EV EP
Red, theory; black, fact
The habitat may have been a unit of selection in early hominins, leading to group selection, and much of our evolution may have proceeded by an accumulation of founder effects. Opportunities for colonization of recently-emptied habitats are ephemeral. Under disaster-prone conditions, this plausibly leads to selection pressure for migrant production and evolvability (i.e., a high rate of evolution, especially founder-effect evolution). Language diversification in humans may be an evolvability adaptation. Language diversity would work by preserving genetic founder effects from dilution by late-coming migrants, whose reproduction would be held back by the difficulties of learning a new language. Xenophobia and persistent ethnicity markers can be explained in the same way. The spread of linguistic and cultural novelties in a hominin population is predicted to be especially fast in newly colonized, previously empty habitats. Alternatively, the linguistic novelties may start as a thick patois developed by an oppressed group in the home habitat prior to becoming refugees, as a way to make plans "under the noses" of the oppressing group. Refugee-producing adaptations sub-serving dispersal can be called "tough altruism." Populations producing more refugees are more likely to colonize further empty habitats, a selective advantage.
Disaster biology may be what is conceptually missing from theories of the origin of life (abiogenesis). i.e., the forerunners of the first cells may have been spores.
