I think this was misleading as they found out we have a lot of back problems because  a lot of our chairs are badly designed especially lounge chairs.

i'm behind you john. also, i brought my own flame shield.

Well what people view as adaptive can be slightly subjective but the utility of our hands cannot be denied. Humans are also the only extant species of hominids to to display full bipedal locomotion (chimps and gorillas can do it for short periods of time, but they use knucklewalking for the most part). Who knows what species will be around in a few million years.... the genus homo is believed to only have been around 2-3 million years and those early humans have some glaring differences from our present day homo sapiens. For all we know we'll have a mass extinction soon.... we are overdue for one... 2012 anyone?

Edit: And i'll agree about the back problem part about spines being slightly misleading because most of the problems are probably caused by sitting in non ergonomic stuff or in work conditions that are detremental to out spines, but either way our spines are not designed for being upright. See my post above somewhere I explained it a bit better.

Bipedal locomotion has several advantages.,

1.) you can see further in steppes, which is why it's believed mankind as we know it originated from a steppes-like environment with only few trees and lots of high grass

2.) it uses less calories and it's faster than quadrupedal - we can take longer walks/runs and outrun our primate ancestors with less muscles to feed, which is why we can afford to have a huge brain

3.) it stabilizes the head - our head is far too heavy (in relation to our body) for a quadrupedal animal, which you can easily feel if you just look up while crouching, it's straining - of course with bigger neck muscles that can be compensated for, but these muscles need a point to connect to the head, which leaves less space for the brain

4.)  you have your hands free

Even if you're a creationist 'because thats the way God made us' is a shitty explanation. At least think about why God made us that way.

I had heard it was somewhat related to our emergence onto the savannah from the jungles, interesting topic though - hadn't thought about it much.

All are valid points and true as far as I know. I personally just view hands as a huge advantage is all and why i mentioned it. I wish I could see far into the future and see if what happens to the human race as a species since only #3 and 4 are really relevent to our species currently. I haven't had to run after any prey recently but I like the fact that I could run longer than it could and then grab it with my hands :P.

a few reasons first those that could use their hands more to create stuff probably lived longer and produced more offspring as well as feed the tribebetter. second bipedal locomotion is actually more efficient and allowed our ancestors to run for longer distance, although not as fast as other predators, allowing them to basically kill their prey by simply wearing them out.  thus those that ran upright beat out the ones that ran on all fours. their are probably other reason but ive forgotten.

Just to rip something from wikipedia

Possible reasons for the evolution of human bipedalism include freeing the hands for tool use and carrying, sexual dimorphism in food gathering, changes in climate and habitat (from jungle to savanna) and to reduce the amount of skin exposed to the tropical sun. The first two explanations have been criticized ^{[by whom?]} for projecting modern social concerns and prejudices onto ancestral species. The latter two have been criticized for not making sense in the context of the forest and woodland biomes occupied by human ancestors. An alternative explanation is the mixture of savanna and scattered forests forced proto-humans to travel between clusters of trees and bipedalism offered greater efficiency for slow, long-distance travel between these clusters than knuckle-walking quadrupedism.^[32]

Because it makes us larger.

Both survivability and sexual preference favors the taller/larger.

Because Microsoft Kinect only works if you're standing.