Ok. It’s been a few days. And no one has been able to come up with as fast a reaction time for a mammal, 50 pounds or more, as 40 milliseconds. Where a ‘reaction’ is not something trivial like an eyeblink but the movement of the head or a limb. It seems that shooting an animal in the head causes the fastest reaction times.
But it has been pointed out that a goat is not a human. So how much does the reaction times vary from mammal to mammal?
Think about nature shows. How common is it for an animal to barely escape a predator? Or to be barely caught? Pretty common. Often, a big cat will sneak up on its prey and a split-second quicker reaction time from the prey can mean the difference between life and death.
Under the influence of Natural Selection, how fast are animal reactions? As fast as possible. For over 90% of the mammals.
For the goat, fast reactions are critical to escaping a sudden attack. For our ancestors, it was also critical to react quickly to avoid a predator. Or to adjust an arm or leg quickly to avoid falling to one’s death from high in a tree. Or more recently, to quickly adjust the aim of a critical javelin throw that if off may result in the thrower going hungry, or even being killed. For both predators and prey, quick reactions are critical. And Natural Selection will keep them quick in all mammals, except the tree sloths.
About 310 million years ago, the ancestors of mammals split off from the main reptile line. For the next 225 million years, until 85 million years ago, our ancestors, and the ancestors of goats, were one and the same. All of our differences came about in the last 85 million years. No doubt, by 85 million years ago, the mammals of that time had fast reactions. A typical mammal of that time probably reacted about as fast as a typical modern mammal of similar size. Because reaction times are so relentlessly honed by Natural Selection. And in general, no mammal is going to lose that edge without going extinct. Unless it hangs out in trees, camouflaged and almost totally motionless, which is an unusual niche.
There is no compelling reason to assume goat reaction times are so much faster than humans. They are no doubt pretty similar. If a goat reacts super-fast to a bullet passing though the brain, it’s a very good bet that the same is true for humans, even though we can never run that experiment.
Yes, my opinions are those of a layman. But they are reasonable opinions, based on the science of Natural Selection.
