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Comment by buss | Hacker News Reader

This looks a lot like stereotypical behavior seen in many captive animals: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotypy_(non-human)

FTA:

"Many stereotypies can be induced by confinement; for example, cats pace in zoo cages.[11] Pregnant sows whose feed is restricted bite at their stalls' bars and chew without anything in their mouths.[12] In laboratory rats and mice, grooming is the most common activity other than sleep, and grooming stereotypies have been used to investigate several animal models of anxiety and depression.[13]

Examples of stereotypical behaviours include pacing, rocking, swimming in circles, excessive sleeping, self-mutilation (including feather picking and excessive grooming), and mouthing cage bars."

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The left to right swinging is the textbook example of animals undergoing prolonged extreme stress and insufficient stimulation. It’s probably the most recognizable sign.

It’s baffling that any researcher was honestly thinking otherwise.

Ya. It’s almost enough to give the researchers the benefit of the doubt. Nah.

Yeah seriously. Imagine being locked up and loud music blasted at you. This isn't science, this is inhumane; imagine doing this to a human.

Some things aren't worth knowing, considering the suffering it would take to learn.

I do think it's worth knowing why we dance.

We dance to display fitness to mates and increase agility.

But then why don't chimps dance? Or any other mammals really. I mean it seems clear that fitness display is a part of why we do it, but it can't be the whole reason.

Humans are the only mammal that uses distance running for hunting, resulting in different injuries than chimps, etc.

What's the connection with running? Certainly that's another way in which we are unique, and it's the reason we are uniquely hairless too, for cooling.

But dancing still seems to me to want a better explanation than just saying it's a fitness display, as that would seem to explain almost anything.

Joint health is the connection, consider the unique knee injuries that tend to result from distance running. Dancing displays the range of motion in place so your mate can judge you with out having to run.

There's a lot of overlap, consider these factors that relate to dancing and hunting: timing aspect combined with shifting weight and body position, arm/leg coordination, underlying percussion track 60-140 bpm (the range of a heart beat), percussion generally broken down into 4 part segments corresponding with heart pumping.

So it seems like to be good at dancing (or long distance hunting) you have a good sense of timing over a long period, are aware of your heart beat, and most importantly no debilitating ankle, hip, knee, or foot injuries.

That should make a clear case for how dancing could have evolved culturally as a metric for hunting ability rather than genetically.

OK, thanks, that makes some sense.

The issue I'd still raise is why we dance in time, several people organised with music, when dancing solo would seem plenty for such a display? That's what lots of animals do. But none of them synchronise it.

Yea those are good points. I'm not sure - I would bet the answer is cultural rather than genetic though. Hearing and group coordination may be really important in persistence hunting or maybe to indicate social acceptance. There are a lot of interesting theories in evolutionary biology, but no good way to test them.

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