Comment by isleyaardvark | Hacker News Reader

Comment by isleyaardvark | Hacker News Reader

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I think this short review does a disservice to Isbell's work. It seems to use a very minor point about pointing and peripheral vision, when it looks like she did much more research to support her views. From this review: http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertai...

"The crux of Isbell’s Snake Detection Theory focuses on vision and is straightforward: 'Visual systems are more developed in those primates that have shared the longest evolutionary time with venomous snakes and least developed in those primates that have had no exposure at all to venomous snakes'."

There's also a very interesting and much longer review I just submitted: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1195869

Edited: I see a lot of comments about snakes not preying on humans. But humans evolved over millions of years from much smaller primates. That's where Isbell thinks the evolutionary arms race took place. You could argue the reason snakes don't prey on humans is because our ancestors won that arms race.

Thanks very much for the additional background material. I agree wholeheartedly that The Atlantic article fails utterly to capture the essence of her thesis, but I also think she's seeing a co-evolutionary causation where it's merely a strong correlation.

Those same environments with higher density of vipers also play host to the widest variety of plant life. In many fruits and leaves, the differences between positive identification and edible vs. inedible have more to do with color and texture than scent.

Additionally, in a canopy environment fraught with the hazards and complexity of 3 dimensional navigation, and lack of a constant "ground scent-base", food source identification via sight would seem to be a more caloric-efficient approach. That's the strategy employed by most tropical birds and they have an even greater freedom of movement amongst the branches. It's also worth pointing out that exclusively ground-dwelling tropical birds such as Kiwi, Kakapo, Cassowary, and the Ocellated turkey all forage by scent and all have undergone reverse evolutionary trade-offs in visual acuity.

Agreed. Here's an interview with Isbell: http://www.rorotoko.com/index.php/article/lynne_isbell_book_...

From the pop science summaries I thought she was full of crap. But the details are actually quite interesting, and I can see why she has other scientists excited.

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