I agreed up until this. Of course, I disagreed with my evolutionary biology profs in college, too, on this subject.
These adaptations and others are still operating and still changing. They're not a point in time change to us, they're a bell curve of adaptation over time. We're adapting in some measure right now to things like modern technology, although technology may continue to be a moving target long enough that we'll never finish adapting before it changes again.
Modern humans are just animals in a rectilinear jungle, still evolving, adapting, and changing.
Is it just lack of use that means we get sick from tainted meat, and such, when other mammals seem to stay healthy?
As a species we need to stay in groups and take care of our sick. We traveled vast distances by foot and sought out our own kind.
To equivocate, I did hear about ancient ruins of villages in China where unknown strains of plague were unearthed, before this COVID-19 stuff. I assume these then became cursed villages that no one visited.
Lots of grocery store meat that you buy "fresh" was killed x number of days ago.
If a dog eats raw meat within a few hours of it being killed, it's a big difference.
How did I come to this opinion? Try freezing a super market steak a few days before the "expiration date." Then unfreeze it a few days after the expiration date.
You'll notice a rancid smell immediately upon cooking.
Most beef, at least that you buy locally from a butcher who got the animal from a local farmer, is dry aged in a cooler for 10 - 14 days after slaughter. [1]
I don't know whether that's true for mass-market meat or not. But it's very common to let meat age before eating it.
It's a common misconception that animals don't get sick from tainted meat or water. They do, and when they're weakened enough, they get eaten. Clearly some have a higher tolerance of certain pathogens (e.g. vultures), but many succumb to intestinal bacteria and parasites at alarming rates. We just don't see it.
Also, there's a theory that fire and cooking is part of what allowed hominids to develop their superior brains and leave the trees behind for a fully savannah-based lifestyle.
There's also sushi and sashimi.
Do we have a better immune system than other primates and other animal groups?
Perhaps other social predators actually are on the same level as us.
> We can climb on negative inclines,
Can you?
> run an ultra-marathon,
Have you ever?
> lift several times our own weight,
Can you?
> deep-dive,
Have you ever?
> heal massive wounds,
Unless we die from them, yup.
> our immune system is without par,
Meaningless claim.
> and we perform all kinds of feats of dexterity
And birds can can't, but they can fly. Elephant's can't but they've got long noses. etc. So?
Human exceptionalism (from a human, I assume)