The hard way: Generations of death. One family does things differently and starts a superstition about it. They do it and it works, but they don’t know why so they start a superstition. That becomes a myth.
This is also why Africa doesn’t just copy them. There is no respect for the myth and no understanding of the science, because the people who brought it over also disregarded the myth and assumed the plant was safe so didn’t do science until it was too late.
Does that work? The effect is weak, the pressure is competing with a lot more significant causes of death. And myths spread horizontally too. They’re not single family things, there can’t be enough variability and isolation to have a full Darwinian selection because it’s not like you have the tribes with the wrong belief being completely exterminated by that mistake.
That said, reading up on it it sounds like cassava can also cause acute poisoning, and that sounds like a much stronger feedback signal for people to notice.
The hard way: Generations of death. One family does things differently and starts a superstition about it. They do it and it works, but they don’t know why so they start a superstition. That becomes a myth.
This is also why Africa doesn’t just copy them. There is no respect for the myth and no understanding of the science, because the people who brought it over also disregarded the myth and assumed the plant was safe so didn’t do science until it was too late.
Read the book it is amazing.
Does that work? The effect is weak, the pressure is competing with a lot more significant causes of death. And myths spread horizontally too. They’re not single family things, there can’t be enough variability and isolation to have a full Darwinian selection because it’s not like you have the tribes with the wrong belief being completely exterminated by that mistake.
That said, reading up on it it sounds like cassava can also cause acute poisoning, and that sounds like a much stronger feedback signal for people to notice.
Once again, I will point to the source: Joseph Heinrich, the secret of our Success. Yes you are correct it is messy. It is debated.