Flexible Feet
Apparently, I’m less good at walking than I thought.
In a recent video,1 I discovered that the human foot is a bit of a mess. It’s a complicated hodge-podge of “26 bones, 33 joints, and over 100 muscles, tendons and ligaments,” yet it works no better than a simple blade-runner prosthetic, and it might be worse.2 If you compare our feet to other animals like the ostrich, we’re way behind. Don’t feel too bad. The video was quick to point out that ostrich ancestors were walking on the ground for 225 million years before our tree-swinging forebears got into the sport, so maybe we’ll catch up.
In short, human feet are mediocre. But, I have a question.
It’s true, ostriches can run at 45 miles an hour3 while humans can maybe squeeze out 23 for a hundred meters,4 but how well can an ostrich rock-hop between boulders or scramble up a slope covered in scree? What about pitting an ostrich against a human in a rock-climbing event, or seeing whose feet are better at clambering up a palm tree for a coconut picking contest? How good are ostriches at diving for pearls and paddling back to the surface?
It’s true, the human foot might not be as good at walking or running as an ostrich, and we might not be able to swim like a seal or climb trees with orangutans, but the feet on those animals are specialists. An ostrich is good on flat ground, but terrible in lots of other situations. A seal is great in the water, but pretty limited in its on-land speed record. Orangutans can swing through trees, but they won’t be competing in swimming contests anytime soon.
In comparison, human feet are general purpose. They aren’t as good at any one thing as some carefully tuned animal foot might be, but if you need to deal with a variety of situations, I’m not sure what animal would beat us. Human feet can climb a rope or a tree, they can paddle through miles of water, pedal a bike, control a plane, and hold a paintbrush to make works of art.5
Human feet can do all of those things, and they can walk around, too.
Before you decide something has a poor design, make sure you know what it was designed to do.
1. For the video highlighting the problems with the human foot, see here.
2. For more on the “blade runner” prosthetics, see this article.
3. For the speed of an ostrich, see here.
4. By the fastest a person can go for 100 meters, I mean Usain Bolt. His speed record is described in some detail here.
5. For an artist who has learned to paint using her feet, see here.