[c3534l]

New? This was part of the philosophy in Fight Club. I remember hearing Chuck Palahniuk talk about it. Ted Kaczynski (of all people) believed humans had domesticated ourselves. I'm not sure what to make of an article that boldly claims "Wrangham grapples fully for the first time" with a theory older than I am. Certainly the author of the article didn't do his homework. Perhaps in the book the author acknowledges he didn't come up with the theory - I can't say without reading it. But clearly someone is grossly misrepresenting the facts here.

[duckerude]

This is in the book:

> The notion that humans are a domesticated species is at least as old as ancient Greece. [...] Two thousand years later, the topic of human domestication re-emerged in the intuitions of an influential early anthropologist, Johann Friedrich Blumenbach.

And this is in the article:

> In fact, Wrangham’s notion of human evolution powered by self-domestication has an ancient lineage: The basic idea was first proposed by a disciple of Aristotle’s named Theophrastus and has been debated several times since the 18th century.

[krustyburger]

From TFA: “In fact, Wrangham’s notion of human evolution powered by self-domestication has an ancient lineage: The basic idea was first proposed by a disciple of Aristotle’s named Theophrastus and has been debated several times since the 18th century. This latest version, too, is bound to provoke controversy, but that’s what bold theorizing is supposed to do.“

[drilldrive]

Okay, but the headline does say "bold theory", which is a mischaracterization, yes?