Evolution of Predatory Avoidance

Fear is something humans nowadays try to hide and keep there fear out of sight from others because of the public ridicule they may face. However, millions of years ago it was a different story. Fear was an emotional adaptation that would allow many of our early ancestors to avoid danger.

What is Fear? Fear is described as that feeling you get in your gut when you know something bad is about to happen. For our ancestors it was a very clear indication of one thing: danger.This fear drove our ancestors to run away from dangers they faced. A classic example used time and time again is when a human would run away when he thought he saw something in a bush. If there is something in the bush then he was smart to run away and he'll live on to pass on this trait of fear to his offspring (natural selection). However, if there isn't anything behind this bush then he would probably be ridiculed but he would still be alive to pass on this adaptation. Now if another man doesn't have any fear and doesn't recognize the tiger about the bush about to maul him, then he would die and wouldn't pass on this lack of fear to his offspring thus strengthening the gene pool. Darwin would be proud. This is how we have all developed this emotion of fear and although these days there isn't much to fear, it could have been one of the only reasons we're around nowadays.

Sight is the beautiful gift that has allowed us to do many things, including the ability to survive.

Sight has evolved over time to become a very useful and pleasurable sense. However, in the early days our ancestors used it mainly to avoid our first arch nemesis: the snake. See mammals in the beginning were hunted by snakes. Snakes are one of the main reasons our sight and ability to interpret what we see has evolved to it's present form. The human eye had to adapt to be able to see patterns among the forest foliage that would indicate the presence of a snake. This is the reason why we are able today to see one picture in a thousand different ways.

Also, because snakes can't be seen from far away, the genus homo had to develop a very acute close-range vision, in order to see very tiny details.

Because of these two adaptations humans have been able to avoid their predators with great success.