Self-study
P1
It might reasonably have been expected that the adoption of cooking by early humans would not have led to any changes in human digestive anatomy. █████ ████ ███████ █████ ████ ██████ ██ ████ █████ █████ ████ ██ ███████ ███████████ ███ ████████ ██ ███████ ██████ █████ ███
Other People’s Argument ·
Cooking didn’t lead to changes in human digestive anatomy
Because cooking makes food easier to digest.
Counter Evidence ·
Humans generally cannot survive on only raw food
Too hard to digest.
Author's Position ·
Cooking is obligatory
Other People's Position Wrong ·
That there wasn't enough time for cooking to impact evolution
Evidence of cooking dates back at least 250k years.
Author's Hypothesis ·
Cooking evolutionarily changed human digestion
We evolved to efficiently digest high and densely caloric foods thanks to cooking. Now we are reliant on cooked foods and cannot survive on raw food alone.
P2
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Question ·
Why can't humans digest raw foods?
Answer ·
Tooth and jaw too small
Cooking resulted in decrease in tooth and jaw size. Evidence of cooking techniques developing and decreases in tooth and jaw size support the cooking hypothesis.
Author's Hypothesis ·
Decrease in size occurred even earlier
Author suggests that Homo ergaster (1.9m years old) could have developed cooking which reduced their tooth and jaw sizes.
P3
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Phenomenon ·
Evolution of our guts
Harder to explain owing to lack of fossil records.
Other People's Hypothesis ·
Human guts evolved to digest raw meats
Smaller gut volume; longer small intestine; smaller colon.
Author's Interpretation ·
But the differences also fit with the cooking hypothesis
These features of our guts also fits with the cooking hypothesis.
Future Research ·
More testing required to better understand raw v. cooked
Passage Style
Critique or debate
Phenomenon-hypothesis (RC)
25.
Which one of the following, ██ █████ █████ ███████ ███ ████ ███████ ███ ███ ████████ █████ ██
a
Evidence from cut █████ ██ ██████ █████ ████████ ████ █████ ███████ ███████ █████████ ████ █████ █████ █████ ██ ███████ ████████
We have no reason to think evidence of the butchering of animals by early humans could suggest that cooking might have affected human evolution. Butchering of animals can occur to prepare them for raw consumption, so we can’t interpret (A) as evidence that cooking has been around for a long time.
b
Human populations are █████████ ██ ████ ███████ ████████████ ██ ████████ ███ ████ ██ ████████████ ███████ ██ █████ █████ ██ █████
This strengthens the author’s claim by showing that the assumption in the view the author criticizes is wrong. That view assumes that in order for a practice to affect human evolution, it can’t be a recent practice in human history. But (B) shows that a practice that has been around for fewer than 5,000 years (drinking milk), which is still relatively recent when you consider the scale of early human history, did affect human evolution.
c
Archaeological evidence indicates ████ ███ ████████ ██ ████ ███ ██ ██████ █████████ ████ ████████ ███████ ████ ████████ ███ █████
We have no reason to think the correspondence between fire use and climatic changes that produced the ice ages suggests anything about the timeline required for cooking to affect human evolution.
d
An increase in ███ ██████████ ██ ███ █████ ███████ █████████ ██ █████ ██ █████ ██████ █████████ ██ ████████ ██ ███ ████████ ██ █████ █████ ██ █████ █████
(D) may establish that early humans ate more plants. But we have no reason to think that a diet higher in plants has anything to do with the timeline required for cooking to affect human evolution.
e
The fossil record █████████ ████ ███ █████ ██████ ██ ███████ ███████ ███████ ███████ █████ █████ ███ ███ ████ ███████ ███████████
(E) establishes that there have been changes in human evolution in the past 100,000 years, because we know from the passage that tooth/jaw began decreasing about 100,000 years ago. But we have no idea whether the changes in brain volume are related to any recent human practice. So (E) doesn’t suggest anything about the timeline required for cooking to affect human evolution.