It Are FactIt's no joke. It's actual, scientific fact.
Domestication is a kind of asymmetrical symbiosis, where the domesticating species is dominant and derives most of the benefits, and the domesticated species undergoes most of the adaptations necessary. The difference with parasites is that the parasites' hosts usually suffer, while domesticated species usually benefit.
With humans and cats, domestication occurred roughly ten thousand years ago. Since then, cats have barely changed at all. Humans, however, have changed significantly. Almost all human progress has occurred in the last ten thousand years, and it started around about the time that domestication took place.
Cats, unlike most other animals associated with humans, still usually roam free. They still have their natural, wild hunting and killing instincts. They are essentially wild animals that have become somewhat civilised, rather than actually being domesticated. And they derive almost all the benefits from domestication, being fed and housed, etc, etc, as maiden's cats rightly argued. Almost all other animals associated with humans and domestication have changed significantly from the wild animals they're descended from.
In contrast, we humans have changed significantly in our behaviour, transformed from largely nomadic, stone-age hunter-gatherers, into the supposedly civilised humans we are now. Compare the huge transformations among the human population in the last ten thousand years with the preceding hundred thousand years, and it's clear that almost all human progress has occurred since we were domesticated by cats.
The hypothesis that cats domesticated humans, rather than the other way around, predicts that where pack animals have been domesticated by humans, such domesticated pack animals will tend to regard cats as naturally higher in the pecking order, even when the domesticated pack animals would seem to be physically superior. This hypothesis can be tested by considering dogs. Indeed, dogs are domesticated pack animals that usually do regard cats as being higher in the pecking order. And it's known that this is due to dogs' observations of human-feline relations. This scientifically validates the hypothesis that cats domesticated humans, rather than the other way around.
Cats domesticated humans. It are scientifical fact. FACT!
(,
Mon 23 Nov 2009, 14:59,
archived)
Domestication is a kind of asymmetrical symbiosis, where the domesticating species is dominant and derives most of the benefits, and the domesticated species undergoes most of the adaptations necessary. The difference with parasites is that the parasites' hosts usually suffer, while domesticated species usually benefit.
With humans and cats, domestication occurred roughly ten thousand years ago. Since then, cats have barely changed at all. Humans, however, have changed significantly. Almost all human progress has occurred in the last ten thousand years, and it started around about the time that domestication took place.
Cats, unlike most other animals associated with humans, still usually roam free. They still have their natural, wild hunting and killing instincts. They are essentially wild animals that have become somewhat civilised, rather than actually being domesticated. And they derive almost all the benefits from domestication, being fed and housed, etc, etc, as maiden's cats rightly argued. Almost all other animals associated with humans and domestication have changed significantly from the wild animals they're descended from.
In contrast, we humans have changed significantly in our behaviour, transformed from largely nomadic, stone-age hunter-gatherers, into the supposedly civilised humans we are now. Compare the huge transformations among the human population in the last ten thousand years with the preceding hundred thousand years, and it's clear that almost all human progress has occurred since we were domesticated by cats.
The hypothesis that cats domesticated humans, rather than the other way around, predicts that where pack animals have been domesticated by humans, such domesticated pack animals will tend to regard cats as naturally higher in the pecking order, even when the domesticated pack animals would seem to be physically superior. This hypothesis can be tested by considering dogs. Indeed, dogs are domesticated pack animals that usually do regard cats as being higher in the pecking order. And it's known that this is due to dogs' observations of human-feline relations. This scientifically validates the hypothesis that cats domesticated humans, rather than the other way around.
Cats domesticated humans. It are scientifical fact. FACT!
So, to expand further,they were the catalyst for human progress. Without them we'd have had our early harvested food stores wiped out by rodents and later died of the plague etc.
(
Professor Fnord Regius Professor of B3ta Chronology,
Mon 23 Nov 2009, 16:38,
archived)
