> > > The acid test will be if you provide a link on > > > your web site to my critique of it.
> > I think that's a wonderful idea, Algis. Then folks > > can see what sort of unabashed filibuster passes as > > the standard AAT apologetics.
> Algis,
> I read your website. Mikey's description seems > accurate to me. What I read seemed almost completely > content free. You didn't seem to make any attempt to > counter Jim's contentions that you AAT theorist play > rather fast and loose with the evidence. It wasn't > until I was done readng it that I realized that what > I'd read wasn't just the introduction.
Really? You read the whole Jim Moore critique? Content free? How can you say that? It critiques his pages one by one. It investigates his allegations and finds that he is guilty of doing the very things he accuses Elaine Morgan doing. If you think I didn't make any attempt to counter Jim's allegations I just don't believe you've read it at all.
> > > ...The acid test is whether you have the scientific objectivity and > > > moral courage to do so.
> > Moral courage? Moral courage, Algis? When are you going > > to get the intellectual honesty to answer your critics? Your data > > is buffoonery and your rebuttals smell of elderberries. Just listen > > to youself. In these pages you have said that our ancestors stood > > up to avoid drowning, hairy proto-apes were removed from our > > ancestral gene pool by hungry crocs, the origin of our valgus knee > > can be traced to wading sideways, that big heal of ours got that > > way to better gain purchase on muddy substrates --the list goes on > > and on.
> Taking a leaf out of Jim Moore's book, I see: Take tiny parts of > peripheral arguments you read your opponents making on internet > newsgroups at some time in the past out of context and string them > together to make them look as ridiculous as possible. And *never* take > on the main thrust of the basic idea: that water has acted as an > agency of selection in human evolution more than it has in the > evolution of our great apes cousins. When that argument is made, the > response is just the usual: yada, yada, yada.
It isn't a leaf out of anybody's book, doofus, it's your argument. These are your contentions. Plain and simple. Do you want me to list the URL's?
> > You now have the temerity to question someone's "moral courage"?
> And you have the nerve to question mine?
I'll question your moral courage and your personal integrity and your "scientific objectivity" all day long, thank you very much, and I won't be asking your permission to do so.
> > Oh, and BTW, I think it the pinnacle of irony that you should > > be mentioning "scientific objectivity". Will you ever defend yourself? > > Or will the readers of this group be forever kept in the dark?
> Another Jim Moore tactic... try whip up mistrust and an atmosphere of > suspicion. 'Will I ever defend myself?' What are you on about? That's > what I've been doing for the last seven years.
What I'm on about is your refusal to stand behind what you've said --as you did above, you simply sidestep any confrontation with "..Take tiny parts of peripheral arguments you read your opponents making on internet newsgroups at some time in the past out of context and string them together to make them look as ridiculous as possible." Like hell they're tiny or peripheral or out of context and I don't need to ~make~ them look ridiculous. What you consider "defending your hypothesis" is the most disgusting and rank series of fillibusters to come down the pike in years. Try making a hypothesis that is clear, cogent, and ~testable~ and then *defend it*. What you've been doing for 7 years is whining about your critics. STOP IT and get serious.
"firstjois" <firstjoisy...@hotmail.com> is till too stupid in message news:evqdnYU3w-lNyOLdRVn-hA@comcast.com... to give 1 argument against AAT. What amazes me is that these closed-minded savanna believers believe the most fantastic & far-fetched so-called "explanations" for human or hominids traits (eg, bee brood eating, head banging or eating carnivore livers would "explain" thick bones, eating bone marrow "explains" bigger brains, running under the midday sun "explains" bipedality, sweating "explains" nakedness, a lot of SC fat "explains" larger brains, etc.) & dogmatically declare that a seaside evolution can't be possible... Meanwhile they're unable to give 1 argument against AAT that human anestors once lived at seacoasts. They can't even tell why early Homo could not have followed the Mediterranean & Indian Ocean coasts, when they spread to Algeria & Java (Aïn-Hanech & Mojokerto 1.8 Ma).
Luckily, a lot of PAs have more open minds than these fanatics, eg, - Tobias http://allserv.rug.ac.be/~mvaneech/outthere.htm - Stringer: "I have agreed that we lack plausible models for the origins of bipedalism and have agreed that wading in water can facilitate bipedal locomotion (as observed in other normally quadrupedal primates). I have never said that this must have been the forcing mechanism in hominids, but I do consider it plausible."
> >> Taking a leaf out of Jim Moore's book, I see: > [snip] > >> Another Jim Moore tactic... > [snip]
> >> Algis Kuliukas
> Moore says he will discuss with you (a total waste of time yet he's still > willing to do so) and look at your response. Are you sure you know what you > want?
> The whining never stops.
> Jois
> -- > Hypothesis of an Aquatic Human Ancestor (HAHA),
> > > > ...The acid test is whether you have the scientific objectivity and > > > > moral courage to do so.
> > > Moral courage? Moral courage, Algis? When are you going > > > to get the intellectual honesty to answer your critics? Your data > > > is buffoonery and your rebuttals smell of elderberries. Just listen > > > to youself. In these pages you have said that our ancestors stood > > > up to avoid drowning, hairy proto-apes were removed from our > > > ancestral gene pool by hungry crocs, the origin of our valgus knee > > > can be traced to wading sideways, that big heal of ours got that > > > way to better gain purchase on muddy substrates --the list goes on > > > and on.
> > Taking a leaf out of Jim Moore's book, I see: Take tiny parts of > > peripheral arguments you read your opponents making on internet > > newsgroups at some time in the past out of context and string them > > together to make them look as ridiculous as possible. And *never* take > > on the main thrust of the basic idea: that water has acted as an > > agency of selection in human evolution more than it has in the > > evolution of our great apes cousins. When that argument is made, the > > response is just the usual: yada, yada, yada.
Ok let's take em one by one... 1. 'Stood up to avoid drowning' - Ok this one's not peripheral, it's bleeding obvious. In waist deep water an ape has not choice but to move bipedally. Do you dispute it?
2. 'Hairy proto-apes were removed from our ancestral gene pool by hungry crocs'... This one is typical Jim Moore. I offered that argument as a possible additional factor, yes. In addition to other swimming scenarios like surviving flash floods, tides and crossing wide stretches of water. Also, I've always accepted that hair loss is also probably in part explained by improvement in sweat cooling too. As sweat cooling is fueled by water this is hardly an argument against a water-side existance. But, like JM, you're not interested in those other arguments are you? Just find the bit that sounds least likely, exaggerate it, stitch it together with others and pretend that's all the argument says. If Elaine Morgan would have done that JM would have used it as one of his examples of 'Creationist style Darwin quoting' but, of course, aquasceptics *never* do that, do they?
3. 'the origin of our valgus knee can be traced to wading sideways' ... Another Moorism. I was *speculating*. The fact that the bicondylar angle is greater in a'piths than in humans seems to indicate that it probably wasn't due to pur, perfect human-like bipedalism. What else could it be for? Who knows. I'm interested in wading as a behavioural context for early bipedalism and anyone that has waded through chest deep water will know that lateral motion seems to offer less drag than full frontal motion. If the earliest bipeds were waders you'd expect them to have adopted a gait that used significant lateral motion. This might include sideways wading, but is more likely, in my opinion to have been a side-to-side, twisting gait. Again, never mind the subtelties or the complexities - just stick up the catchy headline and take the Mick: Exactly like a sub-editor would in a trashy British tabloid newspaper.
4. 'That big heal of ours got that way to better gain purchase on muddy substrates' Ditto above.
Why did you ignore my counter-point?
Tell me, please, any tiny scrap of evidence which indicates that water has acted as an agency in human evolution less than in those of our ape cousins.
[..]
> > Another Jim Moore tactic... try whip up mistrust and an atmosphere of > > suspicion. 'Will I ever defend myself?' What are you on about? That's > > what I've been doing for the last seven years.
> What I'm on about is your refusal to stand behind what you've > said --as you did above, you simply sidestep any confrontation > with "..Take tiny parts of peripheral arguments you read your > opponents making on internet newsgroups at some time in the > past out of context and string them together to make them look > as ridiculous as possible." Like hell they're tiny or peripheral or > out of context ...
They're only parts of the argument, only speculations.
> and I don't need to ~make~ them look ridiculous.
By isolating them from the other arguments - like stressing croc predation rather than flash floods, like ignoring the fact that I accept sweat cooling was part of it - you make them look more ridiculous than they would be. As Elaine Morgan apparently said about Jim Moore's stuff, it's "smearing like the worst kind of policitician." Nothing to do with science.
> What you consider "defending your hypothesis" is the most > disgusting and rank series of fillibusters to come down the pike > in years. Try making a hypothesis that is clear, cogent, and > ~testable~ and then *defend it*. What you've been doing for > 7 years is whining about your critics. STOP IT and get serious.
I am testing the hypothesis that water acted as an agency of selection in the evolution of bipedalism. I'm taking the hypothesis and I make some predictions about it. Then, I test them. It's called the hypothetico-deductive method. Can you tell me any other model of human bipedalism that has been tested in this way?
> > None of the Elaine comments I mentioned were in reaction to my web site, not > > the present site nor the old one I put up in 1996. They were in reaction to > > newsgroup posts where I pointed out that she had facts wrong, altered > > quotes, and ignored information that was on the same pages as information > > she didn't ignore. She didn't like that.
> Facts wrong: You mean like representing the Elsner & Gooden (1983) > data incorrectly? So? It was hardly a big deal. She mistakenly > referred to their data as evidence for breathing control when it was > for bradycardia. It didn't effect the main thrust of her argument that > diving mammals clearly are able to breathe in air in anticipation of > the dive. As far as I can tell this is the biggest factual error you > found in Morgan's rseearch. But even this is hardly earth shattering, > is it?
I certainly wouldn't call that Morgan's largest factual error, although it does offer an example of someone who provides a ref that has nothing whatever to do with what they claim it has to do with. That in turn bespeaks of someone who either doesn't know what they're talking about, or who simply provided a ref that they hoped no one would bother to check -- either is a serious thing, and especially so as this is a pattern with Morgan. This either shows she is deliberately misleading her readers or is seriously ignorant of the subject -- and remember she is saying that people should accept her ideas in place of the ideas of a great many scholars.
The point that Morgan was making there, using as support a ref that had nothing to do with what she said, was that seals gauge their breathing in anticipation of how long they are going to dive. Her sentence was, as I explain on my site: "A diving mammal like a seal or a dolphin purposefully regulates its breathing in relation to actions it intends to perform, as explained in a report by R. Elsner and B. Gooden on diving asphyxia:" Then, imeediately after that line, she offers the Elsner and Gooden quote as support for this statement, and as you can see from her statement, she clearly thinks (or wants the reader to think) that the Elsner and Gooden quote has something to do with breathing even though it doesn't. (BTW, as a point of information, trivia for most, seals don't hold their breath before they dive -- like cetaceans, they exhale before they dive and collapse their lungs. They avoid getting the bends that way; their oxygen is held in very large blood vessels in extremely myoglobin-rich blood -- the whole system is incredibly unlike humans.)
> People should know that Elaine Morgan's not the only one who can get > facts wrong. You say (on www.aquaticape.org/leaflist.html) about the > infamous, but unattributed and unreferenced AAH leaflet in the section > 'skin-bonded fat deposits' that this was "Wrong: Our fat deposits are > like other primates and very unlike fatty aquatic mammals, both in > pattern and life history", yet on this subject William Montagna writes > "Together with the loss of a furry cover, human skin acquired a > hypodermal fatty layer (panniculus adiposus) which is considerably > thicker than that found in other primates, or mammals for that > matter." (Montagna 1985:p14).
Caroline Pond has many times pointed out that our fat deposits are quite like those of other primates if those primates are allowed to get fat. We also show a life pattern of fat that is very unlike aquatic mammals -- they get fat extremely quickly when young and both sexes are similar in their fat deposits; we start out very fat as babies (unlike any mammal, aquatic or not) then enter our leanest period through childhood, then rapidly build up fat deposits during puberty, with females and males differing considerably both in amount of fat and where it's built up. Pond points out that the fat we see under our skin is like what we see with other primates which are allowed to get fat. (If folks want to know more about this, there's more about fat on my site.)
> Altered Quotes: Oh yeah, Elaine's terrible for that. You mean, > presumably, writing 'selective' instead of 'selection' and omitting > one word 'appetite' without making it clear to the reader that she has > done so when citing Denton (1982). These were clearly simple errors > and not the shock-horror deception your attempted smear implies. > Or, perhaps you mean her 'creationist style Darwin quoting' technique > when she only takes parts of sentences to strengthen her argument. But > then you do that yourself all over the place when trying to discredit > Morgan so no big deal there either.
No, as I mentioned on my site, I'm talking about things like her leaving 27 words out of the middle of an 86 word Darwin quote without indicating the words are missing, and changing words in those quotes to words more her liking. Please direct me to any place where I've done that -- I'd like to correct that if I've done it. Please do oblige me with an example.
The part where I refer to the similarity of Morgan's quote of Darwin with creationists' methods is that she takes one of Darwin's introductions to a section as if that introduction was indicative of his whole thought -- people familiar with Darwin's literary style will know that he often would introduce a topic by suggesting the difficulty of explaining such and such a feature, using (as I say on my site) a "devil's advocate approach to set up his detailed explanation". People familiar with creationist writing will recognise this method of quoting only Darwin's opening "devil's advocate" section while ignoring the explanation -- a famous example is creationists' use of Darwin's quote about the evolution of the eye. It is indeed disturbing to see Morgan doing this as it's such a common and dishonest creationist tactic and of course seems in her case too to be deliberately misleading. But then your explanation above seems to be deliberately misleading, as I explained this thoroughly on my site.
There are of course other examples of Morgan altering quotes, usually by leaving out words without indicating they've been left out (all the better to distort the meaning).
> Ignored Information on the same page as information she didn't ignore: > Presumably you mean the aldosterone page now. Another piece of Morgan > deception? Not really actually, just Moore trying to stir things up as > usual. Morgan missed out a few, rather irrelevant details, from a > table printed in Ganong. Big deal.
Actually, the most glaring may be the crying animals claims, which, in order to miss the non-aquatic ones amidst the aquatic ones, she would have to have read a chapter of a book by somehow managing to skip pretty much every other paragraph. The aldosterone example though, is also one -- I won't go into it in detail because I explain it quite thoroughly on the site (the direct link to that page is http://www.aquaticape.org/aldosterone.html). The gist is that the list, as seen in both Ganong's 1993 Review of Medical Physiology and the Encyclopedia Britannica (where she got her list from; the lists are the same in both sources) offers two quite different things, normal everyday bodily functions (like standing up) and serious emergencies (like surgery, anxiety, physical trauma, and hemorrhage) and shows two quite different bodily reactions (as we might expect). Morgan lumps the "standing up" in with the actual emergencies and claims that this list claims the body reacts to standing up just as it does to the actual emergencies. This of course is nonsense, and more to the point here, it's not what the list says at all -- she just altered it to suit her wishes, and that's not kosher.
> How about letting readers see another example of this, one you did > yourself. You accuse Morgan of "a complete fabrication" in placing > Denton's (1982:70) quote, mentioned above, in a savannah context. > "Denton neither says it, nor implies it" you tell us. You quote > several paragraphs from that page to prove your point but, surprise, > surprise, you stop quoting just before Denton writes this very next > sentence...
> "If the deductions of hunter-gatherer societies based on the Kalahari > bushmen and the Hadza are valid in relation to hominids, then diet may > have also been predominantly vegetarian over the last five million > years, though there was considerable variation in diet according to > the prevailing climate and conditions" Denton (1982:70)
> Hold on. Isn't that 'Kalahari bushmen' reference rather *implying* the > very savannah context you assure us that Morgan has trwisted Denton's > words to imply? Really, Jim, your hypocracy is astounding.
The context of Denton's sentence is the senetences preceding it in the paragraph it's in -- it does not refer to savannah or indeed any specific environment, only the general type of "environmental, dietetic and metabolic conditions" which determine an animal's "behavior toward salt". Denton makes clear in many places in his book that humans' behavior toward salt shows that humans evolved in a salt deplete environment, which is precisely the opposite of what Morgan claims he said.
That particular paragraph about the Kalahari bushmen and Hadza is (rather clearly) talking about the diet of those people, not their environment. This is made even clearer by the fact that the paragraph you mention specifically talked about "predominantly vegetarian" diets not only in the Kahahari bushmen and Hadza but also the peoples of highland New Guinea and the Amazon, contrasting all these with diets of predominately "animal
...
> Ok let's take em one by one... > 1. 'Stood up to avoid drowning' - Ok this one's not peripheral, it's > bleeding obvious. In waist deep water an ape has not choice but to > move bipedally. Do you dispute it?
All day long. This ape of yours, who finds him or herself in this situation, has at least two other choices: 1) swim, 2) get out of the water. So your insistence that this scenario produces bipedalism is ludicrous in the extreme. Bipedal stance is already available to this ape and he/she uses it when the need arises --as when standing in waist deep water, or looking over the tall grass/underbrush, or engaging in threat displays, or carrying objects.
> 2. 'Hairy proto-apes were removed from our ancestral gene pool by > hungry crocs'... This one is typical Jim Moore. I offered that > argument as a possible additional factor, yes.
Oh, now it's a "possible additional factor". Then ? guess I won't be seeing you trot out your *swimming speed as a function of hair loss* reference again. Since you're in Australia, you could easily test it, you know. Just take your nearly hairless body out amongst your local salties. I'll be watching your local newspaper for the results.
>In addition to other > swimming scenarios like surviving flash floods, tides and crossing > wide stretches of water. Also, I've always accepted that hair loss is > also probably in part explained by improvement in sweat cooling too.
In part? You mean you'll grudgingly accept the mountains of data accumulated in support of evaporative sweat cooling just as long as you get to keep your swimming advantage nonsense? How do you manage that with a straight face?
> As sweat cooling is fueled by water this is hardly an argument against > a water-side existance. But, like JM, you're not interested in those > other arguments are you?
"JM", like myself, is interested in any valid argument you can muster. Trouble is, you can't muster any. *What* other arguments!? You mean because I need water to sweat, I can't get ten feet away from it? Why don't *you* get ten feet away from water, Algis? Are you afraid? If you weren't so busy proselytizing you might consider that it is easy to make ten miles on foot with no water on a hot day. Easy, Algis --and our hypothetical hiker isn't even an acclimated proto-hominid.
> Just find the bit that sounds least likely, > exaggerate it, stitch it together with others and pretend that's all > the argument says. If Elaine Morgan would have done that JM would have > used it as one of his examples of 'Creationist style Darwin quoting' > but, of course, aquasceptics *never* do that, do they?
I see Jim Moore has calmly eviscerated you in another post. You'll deny it, of course. You'll have to deny it to keep some semblage of integrity in your own head. The rest of the readers of this group are not so blinded.
> 3. 'the origin of our valgus knee can be traced to wading sideways' > ... Another Moorism. I was *speculating*.
Excuse me, I am *not* Jim Moore. If you want to link your deconstruction with Jim Moore then that's fine but kindly leave that filibuster out of this discussion. JM has nothing to do with your history of defending the idea that the valgus knee is such because of some adaptation to the stresses inherent in lateral wading. You've done this all by your lonesome. Further, you've been downright righteous and combative about it, ignoring, as you so predictably do, any simpler explanations.
> The fact that the bicondylar > angle is greater in a'piths than in humans seems to indicate that it > probably wasn't due to pur, perfect human-like bipedalism. What else > could it be for? Who knows.
Certainly not anyone who reads what passes for your web page.
> I'm interested in wading as a behavioural > context for early bipedalism and anyone that has waded through chest > deep water will know that lateral motion seems to offer less drag than > full frontal motion. If the earliest bipeds were waders you'd expect > them to have adopted a gait that used significant lateral motion.
If the earliest bipeds were waders, and this has certainly NOT been established, by you or anyone else, then I would expect them to wade just like I do --straight forward. Please stop supplying what you think that I would expect. I will not be burdened by your expectations.
>This > might include sideways wading, but is more likely, in my opinion to > have been a side-to-side, twisting gait. Again, never mind the > subtelties or the complexities - just stick up the catchy headline and > take the Mick: Exactly like a sub-editor would in a trashy British > tabloid newspaper.
Again, please can your characterizations of what you think is going on. I'm challenging your opinion --where you say early bipedalism consists of "a side-to-side, twisting gait" I couldn't care less what you think of "..trashy British tabloid newspaper[s]".
> 4. 'That big heal of ours got that way to better gain purchase on > muddy substrates' Ditto above.
> Why did you ignore my counter-point?
WHAT counterpoint!?
> Tell me, please, any tiny scrap of evidence which indicates that water > has acted as an agency in human evolution less than in those of our > ape cousins.
What's this? You want me to get in the water with you? I *don't* think it's a dichotomy, remember? That's your spiel.
> [..] > > > Another Jim Moore tactic... try whip up mistrust and an atmosphere of > > > suspicion. 'Will I ever defend myself?' What are you on about? That's > > > what I've been doing for the last seven years.
> > What I'm on about is your refusal to stand behind what you've > > said --as you did above, you simply sidestep any confrontation > > with "..Take tiny parts of peripheral arguments you read your > > opponents making on internet newsgroups at some time in the > > past out of context and string them together to make them look > > as ridiculous as possible." Like hell they're tiny or peripheral or > > out of context ...
> They're only parts of the argument, only speculations.
Is this some kind of crack I see in your stony exterior? Are you now qualifying your 7-year pontification in this NG as "mere speculations"?
> > and I don't need to ~make~ them look ridiculous.
> By isolating them from the other arguments - like stressing croc > predation rather than flash floods, like ignoring the fact that I > accept sweat cooling was part of it - you make them look more > ridiculous than they would be.
No, and again, it is YOU who vociferously defends your swimming speed advantage as a selective factor in the reduction of hair in our ancestors. You do so by trotting out the swimming speed reference --as you did just a few days ago. Yea, "..make them look more ridiculous than they would be.", as if that were possible.
>As Elaine Morgan apparently said about > Jim Moore's stuff, it's "smearing like the worst kind of > policitician." Nothing to do with science.
Message-ID: <pI3gc.149114$oR5.77996@pd7tw3no>
> > What you consider "defending your hypothesis" is the most > > disgusting and rank series of fillibusters to come down the pike > > in years. Try making a hypothesis that is clear, cogent, and > > ~testable~ and then *defend it*. What you've been doing for > > 7 years is whining about your critics. STOP IT and get serious.
> I am testing the hypothesis that water acted as an agency of selection > in the evolution of bipedalism. I'm taking the hypothesis and I make > some predictions about it. Then, I test them. It's called the > hypothetico-deductive method. Can you tell me any other model of human > bipedalism that has been tested in this way?
You are doing no such thing. You have a "hypothesis" (which is about as meaningless as a belch) from which you derive the most ludicrous series of corollaries that you then defend by lambasting anyone who offers the slightest criticism. Pure, unadulterated bullshit promulgated by a rank amateur bullshit artist. That aint science, that's religion.
an example of someone who provides a ref that has nothing
> whatever to do with what they claim it has to do with. \
she
> clearly thinks (or wants the reader to think) that the Elsner and Gooden > quote has something to do with breathing even though it doesn't.
Pond points out that the fat
> we see under our skin is like what we see with other primates which are > allowed to get fat. (If folks want to know more about this, there's more > about fat on my site.)
leaving 27
> words out of the middle of an 86 word Darwin quote without indicating the > words are missing, and changing words in those quotes to words more her > liking.
she takes one of Darwin's introductions to a
> section as if that introduction was indicative of his whole thought --
People familiar with creationist writing will
> recognise this method of quoting only Darwin's opening "devil's advocate" > section while ignoring the explanation
the most glaring may be the crying animals claims, which, in order
> to miss the non-aquatic ones amidst the aquatic ones, she would have to have > read a chapter of a book by somehow managing to skip pretty much every other > paragraph.
Morgan lumps the "standing up" in
> with the actual emergencies and claims that this list claims the body reacts > to standing up just as it does to the actual emergencies. This of course is > nonsense, > she just altered it to suit her wishes, and that's not kosher.
Denton
> makes clear in many places in his book that humans' behavior toward salt > shows that humans evolved in a salt deplete environment, which is precisely > the opposite of what Morgan claims he said.
she claimed that Denton
> said that humans had no salt appetite, when the main thrust of this book was > to point out that they do; she claimed that his work showed that humans > evolved in or around a saltwater enviroment, when he was at pains to point > out that his work showed that we evolved in an environment where salt was > rare. This includes savannah and desert conditions like those the bushmen > live(d) in, it includes forests, it includes everywhere except for the > seashore where Morgan was placing our ancestors at that time (and for which > she offered Denton's work as support, even though his work was very clear > about saying that such a place was the one place where our ancestors could > not have evolved). > I had hoped you'd have something of substance after your previous posts. I > can only hope you have such on your site's critique.
Excellent post, Jim.
I snipped around the potatoes leaving the meat.
Hey Algis,
How's about you give us a break from your whining and actually respond to these points in detail?
> All day long. This ape of yours, who finds him or herself > in this situation, has at least two other choices: 1) swim, 2) get out > of the water.
If the water is waist deep it is almost certainly too shallow to swim. If the habitat is flooded then it probably hasn't got anywhere to get out to.
> So your insistence that this scenario produces > bipedalism is ludicrous in the extreme.
Oh yeah - it's ludicrous that an ape would ever live in a situation where they'd be exposed to a flooded wetland habitat.
> Bipedal stance is > already available to this ape and he/she uses it when the need > arises --as when standing in waist deep water, or looking over > the tall grass/underbrush, or engaging in threat displays, or > carrying objects.
Yes it is 'already' available. Yes, I accept that those other factors would also encourage them to move bipedally sometimes. I know it's hard for you to think in anything but binary terms but I'm not actually arguing that they *only* ever moved in water and that they *never* moved bipedally on land or in trees, it's just that whilst moving though shallow water they have pretty much no choice, wheras in other substrates they do have a choice. So, the more they moved in water, the more they'd move bipedally. Simple.
> > 2. 'Hairy proto-apes were removed from our ancestral gene pool by > > hungry crocs'... This one is typical Jim Moore. I offered that > > argument as a possible additional factor, yes.
> Oh, now it's a "possible additional factor".
It always was, Michael. But your blinkered black & white binary thinking never recognised it. Point to any posting I've ever made that claims anything like exclusivity for this argument. It's just a smear to pretend otherwise.
> Then ? guess I won't > be seeing you trot out your *swimming speed as a function > of hair loss* reference again. Since you're in Australia, you > could easily test it, you know. Just take your nearly hairless > body out amongst your local salties. I'll be watching your > local newspaper for the results.
Are you listening to anything? Swimming speed was part of it, swimming efficiency was another part. Tides, flash floods and crossing wide stretches of water would all act to enhance the selective pressure for better swimming. Again you use Moore's tactics - take a tiny part of the argument, isolate it, exaggerate it and pretend it's the whole thing. Just like the sleaziest policitician or tabliod sub-editor.
> >In addition to other > > swimming scenarios like surviving flash floods, tides and crossing > > wide stretches of water. Also, I've always accepted that hair loss is > > also probably in part explained by improvement in sweat cooling too.
> In part? You mean you'll grudgingly accept the mountains of > data accumulated in support of evaporative sweat cooling just > as long as you get to keep your swimming advantage nonsense? > How do you manage that with a straight face?
There's nothing grudging about it. Of course I accept that nakedness helps sweat cooling. Can you point to any post where I've tried to deny it? More slimey smearing - it's all you have.
Try telling all the competitive swimmers that shave their body hair before a big meet that it's nonsense. The Sharp & Costil paper's very clear that it isn't nonsense. But, of course, you just ignore that data or cite another paper (Kruger et al 2000) that shows the same thing but, because JE used it to claim that it wasn't the *amount* of body hair that was removed, to twist the argument around.
> > As sweat cooling is fueled by water this is hardly an argument against > > a water-side existance. But, like JM, you're not interested in those > > other arguments are you?
> "JM", like myself, is interested in any valid argument you > can muster. Trouble is, you can't muster any. *What* other > arguments!? You mean because I need water to sweat, I > can't get ten feet away from it? Why don't *you* get ten > feet away from water, Algis? Are you afraid? If you weren't > so busy proselytizing you might consider that it is easy to make ten > miles on foot with no water on a hot day. Easy, Algis --and > our hypothetical hiker isn't even an acclimated proto-hominid.
That sweat cooling evolved heavily implies that our ancestors lived close to very reliable water sources. If this was the only explanation and it didn't involve water how come only one out of 200 primate species evolved it and so few other mammals?
> > Just find the bit that sounds least likely, > > exaggerate it, stitch it together with others and pretend that's all > > the argument says. If Elaine Morgan would have done that JM would have > > used it as one of his examples of 'Creationist style Darwin quoting' > > but, of course, aquasceptics *never* do that, do they?
> I see Jim Moore has calmly eviscerated you in another post. > You'll deny it, of course. You'll have to deny it to keep some > semblage of integrity in your own head. The rest of the readers > of this group are not so blinded.
Oh yeah, I'm 'eviscerated', sure. Just like his web site's a 'magnus opus'. The phrase 'self deluding' comes to mind. Honestly, you're arguments are so weak whenever enyone comes up with *anything* against this idea you have to champion it as if it were some kind of demolition. Just like a creationist would.
What about my point, the one you just skipped? Much of JM's criticism of EM is that she picks bits of arguments and doesn't report on them in the full, original context. Presumably you'd agree with that bit. But then you do exactly the same thing yourself here with my arguments. You picked out only the speculation about croc predation and pretended that that is my whole argument. You conveneiently forget that I also argued for swimming efficiency, in tides, flash floods and wide stretches of water and that I actually also favour the sweat cooling idea too. A bit convenient that.
> > 3. 'the origin of our valgus knee can be traced to wading sideways' > > ... Another Moorism. I was *speculating*.
> Excuse me, I am *not* Jim Moore. If you want to link > your deconstruction with Jim Moore then that's fine but > kindly leave that filibuster out of this discussion. JM has > nothing to do with your history of defending the idea that > the valgus knee is such because of some adaptation to > the stresses inherent in lateral wading.
I know that. I was merely highlighting that, once again, you use the same tactics of the sleazy politician that Jim Moore does.
> You've done this > all by your lonesome. Further, you've been downright > righteous and combative about it, ignoring, as you so > predictably do, any simpler explanations.
I've tried to argue against the idea that it's a done deal, that we *know* it was due to human-like fully-upright bipedalism and I've *speculated* that it might be due to wading. You have to smear that and exagerate it to the point where you pretend my argument is 100% behind that and nothing else. More smear.
> > The fact that the bicondylar > > angle is greater in a'piths than in humans seems to indicate that it > > probably wasn't due to pur, perfect human-like bipedalism. What else > > could it be for? Who knows.
> Certainly not anyone who reads what passes for your web page.
More smear.
> > I'm interested in wading as a behavioural > > context for early bipedalism and anyone that has waded through chest > > deep water will know that lateral motion seems to offer less drag than > > full frontal motion. If the earliest bipeds were waders you'd expect > > them to have adopted a gait that used significant lateral motion.
> If the earliest bipeds were waders, and this has certainly NOT > been established, by you or anyone else, then I would expect > them to wade just like I do --straight forward.
Why would you expect that? Straight forward wading generates considerably more drag. Next time you'r wading in the sea or in a fast flowing river compare standing in waist deep water full on with sideways. Have you never done that?
> Please stop > supplying what you think that I would expect. I will not be > burdened by your expectations.
I meant 'you' in the general sense, not 'you' in the personal sense, you great plonker. ('You' here, was in the personal sense, however.)
> >This > > might include sideways wading, but is more likely, in my opinion to > > have been a side-to-side, twisting gait. Again, never mind the > > subtelties or the complexities - just stick up the catchy headline and > > take the Mick: Exactly like a sub-editor would in a trashy British > > tabloid newspaper.
> Again, please can your characterizations of what you think > is going on. I'm challenging your opinion --where you say > early bipedalism consists of "a side-to-side, twisting gait" > I couldn't care less what you think of "..trashy British > tabloid newspaper[s]".
It's just another example of your sleazy tactics. Take the bit of the argument that sounds the weakest, dissect it out from the rest of it and the context and exaggerate. Then, stitch it together with other bits extracted from other areas and write it in 5cm bold print in a stupid headline.
> > > None of the Elaine comments I mentioned were in reaction to my web site, > not > > > the present site nor the old one I put up in 1996. They were in > reaction to > > > newsgroup posts where I pointed out that she had facts wrong, altered > > > quotes, and ignored information that was on the same pages as > information > > > she didn't ignore. She didn't like that.
> > Facts wrong: You mean like representing the Elsner & Gooden (1983) > > data incorrectly? So? It was hardly a big deal. She mistakenly > > referred to their data as evidence for breathing control when it was > > for bradycardia. It didn't effect the main thrust of her argument that > > diving mammals clearly are able to breathe in air in anticipation of > > the dive. As far as I can tell this is the biggest factual error you > > found in Morgan's rseearch. But even this is hardly earth shattering, > > is it?
> I certainly wouldn't call that Morgan's largest factual error, ...
Ok. What *would* you call her biggest error, then? Which, out of all the hundreds of claims and arguments in her five books would you say is the most damning, the most deceitful or the most illustrative of her lack of trustworthiness. Tell you what... why don't you give us your 'top 5?'
It's odd because I would have though that your web site would have put out the strongest case you have (not that it's very strong) but here, and the on web site itself you heavily imply that there are other, even worse examples that you're secretly holding on to. Why would you do that, Jim? Or is it just more smear?
> ... although it > does offer an example of someone who provides a ref that has nothing > whatever to do with what they claim it has to do with.
Nothing? Bradycardia and breathing are surely related in mammals when they dive in water.
> That in turn > bespeaks of someone who either doesn't know what they're talking about, or > who simply provided a ref that they hoped no one would bother to check -- > either is a serious thing, and especially so as this is a pattern with > Morgan.
A bit hypocritical that. Morgan has made a few mistakes, I'll grant you that, but her latest work is better referenced than most of your web site, to make a simple comparison. I'm thinking of your pages where you say thing like 'AAH proponents think the moon is made of cheese'. You hope no-one will bother to check if they ever did say that and usually provide no clue to help them to do so if they wanted to. We're supposed to just take your word for it, I suppose.
> This either shows she is deliberately misleading her readers or is > seriously ignorant of the subject -- and remember she is saying that people > should accept her ideas in place of the ideas of a great many scholars.
No, that's at best an exaggeration at worse a sleazy smear. Of course everyone is ignorant about the subject to a degree. Human evolution is a very broad subject and no-one knows everything. Morgan demonstrates a very good understanding of most of the generalities of the subject but, of course, in some areas she's cited evidence that others have written and assumed they were correct. To imply that she's deliberately misleading her readers is just a cheap smear. She makes some very good points which you don't even mention on your web site. People like Philip Tobias, Daniel Denton and Colin Groves have been very complementary about her books, but you don't mention that either. You're a little bit convenient in what you report, aren't you? Not the hallmark of a good 'scientific critique' is it?
> The point that Morgan was making there, using as support a ref that had > nothing to do with what she said, was that seals gauge their breathing in > anticipation of how long they are going to dive. Her sentence was, as I > explain on my site: "A diving mammal like a seal or a dolphin purposefully > regulates its breathing in relation to actions it intends to perform, as > explained in a report by R. Elsner and B. Gooden on diving asphyxia:" Then, > imeediately after that line, she offers the Elsner and Gooden quote as > support for this statement, and as you can see from her statement, she > clearly thinks (or wants the reader to think) that the Elsner and Gooden > quote has something to do with breathing even though it doesn't.
Yes, yes. I've read the web page. Ok, it's an error. It's quite a bad error. But it doesn't really change the main thrust of her argument does it? At worst, it removes a piece of evidence in support of the idea that diving mammals increase their inhalation before a big dive. But does anyone seriously dispute that this is precisely what humans do?
> (BTW, as a > point of information, trivia for most, seals don't hold their breath before > they dive -- like cetaceans, they exhale before they dive and collapse their > lungs. They avoid getting the bends that way; their oxygen is held in very > large blood vessels in extremely myoglobin-rich blood -- the whole system is > incredibly unlike humans.)
Fine but the seals analogy is just that - an analogy - humans hold their breath when diving don't they? Therefore, the argument that this would have been an ideal preadaption for speech holds true. Much of your web site exagerates these analogies in order to try to pour ridicule on the AAH. That's just not fair, Jim.
> > People should know that Elaine Morgan's not the only one who can get > > facts wrong. You say (on www.aquaticape.org/leaflist.html) about the > > infamous, but unattributed and unreferenced AAH leaflet in the section > > 'skin-bonded fat deposits' that this was "Wrong: Our fat deposits are > > like other primates and very unlike fatty aquatic mammals, both in > > pattern and life history", yet on this subject William Montagna writes > > "Together with the loss of a furry cover, human skin acquired a > > hypodermal fatty layer (panniculus adiposus) which is considerably > > thicker than that found in other primates, or mammals for that > > matter." (Montagna 1985:p14).
> Caroline Pond has many times pointed out that our fat deposits are quite > like those of other primates if those primates are allowed to get fat. We > also show a life pattern of fat that is very unlike aquatic mammals -- they > get fat extremely quickly when young and both sexes are similar in their fat > deposits; we start out very fat as babies (unlike any mammal, aquatic or > not) then enter our leanest period through childhood, then rapidly build up > fat deposits during puberty, with females and males differing considerably > both in amount of fat and where it's built up. Pond points out that the fat > we see under our skin is like what we see with other primates which are > allowed to get fat. (If folks want to know more about this, there's more > about fat on my site.)
Ok, but even her own data makes it clear that even the fattest, un-exercised captive primates are almost always leaner than typical humans. What did Pond say 'Comparisons with other mammals show that Homo is clearly the odd man out', right?
So, do you dispute the Montagna quote? You seem to be selectively choosing the quotes you like that back your view (that Elaine Morgan is a fraud) but, conveniently, ignore other quotes which show that she makes some very good points. This, of course, is a tactic you criticise Morgan for doing herself but here you are, again, doing worse yourself.
> > Altered Quotes: Oh yeah, Elaine's terrible for that. You mean, > > presumably, writing 'selective' instead of 'selection' and omitting > > one word 'appetite' without making it clear to the reader that she has > > done so when citing Denton (1982). These were clearly simple errors > > and not the shock-horror deception your attempted smear implies. > > Or, perhaps you mean her 'creationist style Darwin quoting' technique > > when she only takes parts of sentences to strengthen her argument. But > > then you do that yourself all over the place when trying to discredit > > Morgan so no big deal there either.
> No, as I mentioned on my site, I'm talking about things like her leaving 27 > words out of the middle of an 86 word Darwin quote without indicating the > words are missing, and changing words in those quotes to words more her > liking.
Oh yes, sorry. I forgot about those 27 (22 words, actually) words in the Darwin quote. Ok, it was an error. I agree. But you never reported what the words actually were, though, Jim. Here they are, by the way, so everyone judge for themselves whether Morgan *did* change them to meet her liking...
"...As Mr. Wallace remarks, the natives in all countries are glad to protect their naked backs and shoulders with some slight covering."
How, please tell us, does this change the sentence to "her liking"? Are you now suggesting that Morgan was anti-Wallace? As a Welsh native I hardly think she'd do that.
Please let's be honest, Jim. Morgan's ommission had zero effect on the meaning of her argument, didn't it? So why the hell are you wasting all of our time having to check this stuff out? It's just more sleazy politician style smearing, isn't it? It's another attempt at character assasination.
> Please direct me to any place where I've done that -- I'd like to > correct that if I've done it. Please do oblige me with an example.
I never claimed that you did actually misquote anyone, Jim. But I *do* claim that you snip out bits of Morgan's work though, in order to make her case look worse and yours better,
...
"Excellent post, Jim"? Now I know you're a plonker.
> I snipped around the potatoes leaving the meat.
> Hey Algis,
> How's about you give us a break from your whining and actually respond > to these points in detail?
Er, I did. Easy. Jim Moore's web site is a sleazy politician-style attempt at rubbishing a reasonable hypothesis and smearing the good work of Elaine Morgan. In doing so he shows himself to be guilty of exactly the same 'crimes' as the allegations he makes (but which upon close examination don't stand up to scrutiny) against Morgan.
That you have chosen to defend him just makes you part of the same, sleazy, process. I thought you were, at least, independently minded but it seems you're just another sheep bleating to the same, dry, ignorant rythm.
>> "Excellent post, Jim"? Now I know you're a plonker.
>>> I snipped around the potatoes leaving the meat.
>>> Hey Algis,
>>> How's about you give us a break from your whining and actually >>> respond to these points in detail?
>> Er, I did. Easy. Jim Moore's web site is a sleazy politician-style >> attempt at rubbishing a reasonable hypothesis and smearing the good >> work of Elaine Morgan. In doing so he shows himself to be guilty of >> exactly the same 'crimes' as the allegations he makes (but which upon >> close examination don't stand up to scrutiny) against Morgan.
>> That you have chosen to defend him just makes you part of the same, >> sleazy, process. I thought you were, at least, independently minded >> but it seems you're just another sheep bleating to the same, dry, >> ignorant rythm.
>> Algis Kuliukas
If you don't like the response here, why post here?
Jois
--
For a scientific critque of the aquaticape theory, go to www.aquaticape.org
> > > Ok let's take em one by one... > > > 1. 'Stood up to avoid drowning' - Ok this one's not peripheral, it's > > > bleeding obvious. In waist deep water an ape has not choice but to > > > move bipedally. Do you dispute it?
> > All day long. This ape of yours, who finds him or herself > > in this situation, has at least two other choices: 1) swim, 2) get out > > of the water.
> If the water is waist deep it is almost certainly too shallow to swim. > If the habitat is flooded then it probably hasn't got anywhere to get > out to.
Is this the best you can do? You're arguing now just to make your mouth move, right? So let me get this straight: you're saying that we're bipedal today because some putative ape couldn't figure out that he could swim in waist deep water (like you) or that this major feature of our physical self can be traced to flooded habitat? Is that what you're saying? I just wanna be sure.
> > So your insistence that this scenario produces > > bipedalism is ludicrous in the extreme.
> Oh yeah - it's ludicrous that an ape would ever live in a situation > where they'd be exposed to a flooded wetland habitat.
That's not what you're arguing. Try to follow your own argument here for once. You're saying that bipedalism arose out of a desire on the part of some proto human to stand up --and thus avoid drowning. I have no problem accepting that some apes at some distant point in the past were exposed to flooded terrain. I ~do~ have a problem with your idea that this water ~forced~ the adoption of a behavior that ~everyone else~ regards as part and parcel of the normal range of behaviors shared by ~all~ large-bodied extant apes. That would include me --remember out little tete-a-tete regarding the hylobates?
> > Bipedal stance is > > already available to this ape and he/she uses it when the need > > arises --as when standing in waist deep water, or looking over > > the tall grass/underbrush, or engaging in threat displays, or > > carrying objects.
> Yes it is 'already' available. Yes, I accept that those other factors > would also encourage them to move bipedally sometimes. I know it's > hard for you to think in anything but binary terms but I'm not > actually arguing that they *only* ever moved in water and that they > *never* moved bipedally on land or in trees, it's just that whilst > moving though shallow water they have pretty much no choice, wheras in > other substrates they do have a choice. So, the more they moved in > water, the more they'd move bipedally. Simple.
Simple minded, you mean. If apes are moving bipedally in other venues, then what's ~forcing~ them there?
> > > 2. 'Hairy proto-apes were removed from our ancestral gene pool by > > > hungry crocs'... This one is typical Jim Moore. I offered that > > > argument as a possible additional factor, yes.
> > Oh, now it's a "possible additional factor".
> It always was, Michael. But your blinkered black & white binary > thinking never recognised it. Point to any posting I've ever made that > claims anything like exclusivity for this argument. It's just a smear > to pretend otherwise.
I would point to the volume of posts you make trotting out your various and sundry defenses of your predation/efficiency argument. You apparantly throw these smoke screens up without thinking of the impact they make among your readers. The predation argument doesn't hold water. Africa is full of crocs --who hunt by stealth and a murderous explosion of teeth and bone snapping jaws. Out swimming a croc is a non-question as this just aint the way it works. You've been gently and not-so- gently reminded of this many times. So many times, in fact, that you've now decided to call it "speculation". Now, we get the "efficiency" deal. What, if I may be so bold as to ask, is the ~selective advantage~ of being a .00004% faster swimmer than my neighbor? Why would I leave more descendants than the person who is slightly hairier than I am? Why, Algis? Stop calling me names and questioning my motives long enough to supply an answer free from "speculation" and dodging qualifiers.
> > Then ? guess I won't > > be seeing you trot out your *swimming speed as a function > > of hair loss* reference again. Since you're in Australia, you > > could easily test it, you know. Just take your nearly hairless > > body out amongst your local salties. I'll be watching your > > local newspaper for the results.
> Are you listening to anything? Swimming speed was part of it, swimming > efficiency was another part. Tides, flash floods and crossing wide > stretches of water would all act to enhance the selective pressure for > better swimming. Again you use Moore's tactics - take a tiny part of > the argument, isolate it, exaggerate it and pretend it's the whole > thing. Just like the sleaziest policitician or tabliod sub-editor.
I'm listening to everything you say --you may not have noticed. And apart from the cheap editorializing, I'm not getting the answers to the questions that result. I'll ask again: What is the selective adantage for a *terrestrial biped* of being a better swimmer --when that advantage (your hairless speed study) is measured in some fraction of a percent? Or, if you're now ready to concede the predation issue, when better/worse swimmer has no visible connection to reproductive fitness. Face it, Algis, drowning is an accident today and has very little connection to the victim's ability.
> > >In addition to other > > > swimming scenarios like surviving flash floods, tides and crossing > > > wide stretches of water. Also, I've always accepted that hair loss is > > > also probably in part explained by improvement in sweat cooling too.
> > In part? You mean you'll grudgingly accept the mountains of > > data accumulated in support of evaporative sweat cooling just > > as long as you get to keep your swimming advantage nonsense? > > How do you manage that with a straight face?
> There's nothing grudging about it. Of course I accept that nakedness > helps sweat cooling. Can you point to any post where I've tried to > deny it? More slimey smearing - it's all you have.
I'd say it was grudging --especially in light of the fact that it has nothing to do with splashing about ~in~ the *water*. You're such an easy target, Algis.
> Try telling all the competitive swimmers that shave their body hair > before a big meet that it's nonsense. The Sharp & Costil paper's very > clear that it isn't nonsense. But, of course, you just ignore that > data or cite another paper (Kruger et al 2000) that shows the same > thing but, because JE used it to claim that it wasn't the *amount* of > body hair that was removed, to twist the argument around.
Here you are with your Sharp & Costil paper. Right on time. What does it mean, Algis? Does it mean that our ancestors were competitive swimmers? Does it mean that the winner got the girl or stiffed the croc? Does it mean that the winner had more offspring? Come on, say something.
> > > As sweat cooling is fueled by water this is hardly an argument against > > > a water-side existance. But, like JM, you're not interested in those > > > other arguments are you?
> > "JM", like myself, is interested in any valid argument you > > can muster. Trouble is, you can't muster any. *What* other > > arguments!? You mean because I need water to sweat, I > > can't get ten feet away from it? Why don't *you* get ten > > feet away from water, Algis? Are you afraid? If you weren't > > so busy proselytizing you might consider that it is easy to make ten > > miles on foot with no water on a hot day. Easy, Algis --and > > our hypothetical hiker isn't even an acclimated proto-hominid.
> That sweat cooling evolved heavily implies that our ancestors lived > close to very reliable water sources. If this was the only explanation > and it didn't involve water how come only one out of 200 primate > species evolved it and so few other mammals?
You need to slow down and think about what you're saying. We are not cacti or camels. We cannot go long without fresh water. Fortunately for us, growing up in Africa did not exclude us from such access. Again, if I can walk all day in the hot sun without a drink (and I can) I can cover at least 20 miles. If that twenty miles is on either side of a water sources (say, a stream) then that territory is 20 x 2 or 40 miles. If that stream is 50 miles long, then the territory at my disposal is 50 X 40 or 2000 square miles. Do you think that maybe there are other available sources in that 2000 square miles?
> > > Just find the bit that sounds least likely, > > > exaggerate it, stitch it together with others and pretend that's all > > > the argument says. If Elaine Morgan would have done that JM would have > > > used it as one of his examples of 'Creationist style Darwin quoting' > > > but, of course, aquasceptics *never* do that, do they?
> > I see Jim Moore has calmly eviscerated you in another post. > > You'll deny it, of course. You'll have to deny it to keep some > > semblage of integrity in your own head. The rest of the readers > > of this group are not so blinded.
> Oh yeah, I'm 'eviscerated', sure. Just like his web site's a 'magnus > opus'. The phrase 'self deluding' comes to mind. Honestly, you're > arguments are so weak whenever enyone comes up with *anything* against > this idea you have to champion it as if it were some kind of > demolition. Just like a creationist would.
I'd say he showed you pretty conclusively where the bear pooped. And yes, the phrase 'self deluding' does come to mind when I read your replies.
> > ... although it > > does offer an example of someone who provides a ref that has nothing > > whatever to do with what they claim it has to do with.
> Nothing? Bradycardia and breathing are surely related in mammals when > they dive in water.
Note that Algis, conveniently, snips the content of Jim's thoughts.
> > That in turn > > bespeaks of someone who either doesn't know what they're talking about, or > > who simply provided a ref that they hoped no one would bother to check -- > > either is a serious thing, and especially so as this is a pattern with > > Morgan.
> A bit hypocritical that. Morgan has made a few mistakes, I'll grant > you that, but her latest work is better referenced
Yes, I also note that O.J. hasn't killed anybody for quite some time now.
than most of your
> web site, to make a simple comparison. I'm thinking of your pages > where you say thing like 'AAH proponents think the moon is made of > cheese'. You hope no-one will bother to check if they ever did say > that and usually provide no clue to help them to do so if they wanted > to. We're supposed to just take your word for it, I suppose.
Be specific or shut your trap.
> > This either shows she is deliberately misleading her readers or is > > seriously ignorant of the subject -- and remember she is saying that people > > should accept her ideas in place of the ideas of a great many scholars.
> No, that's at best an exaggeration at worse a sleazy smear. Of course > everyone is ignorant about the subject to a degree. Human evolution is > a very broad subject and no-one knows everything. Morgan demonstrates > a very good understanding of most of the generalities of the subject > but, of course, in some areas she's cited evidence that others have > written and assumed they were correct.
> deliberately misleading her readers is just a cheap smear. She makes > some very good points which you don't even mention on your web site. > People like Philip Tobias, Daniel Denton and Colin Groves have been > very complementary about her books, but you don't mention that either. > You're a little bit convenient in what you report, aren't you? Not the > hallmark of a good 'scientific critique' is it?
> > The point that Morgan was making there, using as support a ref that had > > nothing to do with what she said, was that seals gauge their breathing in > > anticipation of how long they are going to dive. Her sentence was, as I > > explain on my site: "A diving mammal like a seal or a dolphin purposefully > > regulates its breathing in relation to actions it intends to perform, as > > explained in a report by R. Elsner and B. Gooden on diving asphyxia:" Then, > > imeediately after that line, she offers the Elsner and Gooden quote as > > support for this statement, and as you can see from her statement, she > > clearly thinks (or wants the reader to think) that the Elsner and Gooden > > quote has something to do with breathing even though it doesn't.
> Yes, yes. I've read the web page. Ok, it's an error. It's quite a bad > error. But it doesn't really change the main thrust of her argument > does it?
It destroys her argument altogether.
At worst, it removes a piece of evidence in support of the
> idea that diving mammals increase their inhalation before a big dive. > But does anyone seriously dispute that this is precisely what humans > do?
As Jim pointed out, this was not her argument.
> > (BTW, as a > > point of information, trivia for most, seals don't hold their breath before > > they dive -- like cetaceans, they exhale before they dive and collapse their > > lungs. They avoid getting the bends that way; their oxygen is held in very > > large blood vessels in extremely myoglobin-rich blood -- the whole system is > > incredibly unlike humans.)
> Fine but the seals analogy is just that - an analogy - humans hold > their breath when diving don't they? Therefore, the argument that this > would have been an ideal preadaption for speech holds true.
Humans don't necessarily hold their breath before they speak.
Much of
> your web site exagerates these analogies in order to try to pour > ridicule on the AAH. That's just not fair, Jim.
You admit Morgan is wrong then you berate Jim for pointing it out. Algis, you put the wack in wacko.
> > > People should know that Elaine Morgan's not the only one who can get > > > facts wrong. You say (on www.aquaticape.org/leaflist.html) about the > > > infamous, but unattributed and unreferenced AAH leaflet in the section > > > 'skin-bonded fat deposits' that this was "Wrong: Our fat deposits are > > > like other primates and very unlike fatty aquatic mammals, both in > > > pattern and life history", yet on this subject William Montagna writes > > > "Together with the loss of a furry cover, human skin acquired a > > > hypodermal fatty layer (panniculus adiposus) which is considerably > > > thicker than that found in other primates, or mammals for that > > > matter." (Montagna 1985:p14).
> > Caroline Pond has many times pointed out that our fat deposits are quite > > like those of other primates if those primates are allowed to get fat. We > > also show a life pattern of fat that is very unlike aquatic mammals -- they > > get fat extremely quickly when young and both sexes are similar in their fat > > deposits; we start out very fat as babies (unlike any mammal, aquatic or > > not) then enter our leanest period through childhood, then rapidly build up > > fat deposits during puberty, with females and males differing considerably > > both in amount of fat and where it's built up. Pond points out that the fat > > we see under our skin is like what we see with other primates which are > > allowed to get fat. (If folks want to know more about this, there's more > > about fat on my site.)
> Ok, but even her own data makes it clear that even the fattest, > un-exercised captive primates are almost always leaner than typical > humans. What did Pond say 'Comparisons with other mammals show that > Homo is clearly the odd man out', right?
Uh, I guess. But how does this support your aquatic premise (which, afterall is the point here, isn't it)?
> So, do you dispute the Montagna quote? You seem to be selectively > choosing the quotes you like that back your view (that Elaine Morgan > is a fraud) but, conveniently, ignore other quotes which show that she > makes some very good points.
> criticise Morgan for doing herself but here you are, again, doing > worse yourself.
> > > Altered Quotes: Oh yeah, Elaine's terrible for that. You mean, > > > presumably, writing 'selective' instead of 'selection' and omitting > > > one word 'appetite' without making it clear to the reader that she has > > > done so when citing Denton (1982). These were clearly simple errors > > > and not the shock-horror deception your attempted smear implies. > > > Or, perhaps you mean her 'creationist style Darwin quoting' technique > > > when she only takes parts of sentences to strengthen her argument. But > > > then you do that yourself all over the place when trying to discredit > > > Morgan so no big deal there either.
> > No, as I mentioned on my site, I'm talking about things like her leaving 27 > > words out of the middle of an 86 word Darwin quote without indicating the > > words are missing, and changing words in those quotes to words more her > > liking.
> Oh yes, sorry. I forgot about those 27 (22 words, actually) words in > the Darwin quote. Ok, it was an error. I agree. But you never reported > what the words actually were, though, Jim. Here they are, by the way, > so everyone judge for themselves whether Morgan *did* change them to > meet her liking...
> "...As Mr. Wallace remarks, the natives in all countries are glad to > protect their naked backs and shoulders with some slight covering."
> How, please tell us, does this change the sentence to "her liking"? > Are you now suggesting that Morgan was anti-Wallace? As a Welsh native > I hardly think she'd do that.
> Please let's be honest, Jim. Morgan's ommission had zero effect on the > meaning of her argument, didn't it? So why the hell are you wasting > all of our time having to check this stuff out? It's just more sleazy > politician style smearing, isn't it? It's another attempt at character > assasination.
> > Please direct me to any place where I've done that -- I'd like to > > correct that if I've done it. Please do oblige me with an example.
> I never claimed that you did actually misquote anyone, Jim. But I *do* > claim that you snip out bits of Morgan's work though, in order to make > her case look worse and yours better, exactly as you accuse her of > doing 'Creationist-style Darwin quoting' I believe you call it.
> On the subject of fat you try to ridicule Morgan because she expressed > surprise that Pond described the AAH insulation [of fat] hypothesis as > 'a major tenet of the Aquatic Ape Theory'. You quoted the sentence in > which she did that word for word but then, conveniently, missed out > completely the context of what she wrote in the immediately following > sentences...
> '... It was, as we have seen, equally a tenet of the savannah theory > that hominids lapped themselves in a coat of fat to keep them warm at > night. As for the AAT, if buoyancy is included as an auxiliary > function of the fat layer, that can only be good news. Water is the > only habitat in which it would be relevant" (Morgan 1997:97.)
It's a specious argument in that you can't separate fat from buoyancy regardless of the habitat. So the fact that they main proponent of AAT would describe this as, "good news," for AAT
...
<Snipped various -- not actually as many as I should have -- bits throughout the post for sake of brevity>
> > I certainly wouldn't call that Morgan's largest factual error, ...
> Ok. What *would* you call her biggest error, then? Which, out of all > the hundreds of claims and arguments in her five books would you say > is the most damning, the most deceitful or the most illustrative of > her lack of trustworthiness. Tell you what... why don't you give us > your 'top 5?'
> It's odd because I would have though that your web site would have put > out the strongest case you have (not that it's very strong) but here, > and the on web site itself you heavily imply that there are other, > even worse examples that you're secretly holding on to. Why would you > do that, Jim? Or is it just more smear?
I don't think there's any one "smoking gun" type of error; that would be simply a case of someone making a foolish mistake. What we see in Morgan's work is a long history of errors or things done wrong. Since I can't rwead her mind, I can't of course, know whether these things are accidental or deliberate, but either is serious. If they are deliberate, then she is intentionally misleading people; if they are accidental, then she is an incredibly poor and sloppy researcher -- either way, her work cannot be trusted to be accurate, which of course imapirs (at the very least) her argument.
> > ... although it > > does offer an example of someone who provides a ref that has nothing > > whatever to do with what they claim it has to do with.
> Nothing? Bradycardia and breathing are surely related in mammals when > they dive in water.
She quoted them and said they were talking about breathing when they were very clearly not talking about breathing. That's either incredibly sloppy or dishonest.
> > That in turn > > bespeaks of someone who either doesn't know what they're talking about, or > > who simply provided a ref that they hoped no one would bother to check -- > > either is a serious thing, and especially so as this is a pattern with > > Morgan.
> A bit hypocritical that. Morgan has made a few mistakes, I'll grant > you that, but her latest work is better referenced than most of your > web site, to make a simple comparison. I'm thinking of your pages > where you say thing like 'AAH proponents think the moon is made of > cheese'. You hope no-one will bother to check if they ever did say > that and usually provide no clue to help them to do so if they wanted > to. We're supposed to just take your word for it, I suppose.
I would like to get more refs for every statement on my site; you are correct that I should. There are, however, a great many things various AAT proponents have claimed, such as their claims that a water environment led to us being bipedal or having more fat, etc., and it should hardly be controversial that they have stated these things. However, I do think it would be helpful for me to have some refs pointing out actual instances of them saying these things, especially since in my experience AAT proponents sometimes deny saying things they themselves have said (much less some other AATer). Morgan has done that, for instance.
> > This either shows she is deliberately misleading her readers or is > > seriously ignorant of the subject -- and remember she is saying that people > > should accept her ideas in place of the ideas of a great many scholars.
> No, that's at best an exaggeration at worse a sleazy smear. Of course > everyone is ignorant about the subject to a degree. Human evolution is > a very broad subject and no-one knows everything. Morgan demonstrates > a very good understanding of most of the generalities of the subject > but, of course, in some areas she's cited evidence that others have > written and assumed they were correct. To imply that she's > deliberately misleading her readers is just a cheap smear. She makes > some very good points which you don't even mention on your web site. > People like Philip Tobias, Daniel Denton and Colin Groves have been > very complementary about her books, but you don't mention that either. > You're a little bit convenient in what you report, aren't you? Not the > hallmark of a good 'scientific critique' is it?
I really don't care how many people like Elaine's books -- as I explained to Mario earlier, science is not a popularity contest. All I care about is whether or not she gets her facts right. And my points are often that she finds an extremely good reference source, often the best in their field, then completely misrepresents what they said, as she did with Denton. He said humans exhibit salt hunger, she said that he said they didn't. No matter how many people like her saying that, I don't care -- she's wrong.
> > (BTW, as a > > point of information, trivia for most, seals don't hold their breath before > > they dive -- like cetaceans, they exhale before they dive and collapse their > > lungs. They avoid getting the bends that way; their oxygen is held in very > > large blood vessels in extremely myoglobin-rich blood -- the whole system is > > incredibly unlike humans.)
> Fine but the seals analogy is just that - an analogy - humans hold > their breath when diving don't they? Therefore, the argument that this > would have been an ideal preadaption for speech holds true. Much of > your web site exagerates these analogies in order to try to pour > ridicule on the AAH. That's just not fair, Jim.
She said it was about breathing -- it wasn't. Get over it.
> > > People should know that Elaine Morgan's not the only one who can get > > > facts wrong. You say (on www.aquaticape.org/leaflist.html) about the > > > infamous, but unattributed and unreferenced AAH leaflet in the section > > > 'skin-bonded fat deposits' that this was "Wrong: Our fat deposits are > > > like other primates and very unlike fatty aquatic mammals, both in > > > pattern and life history", yet on this subject William Montagna writes > > > "Together with the loss of a furry cover, human skin acquired a > > > hypodermal fatty layer (panniculus adiposus) which is considerably > > > thicker than that found in other primates, or mammals for that > > > matter." (Montagna 1985:p14).
> > Caroline Pond has many times pointed out that our fat deposits are quite > > like those of other primates if those primates are allowed to get fat. We > > also show a life pattern of fat that is very unlike aquatic mammals -- they > > get fat extremely quickly when young and both sexes are similar in their fat > > deposits; we start out very fat as babies (unlike any mammal, aquatic or > > not) then enter our leanest period through childhood, then rapidly build up > > fat deposits during puberty, with females and males differing considerably > > both in amount of fat and where it's built up. Pond points out that the fat > > we see under our skin is like what we see with other primates which are > > allowed to get fat. (If folks want to know more about this, there's more > > about fat on my site.)
> Ok, but even her own data makes it clear that even the fattest, > un-exercised captive primates are almost always leaner than typical > humans. What did Pond say 'Comparisons with other mammals show that > Homo is clearly the odd man out', right?
> So, do you dispute the Montagna quote? You seem to be selectively > choosing the quotes you like that back your view (that Elaine Morgan > is a fraud) but, conveniently, ignore other quotes which show that she > makes some very good points. This, of course, is a tactic you > criticise Morgan for doing herself but here you are, again, doing > worse yourself.
Please, don't put words in my mouth. I have never said that Elaine is a fraud. I have said, and backed it up, that she is either dishonest or an incredibly sloppy researchers, and that I don't know which it is. It's quite obviously one or the other.
On your claim about Pond's work on fat -- well, actually no. Humans vary quite a lot in amount of body fat, and some people are incredibly fat -- it's hard to say what's "typical" in body fat among humans. For instance, she's found that Canadians living in cities are typically fatter than Arctic natives; we'd expect people in industrilized societies to be fatter than peasants in places like Africa. Who do you use to say what is "typical"? Pond's quote you're using is, of course, about number of adipocytes, not total amount of fat, which may be why you quoted only part of the statement. The full statement is "But, however you compare them, Homo is clearly the odd man out. In proportion to body mass, we have at least 10 times as many adipocytes as expected from this comparison with wild and captive mammals." The article that's from (the one with the sidebar entitled "Not an aquatic ape -- just an exceptionally fat mammal") is about why rats and mice are poor models for human fat studies, because they have large fat cells (adipocytes) which expand and contract as they put on and use up fat, while humans have small and very numerous fat cells which cannot easily expand and contract, so we get more fat cells as we fatten, and it's also harder to lose fat cells than to make them smaller. In that article, she suggests that instead of rats and mice as animal models in fat studies regarding humans, we use animals which exhibit similar characterisitics -- her suggestion is that "On present knowledge, fin whales, hedgehogs, monkeys or possibly badgers would be better than rats as animal models of human obesity, because they develop relatively large numbers of adipocytes."
And as Montagna said, humans which are relatively fat do have considerable fat under our skin, just as other primates do when they get fat. This of course excludes
...
> > > > Ok let's take em one by one... > > > > 1. 'Stood up to avoid drowning' - Ok this one's not peripheral, it's > > > > bleeding obvious. In waist deep water an ape has not choice but to > > > > move bipedally. Do you dispute it?
> > > All day long. This ape of yours, who finds him or herself > > > in this situation, has at least two other choices: 1) swim, 2) get out > > > of the water.
> > If the water is waist deep it is almost certainly too shallow to swim. > > If the habitat is flooded then it probably hasn't got anywhere to get > > out to.
> Is this the best you can do? You're arguing now just > to make your mouth move, right? So let me get this straight: > you're saying that we're bipedal today because some putative > ape couldn't figure out that he could swim in waist deep water > (like you) or that this major feature of our physical self > can be traced to flooded habitat? Is that what you're saying? > I just wanna be sure.
No. What I'm saying, I've made clear again and again but you snip it out so that you can continue in this silly game of 'shock-horror-gosh-look-at-what-Algis-is-proposing-folks' game. Let me repeat: In waist deep water and ape has no choice but to move bipedally, therefore the more an ape moves through waist deep water the more it would have moved bipedally. Get it?
> > > So your insistence that this scenario produces > > > bipedalism is ludicrous in the extreme.
> > Oh yeah - it's ludicrous that an ape would ever live in a situation > > where they'd be exposed to a flooded wetland habitat.
> That's not what you're arguing.
Oh isn't it? Well I suppose if all else fails you can always try that tactic. I can't argue with what you said, so let me put the words in your mouth, then I might be able to beat you.
> Try to follow your own > argument here for once. You're saying that bipedalism > arose out of a desire on the part of some proto human to > stand up --and thus avoid drowning.
You just can't stop yourself, can you? It's much more complicated than that. Read the previous quote again. But you don't seem to have the mental capacity to absorbe anything more complicated that just 'trait x evolved for reason y, the whole of y and nothing but y'.
> I have no problem > accepting that some apes at some distant point in the past > were exposed to flooded terrain. I ~do~ have a problem > with your idea that this water ~forced~ the adoption of > a behavior that ~everyone else~ regards as part and parcel > of the normal range of behaviors shared by ~all~ large-bodied > extant apes. That would include me --remember out little > tete-a-tete regarding the hylobates?
Why do you have a problem with it? Do you not accept that in shallow water apes move bipedally? that our hominoid ancestors lived in woodland? that E Africa underwent significant aridification? that this would cause the distribution of forests ever closer to rivers and lakes? That, as a consequence, E African hominids would be exposed to signficantly more water-side niches than their cousins?
> > > Bipedal stance is > > > already available to this ape and he/she uses it when the need > > > arises --as when standing in waist deep water, or looking over > > > the tall grass/underbrush, or engaging in threat displays, or > > > carrying objects.
> > Yes it is 'already' available. Yes, I accept that those other factors > > would also encourage them to move bipedally sometimes. I know it's > > hard for you to think in anything but binary terms but I'm not > > actually arguing that they *only* ever moved in water and that they > > *never* moved bipedally on land or in trees, it's just that whilst > > moving though shallow water they have pretty much no choice, wheras in > > other substrates they do have a choice. So, the more they moved in > > water, the more they'd move bipedally. Simple.
> Simple minded, you mean. If apes are moving bipedally in other > venues, then what's ~forcing~ them there?
The point is they don't move bipedally *much* there, right? If all the arboreal/terrestrial contexts alone provided enough 'pressure' for bipedalism how do you explain why only humans and not chimps etc became bipedal? There's something missing from such models, something that very strongly encourages bipedalism in one line but not in others. I suspect that 'something' was simply water. What's 'forcing' them is, I suspect, the aridification of E Africa.
> > > > 2. 'Hairy proto-apes were removed from our ancestral gene pool by > > > > hungry crocs'... This one is typical Jim Moore. I offered that > > > > argument as a possible additional factor, yes.
> > > Oh, now it's a "possible additional factor".
> > It always was, Michael. But your blinkered black & white binary > > thinking never recognised it. Point to any posting I've ever made that > > claims anything like exclusivity for this argument. It's just a smear > > to pretend otherwise.
> I would point to the volume of posts you make trotting out > your various and sundry defenses of your predation/efficiency > argument. You apparantly throw these smoke screens up > without thinking of the impact they make among your readers.
So, will you point to any post where I argue that it was croc predation exclusively? or not?
> The predation argument doesn't hold water. Africa is full of > crocs --who hunt by stealth and a murderous explosion of teeth > and bone snapping jaws. Out swimming a croc is a non-question > as this just aint the way it works. You've been gently and not-so- > gently reminded of this many times. So many times, in fact, that > you've now decided to call it "speculation". Now, we get the > "efficiency" deal. What, if I may be so bold as to ask, is the > ~selective advantage~ of being a .00004% faster swimmer than > my neighbor? Why would I leave more descendants than the > person who is slightly hairier than I am? Why, Algis? Stop > calling me names and questioning my motives long enough to > supply an answer free from "speculation" and dodging qualifiers.
People drown of lots of things. Getting eaten by a croc is not, I suspect, a big factor in the death toll of humans who die in water, even in Africa and, I propose, it never was, even if humans went through a significant 'more aquatic' phase. Is that clear? Avoiding predators is not a big factor. Staying alive in water is.
However, if even 0.00004% advantage can be gained by some traits or other in such situations then its effect is likely to be amplified by the predation. Therefore predation is likely to have had an effect that is greater than zero.
If our ancestors swam more than our ape cousins then it is entirely predictable that we would have evolved *better* (but not perfect) swimming abilities and, guess what, so we have. You'd expect to find them manifest is certain physical traits and, guess what, that's what seems to be the case. We're more buoyant, we can cup our hands, we have big paddle-like feet, we have lost our body hair, we have facial structures (like noses) which appear to be better streamlined than theirs.
Sorry I called you a plonker. That must have really hurt. I want you to know that I am extremely frustrated at the tedium of your posting. Unlike you guys, however, I'm determined not to slip into hurling obscenitites.
> > > Then ? guess I won't > > > be seeing you trot out your *swimming speed as a function > > > of hair loss* reference again. Since you're in Australia, you > > > could easily test it, you know. Just take your nearly hairless > > > body out amongst your local salties. I'll be watching your > > > local newspaper for the results.
> > Are you listening to anything? Swimming speed was part of it, swimming > > efficiency was another part. Tides, flash floods and crossing wide > > stretches of water would all act to enhance the selective pressure for > > better swimming. Again you use Moore's tactics - take a tiny part of > > the argument, isolate it, exaggerate it and pretend it's the whole > > thing. Just like the sleaziest policitician or tabliod sub-editor.
> I'm listening to everything you say --you may not have noticed.
No, you make it difficult because you start by arguing against 'swimming speed as a function of hair loss' and when I try to correct you to include other factors other than speed, like efficiency and durability, you just repeat the initial position again: 'swimming speed as a function of hair loss.
See, I know why you do that. Because of the three swimming speed is the weakest point. You must think it's kind of hard to defend the idea that humans are fast swimmers so that's the one you go for. (Actually it's not hard as long as you remember what the AAH is proposing - *more* aquatic than an ape.)
> And apart from the cheap editorializing, I'm not getting the answers > to the questions that result. I'll ask again: What is the selective > adantage > for a *terrestrial biped* of being a better swimmer --when that advantage > (your hairless speed study) is measured in some fraction of a percent?
It wasn't speed at all, actually. Please, let's drop 'speed' from this. Can you do that Michael? The Costil & Sharp paper was actually testing 'same speed' conditions for shaved and unshaved swimmers. The differnces were in their efficiency and in drag reduction.
But to try to answer your question anyway... Ever swam out to sea a little too far? Ever started to panic a bit feeling that there are currents taking you out? Is it really so hard to see where the ability to swim a bit faster might actually be a big survival advantage? Of course if you imagine (laughably)
...
> If you don't like the response here, why post here?
> Jois
Because it's the no 1 public forum for matters on human evolution, of course. I am astonished that the mild idea that human evolution was influenced by moving through water more than apes due to our ancestors living in predominently water-side habitats still meets with such incredible hostility. I want to expose the weaknesses of the arguments used against the idea and the stupidity of the people that do so.
I think I'm succeeding in that quite nicely, thank you.
> > > Try telling all the competitive swimmers that shave their body hair > > > before a big meet that it's nonsense. The Sharp & Costil paper's very > > > clear that it isn't nonsense. But, of course, you just ignore that > > > data or cite another paper (Kruger et al 2000) that shows the same > > > thing but, because JE used it to claim that it wasn't the *amount* of > > > body hair that was removed, to twist the argument around.
> > Here you are with your Sharp & Costil paper. Right on time. > > What does it mean, Algis? Does it mean that our ancestors were > > competitive swimmers? Does it mean that the winner got the girl > > or stiffed the croc? Does it mean that the winner had more offspring? > > Come on, say something.
> It means, obviously, that body hair reduction (hair loss even) > significantly reduces drag in water. This makes it easier to swim > further, for longer and faster. There are all sorts of scenarios of > hominids living in water-side niches where that would give an > obvious-to-an-eight-year-old-but-not-to-blinkered-aquasceptics > advantage.
Interesting thing about this -- Algis got the Sharp and Costill reference from my site, where I presented it because a) I'd heard these arguments from AAT proponents for years and none of them had ever done anything to try to find support for it, so I looked. b) I found there was conflicting evidence -- both for and against the idea that hair reduction is a benefit in swimming speed. c) I presented both sides, since that's the only honest thing to do with evidence. d) Algis found the page with both sides presented, and has been presenting one and only one side of it ever since.
You may judge the honesty of his presentations from that.
The direct link, if you want to check it out, is http://www.aquaticape.org/hair.html. The summary is that Sharp and Costill found a slight increase in speed with hair shaved from the body (an amount would would be perhaps as much as 1/4 of a mile per hour in Olympic swimmers in the fastest event, and their swimming speed there is very slightly over 5 mph). But experiments with seal forms both bare and covered with hair showed a reduction in drag with the haired forms. Plus there's the swimming body suit used by swimmers in recent Olympics, which the coaches credited with the record breaking speeds reached at the Sydney Olympics -- these have tiny ridges whichg mimic the effect of hair or the dermal ridges found on dolphin skin. Bottom line, whatever the speed increase, it's incredibly tiny, and there is evidence both for and against hair loss as an aid in increasing swimming speed. Algis has read this on my site (it's all on the same page, in the same section) but has presented only one side, which is unfortunately typical of pro-AAT research.
JMoore -- For a scientific critque of the aquaticape theory, go to www.aquaticape.org
> > As I mentioned before, the actual "acid test" of whether I will be, in > > Algis' words, "as open to at least some of the criticisms as Elaine has been > > to yours" is whether I refrain from using some of Elaine's "openness" > > responses to my critiques when I speak of Algis. > > For the record, I have no > > intention of ever saying any of those things about Algis that Elaine said > > about me in her responses to my critiques (ie. "just smearing like the worst > > kinds of politicians"; calling me a "Joe McCarthy"; or saying the critiques > > are "all trumped-up imaginary statements made up out of your head. You > > really are a shocker."). That's Elaine's techniques, not mine. And, also > > unlike Elaine, if Algis does change my mind about something, I will mention > > him as I do so, again unlike Elaine's methods (especially regarding those -- > > sadly few -- critiques that Phil Nicholls and I made which she responded > > more appropriately to).
> I can understand Elaine's reaction to your web site. It is pretty much > an unabashed attempt at a character assasination. From the first page > you imply that her research is not trustworthy and yet if you go to > the trouble to examine the actual substance of your allegations, as I > did, they amount to, at worst, tiny errors. However, you exaggerate > them in a shock-horror way to insinuate that they were meant as some > kind of deliberate deception.
Tiny errors? In her 1997 book written in large part to address the critiques she received on-line, she supports nakedness as having an aquatic origin by lumping all naked mammals into 3 groups: Humans, mole rats & "Pachyderms". What's a pachyderm? A false grouping of mammals developed by Georges Cukier in the earliest years of the science of taxonomy (early 19th Century), including:
Honestly, Elaine Morgan is by her own admission not a scientist. She puts up ideas for discussion. Trouble is, her ideas are bad, don't stand up to scrutiny & she clings to them like grim death.
(Although in fairness, the book does explicitly repudiate her belief in the idea that sweating is evidence of an aquatic past, based on the evidence that vervet monkeys use the same type of sweat glands as humans for keeping cool in their savannah habitat.)
Sadly, the only difference between Elaine & Algis is that he claims that he is a scientist...
Ross Macfarlane
N.B. I read Elaine's book, "The Aquatic Ape Hypothesis: The Most Credible Hypothesis Of Human Evolution", carefully, & made a heap of notes, but to be honest, despite some good points, it was overall more of the same nonsense & I couldn't be bothered stoking another flame war by posting on it. If any non-AAH contributors want me to post a more detailed critique, I will reconsider; otherwise I consider it basically pointless.
>>> If you don't like the response here, why post here?
>>> Jois
>> Because it's the no 1 public forum for matters on human evolution, of >> course. I am astonished that the mild idea that human evolution was >> influenced by moving through water more than apes due to our >> ancestors >> living in predominently water-side habitats still meets with such >> incredible hostility. I want to expose the weaknesses of the >> arguments >> used against the idea and the stupidity of the people that do so.
>> I think I'm succeeding in that quite nicely, thank you.
>>> If you don't like the response here, why post here?
>>> Jois
>> Because it's the no 1 public forum for matters on human evolution, of >> course. I am astonished that the mild idea that human evolution was >> influenced by moving through water more than apes due to our >> ancestors >> living in predominently water-side habitats still meets with such >> incredible hostility. I want to expose the weaknesses of the >> arguments >> used against the idea and the stupidity of the people that do so.
>> I think I'm succeeding in that quite nicely, thank you.
>> Algis Kuliukas
Proselytizing? And you measure your success by the number of converts?
|> |> Tiny errors? In her 1997 book written in large part to address the |> critiques she received on-line, she supports nakedness as having an |> aquatic origin by lumping all naked mammals into 3 groups: Humans, |> mole rats & "Pachyderms". What's a pachyderm? A false grouping of |> mammals developed by Georges Cukier in the earliest years of the |> science of taxonomy (early 19th Century), including: ...
Not quite. Think "convergent evolution". Similar phenomena often have similar causes (e.g. the tooth growth of lagomorphs and rodents). I agree that this classification and the whole nakedness argument is dubious, at best, so I am merely supporting the PRINCIPLE of using a common characteristic to look for a common cause. But I agree that it doesn't hold up to inspection in THIS case.
For example, hairlessness has developed independently in at least three groups of mammals:
Large, purely aquatic ones VERY large tropical ones Tropical subterranean ones
We fall into none of those categories, and pretty well the only other naked mammal that I know of that doesn't is the babirusa. In the absence of any evidence that human hairlessness predates clothing, I don't think that anything much should be read into it.
|> Honestly, Elaine Morgan is by her own admission not a scientist. She |> puts up ideas for discussion. Trouble is, her ideas are bad, don't |> stand up to scrutiny & she clings to them like grim death.
That is NOT true. MANY of her ideas are like that, but a few are very plausible. See below.
|> N.B. I read Elaine's book, "The Aquatic Ape Hypothesis: The Most |> Credible Hypothesis Of Human Evolution", carefully, & made a heap of |> notes, but to be honest, despite some good points, it was overall more |> of the same nonsense & I couldn't be bothered stoking another flame |> war by posting on it. If any non-AAH contributors want me to post a |> more detailed critique, I will reconsider; otherwise I consider it |> basically pointless.
Did you also note the ideas that seemed good enough to at least put on a list of plausible things to check out when and if it became possible to do so? If so, you are the only anti-AAT person that did. Yes, I take the point that the theories that she was opposing were (even then) no longer officially current, but evidence is that far too many professionals have even now not abandoned them emotionally.
I have said before that I didn't find it particularly convincing, but I found it no worse in its misuse of facts and logic than Langdon's critique, and THAT was pretending to be a dispassionate assessment. Are you prepared to say that it is worse, and why, with explicit statements of its misuse of facts and logic?
Please Email if you do, as I am getting sick (again) of the abuse by the unscientific bigots on this group.
rmacf...@alphalink.com.au (Ross Macfarlane) wrote in message <news:18fa6145.0404182036.6559e156@posting.google.com>... > al...@RiverApes.com (Algis Kuliukas) wrote in message <news:77a70442.0404150007.e7f0966@posting.google.com>... [..] > > I can understand Elaine's reaction to your web site. It is pretty much > > an unabashed attempt at a character assasination. From the first page > > you imply that her research is not trustworthy and yet if you go to > > the trouble to examine the actual substance of your allegations, as I > > did, they amount to, at worst, tiny errors. However, you exaggerate > > them in a shock-horror way to insinuate that they were meant as some > > kind of deliberate deception.
> Tiny errors? In her 1997 book written in large part to address the > critiques she received on-line, she supports nakedness as having an > aquatic origin by lumping all naked mammals into 3 groups: Humans, > mole rats & "Pachyderms". What's a pachyderm? A false grouping of > mammals developed by Georges Cukier in the earliest years of the > science of taxonomy (early 19th Century), including:
Yes and you got that 'false grouping' idea from where, exactly? Oh, Morgan herself, right. That was really clever of you then, wasn't it? You wouldn't be trying to do another smear would you? Like trying to imply that silly old Morgan didn't even know about that?
"The term [pachyderm] is still used by laymen as a facetious word for elephant, but scientists nowadays rarely use it. There is no taxonomic relationship connecting these animals to one another." Morgan (1997:82)
Moore does this quite a bit too. Find a piece in Morgan's book where she uses a point she concedes is partly wrong or out of date and then report it, without the correction, to make it look like she made the error. It's sleazy and it's very lazy too.
> Honestly, Elaine Morgan is by her own admission not a scientist.
That's true but I think she has a better grip of the generalities surrounding human evolution than practically any of them.
> She puts up ideas for discussion. Trouble is, her ideas are bad, don't > stand up to scrutiny & she clings to them like grim death.
Some of her ideas are better than others, true. She doesn't cling to ideas she's been proved wrong about - as you admit yourself in your very next point...
> (Although in fairness, the book does explicitly repudiate her belief > in the idea that sweating is evidence of an aquatic past, based on the > evidence that vervet monkeys use the same type of sweat glands as > humans for keeping cool in their savannah habitat.)
> Sadly, the only difference between Elaine & Algis is that he claims > that he is a scientist...
I'm sorry you find that sad. I would have thought as that's one of the main criticisms you guys have about Elaine you'd welcome anyone who was at least trying to test these ideas scientifically. Perhaps you find the thought too uncomfortable that I might actually produce some solid evidence in favour of the AAH.
> Ross Macfarlane
> N.B. I read Elaine's book, "The Aquatic Ape Hypothesis: The Most > Credible Hypothesis Of Human Evolution", carefully, & made a heap of > notes, but to be honest, despite some good points, it was overall more > of the same nonsense & I couldn't be bothered stoking another flame > war by posting on it. If any non-AAH contributors want me to post a > more detailed critique, I will reconsider; otherwise I consider it > basically pointless.
Well at least you had the honesty to admit there were some good points. Moore and Langdon would choke on the words if they tried to say them.
Go on, Ross. Give us your top 5 Morgan clangers - so we can see that you're not just doing another Moorish smear.
"J Moore" <anthrosci...@yahoo.com> wrote in message <news:P2Igc.174943$Ig.11292@pd7tw2no>... > Algis Kuliukas <al...@RiverApes.com> wrote in message > news:77a70442.0404181841.19e56dc@posting.google.com... > > > > Try telling all the competitive swimmers that shave their body hair > > > > before a big meet that it's nonsense. The Sharp & Costil paper's very > > > > clear that it isn't nonsense. But, of course, you just ignore that > > > > data or cite another paper (Kruger et al 2000) that shows the same > > > > thing but, because JE used it to claim that it wasn't the *amount* of > > > > body hair that was removed, to twist the argument around.
> > > Here you are with your Sharp & Costil paper. Right on time. > > > What does it mean, Algis? Does it mean that our ancestors were > > > competitive swimmers? Does it mean that the winner got the girl > > > or stiffed the croc? Does it mean that the winner had more offspring? > > > Come on, say something.
> > It means, obviously, that body hair reduction (hair loss even) > > significantly reduces drag in water. This makes it easier to swim > > further, for longer and faster. There are all sorts of scenarios of > > hominids living in water-side niches where that would give an > > obvious-to-an-eight-year-old-but-not-to-blinkered-aquasceptics > > advantage.
> Interesting thing about this -- Algis got the Sharp and Costill reference > from my site, where I presented it because > a) I'd heard these arguments from AAT proponents for years and none of them > had ever done anything to try to find support for it, so I looked.
Yes, and thank you. It's a pity that you didn't realise that you were scoring an own goal. I'm sure you wouldn't have posted it up there if you thought for a second that you'd damaged your own shaky cause.
> b) I found there was conflicting evidence -- both for and against the idea > that hair reduction is a benefit in swimming speed.
Yes, but interesting that you fail to point out here that the evidence in favour was in humans but the evidence against was in seals. I looked at the two pieces of evidence, thought for a second, and concluded that the human evidence was kind of a little bit more relevant to the subject of human evolution. Since then, I've found that there is another paper by Sharp & Costil and a more recent paper by Kruger et al confirming the same finding that shaving body hair of human competitive swimmers reduces drag in water. So, no contest. No need to worry about the conflicting data.
The human swimming experiments were 'same speed' so this evidence isn't really in favour of greater swimming speed, but for better efficiency through reduced drag although, you're right, it is likely to produce greater speed as a consequence of reduced drag.
> c) I presented both sides, since that's the only honest thing to do with > evidence.
Yes, congratulations. How honest of you. It's a pity you didn't do that everywhere in your web site. In fact where else on your web site do you give 'both sides' to any argument? Where, in fact, do you concede even a tiny scrap in favour of the AAH or Elaine Morgan? You just don't. It's the most blatantly one-sided web site I've ever seen. It makes Marc Verhaegen's postings look like they come from someone who can't make his mind up. You can't even give Morgan the tiniest bit of credit for promoting the cause of women and children in human evolution and she's the person to have written two books called 'The Descent of Woman' and 'The Descent of the Child'! You can smell your bias from the other side of the world, Jim.
> d) Algis found the page with both sides presented, and has been presenting > one and only one side of it ever since.
As I said, I present the human evidence and not the seal evidence because I have a hunch it might be more relevant to the subject of human evolution.
> You may judge the honesty of his presentations from that.
The author of www.aquaticape.org accusing me of dishonesty - that's a classic!
> The direct link, if you want to check it out, is > http://www.aquaticape.org/hair.html. The summary is that Sharp and Costill > found a slight increase in speed with hair shaved from the body (an amount > would would be perhaps as much as 1/4 of a mile per hour in Olympic swimmers > in the fastest event, and their swimming speed there is very slightly over 5 > mph).
You obviously didn't read the paper very thoroughly, Jim. It was a 'same speed' experiment. The shaved and unshaved swimmers were asked to swim at the same speed, so, surprise surprise, there was hardly any difference in their speeds. I must admit I misunderstood the paper too for a while, because of your introduction to it, but when I read it for the second time I realised that the important data they present is in the push-off drag reduction. In other words when the swimmers are not even swimming.
Another own goal, Jim! 2-0, 2-0, 2-0!
Tell you what, why don't you just stick up the link on your web site to my critique of it and retire on this long holiday you've been promising. I estimate you must have spent at least two hours reading and replying to these postings. You could have put the link up there in thirty seconds. Perhaps you're just not interested in giving the other side's point of view.
> But experiments with seal forms both bare and covered with hair > showed a reduction in drag with the haired forms.
Yep. In seals hair reduction seems to slow them down. Odd that, seals have fur humans don't.
> Plus there's the swimming > body suit used by swimmers in recent Olympics, which the coaches credited > with the record breaking speeds reached at the Sydney Olympics -- these have > tiny ridges whichg mimic the effect of hair or the dermal ridges found on > dolphin skin.
Tiny ridges does not equal body hair, Jim.
> Bottom line, whatever the speed increase, it's incredibly > tiny, and there is evidence both for and against hair loss as an aid in > increasing swimming speed.
Bottom line, Sharp & Costil showed that deceleration after push off and glide was almost 12% less in swimmers that had shaved body hair at 2.0m/s. 12% less is *massive.* And this is in humans who shave body hair, imagine what it might be for a gorilla! The swimming experiments were 'same speed' - so any differences in speed are irrelevant.
> Algis has read this on my site (it's all on the > same page, in the same section) but has presented only one side, which is > unfortunately typical of pro-AAT research.
I read it on your site, yes, and I'm very grateful for such a lovely piece of pro-AAH evidence. I detected it as an own goal and here you've conceded another one. (2-0) I didn't cite the Sokolov evidence because, forgive me, it was with seals whereas the Sharp & Costil data was with humans. I bet if you'd could do the site again you wouldn't mention the Sharp & Costil data at all - it's about the only piece of pro-AAH data you let slip on your web site and, clearly, it was not your intention to do so.
How about that other piece of pro-AAH data - you know, that humans can swim but (gasp) chimpanzees can't? Nothing about that on www.aquaticape.org either, a bit of an ommission that, eh, Jim? After all the web site is about the aquatic ape, right?
> In waist deep water an ape has no choice but to move > bipedally, therefore the more an ape moves through waist deep water > the more it would have moved bipedally. Get it?
No, I don't "get it". I reject it. I reject it because your ~no choice~ assumption is false. You've been shown why your assumption is false *m a n y t i m e s*. Yet, with your fingers in your ears, you persist. Hmmm.
[..]
> > That would include me --remember out little > > tete-a-tete regarding the hylobates?
> Why do you have a problem with it? Do you accept that in shallow > water apes move bipedally?
Yes, I do.
> That our hominoid ancestors lived in woodland?
Yes, I do.
> That E Africa underwent significant aridification?
Yes, I do.
> That this would cause the distribution of forests ever > closer to rivers and lakes?
Yes, I do.
> That, as a consequence, E African hominids would be exposed to > signficantly more water-side niches than their cousins?
Probably. I think it's called the "east side story" or some such.
[..]
> The point is they don't move bipedally *much* there, right?
They move bipedally much more on the ground than in the water. Your own data is pretty conclusive on that point, right? Tell me again the length of your observations, and the total percentage of time spent in the water. I need a good laugh.
> If all the > arboreal/terrestrial contexts alone provided enough 'pressure' for > bipedalism how do you explain why only humans and not chimps etc > became bipedal? There's something missing from such models, something > that very strongly encourages bipedalism in one line but not in > others. I suspect that 'something' was simply water. What's 'forcing' > them is, I suspect, the aridification of E Africa.
Yea, I'd say aridification had alot to do with it. As a critter with the standard large-bodied primate behavioral package is faced with a territory in which the trees are spaced farther and farther apart, bipedalism would tend to come in handy.
[...]
> >Why would I leave more descendants than the > > person who is slightly hairier than I am? Why, Algis? Stop > > calling me names and questioning my motives long enough to > > supply an answer free from "speculation" and dodging qualifiers.
> People drown of lots of things. Getting eaten by a croc is not, I > suspect, a big factor in the death toll of humans who die in water, > even in Africa and, I propose, it never was, even if humans went > through a significant 'more aquatic' phase. Is that clear? Avoiding > predators is not a big factor. Staying alive in water is.
So now preation is not a big factor. "Staying alive is". I wonder what that means?
> However, if even 0.00004% advantage can be gained by some traits or > other in such situations then its effect is likely to be amplified by > the predation. Therefore predation is likely to have had an effect > that is greater than zero.
But you just said that "predation is not a big factor" and now it "amplifies" ~other things~? What other things? If it's greater than zero, could it be .00000000001? That's greater than zero.
> If our ancestors swam more than our ape cousins then it is entirely > predictable that we would have evolved *better* (but not perfect) > swimming abilities and, guess what, so we have.
We are swimmers because we are bipeds. We are not bipeds because we are swimmers. Roll that one around in your head for awhile. Try to figure out what it might mean.
> You'd expect to find > them manifest is certain physical traits and, guess what, that's what > seems to be the case. We're more buoyant, we can cup our hands, we > have big paddle-like feet, we have lost our body hair, we have facial > structures (like noses) which appear to be better streamlined than > theirs.
Oh wow. There it is folks. The AAT list. Impressive, aint it?
[...]
> It wasn't speed at all, actually. Please, let's drop 'speed' from > this. Can you do that Michael? The Costil & Sharp paper was actually > testing 'same speed' conditions for shaved and unshaved swimmers. The > differnces were in their efficiency and in drag reduction.
Which produces what? Speed? What is it that competitive swimmers do other than try to swim faster? Where is the selective advantage in being .0000004% faster than your hairy cousin? Why does your hairy cousin manage to place fewer offspring in the succeeding generation? Why, Algis?
[...]
> What? So two folks swimming out at sea... one's an olympic swimmer, > the other's never been in the water... they're equally likely to > drown? See? This is the crazy position you end up having to defend > rather than just accept that some mild pressure for better swimming > has been part of our evolution. It's a religion, Michael, I think you > should renounce it before more people notice.
No religion here, thank you. That's fine. If it were a competition between two individuals --one a good swimmer, and the other .0000004% not as good, then you might have a point. But my point was that it never is such a contest. A man drowns because he gets cramps far from shore, or he boinks his head while diving off some rocky coast ala Mario, or he's swamped in some flash flood. Try to be alittle realistic. Being a better swimmer than your hairier cousin won't help you there.
[...]
> Not grudging at all. I claim the sweat cooling argument squarely in > the AAH camp, thank you. Splashing about in water, you might have > noticed, is the best possible way for a human to cool down. Sweat > cooling acts as a perfect adjunct to that.
You would. But you'd have to avoid thinking about it to be successful. Here's a clue: sweat is water. I only need sweat if I don't have water. No water, no AAT.
[...]
> > Do you think that maybe there are other available sources > > in that 2000 square miles? > Yes, maybe. But it's not a good strategy to rely on, is it? Over 7my > of evolution one would expect that if we'd spent so much time > wandering around in the tropical heat we'd have been a little more > economical with it, like almost all the other E African fauna are.
Someone might suspect that, but only for a moment. That someone might do a little investigating and discover that our ancestors were never very far from water and that sweat cooling is actually a pretty efficient means to combat heat stress. That same heat stress our ancestors encountered while wandering around in the savanna --away from the kiddy pool.
> Our hominids ancestors probably evolved in E Africa. If you look at > the fauna of E Africa today they are, generally, very conservative > with their water sources. They don't sweat to keep cool, pass water > with dilute urine or defecate moist stools. We do all of those things.
Yep, Marco's famous list that you parrot with such panache. Tell me, Algis, how is a hominid like a gnu? This comparison is stupid (more stupidity from the wet apes -imagine that) and has been dissected and layed out before your eyes on countless occasions. Yet here you are, in typical AAT fashion, repeating it.
> Doesn't it strike you as odd that of all the E African fauna we alone > appear to have stuck the finger up to nature and decided to waste the > precious stuff?
Oh yes! I'm amazed and my personal incredulity has squashed any hope I have of critically thinking about the issue.
[...]
> Ok, let's hear an argument against the efficiency evidence. Sharp & > Costil showed that shaving hair increases energetic efficiecny of > swimming. Why, then, is it so absurd that hominids might (gasp) have > swam and that body hair reduction might have been an adaptive trait > which evolved to help in that process?
You haven't linked the result "increases energetic efficiecny [sic]" with any ~selective advantage~. How is it that a swimmer who is .000004% more "efficient" leave more descendants? And how do you know the individual was a swimmer in the first place?
> > Why does a wading ape need to develop > > sweat cooling? Isn't he/she/it always close to the water?
> Close to the water, yes, but Michael I'm arguing that hominids lived > by the water *side* not *in* the water, right?
Sell it to someone who's buying. You're arguing that our ancestors spent enough time in the water to drive the evolution of bipedalism. Hedging?
[fluff]
> AAH: The hypothesis that water has acted as an agency of > selection in human evolution more than it did in the evolution of our > great ape cousins.
So you've said. What you haven't done is provide any testable evidence. All we get is, "I think", "don't you see", "is it so hard" etc etc.
[fluff]
> What's a breadbox got to do with it?
In charades (which is what we seem to be playing), "Is it bigger than a bread box?" is the first question a player will ask when trying to identify the object. In this case, the object is your hypothesis. Try to keep up.
[...]
> Perhaps I've been too gung ho in this area. If I have it's only in > response to the apparent confidence some workers seems to have that > Lucy walked like a man even when their pelvic morphology is so > radically different from our own. Let me try to spell it out here: I > don't know the specific nature of Lucy's bipedalism but I'm trying to > test the hypothesis that she waded regularly.
> > Then why do people wade forward if it's so darned difficult?
> Good question. Clearly humans are terrestrial bipeds today. Our > gluteal musculature is 'designed' almost totally for forward > propulsion. Therefore we have the power to propel ourselves forward > even in quite deep water. The strength of the muscles to propel us > laterally (adduction/abduction) are comparatively weak. Ok? But this > does not
