The argument put forward for the role of cooking plant food
in human evolution seems rather speculative.

The connection between cooking vegetables and increased body size
does have a certain logic to it, but how strong is the evidence
for such cooking?

"We strongly suspect hominids began using fire about 1.9 million years ago,
when Homo erectus appeared," he added.
He said colleagues working in Kenya have recently contacted his team and
said they have evidence that humans were controlling fire that long ago. The
most recent accepted evidence puts fire use at just 200,000 to 500,000
years ago."

That is not exactly highly verified information!


Some of the other claims are rather dubious.

"Learning how to cook probably also allowed humans to develop their
unique monogamous society, the researchers reported" --

This is a very strange claim, since many human cultures cook
and also practice polygamy!

"Modern humans share food, but apes don't," Laden said. "This is a
transition between apelike behavior and humanlike behavior."

This statement is not correct, though the "sharing" of meat
by chimps is perhaps not "voluntary."
(see: Stanford, C. Chimpanzee hunting behavior and human evolution,
American Scientist, May/June 1995)


Steve Meyers

   Staff Scientist
   Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
   Berkeley, CA
   E-mail: [log in to unmask]