B,

I'm FAR from being the expert that you are on this topic, but would seem to me that excessive specialization would greatly increase the risk of extinction, all other things being equal: It inherently reduces the capacity to adapt to changing or unexpected conditions.

Mike

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1979 300 SD
350,000 miles
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1982 300D-gone---sold to a buddy
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1985 300TD
270,000 miles
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1994 E320
not my favorite, but the wife wanted it

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You're absolutely right, Mike. Reason has brought you an insight it took scientists decades to understand. See, the fossil record is jam-packed with dead specialists. Things are greats for specialization in a stable environment. This is why roaches are still around and saber-toothed cats are fossils. In all probability, roaches will clean-up our mess when we're long gone.

Kerry Edwards... You need to read "The Beak of the Finch"
Great book on specialization of species based on scarce or abundant resources. Basically, they did an intense survey of the Galapagos islands and the available food for a period of like 10 years. They fed the data into a computer model and started with a generic finch and asked the computer to predict how the species would evolve. To their surprise the computer came up with 3 different paths/species. Surprisingly, these three computer species matched up well with the existing finch species on the island. Smaller species did well in times of scarcity while the larger excelled during plenty. The mid tier did the middle thing (memory not holding up here).

Great book on species and how they occur. My abstract doesn't do it justice.

I'm going to have to get that book. I wonder if any sociologist or anthropologist has applied a similar methodology to early humans.

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1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

regarding why some would give up hunting for farming and settle onto "property": Beer. Really. To produce beer you had to settle down in one spot for quite some time. Once the growing and technology were figured out, making beer was a very profitable occupation. But it meant a complete change in lifestyle. The nomadic life of the hunter had to give way to the settled life of the farmer. And "his" land. (provided of course, he made free deliveries to the local chief). It all sounds too simple to be believed, but beer making actually did help change man from the hunter to the farmer...and that changed everything.

The whole hunter-gatherer transition to pastoral to agrarian or urban transition is demonstrated in mythological terms in the book of Genesis.

I'm not sure about the various names but I think the hunter-gatherer to pastoral is between brothers one of whom hunted and the other tended the herds. The herder won. The pastoral to urban/agrarian is the kid who got thrown in the well (rejected by the pastoralists for being a bit big gay with his flaunted purdy coat of many colors) and then makes good with the local town's syndicate.