{"id":57842,"date":"2016-07-12T11:59:54","date_gmt":"2016-07-12T16:59:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/?p=57842"},"modified":"2026-10-20T12:40:14","modified_gmt":"2026-10-20T17:40:14","slug":"podcast-216-how-men-evolved-for-fighting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/character\/self-improvement\/podcast-216-how-men-evolved-for-fighting\/","title":{"rendered":"Podcast #216: How Men Evolved for Fighting"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>One of the things that makes humans, well, human is the ability to make a fist. Other primates can\u2019t do this.<\/p>\n<p>The commonly accepted theory as to why humans developed the ability to make a fist is that they needed to do so in order to grasp tools.<\/p>\n<p>But research conducted by my guests today&nbsp;have led them to posit a very different theory.<\/p>\n<p>They argue that the reason we can make a fist is so we can give better knuckle sandwiches.<\/p>\n<p>Their names are Dr. David Carrier and Dr. Michael Morgan. Dr. Carrier is a professor of evolutionary biology at the University of Utah and Dr. Morgan is an emergency room physician. When Dr. Morgan was an undergrad at the University of Utah, he worked with Dr. Carrier on two papers which explored the role physical aggression may have played in the development of the human fist. Today&nbsp;on the show, we discuss that idea and the theory that&nbsp;human bodies, especially <i>male<\/i> bodies, evolved for fighting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the things that makes humans, well, human is the ability to make a fist. Other primates can\u2019t do this. The commonly accepted theory as to why humans developed the ability to make a fist is that they needed to do so in order to grasp tools. But research conducted by my guests today&nbsp;have [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":195784,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[502,156,42388],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-character","category-podcast","category-self-improvement"],"featured_image_urls":{"large":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/216-538x280.png","medium_large":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/216-768x432.png","aom":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/216-372x230.png","reactor-320":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/216-320x180.png","reactor-640":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/216-640x360.png"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is 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