Or would being unable to swim have resulted in boats being invented SOONER?
January 21, 2011 6:12 PM   Subscribe

If humans were so physically dense as to make swimming, or even treading, water a complete impossibility would the invention of rafts, canoes and larger boats have been delayed? Would the technological advance of history have been otherwise substantially changed?
posted by 256 to Technology (2 answers total)

This post was deleted for the following reason: this is a bit too out there as a hypothetical. -- jessamyn

 
I think if humans were that physically dense they wouldn't have walked upright (too difficult to support a head like that, etc.) and probably wouldn't have developed into the humans we know now. So I think your hypo maybe needs adjustment.
posted by facetious at 6:29 PM on January 21, 2011


Given that there is some scant evidence that Homo Erectus may have been the first to build crude rafts, why assume that swimming preceded boats? Necessity is the mother of invention... maybe we built rafts BECAUSE we couldn't swim...
posted by brownrd at 6:34 PM on January 21, 2011


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