Tarrare
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
Here's my evolutionary "Just So Story" for why human kids like to wander away and put things into their mouths. Basically, they acted as food tasters for the group. Makes sense, since the group has invested in them the least, they know nothing important, and in a state of nature, they're likely to die anyways.
They always go for the dirtiest thing in the room. Acquire and share.
Yes, but the same investment was made in every other member of the group as well. However, everyone who made it well past childhood had a lot more knowledge, food, and material invested in them.
Plus try and get a 2 year old to try new things.
Is this something you've observed on teething children? They tend to chew things to ease the pain.
> in a state of nature, they're likely to die anyways.
So while this part, where they would die if left alone, is certainly right, it would make the whole concept of us humans not laying eggs, putting some semen and mud on them and disappear into the wilderness an evolutional waste of time.
Plus, I have some acquaintances whom I suspect would very much prefer to go about their business that exact same way. So it's not a demand side problem either.
Where did I say that the babies would be left alone and abandoned? Apparently you are unaware that in human communities with low technology, infant mortality can be pretty high alarmingly. You're also apparently stating that parents looking after children is not a "state of nature." (Or you're ascribing that to me, which, given you're alone in this, indicates you need to work on reading comprehension.)
> putting some semen and mud on them and disappear into the wilderness
what?
http://drgailgross.com/parenting-families/why-does-my-8-mont...
Anecdotally, my daughter didn’t have this behaviour. Even at a very young age she’d only ever put food stuff in her mouth. However I’ve seen so many other kids, children of friends and relatives, put random objects in their mouths to know that my daughter is the exception to the rule.
That's not what the article says at all. It says most of the babies sensory experiences are oral because they lack mobility to explore things with other tactile senses. Granted the article doesn't example this specifically but a lot of sensory input will be suckling (dummies, mother's nipple / bottle's teat, their own digits, etc).
By the time they're a bit more mobile and can open their hand to grasp objects (remember the ability for a baby to even open their hand takes a few weeks to learn) happens, they've often already gotten into the habit of exploring the world via their mouths.
It doesn't say it in that article I linked to, but I do vaguely recall reading elsewhere that because babies develop tactile senses on their hands later than the senses in their mouth, babies will often have more nerve endings in their mouth. However I cannot find a source for that so this might be a detail I'm miss-remembering.
Cool. So long as you're not conflating evolutionary pressures with internal mental states, drives, and desires. Doing so would mean you're dipping into Lamarckianism.
Apparently, I was that was as a baby as well. I handled everything, but only food went into my mouth.
https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCyuCA6viLm6zsL6LNq67Tjg
Be warned, though.. it can be a little disturbing
On a more serious note, here is a similar case I found on the talk page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Domery
Seems he still vomited indigestible things (when they gave him the live cat). The autopsy revealed an inner body full of ulcers and pus. Maybe his metabolism was so high, he was burning a lot of it out.
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/stage/video/2017/jan/26/watch-a-...
His use as a courier suggests that material was going through his digestive tract mostly intact.
https://soundcloud.com/thisparanormallife/044-tarrare-the-ma...
>His body was hot to the touch and he sweated heavily, he constantly had foul body odour [...]
suggests an fantastically high baseline metabolism.
There are proteins in the human body having the same effect, performing some minor functions. Maybe he had a mutation making those proteins very prevalent, essentially making his metabolism very wasteful. Although I don't know if such a sustained fever wouldn't be deadly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2,4-Dinitrophenol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncoupling_protein
Does anyone know how accurate these sorts of records are?
The funny explanation. [0] [1]
Eating his body weight in a day? That's pretty outlandish and easily debunked.
> His performances involved the consumption of metal, glass, rubber and other materials. He disassembled, cut up, and consumed bicycles, shopping carts, televisions, and a Cessna 150,among other items. The Cessna 150 took roughly two years to be "eaten", from 1978 to 1980. He began eating unusual material as a teenager, at around 16 years of age,[4] and performed publicly beginning in 1966.[citation needed] Lotito had an eating disorder known as pica. Doctors determined that Lotito also had a thick lining in his stomach and intestines which allowed his consumption of sharp metal without suffering injury
Indoor wonder if it's a coincidence both these guys were French....
no. I don't understand what you're basing your claim on. As far as i see it is easily possible. Even with anatomically normal gut some stuff can make from mouth to the other end in as short as 30 minutes. So the bandwidth is there (say it takes 1 hour to make through the 7m length of the gut pipe which say of 4 square centimeter section - that is 2.8 liter/hour speed) . The story of that guy says that he had severe diarrhea and overall really suggests that he had severe gut bacterial issues - that is one of the situations when stuff makes it very quickly through the gut.
He is described as of a small weight despite significant food intake - that again matches the situation of the food quickly passing through instead of thorough digestion. He is described as constantly scavenging and eating - say 15 hours a day 4 kg/hour (in the ballpark of the above mentioned 2.8l/hour) gives you 60kg. 4kg/hour quickly moving non-stop though the gut does sound like a severe diarrhea.
However, the person making the claim is Pierre-François Percy [2], chief surgeon of Napoleon's Grande Armée and a member of the Académie des sciences and, later, honorary member of the Académie Royale de Médecine. Inventing a case like this would be wildly out of character.
Reflexively dismissing every story from the past is just as fallacious as believing every detail.
[1] https://books.google.com/books?id=4e0EAAAAQAAJ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre-Fran%C3%A7ois_Percy