AAT
Elaine Morgan
that all really relates to AAT. Some of it inevitably has been answered
before, but the enquirers have moved on and the answers have been
forgotten. But I would like to reply to some serious misrepresentations.
Jim Moore says that that "all" (sic) supporters of AAT claim that a
major reason for the evolution of bipedalism was that wading in water
helped to support the body weight. I do not know of anybody that says
this. He quotes one sentence of mine out of context. I was suggesting
weight support was a minor spin-off, an accidental advantage which
happened to make the business of walking on two legs (diffficult for a
beginner in any circumstances) one degree less difficult.
He says that another "major" reason we "all" use is that life in water
was safer. I don't know of anyone that says that. The whole drift of my
argument about b.p. is that in the early stages of adaptation to it it
is such an inept method of getting around that it would only have been
adopted under duress. In chest-high water there would have been no
option. I don't know of anybody who suggests that a gorilla would stand
up to paddle.
Most of the antiAAT arguments are based on arguments I have not used
for over twenty years. I do not propose that the ancestral ape decided
one day that life in water would be nice. I have given good geological
evidence, that at the time of the split and at the likeliest place for
the split their habitat was flooded, perhaps catastrophically, and
cerainly extensively. Somebody asserted that the proboscis monkey (which
lives in flooded forest) is "overwelmingly quadrupedal" in water. Well,
it depends on the depth of the water,
doesn't it? I have film of proboscis monkeys walking bipedally in
water, AND ON LAND.
Alex Duncan argues very reasonably that in the open spaces bwtween the
trees those hominids "that were most adept at moving from tree to tree
on the ground would have been selected for". Sure. And the most adept
primates at covering the ground rapidly are (and would then have been)
the quadrupedal ones. Four legs are faster than two. Stamina doesn't
come into it. Until you have learned to walk the first hundred
yards you cannot know that in a few million years you're going to
be good at the marathon. After five million years and extensive
remodelling of skelt[eton and muscles we are quite good at moving on
two legs- but we are talking about the ancestral ape. We have been twenty
times reminded that for an ape walking on two legs takes no more energy
that walking on four (no less either) Okay, but running on two takes a
hell of a lot more energy for an ape - something like four times - and
it is SLOWER.
Knuckle-walking is not something the apes adapted because it had any
advantages - it is because they have beome so adapted to a hook-on grip
for suspending themselves from the branches that they are physically
incapable of extending both elbow and wrist at the same time. i.e. they
are more specialised for brachiation than we ever became. The
intermembral index, even as early as Lucy, backs this up.
I cannot resist quoting from a new book by Daniel.C. Dennett (pub Simon
and Schuster) highly praised by Richard Dawkins, Jared Diamond, Edward
O. Wilson, et al. He says;
"During the last few years, when I have found myself in the company of
distinguished biologists, evolutionary theorists,
paleo-anthropologists, and other experts, I have often asked them just
to tell me, please, exactly why Elaine Morgan must be wrong about the
AAT."
(For three decades I have been praying that someone moving in the right
circles would do that)
He continues: " I haven't yet had a reply worth mentioning, aside from
those who admit, with a twinkle in their eyes, that they have often
wondered the same thing."
Wow!
Elaine
--
Elaine Morgan
Ralph L Holloway
> I cannot resist quoting from a new book by Daniel.C. Dennett (pub Simon
> and Schuster) highly praised by Richard Dawkins, Jared Diamond, Edward
> O. Wilson, et al. He says;
>
> "During the last few years, when I have found myself in the company of
> distinguished biologists, evolutionary theorists,
> paleo-anthropologists, and other experts, I have often asked them just
> to tell me, please, exactly why Elaine Morgan must be wrong about the
> AAT."
>
> He continues: " I haven't yet had a reply worth mentioning, aside from
> those who admit, with a twinkle in their eyes, that they have often
> wondered the same thing."
I haven't read Dennett yet, but to rely on Dawkins, Diamond, and
E.O. Wilson (the latter one of the most foremost entemologists of our
time, a real expert on insect sociality) as some sort of argument against
antiATT positions is simply nuts. One reason you have so few
palaeoanthropologists tackling the ATT position is that most simply do
not regard either the Hardy or Morgan position to be credible position,
one with a suite of anatomical characteristics, functional
interrelationships, geochronicity, and fossil evidence that is anywhere
near as parsimoniuous as the classical alternative, i.e., an adaptation
to increasing dessication, much of it one the interface of forest and
"savannah", the latter being "dessicated" only relative to the former.
For all I know, the Pope may prefer the Hardy-Morgan paradigm, but
it hardly makes it any more appealing or worthy of contemplation. I've
been in the game for 31 years now since I took my doctorate at Berkeley
in '64, and almost all of the hundred or so colleagues I've met simply
roll their eyes up into their frontal lobes when the ATT thing is
discussed. The Press enjoys all this no end, and so makes it possible for
many a screwball theory to be aired, dissected, rehashed, and so forth.
There is a market for all this, and all the better, I guess. Reading
through these posts makes it clear that prottagonists and antagonists
alike have to sharpen their appreciation of what is evidence and what
isn't, and in that sense some progress is made. In the end, we are
witnessing religious behavior here, however, when people such as Dawkins,
Diamond, and Wilson are trotted out as the experts, who, with twinkles in
their eyes, suggest that perhaps Hardy-Morgan are on to something. This
is primitive logic and religious posturing. Try it with some expert
paleoanthropologists who actually study bipedal locomotion such as Russel
Tuttle, Owen Lovejoy, Jack Prost, Bruce Lattimer, Morbeck, Stern, Alan
Walker, Leslie Aiello, und so weiter...
Hence the removal of my hat to those interested enough to join
battle. Ralph Holloway.
Harry Erwin
the aquatic ape theory, given that working anthropologists tend to roll
their eyes when asked about it.
I've been thinking about this issue in my subconscious for a month or more
now, trying to define a quantitative test equivalent to the parsimony
argument that Holloway cites. The problem is a basic lack of data on
primate adaptations to an aquatic environment. The fossil data consist of
an extinct Malagasy lemur (Paleopropithecus) that had some features that
_could_ be interpreted as aquatic in nature, but most of whose features
are more consistent with an orang-like life-style, and some fossils from
swamps, the most important being Oreopithecus. Now Oreopithecus is
interesting--it's adapted to a swamp environment by being about as
arboreal as Hylobates. (BTW, hylobatid brachiation seems to be extremely
efficient for short-range movement above the ground but hardly useful for
longer-range movements.) That sort of tells us that apes usually have
dealt with water by staying out of it.
Now the major problem with the aquatic ape hypothesis is that it involves
two sequential adaptive stages, each rather major in a behavioral sense,
the first into the water and the second out of it, within the period 7-4
MYr BP. We do have some data on rates of evolution. Generally, a primate
species lasts about 1 MYr, so we're talking about three species worth of
evolution. Now evolution does go faster, but in the context of an
explosive radiation (no evidence) or an externally applied selective
gradient. In the latter case, you get fixation in perhaps 1000 generations
as the natural variation in the gene pool (better be good sized!) is used
up, so the initial impetus would not have continued for a significant
portion of the 3 MYr. Instead, evolution after the first 1000 generations
would have been dependent on the usual evolutionary processes at the usual
rates. Also, the rate of evolution could have been expected to regress
towards the mean, so we're talking of perhaps 4 species in 3 MYr. That's
probably enough to evolve bipedality in a small African ape, but hardly
enough to take it out to sea and return.
I think that's the gist of what would be the average anthropologist's take
on the subject.
--
Harry Erwin
Internet: her...@gmu.edu
Home Page: http://osf1.gmu.edu/~herwin (try again if necessary)
PhD student in comp neurosci: "Glitches happen" & "Meaning is emotional"
J. Moore
El> all really relates to AAT. Some of it inevitably has been answered
El> before, but the enquirers have moved on and the answers have been
El> forgotten.
The same small group of AAT-supporting "enquiring minds" are still here.
El> But I would like to reply to some serious misrepresentations.
El> Jim Moore says that that "all" (sic) supporters of AAT claim that a
El> major reason for the evolution of bipedalism was that wading in water
El> helped to support the body weight. I do not know of anybody that says
El> this. He quotes one sentence of mine out of context. I was suggesting
El> weight support was a minor spin-off, an accidental advantage which
El> happened to make the business of walking on two legs (diffficult for a
El> beginner in any circumstances) one degree less difficult.
*********************** quotes ***********************
1990 *The Scars of Evolution*
Elaine Morgan. Souvenir Press: London
pg. 47:
In the aquatic scenario the position is reversed. Walking erect in
flooded terrain was less an option than a necessity. The behavioural
reward -- being able to walk and breathe at the same time -- was
instantly available. And most of the disadvantages of bipedalism were
cancelled out.
Erect posture imposes no strain on the spine under conditions of
head-out immersion in water. There is no added weight on the lumbar
vertebrae. The discs are not vertically compressed. (An astronaut in
zero gravity gains an inch in height in space, and immersion in water is
the nearest thing to zero gravity on planet Earth.)
pp. 47-48:
Water thus seems to be the only element in which bipedalism for the
beginner may have been at the same time compulsory and relatively free
of unwelcome physical consequences.
*********************** end quotes ***********************
From these quotes you can see that the support provided by water is
considered to be a critically important part of the purported aquatic
transition to bipedalism. Despite Morgan's claim to the contrary.
El> He says that another "major" reason we "all" use is that life in water
El> was safer. I don't know of anyone that says that.
*********************** quotes ***********************
Sir Alister Hardy, "Was there a *Homo aquaticus*?", article originally
appeared in *Zenith*, 1977, vol. 15(1):4-6.
Reprinted in 1982 *The Aquatic Ape* by Elaine Morgan, Stein and Day:
Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.
pg. 150:
Perhaps it was not only a shortage of food that sent man to the water
in the first place, but also a means of escaping from powerful
predators: possibly *Homo aquaticus* was only able to survive and evolve
with the help of a number of small sandy or rocky islands strectching up
the tropical coasts or margins of lakes where he could live in large
colonies, like those of seals or penguins, and where his only enemies
were sharks and killer whales in the sea or crocodiles in lakes and
rivers.
***********************
From:
1991 *The Aquatic Ape: Fact or Fiction?* Edited by Machteld Roede,
Jan Wind, John M. Patrick and Vernon Reynolds. Souvenir Press: London.
Leon P. Lumiere
Chapter 3. "The Evolution of Genus *Homo*: Where It Happened"
pg. 27:
The dwindling forest would produce exactly the environmental conditions
required by the Hardy hypothesis; those apes near the coast, losing
their forest, gradually would be forced into water to find both food and
protection from predators.
_____________________
Derek Ellis
Chapter 4. "Is an Aquatic Ape Viable in Terms of Marine Ecology and
Primate Behavior?"
pg. 37:
How did apes survive on the savannah when there were fierce, fast
predators there, day and night?
pg. 67:
Escape from land-based predators, when the apes were on
shore, would be by running back to water and swimming away.
*********************** end quotes ***********************
From these quotes you can see that escape from predators is considered
to be an extremely important part of the purported aquatic transitional
environment. Despite Morgan's claim to the contrary.
Frankly, I'm not surprised when someone like Pat Dooley posts here and
continually shows himself to be ignorant not only of non-AAT theories of
human evolution, but ignorant of even the writings of AAT-supporters.
But I am *astonished* when Elaine Morgan shows herself to be ignorant
not only of the writings of the originator of the theory, and the
writings of the other AAT-supporters from the AA-Fact or Fiction?
Conference, but apparently ignorant of even *her own* writings, quoted
above. Sure, she misquotes Darwin, and puts crab-eating macaques
in Japan, and has American, rather than Japanese, scientists studying
the macaques on Koshima. Sure, she incorrectly says sea otters mate
ventro-ventrally and that all non-human primates don't. But I thought
she'd at least get straight what *she herself* has written...
El> The whole drift of my
El> argument about b.p. is that in the early stages of adaptation to it it
El> is such an inept method of getting around that it would only have been
El> adopted under duress.
Tell it to brachiators, like gibbons. (That's "brachiator", as in "the
common ancestor of African apes and humans was likely a brachiator".)
Brachiators virtually *always* use bipedalism when on the ground,
probably because they're so used to using it in the eclectic mix of
locomotor styles they use aloft.
El> Most of the antiAAT arguments are based on arguments I have not used for
El> over twenty years.
You also said that a few posts ago, about something I said about your
1982 book. Are the years shorter in England?
El> We have been twenty times reminded
El> that for an ape walking on two legs takes no more energy that walking on
El> four (no less either)
And references for this have been provided.
El> Okay, but running on two takes a hell of a lot
El> more energy for an ape - something like four times - and it is SLOWER.
El> Elaine
Why does your theory get this special "no references required" treatment?
Jim Moore (j#d#.mo...@canrem.com)
* Q-Blue 2.0 *
Alex Duncan
Ela...@desco.demon.co.uk writes:
>Alex Duncan argues very reasonably that in the open spaces bwtween the
>trees those hominids "that were most adept at moving from tree to tree
>on the ground would have been selected for". Sure. And the most adept
>primates at covering the ground rapidly are (and would then have been)
>the quadrupedal ones. Four legs are faster than two. Stamina doesn't
>come into it. Until you have learned to walk the first hundred
>yards you cannot know that in a few million years you're going to
>be good at the marathon. After five million years and extensive
>remodelling of skelt[eton and muscles we are quite good at moving on
>two legs- but we are talking about the ancestral ape. We have been twenty
>times reminded that for an ape walking on two legs takes no more energy
>that walking on four (no less either) Okay, but running on two takes a
>hell of a lot more energy for an ape - something like four times - and
>it is SLOWER.
First off, I'm not suggesting "preadaptation" with its connotations that
somehow the ancestral critter "knew" what its descendants would need to
survive and evolved accordingly. I'm suggesting "exaptation" -- which
implies that a feature that evolved for one purpose (or as an
epiphenomenon of another feature -- like bipedalism in gibbons) was later
coopted to serve another. The best analogy I know of is feathers, which
probably evolved to help small carnivorous dinosaurs maintain
homeothermy, and later proved to be useful for flight.
Second, what is your citation for statements about energetic
efficiency and speed for bipedal apes. I have one. Try Rodman & McHenry
in AJPA 1981 (I can be more precise if you want). Chimps use no less
energy walking quadrupedally than they do walking bipedally. They don't
slow to a crawl when moving bipedally either, as anyone who's seen a
bipedal threat display can attest.
You seem remarkably misinformed. I guess you would have to be to
support your position, because the facts certainly don't support it.
Actually, I guess I'm encouraged that many of the AAT supporters cite
you, because it sure is easy to shoot down.
Alex Duncan
Dept. of Anthropology
University of Texas at Austin
Austin, TX 78712-1086
512-471-4206
adu...@mail.utexas.edu
Elaine Morgan
read it. You say: I'm suggesting "exaptation" - which implies that a
feature that evolved for one purpose was later co-opted to serve
another.
Yes, okay, I'm familiar with the term. So tell me what you think the
other purpose was that produced the adaptation later co-opted to serve
bipedal locomotion. Then we'll be in business.
About the energy used in running, I've got Rodman and McHenry, thanks. My
reference was Carrier. I've given the details and quotes under "reply to
Moore". Sorry about the "four times" reference.I did have a cutting
giving that ratio but can't track it. So scrub it - I can't be certain
what two units were being compared.
I could give you (and Moore) a raft of other references confirming that
human running - which involves a stage of both feet off the ground- is
quite different from and more energetically expensive that anything a
chimp does in the way of bipedal locomotion. But it is the only way a
biped can attain a speed comparable to that of an ape running on all
fours.
Elaine Morgan
Alex Duncan
Ela...@desco.demon.co.uk writes:
>Yes, okay, I'm familiar with the term. So tell me what you think the
>other purpose was that produced the adaptation later co-opted to serve
>bipedal locomotion. Then we'll be in business.
Everything has to have a purpose, doesn't it. That's why we still have
appendices, and why embyological humans develop pharyngeal pouches in
exactly the same places fish have gills -- right? A feature does not
have to be an adaptation to exist. Is there a functional or adaptive
reason why gibbons or spider monkeys are largely bipedal when they're on
the ground? I've never heard one suggested. As far as I or anyone else
knows, the reason these creatures are bipedal when they're on the ground
is because they're so specialized for arboreal suspension that bipedalism
is the only option left to them when moving terrestrially (yes, I know
they sometimes put a hand to the ground).
Gibbons and spider monkeys rarely come to the ground, because
they're not terribly good at moving there, and because their food sources
are all arboreal. But, what would happen if there were a climate change
and the environments these creatures live in were to become a little less
lushly tropical? What if the patches of trees were separated by short
distances of open space. Would these creatures suddenly adopt
quadrupedalism to move from one patch of trees to the next, or would the
efficiency of their already existing mode of terrestrial locomotion
increase?
>About the energy used in running, I've got Rodman and McHenry, thanks. My
>reference was Carrier. I've given the details and quotes under "reply to
>Moore". Sorry about the "four times" reference.I did have a cutting
>giving that ratio but can't track it. So scrub it - I can't be certain
>what two units were being compared.
I wasn't talking about energy used when running, but about energy used
when walking. Human walking is no less efficient than quadrupedal
walking (and is actually more efficient than chimp quadrupedal walking).
I don't recall anyone ever suggesting that human running capability was
all that important. Most models of human bipedal adaptation talk about
the efficiency of WALKING for covering a large daily territory. Yes, I
am aware that human running is not efficient compared to the running of
"normal" quadrupeds. How important would running be for a terrestrially
adapted biped with a complex social organization? I don't know. I do
know that modern accounts of groups like the !Kung rarely mention them
running to escape predators or to capture prey (since the majority of
their calorie intake is from vegetable matter -- running isn't that
important). When they do actually capture animal prey, my understanding
is that they try to injure it from ambush, and then basically WALK it to
death.
>I could give you (and Moore) a raft of other references confirming that
>human running - which involves a stage of both feet off the ground- is
>quite different from and more energetically expensive that anything a
>chimp does in the way of bipedal locomotion. But it is the only way a
>biped can attain a speed comparable to that of an ape running on all
>fours.
>
> Elaine MorganAlex Duncan
Elaine Morgan
Alex Duncan writes:
>A feature does not have to be an adaptation in order to exist.
In that case we may as well close down this newgroup and take up
knitting. Why are we naked? There doesn't have to be a reason. Why are
we bipedal? there doesn't have to be a reason. Why the big brain? there
doesn't have to be a reason...
I entirely agree that some of the features we now have are not
adaptations to our present mode of existence (like the appendix) but I
suggest they would not be there unless they had at some point been
adaptations to a previous mode of life led by our ancestors at some
point in time.
You say :"Is there a functional or adaptive reason why gibbons are
largely bipedal when on the ground? I've never heard one suggested".
You then go on to give a perfectly good one, which I believe to be
accurate.i.e. because their arms have grown too long for them to able to
walk efficiently on two legs. Why do you say that is not an adaptation?
What do you mean by adaptation? What I mean by it is a change in either
behaviour or physical structure in response to a change in the
realtionship between an animal and its environment. The gibbon responds
to the demands of brachiation by growing longer and longer arms. That
is an adaptation. It then has to respond to the vicissitudes of
occasional groundwalking by abandoning the quadrupedal gait which its
ancestors, however distant, at one time employed. That is another
adaptation.
What would happen if gibbons found themselves in a treeless habitat is
a very good question. I suspect they are so overspecialised for
arborealism that they would become extinct. It is just conceivable that
they would instead become better at bipedalism and their arms would
become shorter and voila! a biped!
Now that is an ingenious scenario. But do you, or does anyone, really
believe that it throws any light on human bipedalism? Do you think our
ancestors bcame more over specialised for arborealism than the gorillas
and chimps so that they were driven down this path? Everything I have
read about primate evolution has stressed that the whole secret of
human evolution is that we remained the most unspecialised of the apes,
and thus were able to adapt more quickly to the vicissitues of change.
You say: "I don't recall anyone even suggesting that human running
capability was all that important, " In that case remember that you
read it here first, because I am suggesting it now, Actually Carrier
wrote a paper on it, the one I quoted from. And maybe the !Kung can
walk an armadillo to death, but I can't see Homo erectus walking a
zebra to death, nor walking away from a leopard or a lion.
Elaine Morgan
Alex Duncan
Ela...@desco.demon.co.uk writes:
>You say :"Is there a functional or adaptive reason why gibbons are
>largely bipedal when on the ground? I've never heard one suggested".
>You then go on to give a perfectly good one, which I believe to be
> accurate.i.e. because their arms have grown too long for them to able to
>walk efficiently on two legs. Why do you say that is not an adaptation?
>What do you mean by adaptation? What I mean by it is a change in either
>behaviour or physical structure in response to a change in the
>realtionship between an animal and its environment. The gibbon responds
>to the demands of brachiation by growing longer and longer arms. That
>is an adaptation. It then has to respond to the vicissitudes of
>occasional groundwalking by abandoning the quadrupedal gait which its
>ancestors, however distant, at one time employed. That is another
>adaptation.
As you well know, and constantly remind us, there are better ways of
moving on the ground than bipedalism. In gibbons, bipedalism is an
epiphenomenon of thier extreme arboreal adaptation. They don't move
bipedally on the ground because its a good way to do things, but because
its the only method available to them due to their other specializations.
You are confusing "what its for" with "why its there". Your speculation
that everything has an adaptive purpose is baseless, and leads me to
think that you know very little about evolutionary biology. I strongly
recommend reading SJ Gould & ES Vrba's article about exaptation.
>Do you think our ancestors bcame more over specialised for arborealism than the gorillas
>and chimps so that they were driven down this path?
Do you think gorillas and chimps haven't evolved in 5 - 10 Myr? Your
question makes it apparent that you think we evolved from creatures
identical to modern gorillas or chimps. We do not have a fossil record
for gorillas and chimps, and thus are denied much information from those
branches of the hominoid evolutionary tree. Simply because chimps are
likely our closest relative does not mean we evolved from a chimp-like
animal. The fragmentation of the Miocene forests probably had dramatic
effects on all African hominoids, and a lot of the paleoanthropologists
I know suspect that African hominoids (including humans) have all added
more frequent terrestrialism to their positional "kit bag" as a response.
The implication of this is that all African hominoids had ancestors that
spent more time in the trees than their extant descendants.
Phil Nicholls
>Alex Duncan writes:
>A feature does not have to be an adaptation in order to exist.
>In that case we may as well close down this newgroup and take up
>knitting. Why are we naked? There doesn't have to be a reason. Why are
>we bipedal? there doesn't have to be a reason. Why the big brain? there
>doesn't have to be a reason...
According to modern evolutionary theory, Elaine, natural selection is
not the only mechanism of evolutionary change. One of the most
important, non-selective/non-adaptive mechanisms of evolution is
genetic drift. I actually saw a paper presented not long ago that
suggest that hominid brain size, at least initially, could easily be
accounted for by "random walk" (i.e., the accumulated effects of
genetic drift over time).
Certainly most of use feel that hairlessness and increased brain size
are adaptive. Unfortunately the best we can do is propose possible
explanations for the adaptive significance of these features and to
perhaps eliminate those that are less likely to be true. We will
never KNOW with any kind of certainty.
>I entirely agree that some of the features we now have are not
>adaptations to our present mode of existence (like the appendix) but I
>suggest they would not be there unless they had at some point been
>adaptations to a previous mode of life led by our ancestors at some
>point in time.
Why do humans have five fingers on each hand. It has nothing to do
with five fingers being somehow more adaptive than six or eight.
There is nothing about five fingers that somehow represents an optimum
number of fingers.
The reason we have five fingers was that the tetrapod ancestor of all
LIVING terrrestiral vertebrates had five supporting digits in its
lobe. That tetrapod survived for reasons unrelated to the number of
digits but it fixed that number in the lineage of all terrestrial
vertebrates.
>You say :"Is there a functional or adaptive reason why gibbons are
>largely bipedal when on the ground? I've never heard one suggested".
>You then go on to give a perfectly good one, which I believe to be
> accurate.i.e. because their arms have grown too long for them to able to
>walk efficiently on two legs. Why do you say that is not an adaptation?
>What do you mean by adaptation? What I mean by it is a change in either
>behaviour or physical structure in response to a change in the
>realtionship between an animal and its environment. The gibbon responds
>to the demands of brachiation by growing longer and longer arms. That
>is an adaptation.
The gibbon didn't respond to its environment by growing longer arms.
If the is a feature controlled by natural selection then the Darwinian
scenerio is that gibbons with longer arms reproduced more effectively
than those with shorter arms.
>It then has to respond to the vicissitudes of
>occasional groundwalking by abandoning the quadrupedal gait which its
>ancestors, however distant, at one time employed. That is another
>adaptation.
No, that is a constraint resulting from the gibbons specialized form
of locomotion. It is not an adaptation.
>What would happen if gibbons found themselves in a treeless habitat is
>a very good question. I suspect they are so overspecialised for
>arborealism that they would become extinct. It is just conceivable that
>they would instead become better at bipedalism and their arms would
>become shorter and voila! a biped!
>Now that is an ingenious scenario. But do you, or does anyone, really
>believe that it throws any light on human bipedalism? Do you think our
>ancestors bcame more over specialised for arborealism than the gorillas
>and chimps so that they were driven down this path? Everything I have
>read about primate evolution has stressed that the whole secret of
>human evolution is that we remained the most unspecialised of the apes,
>and thus were able to adapt more quickly to the vicissitues of change.
You have actually cited a reference in _Scars of Evolution_ , a book
edited by Shiro Kondo called _Primate Morphophysiology, Locomotor
Analysis and Human Bipedalism. Try reading some of the other articles
in that book. As a matter of fact, Jack Prost, whom you cite, also
suggests that early protohominids were more arboreal than the
ancestors of great apes.
>You say: "I don't recall anyone even suggesting that human running
>capability was all that important, " In that case remember that you
>read it here first, because I am suggesting it now, Actually Carrier
>wrote a paper on it, the one I quoted from. And maybe the !Kung can
>walk an armadillo to death, but I can't see Homo erectus walking a
>zebra to death, nor walking away from a leopard or a lion.
!Kunk hunters do not run down their prey nor do they escape from lions
or leapords by running away. If you are going to invoke an
ethnographic analogy you should read an ethnography of the group in
question.
-----------------------------------
Phil Nicholls "...it is infuriating to be quoted
pn...@globalone.net again and again by creationists --
whether from design or stupidity I
do not know -- as admitting that there
no transitional forms." S.J. Gould.