From Adrian Bowyer
Michael Corballis asks what makes humans so dominant on Earth: not our physical attributes, he argues, “for other species are stronger, faster…” (1 September, p 48). There are specialists, yes, but humans are the most physically versatile of all animals.
No others can swim the English Channel, free-dive to 120 metres, climb a tree or Everest, run the New York marathon, pick up a pin, and clean-and-jerk 200 kilograms. No others can spin their bodies around the parallel bars and skip a pebble across a pond. Six of us can stand on each other’s shoulders in a pyramid, the lowest ones riding horses while the top one juggles flaming torches.
The horses may be able to gallop faster than we can sprint, of course, but we can accomplish a greater variety of physical feats than any other species.
Bath, Somerset, UK
