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Ultimately, being able to attract the interest of a partner is directly connected to better survival in that offspring that are actually born have a better chance of surviving than those that never have the opportunity....it's just the thing that attracts that partner may not contribute to survival after they are born.

This is going to feel a little bit targeted, but it’s important: understanding is a story we tell ourselves that feels satisfying. Explanations being plausible contributes nothing to their truth value. The poster above goes over it briefly, but the correct way to test an aquatic ape hypothesis is to look at the adaptations other animals who are aquatic/nonaquatic have and compare. Looking at our adaptations in a vacuum and trying to find an explanation, even if you aren’t picking and choosing is bound to find just-so explanations that are plausible but nearly certainly wrong.

Or could it not be that the hands wrinkling was a far earlier adaptation in our evolution which we just subsequently didn't lose?

I did one year of Anthropology back in the mid 90s. (wanted to keep it up but the syllabus turned all philosophy in year 2)

And I have no recollection of this aquatic ape theory. I thought the upright stance was theorised to be based on a migration from forest/jungle to savannah environments.

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That is very interesting considering how often I hear people explaining attraction for certain attributes connected to better survival of the off spring.

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Are there any traits that we can say are linked to humans' propensity to swim?

I know that humans (and most apes) have no instinct to swim, but humans do learn to swim and enjoy doing so. We've also been fishing for a long time.

You explain this so eloquently and clearly, the mark of true knowledge. Thanks for sharing.

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I think you’d be surprised at how frequently little branches come off of arteries. The area after the last exit is going to be quite short…less than a centimeter, likely far less. Some of the blood will likely clot, but only in sections with NO flow, making your dead end a little shorter.

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That’s the…presumed risk of tourniquets, but again, the data just isn’t there to show that much of a risk.

If you are just sitting there waiting for EMS, by all means continue holding pressure.

But if you need your hands for something else (like calling EMS) or you need to move, or you have multiple people you’re trying to help, or any other reason why sitting there with your hands ON the wound applying pressure isn’t sustainable…sure, apply the tourniquet.

Isn’t a tourniquet more likely to cause a need for amputation? Maybe the idea is to avoid that if pressure is working?

Probably lots of moving about the landscape. Land tenure is something we know precious little about for our ancestors but it's reasonable to assume that covering ground can be advantageous generally.

Also, the image of early hominids running pell-mell after game presupposes some things about the world they lived in. Running down prey would, for instance, likely catch the attention of the local predator guild, who might be just as likely to steal your now-weary prey and kill you too. On the face of it, human cursorial hunting sounds ludicrously dangerous in most circumstances. The endurance hunting guys have no real answer to this.

This is believed to be the reason no species ever developed wheels despite them being incredibly efficient. It's simply too large an evolutionary jump.

Makes me think the fact that many bats eat mosquitoes would expose them to many diseases from a variaty of other animals. Also, bats are often communal, so pathogens that can spread among the bats are selected for.

Insectivoir bats can't eat if they are weak so the bats' immune response has evolved to best handle frequent outbreaks of all sorts.

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The least worst is the same thing as the best.

What you probably meant was "good enough".

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