The Family That Walks on All Fours

Humans are used to seeing other humans walking on two feet. Yet in a small village in Turkey, a family of quadrupedal walkers (organisms that walk on hands and feet rather than just two legs) have been discovered and are being studied in Europe. However, there are huge debates over what the quadrupedal walking is caused by; their genetics, or by the environment.

One of the scientists studying the family believed that these issues, combined, are what causes this family to walk on both their hands and feet. He had another theory, believing that this was also what he called reverse evolution. There was a lot of backlash from the scientific community based on the impossibly. Another scientist, Liza Shapiro and her team disproved this theory by comparing the walk of the family to that of other quadrupedal walkers. This comparison showed that the family’s walk was actually very similar to that of other humans who walk on all fours than to that of quadrupedal animals. Continuing his theory other scientists, such as Liza Shapiro, believed that the family walked on all fours as an adaptation to the condition that they had.

On the other side of the debate, many believe that the family’s quadrupedal walk is caused by the environment they were raised in. Typically, around the age of 2 children who are still crawling on their hands and knees or are still bear crawling (walking on hands and feet rather than hands and knees) are taken to physical therapy to learn how to walk on their feet alone. However, in this small town in Turkey physical therapy is not particularly common. Therefore, the family was never actually introduced to bipedal walking. Investigation on the family has shown that people with Uner Tan could possibly walk again, with physical training and help from a cane or walker.

The answer to this ongoing debate lies both within the family’s genes as well as in the environment. The reason the family is quadrupedal is due to their