cats created civilisation?
The 2003 Times Online article “ Dangerrrr: cats could alter your personality” describes the feline parasite toxoplasma gondii, which changes people’ s behaviour and has become endemic in the human population: ‘… the infected men appeared to suffer from the “ alley cat” effect: becoming less well groomed undesirable loners who were more willing to fight. They were more likely to be suspicious and jealous. “ They tended to dislike following rules” ’ .
In Man and Superman, George Bernard Shaw said : ‘The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man’ .
The cat was probably domesticated by the pre–Egyptians, before 4000BC, although it may have been domesticated earlier. Those people went on to become the ancient Egyptians, quite possibly the world’ s first civilisation.
The cat was domesticated by pre–Egyptians. It introduced a parasite into the human population. That parasite makes men unreasonable. Unreasonable men cause progress. Ancient Egypt started the progress that created our world.
I don’t think this is a coincidence. Cats created civilisation!
june 2005
chewed