This study in Science purports to show that Nepalese porters expend less energy (and therefore are more physiologically efficient) while toting heavy loads than are women of a couple of African tribes carrying large loads on their heads or with a tumpline, or Americans carrying backpacks.
However, these studies were performed on American army recruits, Kikuyu and Luo women, and Nepalese men, all of whom presumably had better things to do than walk around in various configurations with strange blue oxygen- and carbon-dioxide-measuring masks on. Surely they were paid, and I’d never discount that as a motivator. Maybe the recruits were just ordered. Still, I think the study is, more than anything else, a measure of the patience of ordinary people confronted by a couple of crazy Belgians who ask them to do silly things in the name of Science.
I’ll conclude on an optimistic note: Maybe science has more friends than we think.
Posted by: Ron Sullivan
1 | By: Rurality on June 20, 2005 at 01:36 PM
If they can tell me how to carry water to chickens more efficiently, I’m all for it…
But what’s this I hear about beetle-elytra earrings? :)