Understand The Times, International

Comment from Understand the Times:

Theories proposed to promote the idea that man has evolved continue to push the imagination beyond sensible limits. Now we are being told that pitchers in the MLB have developed their skills and are further evolved from brute like ancestors because of "key evolutionary adaptations."

June 27 - Throwing helped our species to evolve

Article: Creation/Evolution - Creation-Evolution Debate

Throwing helped our primate ancestors to defend themselves against dangerous predators and boost brain power, scientists have said. It enabled humans to survive by hunting big game, expanding their diet and colonizing almost every corner of the globe.

US researches say baseball pitchers, who can throw at speeds of up to 100mph, can do so because of key evolutionary adaptations to the torso, shoulders and arms which began nearly two million years ago.

Neil Roach of George Washington University in Washington DC told The Independent: "We think that throwing was probably most important early on in terms of hunting behavior, enabling our ancestors to kill big game. "Eating more calorie-rich meat and fat would have allowed our ancestors to grow larger brains and bodies and expand into new regions of the world - all of which helped make up who we are today."

The human anatomy has adapted to be able to throw unlike the chimpanzee, which can only throw objects at less than a third of the speed of an average 12-year-old child.

Humans have adapted to have a wide waist, a lower position of the shoulders on the torso and the ability to twist the upper arm bone, all of which occurred during the time of Homo erectus.

He believes these evolutionary changes were crucial in humans developing into large-brained creatures with language and advanced tool-making skills. Hunting allowed humans to improve their diet quality and increase their brain size, as well as dividing male and female roles.