Article: Snakes influence on primate evolution

[Mendel's Balls]

If people evolved to have an irrational fear of snakes, why do some cultures in africa and asia worship them and consider snakes in their homes a blessing?

Because humans have a well-developed ceberal cortex that can override many of the neurological fear pathways in other parts of our brain.

The snake-primate coevolution hypothesis deals with the evolution of the visual system of old world derived primates as much as it does with their instinctual fear responses. I think this article has it much better than the one on livescience.....http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0720-davis.html...
notice how one of the core predictions of the hypothesis bears out....new world monekys dont have as developed visual system because they dont have as long of an evolutionary exposure to venomous snakes.

Interestingly, old-world monkeys appear to have fear pathways strongly associated with their visual system.

The Journal of Evolution paper lists the following citation......

interesting how rhesus monkeys were able to be easily conditioned to be fearful towards a spliced video tape showing other monkeys being scared of a snake.....but not to flowers.

It good to be skeptical of a new hypothesis......just remember that science journalists rarely give you the data or the reasons that set up and support the idea.