Amur Viper

[MountainCreek]

After a couple of hours of walking, I had got quite deep inside the mountain. I could no longer hear any sound from the civilisation. No sound from the surrounding roads, only the sound from my feet as I was walking, and from the grasshoppers jumping from one fallen leaf to another to avoid my feets. It was the silence of Nature and piece in my mind. How wonderful. Until I met the deadly Amur Viper. The snake was lying straight across the path along which I was walking. It was huge, more than 100 cm long, and very thick, perhaps 10 cm thick. It was sunbathing on the top of the mountain hill along which the walking path went, perhaps right after having had some late breakfast or brunch. These snakes avoid the noise from our civilisation. They can not be found anyplace where one can hear the sound from the roads. The only chance to find them, is by going outside the noise region from our civilisation.

Is it natural for humans to expose themselves to the noise from our civilisation, or is it more natural for us humans to also behave like the Amur Vipers do? At some point in ancient history, as our intelligence developed, I suspect that humans started to abandon some of their natural instincts.

 

[stophiss]

Your question maybe rhetorical or perhaps an obtuse reference to our evolution that I have considered as well. Has more so called civilization although the civil part is hard to find at times aka the industrial revolution, is it responsible for our tinnitus? I would obliquely say yes or certainly a major contributor in many cases. The industrial era no doubt has created decibel levels far in excess of what our ears have evolved to in terms of permissible threshold of sound without damage.

For perspective about the evolution of modern man:
Our ancestors have been around for about six million years. Modern form of humans only evolved about 200,000 years ago. Civilization as we know it is only about 6,000 years old, and industrialization started in earnest only in the 1800s...or putting the latter another way, our evolution in terms of what we are anatomically is woefully out of step with our modern environment in terms of change to a noise level our ears are ill equipped for including the invention of headphones.

There are so many instances of this whereby our ears are daily subjected to loud noise that are created by man and not by nature, nature through hundreds of thousands of years crafting our evolutionary anatomy . But if peering through the evolution microscope, don't look too far beyond how long we are now living in terms of lifespan as well. Man is starting to outlive the evolution of our body parts for example. This transcends hearing which is clearly affected with age...eyesight diminishes, joints like knees, shoulders, hips, ankles etc all wear out and we live on..or rather try to with this effect. The sedentary nature of man is also in play...as I type this but will be out on the bike later to compensate.

Did our ancestors suffer? Likely in an unfathomable way as they struggled for survival which seems to be etched in our genome...the very basis for natural selection and survival of the fittest including who we mate with. The strong survive which improves DNA over many thousands of years.