have much contact with.
Maher, on the other hand, is destined to not get along with Tyson because he is also the smartest man in the room and he will surely let everyone in the room know that... Maher is a comedian-turned-political-pundit. He has an English and History degree, which is awesome, but he doesn't speak about English and rarely about any history at all. Maher's "job" is to scream loud enough to get attention then try to tell a joke while simultaneously slamming forward a "message" that he will present as absolutely true with no possibility of error... which will later change as he pushes forward a different message, next week. I think Maher's opinions on politics, if valued in their aggregate over the past couple of decades, are worth about $3.27, with a small 5% margin reserved for error. I could be wrong.
OK, now that's done:
Scientific American is a magazine that publishes sciencey news articles. That's what it does. So, the first article referenced there is just a news article with a bunch of stuff taken from various bits and pieces of "scientificky stuffs.""
Ready? OK, here we go:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-theory-that-men-evolved-to-hunt-and-women-evolved-to-gather-is-wrong1/
"The Theory That Men Evolved to Hunt and Women Evolved to Gather Is Wrong
The influential idea that in the past men were hunters and women were not isn’t supported by the available evidence"
See that claim? It's garbage. It's B.S. It is sensationalized B.S. with a little gold bow on it and wrapped up in cellophane so it's more difficult to smell. This is a "clickbait" title for an article. And, what's worse, it's a lie. "Science" today doesn't have a lot of adherents who strictly believe this to be absolutely true.
There is no cabal of misogynistic scientists secretly polluting schools with socially motivated instruction to keep women from taking their rightful place as hunters of mastodons, ground sloths, and prairie dogs just like their vastly inferior male counterparts do when they're not in camp, kitting their @$$hairs together and complaining about women... /sigh (sorry)
It is a lie because what the article claims is not what is supported by the papers and studies and randomly inserted "proof things" that they use. The facts are a bit more academic than just needing stuff to write an article about.
To sum:
I am not an anthropologist nor an evolutionary biologist/stuffs. I have some familiarity with such things dealing with animal behavior and know a little about anthropology in general and a light touch about primitive peoples.
The "Man the Hunter" thing is old news. Not many academics embrace it, fully. That men are stronger and faster than women is easily seen. That males tend to have vision and responses more tuned to movement is a fact. Women may have quicker reaction times, though, and may have better fine coordination than men. (I can't support that with a link, but I seem to recall that being generally true from studies reviewed in the '80s, when I was in college.)
What is the "truth" here?
The truth is that women can hunt, too.
That's it.
Was primitive man's hunter-gatherer society's efforts at survival highly specialized with clearly defined roles? Probably not as much as the article in Scientific American implies that others thought they were...
Females can hunt. OK, big deal. What's so surprising about that? Ladies, chime in with your opinion about just now being told that if you wanted to go throw a spear at something, you could! ITSA MIRACAL!
FEMALE PERSONS COULD HAVE HUNTED STUFFS!
That's breakout science right there. Gosh, it's not like such a thing has never once been thought about in the forty++ years since I was taking classes in college. /s (It has and was and is)
$%#^ crappy snipe journalism BS garbage trash articles... (I am sitting in my chair and yelling at the moment so that you do not have to. You are welcome.)
So, some papers go into all the plus-plus double-good things that estrogen does that could have made all females into terrifying pursuit hunters that didn't need men to hunt for them.
Here that, guys? You aren't needed and your male ancestors had no practical use in tribal society so you don't either. Now, go off and become alcoholics and failures at life, since nobody would ever need a man to do anything for them. ESTROGEN POWA!
So, with all this hunting going on, who's doing the gathering bits? I guess it's men, right? We're the most suited for it, since women are obviously hunters. So, start digging roots guys. Oh, and while you're doing that, will you nurse the next generation for the girls, since they're out hunting and doing manly stuff? kthx
The facts are likely much less polarized than political talking heads want to pretend they are. The facts also very likely point to another fact - Academics who study this stuff were probably not as keen to put forth absolute theories about a stratified hunter-gather group with stone-clad rules about who should hunt and who shouldn't. At least, not since the '60's when this was "big news."
If the article writer can show me how a woman could mortally injure and then track and chase down a gazelle while she is 7-9 months pregnant, on a regular basis every week, I'd love to read the studies on that. Maybe that's why babies "lock on" when nursing? Swinging babies hanging from a long-distance-running new mother? Seems legit.
The "fact" probably is that most males did do the most hunting and most females may have supplemented that and/or focused on gathering as well as taking care of babies... 'cause boobs... Those not burdened like that would have probably hunted or done other things to support the group.
This is not drastically radical insight that acts as a paradigm shift to change the foundations of anthropology and ethology/evolutionarily reinforced behaviors... Why? Because it's old news, that's why.
The only thing "new" here is clickbait BS with a bunch of references to studies focused to provide support for "women can/could/would/do hunt.
There is no falsification here regarding "Male roles were likely as hunters of other animals."
But, the article claims there is and that is why it's full of crap.
PS: wot i think
I think that a lot of talking heads on this subject avoid one clearly important variable when discussing what men and women did and what their roles may have included.
What's the most dangerous animal on the plains at that period?
Probably us...
What does that animal want to do?
Probably kill us and take our stuff...
Women fought, too. They can fight. An average woman would be killed by an average man attempting to kill her, but that doesn't mean she can't also fight them. It simply means she's not as suited for that as another male. Why? Bigger, stronger, more motivated... 'cause boobs - This is the primitive male. Besides, what else are we going to do?
As small-group, and in larger tribal, warfare moves past what is more like "ritualized combat" where groups demonstrate, yell, taunt, throw leaves around... scream, beat their chests, etc... to actual "combat," something becomes a bit more important, does it?
We have been fighting among ourselves, on purpose and with intent, for likely longer than 300,000 years. And, so did our ancestors. And, so did theirs.
Have you ever seen a documentary where two clans of chimps meet when one or the other has intruded upon the other's territory? Monkeys? Other hominids? wat do?
Well, while they can enter into combat and certainly kill and maim each other, they don't generally keep killing until the other clan leaves, do they? They might give chase, but that's about it. Why is that?
It takes awhile to kill someone bare-handed, that's why. Chimps have big teefuses, so they could certainly kill with a bite to a vulnerable part of an enemy's body. But, most deaths probably result from wounds the enemy leaves with than being instantly killed. That's because the chimps aren't using sharpened sticks to plunge into the body of their enemy...
What I am getting at is that the need for some big strong meathead to whack some other big strong meathead over their thick noggin with a rock pretty much supports the need for men to be bigger, more stronk, and more suited to combat than women.
And, you will see that in other hominid groups, too.
My point is that there isn't just one idea going on here in terms of evolutionary forcers for secondary, or even primary, sex characteristics.
Our ancestors did not live in the vacuum of pulp-science publications, targeted journal papers, and talk shows.
Fun stuff to read to make me look more legitimate, just like Tyson and Mahler! ZOMGZ!
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S016726811730255X
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ajpa.23751
PPS: This sort of blatantly false and misleading journalism that preys on a very controverisal bit of social dialogue in order to get clicks... makes me upset. It introduces nothing but the foundations for more ignorant arguments to be taken up by people that read it and accept its headline as "fact." SciAm should be ashamed for the title of this article and Tyson and Mahler should probably STFU.
As I always say to people further to my left, pick your battles. With the issue of trans athletes, the facts are not on your side.