What is the Aquatic theory?
Marc Verhaegen
were aquatic, semi-aquatic. therefore has characteristics of aquatic
species. b) A hypothesis, that our remote predecessors spent generations
on the Indian Ocean coast, and doing so benefited from a rich and varied
diet that fostered the development of a large brain. Why then has the
aquatic theory, become an argument about wading? m3d
Has it?? Why do yo think that? AAT is not about wading AFAIK: wading mammals
don't walk on 2 legs (tapir, capibara, racoon, babirusa, hippo...). AAT says
that (with the words of Alister Hardy) Man was more aquatic in the past.
This is beyond doubt. The question is: how aquatic? Hardy used comparative
arguments to argue that our ancestors were waterside once, esp. SC fat &
furlessness, handiness & tool use (racoon, otter), elongated body... Hardy
was right of that our ancestors were waterside once, but wrong in in
adopting the paleo-anthropologists' time scale. IMO, it's obvious that our
ancestors' semi-aquatic phase did not happen 10 Ma or so, but instead during
the Pleistocene. What we see in the fossil record are our seaside relatives
(Mojokerto, Flores, Boxgrove, Terra Amata, Gibraltar, Eritrea, Hopefield...)
or their waterside relatives inland. BTW, AAT sensu stricto has nothing to
with apiths. Only with Homo. On the Ind.Ocean coast? Presumably, but not
impossibly on the Med.coasts. Atlantic coast is unlikely I guess.
Homo's semi-aquatic adaptations did not happen totally unexpectedly: early
apes were most likely wading-suspensory in swamp forests: only this
lifestyle can explain the remarkably different locomotions of living
hominoids (fast-brachiating, slow-suspensory, knuckle-walking, bipedal). My
idea now: 20 Ma Afr.apes' ancestors already lived in swamp forests (times
were wetter & hotter then), but the typically hominoid innovations
(below-branch, tail loss, larger size) came when they crossed the Tethys Sea
c 18 Ma & split into hylobatids & hominids-pongids. Gibbons soon readapted
to drier forests, but the great ape ancestors could have remained in coastal
forests along the Tethys, where early apes are found (Heliopith southern,
Griphopith northern Tethys coasts c 17 Ma (*)). Between 16 & 14 Ma there
were probably 3 major sea level fluctuations (50m), islands & archipelagoes
& para-Tethys seas formed & disappeared (Pannonia, Transsylvania,
Transcaucasia...). Possibly the early hominids-pongids had to swim to
coastal forests on other islands (island-swimming is sometimes seen in
macaques, proboscis monkeys & capuchins, but in the early hominoids it
probably went further). About 10 Ma we find Dryopith in Parathetyan deposits
in hot & warm swamp forests (**). Shortly thereafter we find Oreopith in
coal swamps on a Med.island & Afr.hominids: Samburupith c 9 Ma, Sahelanthr c
7 Ma, Orrorin c 6 Ma... in waterside forests. At about that time or somewhat
later Pan & Homo split. Gorilla & Pan presumably went inland along gallary
forests, whereas Homo stayed in coastal forest & when the climate cooled,
sea levels dropped & forests disappeared at the beginning of the Ice Ages,
Homo lost most climbing adaptations & got diving skills & in a remarkably
fast time dispersed all alond the Med. & Indian Ocean coasts (founc from
Algeria to Java c 1.8 Ma). They got even better dexterity (Cape otter) &
stone tool use (sea otter), larger brains, an external nose, reduced
olfactory sense, reduced masticatory strength (slippery seafood?), longer
legs (wading??), even a dense skeleton in H.erectus (only seen, to a greater
degree, in slow bottom-diving mammals: walrus, seacows, Odobenocetops,
Kolponomos & some Thalassocnus spp). Presumably they learnt to butcher
turtles & stranded whales at the beach as we see inland at riversides in the
archeol.record (Olorgesaille...).
Marc Verhaegen
http://www.onelist.com/community/AAT
http://allserv.rug.ac.be/~mvaneech/Verhaegen.html
(*) eg, P Holec & RJ Emry 2003 Ch.24 "Another Molar of the Miocene Hominid
Griphopithecus suessi from the Type Locality at Sandberg, Slovakia"
Bull.Am.Mus.Nat.Hist.279:625-631: "The section at Sandberg is a sequence of
transgressive sands & sandstones, with lenses of cross-bedded estuarine
deposits. These littoral marine sediments contain abundant fossils,
predom.of marine invertebrates. Less common are marine vertebrates
incl.fishes, sharks, Phocidae, sirenians & cetaceans, & the remains of
terr.vertebrates are also found occasionally. ... During the Badenian, this
range was a peninsula or archipelago extending into the Paratethyan Sea."
(**) eg, L Kordos & DR Begun 2001 "A New cranium of Dryopithecus from
Rudabanya, Hungary" JHE 41:689-700: "... abundant faunal & botanical remains
& detailed taphonomic paleoecol., geochem., sedimentol.& biochronol.
analyses all point to a subtropical, forested, swamp margin environment
deposited ~10 Ma in shallow embayment of the northern shore of the Central
Paratethys..."
Marc Verhaegen
> > >First, as hypothesis go, I agree the Aquatic ape one is more plausible
than the old savannah theory, however the word aquatic implies that our
remote predecessors lived in water
> > Does it?? The word implies, exactly as Hardy said, that Man was more
aquatic in the past. The term "aq.ape" is from Elaine (after Morris's "naked
ape") & she didn't mean anything else than what Hardy meant.
> > > , whereas it would be more accurate to say that our remote
predecessors lived in water rich environments such as lakes, river estuaries
and the seashore. Coastal or shore apes would be a better description, than
aquatic apes.
> > Well, that's your opinion, but not of, eg, Algis.
> > > Second, we are walking bipeds, not wading bipeds, our legs are long
because our gait is the most efficient way to walk from A. to B.
> > Ah? 1) long legs efficient? what cursorials have long legs? Do
ostriches have rel.longer legs than flamingoes? 2) our gait most
efficient?? People run half as fast as horses. --Marc
> Definition of aquatic: something that lives and grows in water.
Well, I too find the term "aq.ape" not very fortunate: as everybody knows
AAT is not about apes & not about real aquatics. I discussed this with
Elaine, and I have to agree with her that everybody who informs a bit knows
what we mean (that, in Hardy's words, Man was more aquatic in the past). As
you know, I suggested (1) "aquarboreal ape theory" on early hominoids c 18-5
Ma, and (2) "amphibious ancestors theory" on Pleistocene Homo.
> Whether ostriches have rel.longer legs than flamingos is an irrelevance
It's not. It's the essence of Darwinism, eg, if all/most wading-birds have
short legs, it's an argument against wading. If swimmers have short legs,
it's an argument against swimming. Etc.
>, whether apes, chimps swing from branches, run around on tip toes, or
knuckle walk in hob nailed boots, is irrelevant, as you cannot compare human
bipedalism, with locomotion of other living apes, or other living species.
Why not?? Since features inherit apart, we have to analyse our locomotion:
a) on 2 legs: kangaroos, hopping mice, penguins, birds...
b) very long legs: ostriches, flamingoes, herons...
c) vertical trunk: indris, tarsiers, koala, gibbon...
d) linear body build: seals, seacows... (unlike, eg, waders)
e) valgus knees: orang...
f) striding (not hopping): most anthropoids...
g) plantigrady: bears, sealions, rats...
h) etc.
This suggests our locomotion can't be explained in a simple way. The
straight form suggests swimming was part of it. The vertical trunk suggests
climbing was part of it. The plantigrady contradicts fast cursorialism. The
very long legs contradict full aquaticness. The vertical trunk suggest
vertical climbing.
In combination with other evidence (eg, slow suspension in orangs, KWing in
chimps & gorillas, arm-swinging in gibbons, the non-locomotor human
features, the fossil hominoid evidence, etc.), it's clear that our early
hominoid ancestors were hard-object feeders in swamp forests (I guess
coastal) & that our early Homo ancestors became seaside omnviores. This fits
all data. If you have a better solution, let's hear.
--Marc
__________
"Marc Verhaegen" <fa20...@skynet.be> wrote in message
news:41291093$0$4131$ba62...@news.skynet.be...
Algis Kuliukas
idea if anyone is going to be able to discuss it's plausibility in a
meaningful way. Unfortunately, and rather amazingly, this had not been
done until quite recently.
The fault lies with the chief propoponents to some degree. Neither
Hardy or Morgan ever defined it as such and Verhaegen et al, although,
providing very detailed scenarios and timescales for their AAH-type
models, never - as far as I know - attempted to *define* the AAH in a
single, simple statement.
To be fair to Hardy and Morgan they weren't really even at the stage
to be able to define the hypothesis. Hardy's request for comments
merely asked 'Was Man more Aquatic in the Past?' and Morgan's five
books on the subject essentially repeated the question in a much more
detailed and ellaborate way but from slightly different angles.
Most AAH proponents have never considered this a problem because they
took Hardy's question on face value and understood that what the
hypothesis was proposing was merely that our ancestors had been more
aquatic in the past - not that they were ever very much aquatic. After
all, Hardy spelled it out in black an white: "otters .... [were] ...
more aquatic than man" Hardy (1960:643). Hence, no defintion has been
forthcoming.
However, there does seem to be a great deal of misunderstanding and
misrepresentation about this hypothesis, even today. Perhaps through
confusion but perhaps mischievously, many opponents of this rather
mild idea seem to have erased the word 'more' from their
considerations. Langdon's 1997 critique, for instance, only succeeds
in demolishing the case that man's ancestors were aquatic or
semi-aquatic animals - a straw man argument if ever there was one. Jim
Moore's one-sided masquerading www.aquaticape.org (for an alternative
view see http://www.riverapes.com/AAH/Arguments/JimMoore/JMHome.htm)
too, always exaggerates the 'claims' made by the AAH, pushing them
into aquatic and semi-aquatic territories rather than merely 'more
aquatic'.
As a consequence, all over the world many experts in paleoanthropology
are supremely confident in their understanding that the AAH is bunk
and that it has been dismissed, when in actual fact it has never even
been properly defined, never been critiqued on the basis if what it
actually claims and, therefore, certainly has *not* been dismissed.
So, let's define it:
The Aquatic Ape Hypothesis (AAH):
The hypothesis that water has acted as an agent of selection in the
evolution of humans more than it has in the evolution of our ape
cousins and that, as a result, many of the major physical differences
between humans and the other apes may be explained, at least in part,
as adaptations to moving (wading, swimming and/or diving) better
through various aquatic media.
Elaine Morgan endorsed this definition earlier this year and I propose
that this is what people use when discussing it from now on. If we do
that, perhaps the next 44 years might be a little bit more productive
in resolving this issue than the last.
Algis Kuliukas
Ref:
Hardy, Alister (1960). Was Man More Aquatic in the Past?. New
Scientist Vol:7 Pages:642-645
Michael Clark
news:77a70442.04082...@posting.google.com...
[fluff]
> So, let's define it:
>
> The Aquatic Ape Hypothesis (AAH):
> The hypothesis that water has acted as an agent of selection in the
> evolution of humans more than it has in the evolution of our ape
> cousins and that, as a result, many of the major physical differences
> between humans and the other apes may be explained, at least in part,
> as adaptations to moving (wading, swimming and/or diving) better
> through various aquatic media.
Hmmmm. Algis, this looks alot like that other bit of flotsam you
posted awhile back. *That* was bullshit and this appears to be
word-for-word. Say, maybe you could work this up as a macro
and post it everytime someone asks what sort of "selection" is
going on. That way you could rebut another round of curt dismissals
by pointing out that "Gee, the AAR never has been *defined*, ergo
it ~can't~ be dismissed." That ought to let you breath life into another
dead thread for another couple months or so.
You got a backup plan for your meal ticket? I mean, if this message
ever sinks in, you're going to need to be able to dig ditches or yell out
"Ya want fries with that?"
> Elaine Morgan endorsed this definition earlier this year and I propose
> that this is what people use when discussing it from now on. If we do
> that, perhaps the next 44 years might be a little bit more productive
> in resolving this issue than the last.
Ooooo! *Elaine Morgan* Now there's an endorsment. Be honest
now, did you slip her anything under the table --say, a fiver or maybe
a twenty?
> Algis Kuliukas
>
> Ref:
> Hardy, Alister (1960). Was Man More Aquatic in the Past?. New
> Scientist Vol:7 Pages:642-645
--
Yada, yada, yada.
Algis Kuliukas
The really funny thing is... he thinks *I'm* one of those 'netloons'.
Algis Kuliukas
Philip Deitiker
message ID news:77a70442.04082...@posting.google.com:
> The really funny thing is... he thinks *I'm* one of those
'netloons'.
As opposed to the kind of netloon that you are?
--
Philip
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Mol. Anth. Group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DNAanthro/
Mol. Evol. Hominids http://home.att.net/~DNAPaleoAnth/
Evol. of Xchrom.
http://home.att.net/~DNAPaleoAnth/xlinked.htm
Pal. Anth. Group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Paleoanthro/
Sci. Arch. Aux
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sciarchauxilliary/
DNApaleoAnth at Att dot net
firstjois
"Philip Deitiker" <Nopd...@att.net.Spam> wrote in message
news:Xns95506C...@128.249.2.19...
: In sci.anthropology.paleo, Algis Kuliukas created a
: message ID news:77a70442.04082...@posting.google.com:
:
: > The really funny thing is... he thinks *I'm* one of those
: 'netloons'.
:
: As opposed to the kind of netloon that you are?
:
: --
: Philip
: - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Philip, don't make life any harder for Algis than it already is.
Yes, Algis, you are one of ***those*** netloons.
Jois
Paul Crowley
"Algis Kuliukas" <al...@RiverApes.com> wrote in message
news:77a70442.04063...@posting.google.com...
> AK: Anyway, I'm thinking of introducing a new formal definition for
> the hypothesis, so that it might be evaluated on a basis that everyone
> can agree too.
>
> The Aquatic Ape Hypothesis (AAH):
> The hypothesis that water has acted as an agent of selection in the
> evolution of humans more than it has in the evolution of our ape
> cousins
I think most people would agree to that.
It's pretty banal.
> and that, as a result, many of the major physical differences
> between humans and the other apes may be explained, at least in part,
> as adaptations to moving (wading, swimming and/or diving) better
> through various aquatic media.
Sure. I'd accept that. Chimps are the principal
ape with which we are concerned, and their
dominant habitat is the dense forest of central
Africa. They are intensely territorial and very
rarely in their evolutionary history needed to
cross rivers or other bodies of water. So they
lost nearly all the adaptations appropriate for
such purposes.
On the other hand, hominids are like nearly all
other terrestrial animals and, in the course of
their evolutionary history, often needed to cross
rivers and other bodies of water, so they had to
acquire (or re-acquire) minimal capacities in that
respect.
I don't think that this capacity to travel and
migrate (on occasion) provides any substantial
part of the explanation for any aspect of
hominid morphology, but since that behaviour
was an integral aspect of hominid life one might
say that it was "at least in part" an explanation.
The only trouble is that it is not worth saying.
You'll have to do better, Algis.
Think 'proof', or 'disproof' -- even theoretically.
(The only problem here is that you probably
don't have the capacity.)
Paul.
J Moore
> Defining the AAH in a simple, easy-to-understand way, is a rather good
> idea if anyone is going to be able to discuss it's plausibility in a
> meaningful way. Unfortunately, and rather amazingly, this had not been
> done until quite recently.
>
> The fault lies with the chief propoponents to some degree. Neither
> Hardy or Morgan ever defined it as such and Verhaegen et al, although,
> providing very detailed scenarios and timescales for their AAH-type
> models, never - as far as I know - attempted to *define* the AAH in a
> single, simple statement.
>
> To be fair to Hardy and Morgan they weren't really even at the stage
> to be able to define the hypothesis. Hardy's request for comments
> merely asked 'Was Man more Aquatic in the Past?' and Morgan's five
> books on the subject essentially repeated the question in a much more
> detailed and ellaborate way but from slightly different angles.
>
> Most AAH proponents have never considered this a problem because they
> took Hardy's question on face value and understood that what the
> hypothesis was proposing was merely that our ancestors had been more
> aquatic in the past - not that they were ever very much aquatic. After
> all, Hardy spelled it out in black an white: "otters .... [were] ...
> more aquatic than man" Hardy (1960:643). Hence, no defintion has been
> forthcoming.
So Morgan, even after nearly 30 years of writing about it, wasn't "really
even at the stage to be able to define the hypothesis"?! That's astounding.
And of course Hardy, to his credit, did offer an explantion of how aquatic
he thought our ancestors were. He said it was perhaps half their waking
hours, "five or six hours in the water at a time" for "twenty million years
or more", living in large island colonies "like those of seals or penguins".
--
JMoore
__
For a scientific critique of the aquatic ape theory, go to
www.aquaticape.org
Marc Verhaegen
"J Moore" <anthro...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:hx5Xc.205283$M95.52577@pd7tw1no...
> For a scientific critique of the aquatic ape theory, go to
http://allserv.rug.ac.be/~mvaneech/Symposium.html
Michael Clark
news:77a70442.04082...@posting.google.com...
> "Michael Clark" <bit...@spammer.com> wrote in message
news:<10iorp3...@corp.supernews.com>...
> > "Algis Kuliukas" <al...@RiverApes.com> wrote in message
> > news:77a70442.04082...@posting.google.com...
> >
> > [fluff]
> >
> > > So, let's define it:
<This is it:>
> > > The Aquatic Ape Hypothesis (AAH):
> > > The hypothesis that water has acted as an agent of selection in the
> > > evolution of humans more than it has in the evolution of our ape
> > > cousins and that, as a result, many of the major physical differences
> > > between humans and the other apes may be explained, at least in part,
> > > as adaptations to moving (wading, swimming and/or diving) better
> > > through various aquatic media.
<The end of it>
> > Hmmm. Algis, this looks alot like that other bit of flotsam you
> > posted awhile back. *That* was bullshit and this appears to be
> > word-for-word. Say, maybe you could work this up as a macro
> > and post it everytime someone asks what sort of "selection" is
> > going on. That way you could rebut another round of curt dismissals
> > by pointing out that "Gee, the AAR never has been *defined*, ergo
> > it ~can't~ be dismissed." That ought to let you breath life into
another
> > dead thread for another couple months or so.
> >
> > You got a backup plan for your meal ticket? I mean, if this message
> > ever sinks in, you're going to need to be able to dig ditches or yell
out
> > "Ya want fries with that?"
> >
> > > Elaine Morgan endorsed this definition earlier this year and I propose
> > > that this is what people use when discussing it from now on. If we do
> > > that, perhaps the next 44 years might be a little bit more productive
> > > in resolving this issue than the last.
> >
> > Ooooo! *Elaine Morgan* Now there's an endorsment. Be honest
> > now, did you slip her anything under the table --say, a fiver or maybe
> > a twenty?
>
> The really funny thing is... he thinks *I'm* one of those 'netloons'.
As long as everybody is laughing, I've got a few questions:
a.) How does water act as an "agent of selection"?
b.) What are these "major physical differences" you keep going on about?
c.) What constitutes "various aquatic media" and how do
these things variously affect (a) and (b)?
Understand that I know what your answers will be --at least
I believe you will answer these questions the same way that
you have answered others like them in the past. What I am
curious about is whether or if the bludgeoning you recieved
in the substrates thread has had any effect.
God bless Jim Moore. He's got a "magnum open" ;-)
(For you tea-totalers, back in high school, when sneaky
petes were all the rage, one of those large bottles of liebfraumilch
was called a "magnum". Magnum Opus...? Oh well, never mind..)
> Algis Kuliukas
--
Yada, yada, yada.
Ross Macfarlane
> news:77a70442.04082...@posting.google.com...
>
> Hmmmm. Algis, this looks alot like that other bit of flotsam you
> posted awhile back. *That* was bullshit and this appears to be
> word-for-word. Say, maybe you could work this up as a macro
> and post it everytime someone asks what sort of "selection" is
> going on. That way you could rebut another round of curt dismissals
> by pointing out that "Gee, the AAR never has been *defined*, ergo
> it ~can't~ be dismissed." That ought to let you breath life into another
> dead thread for another couple months or so.
If only Natural Selection worked on netloons' kook theories, like the AAH.
Now, do we *have* have this conversation?
Ross Macfarlane
firstjois
[snip]
>>
>> If only Natural Selection worked on netloons' kook theories, like
>> the AAH.
>>
>> Now, do we *have* have this conversation?
>>
>> Ross Macfarlane
Here's a wet question:
A friend of mine took his 5 year old lab to small-boat dock on a river. The
dog saw the water, ran onto the dock and went flying in. Big splash and
oops, no dog. The dog didn't come back up to the surface and the guy had to
go in get the dog. It couldn't swim. A Labrador retriever couldn't swim?
I've seen Chihuahuas swim. What's up with this?
Jois
Rick Wagler
This statement of Algis' is truly astonishing. I don't think
he would get Elaine Morgan to agree with his characterization
of the situation. One of the claims she endlessly repeated
on this ng is that the AAT - specifically her version - was
the only theory "on offer" and that conventional PA had
nothing to offer as a competing theory. Leave aside that
the claim was utter nonsense since PA is full of scenarios
that are more than a match for what EM was putting forth.
To be fair Algis wasn't around when Elaine was and may not
know that this was a major claim of hers. But Algis has
read her stuff and realizes that EM never actually fleshed
out a scenario much less a theory. What I find astonishing
is that Algis would, in effect, expose EM's claims as
shameless braggadoccio. Whether MV would agree that
his whimsies don't represent a valid hypothesis that is at least
as substantial as the rather vapid definition of AAT that
Algis came up with would, I think, be open to question.
So decades after Hardy's timid efforts to get the idea
up and running Algis thinks its high time for somebody
to actually state what it is. 'Bout bloody time, I should say....
Rick Wagler
Algis Kuliukas
I agree. But if you read her books you'll see that she does never
actually define it. Her works are merely all about trying to get
people with open minds (a very rare phenomenon in paleoanthropology
when it comes to the outrageous idea that our ancestors might have
actuially gone in the water sometimes, it seems) interested in this
thing. That's why it's not as rigorously researched as Jim Moore would
like. They're a series of popular science think pieces, not PhD
theses. This is where Jim's being disingenuous when he claims that
he's 'doing as Morgan asks - taking the AAH seriously'. Really, he's
taking a popular science book - like Desmond Morris' 'The Naked Ape'
and scrutinising it like it was a PhD thesis - with the specific
intent of detecting every (all four of them, Jim?) tiny flaw and
blowing them out of all proportion into shock-horror deceptions so
that people might be deluded into thinking that this is *all* the AAH
proponents can do.
> > And of course Hardy, to his credit, did offer an explantion of how
> aquatic
> > he thought our ancestors were. He said it was perhaps half their waking
> > hours, "five or six hours in the water at a time" for "twenty million
> years
> > or more", living in large island colonies "like those of seals or
> penguins".
Quoting from the student rag again, Jim?
> This statement of Algis' is truly astonishing. I don't think
> he would get Elaine Morgan to agree with his characterization
> of the situation.
I think she did, actually. This is what she wrote to me recently on
this subject:
"I have never spelled it out. I think I made it clear that the
mermaid-ish vision some people were attacking was very wide of the
mark. My own personal view is that we were more than slightly more
likely to move through water. That might explain the hair loss and the
erect posture but I think the breathing differences cannot be
explained by wading.
BUT: The point is this: You don't have to agree with that. You can
disagree with it. Firmly. I hope you will. And give your reasons for
disagreeing with it. It will increase the chances that they will
listen to you, and then form their own opinions about where on the
spectrum they might place their own guess. I have not staked my
reputation on any point. All I wanted to do was to say: "These are the
data that need explaining. Here are some facts about Homo and about
other animals. Here is my guess about their possible significance."
It's a starting-off point for discussion. I am not an authority, and
AAT is not a dogma." Morgan (pers. corr. 2004)
> One of the claims she endlessly repeated
> on this ng is that the AAT - specifically her version - was
> the only theory "on offer" and that conventional PA had
> nothing to offer as a competing theory. Leave aside that
> the claim was utter nonsense since PA is full of scenarios
> that are more than a match for what EM was putting forth.
Oh yeah, like which?
Her point there, which is absolutely right, is that if the official
savanna paradigm is now being backed away from (some would even deny
that it ever existed) what the hell is it that replaces it?
You mean the 'Hominids evolved in a mosaic of slightly more open
habitats than chimps live in today but not quite as open as might be
characterised as savannah because that's a straw man argument'
hypothesis?
How does this miniscule change explain all the differences between
humans and chimps and gorillas? It just doesn't. It's just wishful
thinking. The point is, which Morgan made so elloquently, is that even
a very mild form of the AAH still proposes something different
*enough* to explain the bifurcation in anatomy between ape and human.
"The original savannah model - though it did not stand the test of
time - was argued in strong and clear terms. We are different from
apes, it stated, because they lived in the forest and our ancestors
lived on the plains.
The new watered-down version suggests that we are different from the
apes because their ancestors, perhaps, lived in a different part of
the mosaic. Say what you will, it does not have the same ring to it."
Morgan (1997:17)
So yes, Elaine was right to say that the AAH was the 'only game in
town' but even that was not defining what the AAH was exactly.
Essentially she was saying that water must have played some role.
Essentially the opposition say: 'no, it didn't'.
I put it to you that this opposition view is totally untenable. The
fact that we swim better than chimps is proof enough of that.
My point is that in order to debate the AAH in any meaningful way we
had better define it first. This is what I have tried to do.
> To be fair Algis wasn't around when Elaine was and may not
> know that this was a major claim of hers. But Algis has
> read her stuff and realizes that EM never actually fleshed
> out a scenario much less a theory.
That's what I'm saying and she would agree. (see above) So what are
you arguing against?
> What I find astonishing
> is that Algis would, in effect, expose EM's claims as
> shameless braggadoccio. Whether MV would agree that
> his whimsies don't represent a valid hypothesis that is at least
> as substantial as the rather vapid definition of AAT that
> Algis came up with would, I think, be open to question.
"Shameless braggadoccio?!" - Hardly. I'm saying (what she says
herself) that she never defined it. Hardy never defined it either.
Verhaegen *did* define it, but 'it', in his case, was perhaps in so
much specific detail as to exclude all other forms of the AAH other
than the one he supports. The bottom line is: we need to define what
the AAH means, broadly.
Morgan's contribution was massive. When people involved in human
evolution had failed to see the significance that humans could swim
better than chimps, or that we were the only naked primate or that
water is the perfect place for bipedalism to evolve - and, worse, had
ignored highly visible calls from a FRS to look into the thing - she
did everything within her power to bring it to the attention of
everyone. In my humble opinion, more than anyone else in the history
of paleoanthropology, she deserves an honourary degree - but will they
give her one?
> So decades after Hardy's timid efforts to get the idea
> up and running Algis thinks its high time for somebody
> to actually state what it is. 'Bout bloody time, I should say....
> Rick Wagler
Well I'm glad that you agree with me there, Rick.
So what say you on my definition?:
The Aquatic Ape Hypothesis (AAH):
The hypothesis that water has acted as an agent of selection in the
evolution of humans more than it has in the evolution of our ape
cousins and that, as a result, many of the major physical differences
between humans and the other apes may be explained, at least in part,
as adaptations to moving (wading, swimming and/or diving) better
through various aquatic media.
Elaine Morgan said: "I'll drink to that!"
Algis Kuliukas
J Moore
And what, I wonder, given the above, did Elaine say when you said that her
work, and Hardy's, was all just incomptetent trash?
Algis Kuliukas
> And what, I wonder, given the above, did Elaine say when you said that her
> work, and Hardy's, was all just incomptetent trash?
What???
Algis
J Moore
news:77a70442.04083...@posting.google.com...
You said she worked on the subject with a "massive contribution" which
nevertheless wasn't "really even at the stage to be able to define the
hypothesis" -- that's massive incompetence, if true. I see it a bit
differently, as I think she, and Hardy, did in fact define their hypothesis;
if anything Hardy was less vague than your present attempt.
> > > And of course Hardy, to his credit, did offer an explantion of how
> > aquatic
> > > he thought our ancestors were. He said it was perhaps half their
waking
> > > hours, "five or six hours in the water at a time" for "twenty million
> > years
> > > or more", living in large island colonies "like those of seals or
> > penguins".
>
> Quoting from the student rag again, Jim?
I also find it interesting, as a study of AAT/H proponents' tactics, to see
that you mention Hardy in such different ways. When you are dealing with
people who presumably haven't read Hardy's words, you refer to Hardy's ideas
as "modest" and "so mild that all the objections raised to it so far
disappear". When Hardy's ideas are brought out by someone who has read them
(like me), you suggest that one should be looking only at his first title
and not at all those words after that title -- a bizarre method to say the
least. When Hardy's words are repeated (and people can see how radical and
uninformed they are), you attack the messenger for looking at and citing the
sources Hardy chose to present his ideas -- what sources am I to use other
than those in which Hardy wrote his ideas?
The fact is that, to his credit, Hardy understood the neccesity of putting
forth some specific idea of how aquatic these creatures supposedly were. He
was, after all, a good marine biologist, at least when he stuck to his
speciality (plankton) and understood what a new idea, even one he called
speculative, needed to make any sense at all. He did, of course, not do the
study that would have alerted him to his wildly foolish errors, and, sadly,
this was not unusual for him. For instance, to bolster his idea that
telepathy played a role in human evolution, he used such chicanery as Soal's
tests of Basil Shackleton (Soal was spotted altering the data). Likewise,
his notions of how long hominids had existed was wildly inaccurate, and
remained so up to and including his last statements on the matter -- damning
me for pointing this out by calling Hardy's chosen place to write a "student
rag" seems perverse -- what have I to do with where Hardy published? So if
one doesn't read Hardy, one has to accept claims his idea was "mild" and
"boringly obvious", "simply irrefutable" ideas to which "no serious
objection" can be made, but if one actually reads Hardy's words and shows
they are anything but mild, obvious, or accurate, then one is castigated for
using as a source the place(s) Hardy himself chose to publish his ideas.
Actually, the oddest thing about Hardy's mistakes, to me, is his incredible
lack of knowledge about the diving reflex. This is something I would expect
a marine biologist with decades of experience to have heard of (in passing
at least) yet his 1977 article (yes, Algis, in that "student rag") seems to
describe it as a new discovery ("but now there has come another discovery"),
even though it had been known for decades before, and of course he
erroneously claims it "is found only among mammals and birds that dive under
water". But then his telepathy in human evolution idea shows he had made a
long-term habit of not realy checking out his ideas when he veered from his
primary studies.
J Moore
> I agree. But if you read her books you'll see that she does never
> actually define it. Her works are merely all about trying to get
> people with open minds (a very rare phenomenon in paleoanthropology
> when it comes to the outrageous idea that our ancestors might have
> actuially gone in the water sometimes, it seems) interested in this
> thing. That's why it's not as rigorously researched as Jim Moore would
> like. They're a series of popular science think pieces, not PhD
> theses. This is where Jim's being disingenuous when he claims that
> he's 'doing as Morgan asks - taking the AAH seriously'. Really, he's
> taking a popular science book - like Desmond Morris' 'The Naked Ape'
> and scrutinising it like it was a PhD thesis - with the specific
> intent of detecting every (all four of them, Jim?) tiny flaw and
> blowing them out of all proportion into shock-horror deceptions so
> that people might be deluded into thinking that this is *all* the AAH
> proponents can do.
I meant to mention this in my post below. About my being disingenuous...
well, first Algis slangs Morgan for doing a poor job of researching (after
all this time of slanging anthropologists for not accepting her ideas on the
basis of what he now claims is her poor research -- I wonder if Morgan said
"I'll drink to that"? :)
But he's got a strange bee in his bonnet about just what I'm doing when I
look at Morgan's work, or the words of other AAT/H proponents. I don't
treat any of their work as if it were a PhD dissertation, nor do I care
where and in what form they publish, as he (now) seems to. Apparently books
and articles on science ideas, especially those in "student rags", need not
be accurate in his view -- I disagree. I disagree vehemently. But then he
thinks one shouldn't read past the title of Hardy's 1960 article -- I can
certainly see why he might want to have people do so, but that's just not
sensible behavior.
And he suggests -- well, no, he doesn't suggest it, he says it -- that what
I found when I looked at the accuracy of these many books, articles, and
papers, is 4 tiny flaws. I'd suggest people look at my site and see whether
it's me or Algis who's being disingenuous.
Michael Clark
news:77a70442.04083...@posting.google.com...
Algis! Shame on you! How dare you doubt the great and powerful
Morgan!?
:-)
--
Yada, yada, yada.
Rick Wagler
"Algis Kuliukas" <al...@RiverApes.com> wrote in message
Then what's the point?? And especially given Elaine's endless
claims to have a 'theory' that deserved equal consideration with
the work of genuine scientists this observation of yours is the most
damning criticism of EM work that I've seen.
Her works are merely all about trying to get
> people with open minds (a very rare phenomenon in paleoanthropology
> when it comes to the outrageous idea that our ancestors might have
> actuially gone in the water sometimes, it seems) interested in this
> thing.
A chatty 'critique' with very poor research and no substantive
position to put forth? I'm sorry, Algis, either you were abducted
by space aliens or you weren't. What's the point of timid half
measures like this.
That's why it's not as rigorously researched as Jim Moore would
> like.
Nonsense. It's not rigorously researched because she couldn't
do it. Jim's website contains ample evidence of this. This doesn't
make Elaine a bad person but if you are going to make the demands
she did for a hearing from the field you have to put on a better
show than this
They're a series of popular science think pieces, not PhD
> theses.
More guff. Popular science pieces are incredibly difficult
to write. You have to have a familiarity with the field and
be able to write about it without dumbing it down. Walker's
"The Wisdom of the Bones" is an escellent example.
This is where Jim's being disingenuous when he claims that
> he's 'doing as Morgan asks - taking the AAH seriously'. Really, he's
> taking a popular science book - like Desmond Morris' 'The Naked Ape'
> and scrutinising it like it was a PhD thesis - with the specific
> intent of detecting every (all four of them, Jim?) tiny flaw and
> blowing them out of all proportion into shock-horror deceptions so
> that people might be deluded into thinking that this is *all* the AAH
> proponents can do.
>
And what is "scrutinising it like a PhD thesis" supposed to mean?
You may find out that scrutinzing a PhD thesis involves checking
the candidates work for consistency of argument and knowledge
of the field. Popular science books - the good ones at any rate - pass
this test. Do you think pop science means you don't have to make
a sound argument, be careful with sources and understand the concepts
they are trying to explain? Pop science that doesn't do this is justifiably
scorned.
that claims to be
> > > And of course Hardy, to his credit, did offer an explantion of how
> > aquatic
> > > he thought our ancestors were. He said it was perhaps half their
waking
> > > hours, "five or six hours in the water at a time" for "twenty million
> > years
> > > or more", living in large island colonies "like those of seals or
> > penguins".
>
> Quoting from the student rag again, Jim?
>
The 'New Scientist"? Hardy had a bundle of connections and
a big reputation. He could have given this thing a real good
push by putting a decent attempt at a comprehensive argument
together. He would have had absolutely no problem finding a
publisher. Is the fact that he chose not to an indication of how serious
he was about this stuff?
> > This statement of Algis' is truly astonishing. I don't think
> > he would get Elaine Morgan to agree with his characterization
> > of the situation.
>
> I think she did, actually. This is what she wrote to me recently on
> this subject:
>
> "I have never spelled it out. I think I made it clear that the
> mermaid-ish vision some people were attacking was very wide of the
> mark.
What mark? She never spelled it out. It was left to her
critics to try and figure out what the f*** she's talking
about???? Well MV employs similar....tactics is not the
word....
My own personal view is that we were more than slightly more
> likely to move through water.
That might explain the hair loss and the
> erect posture but I think the breathing differences cannot be
> explained by wading.
> BUT: The point is this: You don't have to agree with that. You can
> disagree with it. Firmly. I hope you will. And give your reasons for
> disagreeing with it. It will increase the chances that they will
> listen to you, and then form their own opinions about where on the
> spectrum they might place their own guess. I have not staked my
> reputation on any point.
Oh yeah.....
All I wanted to do was to say: "These are the
> data that need explaining. Here are some facts about Homo and about
> other animals. And this is where it all falls apart as jim ably
demonstrates
Here is my guess about their possible significance."
> It's a starting-off point for discussion. I am not an authority, and
> AAT is not a dogma." Morgan (pers. corr. 2004)
>
Given the demands she continuously made about the status her
"theory" should have in the field this statemnet is, as I said,
astonishing.
> > One of the claims she endlessly repeated
> > on this ng is that the AAT - specifically her version - was
> > the only theory "on offer" and that conventional PA had
> > nothing to offer as a competing theory. Leave aside that
> > the claim was utter nonsense since PA is full of scenarios
> > that are more than a match for what EM was putting forth.
>
> Oh yeah, like which?
>
Start with Aiello and go through to Zihlman.
> Her point there, which is absolutely right, is that if the official
> savanna paradigm is now being backed away from (some would even deny
> that it ever existed) what the hell is it that replaces it?
>
A theory who's major proponent now airily admits was never
fleshed out and argued in any serious way perhaps?
> You mean the 'Hominids evolved in a mosaic of slightly more open
> habitats than chimps live in today but not quite as open as might be
> characterised as savannah because that's a straw man argument'
> hypothesis?
>
Your ineptitude is showing again.....
> How does this miniscule change explain all the differences between
> humans and chimps and gorillas?
Miniscule change? You really need to get to grips with some basic
ecology. Try looking into the work of Robert Foley for one.
It just doesn't. It's just wishful
> thinking. The point is, which Morgan made so elloquently, is that even
> a very mild form of the AAH still proposes something different
> *enough* to explain the bifurcation in anatomy between ape and human.
>
> "The original savannah model - though it did not stand the test of
> time - was argued in strong and clear terms. We are different from
> apes, it stated, because they lived in the forest and our ancestors
> lived on the plains.
> The new watered-down version suggests that we are different from the
> apes because their ancestors, perhaps, lived in a different part of
> the mosaic. Say what you will, it does not have the same ring to it."
> Morgan (1997:17)
>
It would be nice if EM had actually made a critique of the 'savannah
theory' then we'd actually know what she is arguing against. So go
ahead, Algis, what's a savannah theory and where can I get some?
> So yes, Elaine was right to say that the AAH was the 'only game in
> town' but even that was not defining what the AAH was exactly.
> Essentially she was saying that water must have played some role.
> Essentially the opposition say: 'no, it didn't'.
So that's it. She made no critique, offered no competing hypothesis
but its the only game in town? Ain't science easy! As for what the
opposition said no one ever said water played no role. We only try
to deal with the arguments of people who say that it did. Stuff like
hairlessness. Pointing out that there is absolutely no reason to
suppose that living an aquatic lifestyle of some sort should result
in hair loss brings out the seals and the whales. And it is the
proponents who do this.
>
> I put it to you that this opposition view is totally untenable. The
> fact that we swim better than chimps is proof enough of that.
>
Proof of what? It's obvious that modern humans have more
facility in the water than modern apes but that's not the guts
of the case you're trying to make.
> My point is that in order to debate the AAH in any meaningful way we
> had better define it first. This is what I have tried to do.
>
> > To be fair Algis wasn't around when Elaine was and may not
> > know that this was a major claim of hers. But Algis has
> > read her stuff and realizes that EM never actually fleshed
> > out a scenario much less a theory.
>
> That's what I'm saying and she would agree. (see above) So what are
> you arguing against?
>
A body of arguments made for four decades by AAT proponents.
You know bipedal wading, cork-headed infants, tossing coconuts
at nesting crocodiles and on and on...
> > What I find astonishing
> > is that Algis would, in effect, expose EM's claims as
> > shameless braggadoccio. Whether MV would agree that
> > his whimsies don't represent a valid hypothesis that is at least
> > as substantial as the rather vapid definition of AAT that
> > Algis came up with would, I think, be open to question.
>
> "Shameless braggadoccio?!" - Hardly. I'm saying (what she says
> herself) that she never defined it. Hardy never defined it either.
> Verhaegen *did* define it, but 'it', in his case, was perhaps in so
> much specific detail as to exclude all other forms of the AAH other
> than the one he supports. The bottom line is: we need to define what
> the AAH means, broadly.
>
And given the claims and demands that Elaine was making
her statement above exposes it as shameless braggadoccio.
> Morgan's contribution was massive. When people involved in human
> evolution had failed to see the significance that humans could swim
> better than chimps, or that we were the only naked primate or that
> water is the perfect place for bipedalism to evolve - and, worse, had
> ignored highly visible calls from a FRS to look into the thing - she
> did everything within her power to bring it to the attention of
> everyone. In my humble opinion, more than anyone else in the history
> of paleoanthropology, she deserves an honourary degree - but will they
> give her one?
>
On the basis of her work? No
> > So decades after Hardy's timid efforts to get the idea
> > up and running Algis thinks its high time for somebody
> > to actually state what it is. 'Bout bloody time, I should say....
>
> > Rick Wagler
>
> Well I'm glad that you agree with me there, Rick.
>
> So what say you on my definition?:
>
> The Aquatic Ape Hypothesis (AAH):
> The hypothesis that water has acted as an agent of selection in the
> evolution of humans more than it has in the evolution of our ape
> cousins and that, as a result, many of the major physical differences
> between humans and the other apes may be explained, at least in part,
> as adaptations to moving (wading, swimming and/or diving) better
> through various aquatic media.
>
> Elaine Morgan said: "I'll drink to that!"
>
Good for her. Well make your arguments. Oh shit..
here come the seals and the whales....
And spend an afternoon in the Google archive
and see what a load of nonsense is Elaine's claim
to have only been timidly and modestly venturing
a few mild questions re PA. She was hunting bigger
game than that. It's not our fault she went hunting
elephants with a slingshot.
Rick Wagler
J Moore
>
> "Algis Kuliukas" <al...@RiverApes.com> wrote in message
> news:77a70442.04083...@posting.google.com...
> > "Rick Wagler" <taxi...@shaw.ca> wrote in message
> news:<sVyXc.227949$gE.119379@pd7tw3no>...
> > > "J Moore" <anthro...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> > > news:hx5Xc.205283$M95.52577@pd7tw1no...
> > > > Algis Kuliukas <al...@RiverApes.com> wrote in message
> > > > news:77a70442.04082...@posting.google.com...
> > > > > Defining the AAH in a simple, easy-to-understand way, is a rather
> >
> The 'New Scientist"? Hardy had a bundle of connections and
> a big reputation. He could have given this thing a real good
> push by putting a decent attempt at a comprehensive argument
> together. He would have had absolutely no problem finding a
> publisher. Is the fact that he chose not to an indication of how serious
> he was about this stuff?
Algis was ignoring the New Scientist article and referring only to Hardy's
last (1977) article, which was in a student magazine called Zenith (Elaine
describes it as "the magazine of the Oxford University Scientific Society,
which is mainly an undergraduate concern"). Your other points are sound on
that matter, though. How Algis can attack me for Hardy's choice of
publishing spots is downright weird.
Algis Kuliukas
> "Algis Kuliukas" <al...@RiverApes.com> wrote in message
> news:77a70442.04083...@posting.google.com...
> > "Rick Wagler" <taxi...@shaw.ca> wrote in message
> > > > So Morgan, even after nearly 30 years of writing about it, wasn't
> "really
> > > > even at the stage to be able to define the hypothesis"?! That's
> > > astounding.
> >
> > I agree. But if you read her books you'll see that she does never
> > actually define it.
>
> Then what's the point?? And especially given Elaine's endless
> claims to have a 'theory' that deserved equal consideration with
> the work of genuine scientists this observation of yours is the most
> damning criticism of EM work that I've seen.
The point was to try to get people to think about it, to discuss it
and to investigate it. I'm doing that. I'm doing it because,
apparently every professional paleoanthropology departmental gead just
knew it was a load of crap and wasn't worth looking at, even though -
truth be known - they couldn't even tell you what it was. The fact
that I'm doing what Elaine Morgan has expected PAs to do is hardly a
damning criticism of her contribution. I admire her more than most
people who have written about human evolution.
> Her works are merely all about trying to get
> > people with open minds (a very rare phenomenon in paleoanthropology
> > when it comes to the outrageous idea that our ancestors might have
> > actuially gone in the water sometimes, it seems) interested in this
> > thing.
>
> A chatty 'critique' with very poor research and no substantive
> position to put forth? I'm sorry, Algis, either you were abducted
> by space aliens or you weren't. What's the point of timid half
> measures like this.
The "very poor research" is , what exactly? The four tiny errors on
Jim Moore's masquerading one-sided web site? Four tiny errors out of
hundreds of citations and claims. You could find as many errors in any
popular science book if you were obsessed enough to try to find them.
Do you have any others?
'No substantive position?' - really, Rick - it must be you who's been
abducted by aliens. The very substantive positon is the beauty at
which a whole host of ape-human differences are explained away with
consumate ease - we moved through water more than they did.
> That's why it's not as rigorously researched as Jim Moore would
> > like.
>
> Nonsense. It's not rigorously researched because she couldn't
> do it. Jim's website contains ample evidence of this. This doesn't
> make Elaine a bad person but if you are going to make the demands
> she did for a hearing from the field you have to put on a better
> show than this
'Ample evidence' - FOUR FRIGGING TWISTS OF TINY ERRORS?
So... the Darwin misquote - oh yeah, really terrible that.
The The Elsner & Gooden Misquote was the worst but even that hardly
deflected her general point.
The Negus quote - from a newgroups chat-line.
The Denton quote - where it's Moore, not Morgan, doing the twisting.
See http://www.riverapes.com/AAH/Arguments/JimMoore/Quotes.htm for
details
And this is your ample evidence from her five books - wow. You're just
making it up or, actually, following the pied piper Jim Moore.
> They're a series of popular science think pieces, not PhD
> > theses.
>
> More guff. Popular science pieces are incredibly difficult
> to write. You have to have a familiarity with the field and
> be able to write about it without dumbing it down. Walker's
> "The Wisdom of the Bones" is an escellent example.
Desmond Morris' Naked Ape is worse than Morgan's worst, and so are
several others. Craig Stanford's 'Upright' is also pretty poor except
from a point of view of historical commentary on the subject.
> This is where Jim's being disingenuous when he claims that
> > he's 'doing as Morgan asks - taking the AAH seriously'. Really, he's
> > taking a popular science book - like Desmond Morris' 'The Naked Ape'
> > and scrutinising it like it was a PhD thesis - with the specific
> > intent of detecting every (all four of them, Jim?) tiny flaw and
> > blowing them out of all proportion into shock-horror deceptions so
> > that people might be deluded into thinking that this is *all* the AAH
> > proponents can do.
> >
> And what is "scrutinising it like a PhD thesis" supposed to mean?
> You may find out that scrutinzing a PhD thesis involves checking
> the candidates work for consistency of argument and knowledge
> of the field. Popular science books - the good ones at any rate - pass
> this test. Do you think pop science means you don't have to make
> a sound argument, be careful with sources and understand the concepts
> they are trying to explain? Pop science that doesn't do this is justifiably
> scorned.
The basic arguments were very sound - if one or two examples (like
ventro-ventro copulation and salt tears) were over extended or not
checked thoroughly enough. She made a few tiny errors that would have
been picked up if it was a PhD thesis. That is, obviously, the point I
was making.
> > Quoting from the student rag again, Jim?
> >
> The 'New Scientist"? Hardy had a bundle of connections and
> a big reputation. He could have given this thing a real good
> push by putting a decent attempt at a comprehensive argument
> together. He would have had absolutely no problem finding a
> publisher. Is the fact that he chose not to an indication of how serious
> he was about this stuff?
Jim was quoting from his Zenith article, I think. He likes to do that
because it contains the weakest Hardy arguments.
I've spoken to his son about this and he informs me that he was very
serious about it. He really though that the fossil evidence was about
to prove him right. I agree that it a real shame that he didn't write
that book he had promised.
> > > This statement of Algis' is truly astonishing. I don't think
> > > he would get Elaine Morgan to agree with his characterization
> > > of the situation.
> >
> > I think she did, actually. This is what she wrote to me recently on
> > this subject:
> >
> > "I have never spelled it out. I think I made it clear that the
> > mermaid-ish vision some people were attacking was very wide of the
> > mark.
>
> What mark? She never spelled it out. It was left to her
> critics to try and figure out what the f*** she's talking
> about???? Well MV employs similar....tactics is not the
> word....
Hardy said 'More aquatic' right? He said 'not as aquatic as an otter',
right? Morgan made many similar comments which made it clear that she
wasn't talking about 'full-on aquatics' - it's just the imaginings of
some people that pushed and extended the arguments to such a point
that they could be easily ridiculed and dismissed - what do we call
this... tactic is the word... it's a strsaw man argument.
[Elaine Morgan]
> > All I wanted to do was to say: "These are the
> > data that need explaining. Here are some facts about Homo and about
> > other animals.
> And this is where it all falls apart as jim ably
> demonstrates
Jim twists and exaggerates - anyone could do that with any argument.
> > Here is my guess about their possible significance."
> > It's a starting-off point for discussion. I am not an authority, and
> > AAT is not a dogma." Morgan (pers. corr. 2004)
> >
>
> Given the demands she continuously made about the status her
> "theory" should have in the field this statemnet is, as I said,
> astonishing.
Then I think you misunderstood her, or misrepresent her. She might
have been guilty of over-enthusiasm on ocassion but that is all.
> > > One of the claims she endlessly repeated
> > > on this ng is that the AAT - specifically her version - was
> > > the only theory "on offer" and that conventional PA had
> > > nothing to offer as a competing theory. Leave aside that
> > > the claim was utter nonsense since PA is full of scenarios
> > > that are more than a match for what EM was putting forth.
> >
> > Oh yeah, like which?
> >
> Start with Aiello and go through to Zihlman.
You dodged the question - what is *ONE* competing theory which more
satisfactorily and parsimoniously explains our nakedness, bipedality,
sc fat, ability to swim, etc etc.
> > Her point there, which is absolutely right, is that if the official
> > savanna paradigm is now being backed away from (some would even deny
> > that it ever existed) what the hell is it that replaces it?
> >
> A theory who's major proponent now airily admits was never
> fleshed out and argued in any serious way perhaps?
You dodged the question again - I wonder why.
> > You mean the 'Hominids evolved in a mosaic of slightly more open
> > habitats than chimps live in today but not quite as open as might be
> > characterised as savannah because that's a straw man argument'
> > hypothesis?
> >
> Your ineptitude is showing again.....
If it's inept, tell me in simple, clear terms what the current
orthodox paradigm actually *IS* then.
> > How does this miniscule change explain all the differences between
> > humans and chimps and gorillas?
>
> Miniscule change? You really need to get to grips with some basic
> ecology. Try looking into the work of Robert Foley for one.
If it's not savanna - it's miniscule change. Which is it?
> > "The original savannah model - though it did not stand the test of
> > time - was argued in strong and clear terms. We are different from
> > apes, it stated, because they lived in the forest and our ancestors
> > lived on the plains.
> > The new watered-down version suggests that we are different from the
> > apes because their ancestors, perhaps, lived in a different part of
> > the mosaic. Say what you will, it does not have the same ring to it."
> > Morgan (1997:17)
> >
> It would be nice if EM had actually made a critique of the 'savannah
> theory' then we'd actually know what she is arguing against. So go
> ahead, Algis, what's a savannah theory and where can I get some?
You know Rick.... hominins left the trees and, for some reason, went
out onto the savanna and began moving bipedally because it gave them a
more flexible response to the new challenges ahead. Funny how you seem
to have some kind of amnesia about this idea - how convenient for you.
Others are not so fuzzy minded though.
"As the competing savanna hypothesis is no longer tenable since I
presented much evidence against it in my Daryll Forde Lecture at
University college London in 1995, I believe that scientists have a
duty to re-examine these claims, much as Langdon (1997) has done."
Tobias (2002)
Tobias, Phillip V (2002). Some aspects of the multifaceted dependence
of early humanity on water. Nutrition and Health Vol:16 Pages:13-17
Or how about this...
"Although the savanna hypothesis has gained recent support, it has
also been strongly contested. Some authorities advocate a
contradictory model—the woodland/ forest hypothesis—which argues for
the importance of closed vegetation in early hominin evolution. Early
australopiths, according to some interpretations, were closely
associated with wooded environments, exhibited significant arboreal
activity, and should be considered adapted to closed habitats (Clarke
and Tobias, 1995; Berger and Tobias, 1996)." Potts 1998
Potts, Richard (1998). Environmental Hypotheses of Hominin Evolution.
Yearbook of Physical Anthropology Vol:41 Pages:93-136
How many more quotes do you want? I've got an ever growing database of
them.
Don't tell me... it was all invented by Elaine Morgan, right, Rick -
keep takling the pills.
> > So yes, Elaine was right to say that the AAH was the 'only game in
> > town' but even that was not defining what the AAH was exactly.
> > Essentially she was saying that water must have played some role.
> > Essentially the opposition say: 'no, it didn't'.
>
> So that's it. She made no critique, offered no competing hypothesis
> but its the only game in town? Ain't science easy! As for what the
> opposition said no one ever said water played no role. We only try
> to deal with the arguments of people who say that it did. Stuff like
> hairlessness. Pointing out that there is absolutely no reason to
> suppose that living an aquatic lifestyle of some sort should result
> in hair loss brings out the seals and the whales. And it is the
> proponents who do this.
She made a huge critique of the existing paradigm - that's exactly
what she did. Have you ever read any of her books? She never defined
the AAH, because she just wanted to get it in the public arena.
If you are not saying that water played no role in discriminating
between apes and humans then what are you arguing about? But, of
course, you *are* arguing against that, aren't you - otherwise what's
your problem with wading leading to bipedalism and swimming and
dip/sweat cooling leading to nakedness etc?
Hypocrite!
> > I put it to you that this opposition view is totally untenable. The
> > fact that we swim better than chimps is proof enough of that.
> >
> Proof of what? It's obvious that modern humans have more
> facility in the water than modern apes but that's not the guts
> of the case you're trying to make.
AAH: The hypothesis that water acted as an agency of selection in
human evolution more than the evolution of the apes. Yes I am.
> > That's what I'm saying and she would agree. (see above) So what are
> > you arguing against?
> >
> A body of arguments made for four decades by AAT proponents.
> You know bipedal wading, cork-headed infants, tossing coconuts
> at nesting crocodiles and on and on...
Just mock personal incredulity then - and no science.
> > So what say you on my definition?:
> >
> > The Aquatic Ape Hypothesis (AAH):
> > The hypothesis that water has acted as an agent of selection in the
> > evolution of humans more than it has in the evolution of our ape
> > cousins and that, as a result, many of the major physical differences
> > between humans and the other apes may be explained, at least in part,
> > as adaptations to moving (wading, swimming and/or diving) better
> > through various aquatic media.
> >
> > Elaine Morgan said: "I'll drink to that!"
> >
> Good for her. Well make your arguments. Oh shit..
> here come the seals and the whales....
I try not to use the seals and the whales, Rick, haven't you noticed?
I tend to concentrate on apes and humans.
> And spend an afternoon in the Google archive
> and see what a load of nonsense is Elaine's claim
> to have only been timidly and modestly venturing
> a few mild questions re PA. She was hunting bigger
> game than that. It's not our fault she went hunting
> elephants with a slingshot.
Why should I? I've read all of her books - that's what counts. She's
made her case there and she's absolutely right on most of her points.
Algis Kuliukas
Algis Kuliukas
> Algis Kuliukas <al...@RiverApes.com> wrote in message
> news:77a70442.04083...@posting.google.com...
> > "J Moore" <anthro...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:<2SSYc.277511$gE.60438@pd7tw3no>...
> >
> > > And what, I wonder, given the above, did Elaine say when you said that
> her
> > > work, and Hardy's, was all just incomptetent trash?
> >
> > What???
> >
> > Algis
>
> You said she worked on the subject with a "massive contribution" which
> nevertheless wasn't "really even at the stage to be able to define the
> hypothesis" -- that's massive incompetence, if true. I see it a bit
> differently, as I think she, and Hardy, did in fact define their hypothesis;
> if anything Hardy was less vague than your present attempt.
Ok, *where* exactly did they *define* it? Come on, book, author, page
reference... the standards you demand of Morgan but, tellingly,
continually fail to meet yourself.
Hardy and Morgan were merely trying to get people to look at the idea.
They made that clear enough too, if you care to read the whole piece
and not just take snippets out of context.
What I want to know, Jim, is where exactly I ever said... how did you
put it?... that "her work, and Hardy's, was all just incomptetent
trash?" I mean that's what you wrote, right? : "And what, I wonder,
given the above, did Elaine say when you said that her work, and
Hardy's, was all just incomptetent trash?" - Just give me a link to
the web page or the posting Id, anything.
I mean, if I'd written anything like that or Marc or Elaine - it would
be straight in at number one on anthrosciguy's top 10 AAH distortions
list. Be honest... you were just drunk, weren't you?
> > > > And of course Hardy, to his credit, did offer an explantion of how
> aquatic
> > > > he thought our ancestors were. He said it was perhaps half their
> waking
> > > > hours, "five or six hours in the water at a time" for "twenty million
> years
> > > > or more", living in large island colonies "like those of seals or
> > > penguins".
> >
> > Quoting from the student rag again, Jim?
>
> I also find it interesting, as a study of AAT/H proponents' tactics, to see
> that you mention Hardy in such different ways. When you are dealing with
> people who presumably haven't read Hardy's words, you refer to Hardy's ideas
> as "modest" and "so mild that all the objections raised to it so far
> disappear". When Hardy's ideas are brought out by someone who has read them
> (like me), you suggest that one should be looking only at his first title
> and not at all those words after that title -- a bizarre method to say the
> least. When Hardy's words are repeated (and people can see how radical and
> uninformed they are), you attack the messenger for looking at and citing the
> sources Hardy chose to present his ideas -- what sources am I to use other
> than those in which Hardy wrote his ideas?
You didn't answer my question. Did you get those snippets from the
Zenith article or from New Scientist? I want a page reference please.
You see, you never give that info, do you? You expect Morgan to
provide every book, author and page reference for her citations but
you, on the other hand, just don't bother. You can, it seems, just
make them up out of thin air.
If you read the whole of Hardy's New Scientist piece - not the student
rag - I think anyone would be struck by its modesty. That's why you
always quote from the Zenith article and never from New Scientist. You
have a clear agenda to portray this whole idea in the worst possible
light every time.
> The fact is that, to his credit, Hardy understood the neccesity of putting
> forth some specific idea of how aquatic these creatures supposedly were.
Yes... less aquatic than an otter. So why do Langdon, you and everyone
just ignore that?
> He
> was, after all, a good marine biologist, at least when he stuck to his
> speciality (plankton) and understood what a new idea, even one he called
> speculative, needed to make any sense at all. He did, of course, not do the
> study that would have alerted him to his wildly foolish errors, and, sadly,
> this was not unusual for him. For instance, to bolster his idea that
> telepathy played a role in human evolution, he used such chicanery as Soal's
> tests of Basil Shackleton (Soal was spotted altering the data). Likewise,
> his notions of how long hominids had existed was wildly inaccurate, and
> remained so up to and including his last statements on the matter -- damning
> me for pointing this out by calling Hardy's chosen place to write a "student
> rag" seems perverse -- what have I to do with where Hardy published? So if
> one doesn't read Hardy, one has to accept claims his idea was "mild" and
> "boringly obvious", "simply irrefutable" ideas to which "no serious
> objection" can be made, but if one actually reads Hardy's words and shows
> they are anything but mild, obvious, or accurate, then one is castigated for
> using as a source the place(s) Hardy himself chose to publish his ideas.
You exaggerate and twist, pick bits out of sentences and out of
context. You use the tactic of guilt by association - stressing his
telepathy ideas, for example - oooh, so he *must* have been a loony
then!
How long have hominids existed? In 1960 there was no real evidence to
say. Even today can you tell me when bipedalism began? I can't. So how
can you attack him for that?
The Zenith piece was a light hearted piece for students' entertainment
written by an 81 year old ex-professor who had retired almost twenty
years earlier. But never mind that, as long as it's dirt against the
AAH it all counts, right?...
> Actually, the oddest thing about Hardy's mistakes, to me, is his incredible
> lack of knowledge about the diving reflex. This is something I would expect
> a marine biologist with decades of experience to have heard of (in passing
> at least) yet his 1977 article (yes, Algis, in that "student rag") seems to
> describe it as a new discovery ("but now there has come another discovery"),
> even though it had been known for decades before, and of course he
> erroneously claims it "is found only among mammals and birds that dive under
> water". But then his telepathy in human evolution idea shows he had made a
> long-term habit of not realy checking out his ideas when he veered from his
> primary studies.
...Right!
Hardy may have been wrong on many things - but the idea that humans
have been influenced by water more than our ape cousins since the
split was almost certainly not one of them.
I still have yet to read a single line from you, Jim, where you take
that "mild", "boringly obvious", "simply irrefutable" idea on. Could
it be that you simple have "no serious objection" to it?
Algis Kuliukas
Michael Clark
>
> ...Right!
>
> Hardy may have been wrong on many things - but the idea that humans
> have been influenced by water more than our ape cousins since the
> split was almost certainly not one of them.
>
> I still have yet to read a single line from you, Jim, where you take
> that "mild", "boringly obvious", "simply irrefutable" idea on. Could
> it be that you simple have "no serious objection" to it?
>
> Algis Kuliukas
Oh. Here you are again. Prattling on about the same old stuff.
Do you need to go back and review Norm's contributions to the
substrates thread?
Check out the gibbons yet?
--
Yada, yada, yada.
J Moore
I don't have a top ten AAH distortions list -- you must be confusing me with
some other person. I'd like to see it though; would you tell me where you
got that from? You didn't just make it up out of thin air, did you? You've
been trashing Hardy and Morgan lately for not providing any idea of what
their theory meant (which I think is incorrect, BTW) and that does seem to
me like saying that they were incompetent -- after all, Morgan worked on
this for 30 plus years, with 5 books and many articles and talks -- for her
to have done so little as you claim she did she would have to be
incompetent. Of course part of the problem is that your now-preferred
definition is so vague as to be meaningless.
You say: "The hypothesis that water has acted as an agent of selection in
the evolution of humans more than it has in the evolution of our ape cousins
and that, as a result, many of the major physical differences between humans
and the other apes may be explained, at least in part, as adaptations to
moving (wading, swimming and/or diving) better through various aquatic
media." Now you can see how non-descriptive that is by substituting other
terms for "water" in your statement -- terms like "the desert" or "the
arctic". These too were definitely used more by humans than by apes, but
they don't explain much of anything in human evolution, except for our
abilities to utilise a lot of different environments -- it certainly doesn't
support the idea that such environments were at the crux of our differences
from apes.
Again you attack me for Hardy's choice of publisher -- this is perverse.
How on earth can I affect his choice? It was his choice; I had nothing to
do with it. However, you also incorrectly say I don't mention his New
Scientist piece when I do -- of course you object to the fact that I mention
what he wrote in the body of the article, since you want me to only mention
and comment upon his title -- that also is perverse. I cannot help either
Hardy's choice of venue or the words he wrote -- these things were his
decision and I can only read them and report on them. It's not my fault
that he chose his venues as he did and it's not my fault that he used
erroneous "facts" as evidence.
If I am indeed making things up out of thin air, show it. If I have said
something incorrect about what Hardy said, show it. If he didn't say the
things I quoted him as saying, show it.
You now say that they shouldn't have their facts scrutinised, nor the quotes
Morgan used, because they were "just trying to get people to think". Isn't
it thinking to look at what they said and see if it actually matches facts?
Just because the answer after that thought isn't the one you want to hear
doesn't mean that thought wasn't involved. (BTW, you might sometime become
aware that variations of the phrase "[I/we/they] [was/were] just trying to
make you think" -- like your "just trying to get people to look" -- are a
classic pseudoscience tactic when an arguemnt has been shown to be faulty --
you may want to reconsider its use.)
> > The fact is that, to his credit, Hardy understood the neccesity of
putting
> > forth some specific idea of how aquatic these creatures supposedly were.
>
> Yes... less aquatic than an otter. So why do Langdon, you and everyone
> just ignore that?
Because simply because one says that's what they're talking about doesn't
mean that's actually what they're talking about -- and when the aquatic
animals they compare human features to are seals, whales, and sirenia they
are not talking about being less aquatic than an otter, no matter how many
times they say it.
It's not even so much the idea that it's loony, but the stuff he used to
support the idea -- discredited and inaccurate BS research, which he
presented as sound. That tells me something about the presenter. And after
all, that particular idea was his biggest interest in retirement (and for
several decades before) and the one thing he spent the most time on -- he
obviously considered it more sound and important than his "aquatic ape"
idea, which also tells you something about him. Something you may not want
to hear, perhaps; something you especially may not want others to hear,
perhaps, but it is telling.
> How long have hominids existed? In 1960 there was no real evidence to
> say. Even today can you tell me when bipedalism began? I can't. So how
> can you attack him for that?
>
> The Zenith piece was a light hearted piece for students' entertainment
> written by an 81 year old ex-professor who had retired almost twenty
> years earlier. But never mind that, as long as it's dirt against the
> AAH it all counts, right?...
Again the attack on me for Hardy's choice of venue -- I don't care where he
wrote it up; I care whether or not he said things that were accurate -- and
he didn't. This is not my fault; your anger is misplaced (and I would think
that a publication for the Oxford University Scientific Society is not so
much a "rag" as you suggest -- I even believe Elaine's alma mater is
consdiered a pretty decent school, or so I've heard). As for the length of
time hominids had existed; even in 1960 it was becoming clear that the total
hominid timeline didn't stretch back nearly as far as the length of time
Hardy said we were water-dwellers, and certainly by 1977 it was very clear
that it was not that long at all -- and all but a few people were quite
certain it was far far less time. I didn't attack him (I'm not sure that
every time one points out an error it's fair to call it an "attack") for any
statement of his about how long ago bipedalism arose; I pointed out that he
said that the aquatic period for hominids was far longer than the total time
hominids have existed, and that this was well known at the time he said it.
Why should an idea be accepted when the arguments for it are so uninformed
and inaccurate?
I show that Hardy's idea, if you take the incredibly radical step of reading
more than the title (!) is neither mild", "boringly obvious", or simply
irrefutable". I disagree with your idea that one should stop reading after
the title.
Of course you claim that all i've found are "4 tiny erros"; if that's so I
really don't see what you're getting so worked up about.
But then you also say Morgan should get a degree for her work, work you
simultaneously claim was so incompetent that after 30 plus years, 5 books,
many articles, and loads of talks she still hadn't managed to get across how
aquatic "aquatic" is. I liked that; I had no idea degrees were so easily
come by -- maybe I can get one for finding "4 tiny errors".
Ross Macfarlane
> Algis Kuliukas <al...@RiverApes.com> wrote in message
> > You see... on the ground, apes do move bipedally. I mean which
> > other mammals do that? Move bipedally on the ground, I mean. Do dogs? No,
> > horses?, No. Elephants? No. Monkeys, even? Apart from one or two
> > larger ones, no. Bit of a clue isn't it.
Ross Macfarlane
Algis Kuliukas
> Algis Kuliukas <al...@RiverApes.com> wrote in message
[..]
> > > You didn't just make it up out of thin air, did you?
> >
> > that would be too honest. You call it 'AAT Claims and facts'.
> >
> > See this... http://www.aquaticape.org/aatclaims.html
> >
> > Then see this (Jim's site doesn't give you any links to an alternative
> > view but I do)
> http://www.riverapes.com/AAH/Arguments/JimMoore/ClaimsandFacts.htm
> >
> > But, they're distortions all the same. No citations are given so we
> > can check if anyone ever did make such claims or if instead you just
> > twisted their words, exaggerated their claims or just fail to report
> > the context in which is was made - you know, what you usually do.
>
> Oh, so you did just make it up out of thin air. I guess you "were just
> trying to make people think" or "just trying to get people to take a look
> at" or whatever excuse you are presently using for just making things up.
Tell you what, Jim. I'll admit that I just made up the bit about the
'top ten AAH distortions list' if you admit I never said that Hardy
and Morgan's work was absolute trash.
[..]
> > You see... in waist deep water, apes do move bipedally. I mean which
> > other mammals do that? Move bipedally in water, I mean. Do dogs? No,
> > horses?, No. Elephants? No. Monkeys, even? Apart from one or two
> > larger ones, no. Bit of a clue isn't it.
>
> If you confined the "AAT/H" to yet another in a long list of things apes use
> bipedality for you would have no argument, but of course then the whole
> "theory/hypothesis" would be simply one entry in a long list of such
> behaviors. The AAT/H is not presented as simply that, however, except when
> its proponents wish to claim a critic is presenting it inaccurately. The
> AAT/H has, in every form I've seen it presented, a great many more features
> listed than that, and these features are only found in animals which do far
> more than simply "move through water" a little more than apes. So your
> definition is quite vague, apparently deliberately so, so that it can be
> said to be technically "accurate" -- yes, seals, whales, and sirenia do
> "move through water" somewhat more than apes do, I'll grant you that. :)
> But I'd have to say you're being awfully coy about the meaning of "more".
You've missed the plot. Morgan's 'list of aquatic traits' were
speculations. Some of them are more speculative than others. The
hymen, the ventro-ventral copulation and the salt tears arguments are
cases in point. It is easy to focus in on those and claim that you've
exposed a great fallacy. Langdon did the same thing. He listed out the
dreaded 23 traits with equal weighting and equal ridicule. This is
just not fair. Morgan (1997) didn't do that. She had four chapters
just on bipedalism for instance. Anyone that critiques this hypothesis
fairly has to give appropriate weightings to the traits which are
claimed may have a more aquatic explanation. Why we walk, why we're
naked and why we're fat are the three biggest ones. Your critique, and
Langdon's, simply don't do that. They clearly have an agenda to focus
in on the more minor, weaker, points.
If hominids waded through water more than ape ancestors they would be
more likely to move bipedally. That's not vague.
If hominids swam through water more than ape ancestors they would be
more likely to gain buoyancy through increased adipocity. That's not
vague.
If hominids lived in hot tropical water-side habitats they would be
more likely to go for dips to keep cool than ape ancestors and evolve
sweat cooling mechanisms to supplement it. That's not vague.
> Of course, I also had to use quotes around "accurate" in that sentence,
> because in fact the features that the various versions of the AAT/H have
> said are similar between humans and aquatic mammals are not actually similar
> at all when you look at them -- at their distribution between the sexes,
> their distribution during the lifespan, and for that matter, sometimes their
> exsistence at all. I'm sure I don't need to explain, since I have lots
> about this on my site -- anyone interested in this can go there and check it
> out, as they can go to any number (dozens) of uncritically pro-AAT/H sites
> and check out their claims.
No, you don't need to explain it, Jim. I've read the line of your
arguments often enough by now. Take the weakest point, exaggerate it
enough for it to become ridiculous and reject it.
[..]
> > It *is* your fault, though, for not giving clear, unambiguous
> > citations for where you get so called claims from. It's not up to me
> > to have to show that you're making things up. In science we give
> > references to substantiate the claims we make, not expect others to
> > find out if we've just made them up. That's a bit of an admission,
> > Jim. Funny how you take Morgan to task whenever she (rarely) was
> > remiss in citing people well enough - but when it comes to Jim Moore
> > citing AAH proponents, anything goes apparently.
> >
> > It is one thing to have something published in a scientific journal
> > with some reputation, like New Scientist, and quite another to print
> > something in a student magazine. Can you not see the difference? I
> > don't think you can. As long as it's dirt against the AAH you don't
> > care where it was written. A classic creationist tactic if ever there
> > was one.
> >
> > And by the way... you still didn't answer my question.
>
> You can go to my site and read a short page on Hardy's "mild" "boringly
> obvious" theory and see where any of these words of his I mention come from.
I want you to do that, Jim. I want you to cite references to the
claims you make. That's what you criticse Elaine Morgan for not doing
but you rarely do it yourself..
> You claim to have done so, so your claim to be somehow mystified by where on
> earth it can be seems somewhat disingenuous. As for what puiblications are
> more or less credible, I don't care, since I am only looking at what he
> wrote and whether or not it's accurate and makes sense. Your suggestion
> that one needn't write science accurately if you pick the right venue is not
> something I endorse. You should note -- well I should, since you probably
> won't :) -- that New Scientist is not a peer review journal, but more of a
> science magazine -- it seemed to me, perhaps incorrectly, that you were
> misleading people on that a tad -- probably inadvertently.
I know that New Scientist is not peer reviewed but it's a more serious
and important journal than Zenith.
[..]
> > > Because simply because one says that's what they're talking about
> doesn't
> > > mean that's actually what they're talking about
> >
> > Ah right. So only Jim Moore knows what they really meant to write. I
> > see.
>
> I can hardly be the only person on earth able to read, find facts, and
> compare. If you look at the features AAT/H proponents say we have and see
> what "aquatics" (as they are often vaguely labeled by proponents) have them,
> anyone can see that the degree of aquaticism the AAT/H is actually
> suggesting cannot be the amount they generally claim they're suggesting --
> but then they rarely seem to suggest any real time, although Hardy did.
"It may be objected that children have to be taught to swim; but the
same is true of young otters, and I should regard them as more aquatic
than Man has been. " Hardy (1960:643)
"Nobody has suggested that they turned into mermen and mermaids. They
would have been water-adapted apes in the same sense that an otter is
a water-adapted mustelid. If we knew nothing of the otter except what
we can deduce from its bare bones, it would take a clever scientist to
detect that it was any more aquatic than its cousins the stoats and
the polecats." Morgan (1997:31)
"In an environment which combined trees and water ( a flooded forest
or an offshore island dwindling as the sea level rose) the more
dominant males would have had first call on the diminished reserves of
the traditional food source and would have continued to confine
themselves to it. In any society, long-established dominance tends to
lead to conservatism. The hungrier females could have been driven to
seek for less familiar things to eat and would have found them in
water." Morgan (1997:100)
[..]
> > But hold on. In 1960 there was a definite fossil "gap" between
> > Australopithecines and Miocene apes that stretched back a long way.
> > Hardy made it quite clear that this was his rationale for citing 10 My
> > when he was postulating his more aquatic 'phase'. The latest fossil
> > findings might suggest bipedalism began as far back as 7 Ma or even
> > earlier - that's very close to what Hardy said all along.
>
> Hardy did not "cite 10 my" -- he said "some twenty million years or more".
> This is not in any way close to 7 mya, or even 10 mya, although this does
> demonstrate your tenuous degree of reliance on facts.
In the New Scientist paper he cites 10 My. In the Zenith paper he
cites twenty. This tells us something about a) the relative quality of
the editors, b) how much Hardy had declined in another 17 years after
his retirement and c) the determination of Jim Moore to give the worst
possible slant on anything to do with this idea.
[..]
> > But is it uninformed and inaccurate? When he wrote that in 1960 10Ma
> > could have seemed reasonable. Heck, it even seems reasonable today if
> > you take the scepticism about the molecular clock calibration and
> > assume Pan-Homo split 10-13Ma.
> >
> > As usual, you're just scraping the barrel for any bit of dirt you can
> > gather against this AAH but, as usual, when you examine it closely the
> > only dirt is on Jim Moore himself.
>
> Again you substitute your "10 my" -- you are not being accurate about what
> Hardy said -- you should have read more than the title.
Look, I'll make it easy for you...
Click this link http://www.riverapes.com/AAH/Hardy/HardyPage4.htm
Scroll down the third column, last but one para, last sentence.
Now if I'd made an error like that, or Elaine or any AAH proponent, it
would find it's way on Jim Moore's 'Can AATer Research be Trusted?'
page.
See http://www.aquaticape.org/quotes.html for the original twists
and http://www.riverapes.com/AAH/Arguments/JimMoore/Quotes.htm for the
expose.
[..]
> > Another twist. I'm the one offering quotes from the body of text after
> > the title of the New Scientist paper - and giving page references for
> > them. You won't even tell us which journal you're citing from. I was
> > arguing that a mild form of the AAH - if one scales back the claims,
> > rather than deliberately exaggerate them as you do - was "boringly
> > obvious", not that specifically Hardy's original paper was - more
> > twists from the master twister.
>
> Now you're saying it isn't "boringly obvious"? -- that was a quote from you,
> you know.
Yes, Jim. When you quote someone you really should quote more than two
words. What was the context of it, do you remember?
sap thread 'Walking' 15-Jan-2004
"Yes, the answer given over and over again is the same gross
misrepresentation of what the hypothesis is saying. It is the strawman
argument that the AAH proposes that human ancestors were aquatic when
the
question Hardy posed was merely 'was man more aquatic in the past?' It
is
people like you who refuse to consider it in the modest, boringly
obvious,
sense - because then you'd have to concede that there can be no
serious
objection to it at all." Kuliukas (2004)
I'm saying that when you consider the AAH merely as meaning that 'Man
was more aquatic in the past' and by definition therefore more aquatic
than ape ancestors, it becomes boringly obvious. That's why you have
to take words out of context and twist them into a claim that wasn't
made. This is all you do.
[..]
> > In your web site you say "there are, sadly, many more where these came
> > from" on your http://www.aquaticape.org/quotes.html page, first
> > paragraph. Amazing that in the (how long is it?) six? years since
> > you've still only given us the pathetic four (Well, let's be honest,
> > Jim - it's just ONE really) - and yet the way you hype them up implies
> > to anyone going to your web site that Elaine Morgan's the biggest
> > fraud in history.
>
> I invite anyone reading this exchange (poor souls) to look at my site and
> see if Algis is being accurate when he claims I've found only 4 errors in
> AAT/H work.
Yes, poor souls indeed. Jim expects you to read his whole gigantic,
one-sided, masquerading web site to find these extra (extra to the ONE
he reports on his 'Can AATer research be trusted' page) errors because
he's just not tellin'.
> I'll leave it up to them to determine whether or not altering a
> quote -- like Negus' (without indicating that the words had been left
> out) -- didn't change the substance of her argument.
What? You're leaving it to the reader, Jim? That's a bit dangerous
isn't it? Well if we're leaving it to the reader we should point out
both cites, shouldn't we...
Jim's site (with no alternative view):
http://www.aquaticape.org/quotes.html
And mine with a link to Jim's so you can check both:
http://www.riverapes.com/AAH/Arguments/JimMoore/Quotes.htm
> If you wish to argue
> that it was simply poor scholarship and writing on her part, but that she
> deserves an honorary degree for that work... well, that's not an argument
> I'd want to have to defend (my sympathies to you on that). I certainly
> don't wish to leave the impression that Morgan is the biggest fraud in
> history -- there are far more ambitious frauds -- but I do demonstrate that
> she did an awful lot of dubious scholarship which she apparently thought
> should be accepted and swallowed whole. I wouldn't think one could swallow
> that whole, but then there's you, so I guess it can.
Keep on smearing, Jim.
[..]
> > Thirty years selfless work deserves recognition, that's why the
> > Norwegian Academy of Sciences did recognise it. Jim Moore, apparently,
> > knows better - he's exposed all the dirt on Morgan for all to see -
> > all four (well just ONE actually) tiny error(s) in thirty years work.
> >
> Again, folks, check out my site and see if Algis is being accurate when he
> claims there are only 4 errors (tiny or otherwise) demonstrated.
While you're there, check how many of his claims have references so
you can check them out.
Algis Kuliukas
Marc Verhaegen
> If you look at the features AAT/H proponents say we have and see what
"aquatics" (as they are often vaguely labeled by proponents) have them,
anyone can see that the degree of aquaticism the AAT/H is actually
suggesting cannot be the amount they generally claim they're suggesting --
but then they rarely seem to suggest any real time, although Hardy did.
You're a liar or an idiot. Hardy described how a sea-side life
(beach-combing, wading, swimming, collecting coconuts, shellfish, turtles &
turtle eggs, bird eggs, crabs, seaweeds etc.) explains many human traits
(absent in our nearest relatives the chimps) a lot better than savanna
scenarios do: very large brain (but reduced olfactory bulb), greater
breathing control & greater diving skills, small mouth, masticatory
reduction (myosine MYH16 inactivation), descended larynx, well-developed
vocality, extreme handiness & tool use, reduction of climbing skills,
reduction of fur, more subcutaneous fat, very long legs, more linear body
build, reduction of olfactory sense, late puberty, high needs of iodine,
sodium & poly-unsaturated fatty acids etc.etc. Hardy was wrong in follwing
the PAs at the time & thought this seaside phase happened ~10 Ma. More
likely it happened during the Ice Ages: early Pleistocene Homo fossils or
tools ~1.8 Ma have been found in Algeria, Iran, Kenya, Georgia, Java, always
near shellfish & seas & large bodies of water. When sea levels dropped,
H.ergaster followed the Mediterranean (pre-antecessor-neandertals) & Indian
Ocean coasts (erectus). Pleistocene coasts during the glacial periods were
some 120 m below the present sea level, so many fossil & archeological finds
show the inland Homo populations that entered the continents along the
rivers & wetlands. In spite of this, Homo remains (but not
australopithecine) have frequently been found amid shells, corals, barnacles
etc., throughout the Pleistocene, in coasts all over the Old World (eg,
Mojokerto, Terra Amata, Table Bay, Eritrea), even on islands that could only
be reached by sea (Flores 0.8 Ma
http://allserv.rug.ac.be/~mvaneech/outthere.htm ).
Marc Verhaegen
http://www.onelist.com/community/AAT
http://allserv.rug.ac.be/~mvaneech/Verhaegen.html
Paul Crowley
news:77a70442.04090...@posting.google.com...
> You've missed the plot. Morgan's 'list of aquatic traits' were
> speculations. Some of them are more speculative than others. The
> hymen, the ventro-ventral copulation and the salt tears arguments are
> cases in point. It is easy to focus in on those and claim that you've
> exposed a great fallacy. Langdon did the same thing. He listed out the
> dreaded 23 traits with equal weighting and equal ridicule. This is
> just not fair. Morgan (1997) didn't do that. She had four chapters
> just on bipedalism for instance. Anyone that critiques this hypothesis
> fairly has to give appropriate weightings to the traits which are
> claimed may have a more aquatic explanation. Why we walk, why we're
> naked and why we're fat are the three biggest ones. Your critique, and
> Langdon's, simply don't do that. They clearly have an agenda to focus
> in on the more minor, weaker, points.
You are dead-on here. Jim's site is quite
obnoxious, as is Langdon's critique --
largely because they set out to conceal
the fact that orthodoxy has no answers.
They thrash around among the minor
byways down which AAT people have
gone, pretending that there are no major
issues, apparently hoping that no one
will notice that they are as utterly lost
as any AAT theorist ever was.
> If hominids waded through water more than ape
> ancestors they would be more likely to move
> bipedally. That's not vague.
It's just both wrong and irrelevant -- since
you disdain to put forward any remotely
likely theory as how it could have lead
to terrestrial bipedalism.
> If hominids swam through water more than ape
> ancestors they would be more likely to gain
> buoyancy through increased adipocity. That's
> not vague.
It's just wrong. Other terrestrial species
don't gain 'increased buoyancy' though
increased adiposity. Nor do humans --
by and large. I doubt if any of the
Olympic swimming champions had
significant levels of fat. Adult males
and children of about five often have
little fat, yet can learn to swim well.
> If hominids lived in hot tropical water-side
> habitats they would be more likely to go for dips
> to keep cool than ape ancestors
This is both wrong and ridiculous.
Native people in hot countries rarely
do this sort of thing. Nor do the great
bulk of other mammals. They don't
have the time nor the energy, and
insofar as they need to keep cool,
they find other ways. Human
mothers with small infants do not
go into deep water.
> and evolve
> sweat cooling mechanisms to supplement it.
That's getting even more ridiculous.
Sweating is essentially an adult male
phenomenon. (a) The whole of the
species does not consist of adult males
(even if that is the working assumption
of both yourself and standard PA);
(b) When you find a feature that affects
only a certain part of the population,
you explain it by the behaviour (or
other characteristics) of that part --
not of the whole.
> That's not vague.
It is vague. But when it's utterly
wrong, the vagueness becomes
a trivial matter.
Paul.
J Moore
No, you didn't use those words -- you just said that after some 40-50 years
of thinking for Hardy, and 35 or more years for Morgan, they hadn't managed
to get to the point where they defined their idea, which I'd have to say
sounds like absolute failure, since that's one of the first things you need
to do. Of course, I disagree with you in that you can definitely see what
they were talking about if you look at what features they said we share with
other mammals and just which mammals those are, not to mention other things
like Morgan's aldosterone evidence and such.
The "naked" (we aren't, you know) and fat (not all humans are, you know) --
well, maybe you don't, but there you go -- are traits "shared" with seals,
whales, and sirenia. And of course those traits aren't really the same in
humans as in those other mammals, so that's another problem for the AAT/H
(and esp. it's claim of parsimony). And of course when we look at
bipedalism, aquatic anything isn't where it's at, but other primates are.
> If hominids waded through water more than ape ancestors they would be
> more likely to move bipedally. That's not vague.
>
> If hominids swam through water more than ape ancestors they would be
> more likely to gain buoyancy through increased adipocity. That's not
> vague.
>
> If hominids lived in hot tropical water-side habitats they would be
> more likely to go for dips to keep cool than ape ancestors and evolve
> sweat cooling mechanisms to supplement it. That's not vague.
It's vague when it doesn't give any sort of time needed to affect these
changes -- of course, since the features in question are those of virtually
or completely aquatic mammals which have been aquatic for between 25-50
million years, there's a really good reason to be vague on your part.
You read that page and you still can't tell where Hardy said what I
reported? Wow.
> > You claim to have done so, so your claim to be somehow mystified by
where on
> > earth it can be seems somewhat disingenuous. As for what puiblications
are
> > more or less credible, I don't care, since I am only looking at what he
> > wrote and whether or not it's accurate and makes sense. Your suggestion
> > that one needn't write science accurately if you pick the right venue is
not
> > something I endorse. You should note -- well I should, since you
probably
> > won't :) -- that New Scientist is not a peer review journal, but more of
a
> > science magazine -- it seemed to me, perhaps incorrectly, that you were
> > misleading people on that a tad -- probably inadvertently.
>
> I know that New Scientist is not peer reviewed but it's a more serious
> and important journal than Zenith.
How non-serious need one get before they're allowed to spout nonsense and
have it accepted as acurate science? I say that any science writing,
especially that which purports to be trying to get a new idea accepted,
should be accurate, no matter where it's published -- you obviously
disagree, so again, just how non-serious does one have to get in choice of
publishing venue before one's work gets accepted uncritically in science?
Yes, they can say that, but look at the features they say we got as a
result, and what other creatures have them, and you see that these
statements you've quoted are disingenuous.
> [..]
> > > But hold on. In 1960 there was a definite fossil "gap" between
> > > Australopithecines and Miocene apes that stretched back a long way.
> > > Hardy made it quite clear that this was his rationale for citing 10 My
> > > when he was postulating his more aquatic 'phase'. The latest fossil
> > > findings might suggest bipedalism began as far back as 7 Ma or even
> > > earlier - that's very close to what Hardy said all along.
> >
> > Hardy did not "cite 10 my" -- he said "some twenty million years or
more".
> > This is not in any way close to 7 mya, or even 10 mya, although this
does
> > demonstrate your tenuous degree of reliance on facts.
>
> In the New Scientist paper he cites 10 My. In the Zenith paper he
> cites twenty. This tells us something about a) the relative quality of
> the editors, b) how much Hardy had declined in another 17 years after
> his retirement and c) the determination of Jim Moore to give the worst
> possible slant on anything to do with this idea.
Ah yes, it's the editors' fault, not Hardy's -- poor fellow. Just as you
suggested that Morgan's problems with leaving words out of quotes without
any indication of their absence is her editors' fault... which would mean,
of course, that her editors also crept into her home or office and altered
newsgroup posts before she sent them along. Wow -- these editors have a lot
of power, and the poor author. Well, Algis, let me respectfully submit that
that theory is bullshit.
It was one of the many times you insisted that all should read only Hardy's
1960 title and ignore all the words that followed, a technique I do not
endorse. ("the question Hardy posed was merely 'was man more aquatic in the
past?' It is people like you who refuse to consider it in the modest,
boringly obvious, sense - because then you'd have to concede that there can
be no serious objection to it at all.")
> sap thread 'Walking' 15-Jan-2004
> "Yes, the answer given over and over again is the same gross
> misrepresentation of what the hypothesis is saying. It is the strawman
> argument that the AAH proposes that human ancestors were aquatic when
> the
> question Hardy posed was merely 'was man more aquatic in the past?' It
> is
> people like you who refuse to consider it in the modest, boringly
> obvious,
> sense - because then you'd have to concede that there can be no
> serious
> objection to it at all." Kuliukas (2004)
>
> I'm saying that when you consider the AAH merely as meaning that 'Man
> was more aquatic in the past' and by definition therefore more aquatic
> than ape ancestors, it becomes boringly obvious. That's why you have
> to take words out of context and twist them into a claim that wasn't
> made. This is all you do.
Asking us all to ignore everything written by AAT/H proponents except for
the title of Hardy's 1960 article isn't really sensible, yet if you do read
more than that it rapidly becomes way less than "obvious" -- not boring
either, at first, but that feeling creeps up on us after a few exchanges
from AAT/H proponents denying facts and blaming all the idea's problems on
editors.
> [..]
> > > In your web site you say "there are, sadly, many more where these came
> > > from" on your http://www.aquaticape.org/quotes.html page, first
> > > paragraph. Amazing that in the (how long is it?) six? years since
> > > you've still only given us the pathetic four (Well, let's be honest,
> > > Jim - it's just ONE really) - and yet the way you hype them up implies
> > > to anyone going to your web site that Elaine Morgan's the biggest
> > > fraud in history.
> >
> > I invite anyone reading this exchange (poor souls) to look at my site
and
> > see if Algis is being accurate when he claims I've found only 4 errors
in
> > AAT/H work.
>
> Yes, poor souls indeed. Jim expects you to read his whole gigantic,
> one-sided, masquerading web site to find these extra (extra to the ONE
> he reports on his 'Can AATer research be trusted' page) errors because
> he's just not tellin'.
I had to create a web site to list them all, I can't see cutting and pasting
the whole thing in a newsgroup -- it's far better to offer the link. I know
it's not the way you're used to seeing things done by, say, Marc, but then
that's how he got the nickname "macroman". I think that sort of thing is
bad newsgroup manners.
> > I'll leave it up to them to determine whether or not altering a
> > quote -- like Negus' (without indicating that the words had been left
> > out) -- didn't change the substance of her argument.
>
> What? You're leaving it to the reader, Jim? That's a bit dangerous
> isn't it? Well if we're leaving it to the reader we should point out
> both cites, shouldn't we...
>
> Jim's site (with no alternative view):
> http://www.aquaticape.org/quotes.html
>
> And mine with a link to Jim's so you can check both:
> http://www.riverapes.com/AAH/Arguments/JimMoore/Quotes.htm
By all means. There have long been a great many uncritically pro-AAT web
sites -- literally dozens by now, I think, and having one that takes a more
critical view (required in science, after all) never seemed so bad to me.
You disagree, of course, but hey, no one said you have to like science.
I forgot to mention the business about Algis claiming Morgan deserves praise
because she tried so hard for so long, even though her tries were blunders
filled with falsehoods and distortions. In the States we'd call that grade
an "E for effort", and it isn't a compliment.
Algis Kuliukas
> Algis Kuliukas <al...@RiverApes.com> wrote in message
> news:77a70442.04090...@posting.google.com...
> > "J Moore" <anthro...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:<iJ10d.352933$M95.21443@pd7tw1no>...
> > Tell you what, Jim. I'll admit that I just made up the bit about the
> > 'top ten AAH distortions list' if you admit I never said that Hardy
> > and Morgan's work was absolute trash.
>
> No, you didn't use those words -- you just said that after some 40-50 years
> of thinking for Hardy, and 35 or more years for Morgan, they hadn't managed
> to get to the point where they defined their idea, which I'd have to say
> sounds like absolute failure, since that's one of the first things you need
> to do.
So when you claimed that I'd said their work was 'absolute trash'
what, exactly, was that? Was it a lie or just sloppyness? As this is
limit of the big, terrible claims you make against Elaine Morgan
doesn't this put you firmly and squarely in the same boat as her?
> Of course, I disagree with you in that you can definitely see what
> they were talking about if you look at what features they said we share with
> other mammals and just which mammals those are, not to mention other things
> like Morgan's aldosterone evidence and such.
In five books and several articles it is posible to find a couple of
words and quote them out of context to prove that the authors meant
anything you fancy, Jim. But if you were to change the habit of a
lifetime and be fair and reasonable for half an hour or so and read a
whole chapter of any of Morgan's books or Hardy's whole article and
get a feel for the broad context that they are referring to, you'd
have to agree that they're not postulating anything more than humans
merely being more aquatic than our ape cousins. All you have done is
to hunting for slight errors and misrepresnted them as fraudulent.
You've filtered out the more ambiguous phrases and exaggerated them
into 'humans were like whales' claims. It's just sleazy crap, Jim. You
ought to try to get a job as science correspondant for the UK rag, The
Sunday Sport.
[..]
> > You've missed the plot. Morgan's 'list of aquatic traits' were
> > speculations. Some of them are more speculative than others. The
> > hymen, the ventro-ventral copulation and the salt tears arguments are
> > cases in point. It is easy to focus in on those and claim that you've
> > exposed a great fallacy. Langdon did the same thing. He listed out the
> > dreaded 23 traits with equal weighting and equal ridicule. This is
> > just not fair. Morgan (1997) didn't do that. She had four chapters
> > just on bipedalism for instance. Anyone that critiques this hypothesis
> > fairly has to give appropriate weightings to the traits which are
> > claimed may have a more aquatic explanation. Why we walk, why we're
> > naked and why we're fat are the three biggest ones. Your critique, and
> > Langdon's, simply don't do that. They clearly have an agenda to focus
> > in on the more minor, weaker, points.
>
> The "naked" (we aren't, you know)
What amount of body hair (that is number of hairs x average length)
does an adult male human have compared to an average male chimpanzee?
Make the same comparison for females and then for all people at
different ages. Repeat for different ethnic groups. Add the data all
up and work out an average. If it failed to reach even 0.5% (which I
doubt) then, to the nearest integer, we're naked compared to chimps.
> and fat (not all humans are, you know) --
Not all but even the least fattest humans are typically fatter than
primates. Your own Caroline Pond says so.
"More than half the 31 captive monkeys that we examined were less than
5% fat, thinner than most laborotory rodents, although all of them had
continuous access to food and little opportunity to exercise. ... The
minimum fatness recorded for teenage girl athletes is 7%, and for men
5%. Thus most human beings are not only much fatter than most wild and
captive mammals, but women and girls are consistently fatter than men
and boys." Pond (1987:63)
Pond, Caroline M (1987). Fat and Figures. New Scientist Vol:
Pages:62-66
So, again, you're just wrong. Compared to apes we ARE naked and
compared to all primates we're fat. How could that be, Jim? What's
your ecological scenario for explaining that? Is it the
slightly-less-wooded-than-chimp-habitats-but-slightly-more-wooded-than-might-be-labelled-savannahs-because-that-was-a-straw-man-invented-by-Elaine-Morgan
habitat? And if it is why did it have such a drammatic effect?
> well, maybe you don't, but there you go -- are traits "shared" with seals,
> whales, and sirenia. And of course those traits aren't really the same in
> humans as in those other mammals, so that's another problem for the AAT/H
> (and esp. it's claim of parsimony). And of course when we look at
> bipedalism, aquatic anything isn't where it's at, but other primates are.
Blaa blaa - still banging on about seals and whales. Jim, we've moved
on.
> > If hominids waded through water more than ape ancestors they would be
> > more likely to move bipedally. That's not vague.
> >
> > If hominids swam through water more than ape ancestors they would be
> > more likely to gain buoyancy through increased adipocity. That's not
> > vague.
> >
> > If hominids lived in hot tropical water-side habitats they would be
> > more likely to go for dips to keep cool than ape ancestors and evolve
> > sweat cooling mechanisms to supplement it. That's not vague.
>
> It's vague when it doesn't give any sort of time needed to affect these
> changes -- of course, since the features in question are those of virtually
> or completely aquatic mammals which have been aquatic for between 25-50
> million years, there's a really good reason to be vague on your part.
Yes it does - time since the LCA of course. We don't actually know how
long that was but if it was 5.5 Ma or 13Ma, increased selection from
moving through water is going to have some effect isn't it?
I mean your position is either saying:
a) Our ancestors did not move through water more than the ancestors of
chimps since the LCA. (Not backed up by the fossil record and not by
comparative anatomy either)
b) If they did move through water more, then no significant selection
took place. (Illogical since an increased terrestriality has certainly
had traits selected for.)
[..]
> > I want you to do that, Jim. I want you to cite references to the
> > claims you make. That's what you criticse Elaine Morgan for not doing
> > but you rarely do it yourself..
>
> You read that page and you still can't tell where Hardy said what I
> reported? Wow.
You still don't get it, Jim. I can read your page and I have. But I
want you to get into the habit of writing a claim and putting a
reference next to it. The technique goes something like this...
Hardy claimed that the aquatic phase occurred in the fossil gap that
was apparent in 1960. He wrote "It is interesting to note that the
Miocene fossil Proconsul, which may perhaps reprsent approximately the
kind of ape giving rise to the human stock, has an arm and a hand of
very unspecialised form: much more human than that of the modern ape.
It is in the gap of some ten million years or more, between Proconsul
and Australopithecus that I suppose Man to have been cradled by the
sea." Hardy (1960:645)
Hardy, Alister (1960). Was Man More Aquatic in the Past?. New
Scientist Vol:7 Pages:642-645
See? It's easy. Now you try...
[..]
> > I know that New Scientist is not peer reviewed but it's a more serious
> > and important journal than Zenith.
>
> How non-serious need one get before they're allowed to spout nonsense and
> have it accepted as acurate science? I say that any science writing,
> especially that which purports to be trying to get a new idea accepted,
> should be accurate, no matter where it's published -- you obviously
> disagree, so again, just how non-serious does one have to get in choice of
> publishing venue before one's work gets accepted uncritically in science?
Ideally every single statement one reads should be absolutely truthful
and fully referenced but, unlike you apparently, I'm not living in
fantasy land.
When you claimed that I'd said that Hardy and Morgan's work was
'absolute trash' I was appauled but, hey, it's only a newsgroup and I
expect you'd had a few - so no probs. If you'd have written the same
thing in the local edition of the Cleveland Telegraph, I'd have been a
little more pissed off - but journalism doesn't have such high
standards either. If it had been in New Scientist I'd have written a
letter of complaint. Of course such a silly statement would never have
got past the editor of such a journal and if it had arrived at a
scholarly journal like AJPA they wouldn't have even opened the
envelope.
Elaine Morgan made errors but so does everyone, even you.
[..]
> > "It may be objected that children have to be taught to swim; but the
> > same is true of young otters, and I should regard them as more aquatic
> > than Man has been. " Hardy (1960:643)
> >
> > "Nobody has suggested that they turned into mermen and mermaids. They
> > would have been water-adapted apes in the same sense that an otter is
> > a water-adapted mustelid. If we knew nothing of the otter except what
> > we can deduce from its bare bones, it would take a clever scientist to
> > detect that it was any more aquatic than its cousins the stoats and
> > the polecats." Morgan (1997:31)
> >
> > "In an environment which combined trees and water ( a flooded forest
> > or an offshore island dwindling as the sea level rose) the more
> > dominant males would have had first call on the diminished reserves of
> > the traditional food source and would have continued to confine
> > themselves to it. In any society, long-established dominance tends to
> > lead to conservatism. The hungrier females could have been driven to
> > seek for less familiar things to eat and would have found them in
> > water." Morgan (1997:100)
>
> Yes, they can say that, but look at the features they say we got as a
> result, and what other creatures have them, and you see that these
> statements you've quoted are disingenuous.
Well yes, let's look at those features and those creatures...
Apes wade bipedally ... and we walk bipedally on land.
Apes don't swim as well as we do ... and they're less buoyant.
Shaving body hair reduces drag in water and helps sweat cooling... we
are more naked than apes.
[..]
> > In the New Scientist paper he cites 10 My. In the Zenith paper he
> > cites twenty. This tells us something about a) the relative quality of
> > the editors, b) how much Hardy had declined in another 17 years after
> > his retirement and c) the determination of Jim Moore to give the worst
> > possible slant on anything to do with this idea.
>
> Ah yes, it's the editors' fault, not Hardy's -- poor fellow. Just as you
> suggested that Morgan's problems with leaving words out of quotes without
> any indication of their absence is her editors' fault... which would mean,
> of course, that her editors also crept into her home or office and altered
> newsgroup posts before she sent them along. Wow -- these editors have a lot
> of power, and the poor author. Well, Algis, let me respectfully submit that
> that theory is bullshit.
You missed out points b and c. Editors are supposed to check the copy
before putting it in to print. I'd have thought that any decent
scientist reading Hardy's 'twenty million year' reference in Zenith
would have known better, wouldn't you? Hardy was 81 at the time, I
think your miserliness of spirit is appauling.
> > [..]
> > > > But is it uninformed and inaccurate? When he wrote that in 1960 10Ma
> > > > could have seemed reasonable. Heck, it even seems reasonable today if
> > > > you take the scepticism about the molecular clock calibration and
> > > > assume Pan-Homo split 10-13Ma.
> > > >
> > > > As usual, you're just scraping the barrel for any bit of dirt you can
> > > > gather against this AAH but, as usual, when you examine it closely the
> > > > only dirt is on Jim Moore himself.
> > >
> > > Again you substitute your "10 my" -- you are not being accurate about
> what
> > > Hardy said -- you should have read more than the title.
> >
> > Look, I'll make it easy for you...
> >
> > Click this link http://www.riverapes.com/AAH/Hardy/HardyPage4.htm
> >
> > Scroll down the third column, last but one para, last sentence.
> >
> > Now if I'd made an error like that, or Elaine or any AAH proponent, it
> > would find it's way on Jim Moore's 'Can AATer Research be Trusted?'
> > page.
> >
> > See http://www.aquaticape.org/quotes.html for the original twists
> >
> > and http://www.riverapes.com/AAH/Arguments/JimMoore/Quotes.htm for the
> > expose.
Nothing to say there, Jim?
See that? He's very quick to pounce on the slightest error any AAH
proponent makes but when you show that he's just as prone to making
errors (or are they deceptions?) - oops, he just tries to slip away
into the mist.
[..]
> > > Now you're saying it isn't "boringly obvious"? -- that was a quote from
> you,
> > > you know.
> >
> > Yes, Jim. When you quote someone you really should quote more than two
> > words. What was the context of it, do you remember?
>
> It was one of the many times you insisted that all should read only Hardy's
> 1960 title and ignore all the words that followed, a technique I do not
> endorse. ("the question Hardy posed was merely 'was man more aquatic in the
> past?' It is people like you who refuse to consider it in the modest,
> boringly obvious, sense - because then you'd have to concede that there can
> be no serious objection to it at all.")
So are you conceding that I didn't actually claim that Hardy's paper
per se was 'mild and borringly obvious' as you tried to twist?
But see, here's another Moore twist. You know I think I'm going to
start a page of 'Mooreish deceptions' myself.
1. "And what, I wonder, given the above, did Elaine say when you said
that her
work, and Hardy's, was all just incomptetent trash?" Moore
(2004-Aug-30 sap 'What is the Aquatic Ape Theory?')
2. "It was one of the many times you *insisted* [my emphasis] that all
should read only Hardy's title and ignore all the words that
followed..." Moore (2004-sep-10 sap 'What is the Aquatic Ape Theory?')
3. "I disagree with your idea that one should stop reading after the
title." Moore (2004-sep-03 sap 'What is the Aquatic Ape Theory?')
Keep 'em coming, Jim.
[..]
> > I'm saying that when you consider the AAH merely as meaning that 'Man
> > was more aquatic in the past' and by definition therefore more aquatic
> > than ape ancestors, it becomes boringly obvious. That's why you have
> > to take words out of context and twist them into a claim that wasn't
> > made. This is all you do.
>
> Asking us all to ignore everything written by AAT/H proponents except for
> the title of Hardy's 1960 article isn't really sensible, yet if you do read
> more than that it rapidly becomes way less than "obvious" -- not boring
> either, at first, but that feeling creeps up on us after a few exchanges
> from AAT/H proponents denying facts and blaming all the idea's problems on
> editors.
Moore twists. I've quoted many times from the Hardy text. Here's some
more...
"On March 5th [1960] I was asked to address a conference of the
British Sub-Aqua Club at Brighton and chose as my theme "Aquatic Man:
Past, Present and Future"... I ventured to suggest a new hypothesis of
Man's origins from more aquatic ape-like ancestors and then went on to
discuss possible developments of the future" (Hardy 1960:642)
"I have been toying with this concept of Man's evolution for many
years, but until this moment, which suddenly appeared an appropriate
one, I had hesitated because it had seemed perhaps too fantastic; yet
the more I reflected upon it, the more I came to believe it to be
possible, or even likely." (Hardy 1960:642)
"... This history of the emancipation of animal life from the sea is
very well known. I repeat it only because it forms the the background
to another story, one that is not quite so familiar to those who are
not trained as zoologists. .. We see . ... Again and again ...
Over-population resulting in some members being forced back into the
water to make a living because there was not enough food for them on
the land." Hardy (1960:642)
"The suggestion I am about to make may at first seem far-fetched, yet
I think it may best explain the striking physical differences that
separate Man's immediate ancestors (the Hominoidae) from the more
ape-like forms (Pongidae) which have each diverged from a common stock
of more primitive ape-like creatures which had clearly developed for a
time as tree-living forms.
My thesis is that a branch of this primitive ape-stock was forced by
competition from life in the trees to feed on the sea-shores and to
hunt for food, shell fish, sea-urchins etc., in the shallow waters off
the coast.
I suppose that they were forced into the water just as we have seen
happen in so many other groups of terrestrial animals. I am imagining
this happenning in the warmer parts of the world, in the tropical seas
where Man could stand being in the water for relatively long periods,
that is, several hours at a stretch. I imagine him wading, at first
perhaps still crouching almost on all fours groping about in the
water, digging for shell fish, but becoming gradually more adept at
swimming. Then, in time, I see him becoming more and more of an
aquatic animal going farther out from the shore: I see him diving for
shell fish, prising out worms, burrowing crabs and bivalves from the
sands at the bottom of shallow seas, and breaking open sea-urchins,
and then, with increasing skill, capturing fish with his hands." Hardy
(1960:642)
"Let us now consider a number of points which such a conception might
explain. First and foremost, perhaps, is the exceptional ability of
Man to swim, to swim like a frog, and his great endurance at it. The
fact that some men can swim the English Channel (albeit with
training), indeed that they race across it, indicates to my mind that
there must have been a long period of natural selection improving
man's qualities for such feats. Many animals can swim at the surface
but few terrestrial mammals can rival Man in swimming below the
surface and gracefully turning this way and that in search of what he
may be looking for." Hardy 1960:643)
"It may be objected that children have to be taught to swim; but the
same is true of young otters, and I should regard them as more aquatic
than Man has been." Hardy (1960:642)
"Whilst not invariably so, the loss of hair is a characteristic of a
number of aquatic mamals; for example, the whales, the sirenia and the
hippoptamus. Aquatic mammals which come out of water in cold and
temperate climates have retained their fur for warmth on land, as have
the seals, otters, beavers etc. Man has lost his hair all except on
the head, that part of him sticking out of the water as he swims: such
hair is possibly retained as a guard against the rays of the tropical
sun. Hair, under water, naturally loses its original function...
[keeping body warm by trapping air close to skin] ... The unborn
chimpanzee has hair on its head like man, but little on its body.@
Hardy (1960:643)
"The idea of an aquatic past might also help to solve another puzzle
which Professor Wood Jones stressed so forcibly, that of understanding
how Man obtained his erect posture, and also kept his hands in the
primitive, unspecialised, vertebrate condition. . . . Wading about, at
first paddling... He would naturally have to return to the beach to
sleep and to get water to drink; actually I imagine him to have spent
at least half of his time on the land." Hardy (1960:644)
"Man's hand has all the characteristics of a sensitive, exploring
device, continually feeling with its tentacle-like fingers over the
sea bed; using them to clutch hold of crabs and other crustaceans, to
prize out bivalves from the sand and to break them open, to turn over
stones to find the worms and other creatures sheltering underneath."
Hardy (1960:645)
"Man, no doubt first saw the possibilities of using stones, lying
readiy at hand on the beach, to crack open the enshelled "packages" of
food which were otherwise tantalizingly out of reach; so in far off
days he smashed the shells of the sea urchins and crushed lobsters'
claws to get out the delicacies that we so enjoy today. From the use
of such natural stones it was but a step to split flints to make
fires, perhaps with dried seaweed, on the sea-shore." Hardy (1960:645)
"Man, now erect and a fast runner, was equipped for the conquest of
the continents, the vast open spaces with the herds of grazing game.
Whilst he became a great hunter, we know from the shell middens of
mesolithic Man that shell fish for long remained a favourite food."
Hardy (1960:645)
"In such a brief treatment I cannot deal wit all the aspects of the
subject: I shall do so at greater length and in more detail in a
full-scale study of the problem. I will just here mention one more
point. The students of the fossil record have for so long been
perturbed by the apparent sudden appearance of Man. Where are the
fossils that linked the Hominoidae with their more ape-like ancestors?
... The gap... Is it possible that the gap is due to the period when
Man struggled and died in the sea?" Hardy (1960:645)
"It is interesting to note that the Miocene fossil Proconsul, which
may perhaps reprsent approximately the kind of ape giving rise to the
human stock, has an arm and a hand of very unspecialised form: much
more human than that of the modern ape. It is in the gap of some ten
million years or more, between Proconsul and Australopithecus that I
suppose Man to have been cradled by the sea." Hardy (1960:645) - note,
Jim, TEN million years.
"My thesis is, of course, only a speculation - an hypothesis to be
discussed and tested against further lines of evidence. Such ideas are
useful only if they stimulate fresh inquiries which may bring us
nearer the truth." Hardy (1960:645) - note the modesty of the man.
He's requesting that scientists take an interest in the idea, that's
all. That nobody did is a shocking indictment on the intellectual
independence of a whole generation of paleoanthropologists. It was
left to Elaine Morgan to try expose the stupidity of such ignorance
but even today Jim Moore still can't see it.
[..]
> > Yes, poor souls indeed. Jim expects you to read his whole gigantic,
> > one-sided, masquerading web site to find these extra (extra to the ONE
> > he reports on his 'Can AATer research be trusted' page) errors because
> > he's just not tellin'.
>
> I had to create a web site to list them all, I can't see cutting and pasting
> the whole thing in a newsgroup -- it's far better to offer the link. I know
> it's not the way you're used to seeing things done by, say, Marc, but then
> that's how he got the nickname "macroman". I think that sort of thing is
> bad newsgroup manners.
But you don't give references to the 'errors' except on four ocassions
and even those are just pathetic. If you say there are more... let's
have them - WITH FULL CITATIONS! Can you do that?
[..]
> By all means. There have long been a great many uncritically pro-AAT web
> sites -- literally dozens by now, I think, and having one that takes a more
> critical view (required in science, after all) never seemed so bad to me.
> You disagree, of course, but hey, no one said you have to like science.
I thought two wrongs don't make a right, but then that was Jason's
argument, not yours. It's intersting how people like JE are so silent
about the qualities or otherwise of your web site. Can't quite bring
himself to comment on that, I note. It would put him in a very
difficult position.
[..]
> > While you're there, check how many of his claims have references so
> > you can check them out.
>
> I forgot to mention the business about Algis claiming Morgan deserves praise
> because she tried so hard for so long, even though her tries were blunders
> filled with falsehoods and distortions. In the States we'd call that grade
> an "E for effort", and it isn't a compliment.
Morgan's works were "blunders filled with falsehoods and distortions"
- Jim Moore (2004-sep-10 sap 'What is the Aquatic Ape Theory')
... that's one opinion.
"I see Elaine Morgan, through her series of superbly written books,
presenting a challenge to the scientists to take an interest in this
thing, to look at the evidence dispassionately. Not to avert your gaze
as though it were something you that you hadn't ought to hear about or
hadn't ought to see. And those that are honest with themselves are
going to dispassionately examine the evidence. We've got to if we are
going to be true to our calling as scientists. Phillip Tobias 1998
("BBC Documentary 'The Aquatic Ape Hypothesis'").
... there's another. Take your pick.
Algis Kuliukas
Algis Kuliukas
Thank you, Paul. If only your posting had ended here, your
intellectual credit rating would have risen 100% in my estimation.
> > If hominids waded through water more than ape
> > ancestors they would be more likely to move
> > bipedally. That's not vague.
>
> It's just both wrong and irrelevant -- since
> you disdain to put forward any remotely
> likely theory as how it could have lead
> to terrestrial bipedalism.
Oh yes I have. Many times. Over and over again. As the water's edge of
rivers, lakes, seas - you know - all of em except swimming pools are
characterised by this thing called a gradient of depths, where deep
water, gradually becomes shallow water and shallow water gradually
becomes wet ground - this is *EXACTLY* the place where wading leads to
terrestrial bipedalism.
That's more than putting foreward a remotely likely theory - it's
spelling it out in simple terms a six year old (but apparently not
people who think they're experts in paleoanthropology) can see.
> > If hominids swam through water more than ape
> > ancestors they would be more likely to gain
> > buoyancy through increased adipocity. That's
> > not vague.
>
> It's just wrong. Other terrestrial species
> don't gain 'increased buoyancy' though
> increased adiposity. Nor do humans --
> by and large. I doubt if any of the
> Olympic swimming champions had
> significant levels of fat. Adult males
> and children of about five often have
> little fat, yet can learn to swim well.
The leanest humans are, generally, fatter than the fattest primates.
Arguing that extra bouyancy is not going to be helpful to an animals
that, by I thought your own admission, is not a particularly adept
swimmer, is perverse in the extreme. Obviously, increased adipocity is
likely to be quickly selected for in a group of primates which,
through their largely arboreal past is not very adept at swimming.
> > If hominids lived in hot tropical water-side
> > habitats they would be more likely to go for dips
> > to keep cool than ape ancestors
>
> This is both wrong and ridiculous.
> Native people in hot countries rarely
> do this sort of thing. Nor do the great
> bulk of other mammals. They don't
> have the time nor the energy, and
> insofar as they need to keep cool,
> they find other ways. Human
> mothers with small infants do not
> go into deep water.
Native people are not the same as hominids.
'Human mothers with small infants do not go into deep water'?
http://www.babyworld.co.uk/information/baby/swimming/swimming_lessons.asp
Just search Google for 'mothers+babies+swimming'.
> > and evolve
> > sweat cooling mechanisms to supplement it.
>
> That's getting even more ridiculous.
> Sweating is essentially an adult male
> phenomenon. (a) The whole of the
> species does not consist of adult males
> (even if that is the working assumption
> of both yourself and standard PA);
> (b) When you find a feature that affects
> only a certain part of the population,
> you explain it by the behaviour (or
> other characteristics) of that part --
> not of the whole.
You keep saying that. Have you any evidence for it? My mum (bless her)
used to sweat cobs and so do my kids, when they're hot and
over-dressed.
Algis Kuliukas
Michael Clark
[The little squeaking noises a rat makes when cornered]
Morgan's works were "blunders filled with falsehoods and distortions"
> - Jim Moore (2004-sep-10 sap 'What is the Aquatic Ape Theory')
>
> ... that's one opinion.
>
> "I see Elaine Morgan, through her series of superbly written books,
> presenting a challenge to the scientists to take an interest in this
> thing, to look at the evidence dispassionately. Not to avert your gaze
> as though it were something you that you hadn't ought to hear about or
> hadn't ought to see. And those that are honest with themselves are
> going to dispassionately examine the evidence. We've got to if we are
> going to be true to our calling as scientists. Phillip Tobias 1998
> ("BBC Documentary 'The Aquatic Ape Hypothesis'").
>
> ... there's another. Take your pick.
Would that be this Tobias?
(From personal communication, 8/31/2001)
"....Nowhere have I stated, either in print or on a public platform, or on
the media, that I support the AAH!
I hope that makes my position clear. If you wish to have a copy of my
latest paper which is still in the pipeline, based on the Murcia conference,
please will you ask Mrs. White to send a copy to you.
I am interested to learn that you are submitting an article on fringe
theories and I look forward to receiving a copy of it in due course, if you
would be so kind.
With best wishes,
Yours sincerely,
(Professor Emeritus) Phillip V. Tobias"
Aardvark J. Bandersnatch, MP
"Algis Kuliukas" <al...@RiverApes.com> wrote in message
news:77a70442.04090...@posting.google.com...
> No, you don't need to explain it, Jim. I've read the line of your
> arguments often enough by now. Take the weakest point, exaggerate it
> enough for it to become ridiculous and reject it.
BTW, that's called "Strawman" argument. It's a useful tool for those who
don't have very strong counter-arguments.
Paul Crowley
> > You are dead-on here. Jim's site is quite
> > obnoxious, as is Langdon's critique --
> > largely because they set out to conceal
> > the fact that orthodoxy has no answers.
> > They thrash around among the minor
> > byways down which AAT people have
> > gone, pretending that there are no major
> > issues, apparently hoping that no one
> > will notice that they are as utterly lost
> > as any AAT theorist ever was.
>
> Thank you, Paul. If only your posting had ended here, your
> intellectual credit rating would have risen 100% in my estimation.
I'm sure you would approve of slavish
agreement.
> > > If hominids waded through water more than ape
> > > ancestors they would be more likely to move
> > > bipedally. That's not vague.
> >
> > It's just both wrong and irrelevant -- since
> > you disdain to put forward any remotely
> > likely theory as how it could have lead
> > to terrestrial bipedalism.
>
> Oh yes I have. Many times. Over and over again.
I've never seen it. You don't seem to
be aware that selection has to operate:
i.e. those better able to walk bipedally
on land must have more descendants
than others in the population.
So Generation X is _for_some_distinct_
and_well_defined_reason_ more bipedal
on land than Generation X-1.
> As the water's edge of
> rivers, lakes, seas - you know - all of em except swimming pools are
> characterised by this thing called a gradient of depths, where deep
> water, gradually becomes shallow water and shallow water gradually
> becomes wet ground - this is *EXACTLY* the place where wading leads to
> terrestrial bipedalism.
Through a sort of process of osmosis?
> That's more than putting foreward a remotely likely theory - it's
> spelling it out in simple terms a six year old (but apparently not
> people who think they're experts in paleoanthropology) can see.
Somehow I just can't see any 'spelling out'.
> > > If hominids swam through water more than ape
> > > ancestors they would be more likely to gain
> > > buoyancy through increased adipocity. That's
> > > not vague.
> >
> > It's just wrong. Other terrestrial species
> > don't gain 'increased buoyancy' though
> > increased adiposity. Nor do humans --
> > by and large. I doubt if any of the
> > Olympic swimming champions had
> > significant levels of fat. Adult males
> > and children of about five often have
> > little fat, yet can learn to swim well.
>
> The leanest humans are, generally, fatter than the fattest primates.
> Arguing that extra bouyancy is not going to be helpful to an animals
> that, by I thought your own admission, is not a particularly adept
> swimmer, is perverse in the extreme.
Extra buoyancy may well be helpful.
But (a) it does not seem essential;
(b) even if it is, it could be achieved
far more easily by creating extra air-
spaces in the body (or the head) of
the animal. Unlike fat, air-spaces
weigh nothing, and cost nothing,
they will not slow the animal down
and they require no maintenance.
> Obviously, increased adipocity is
> likely to be quickly selected for in a group of primates which,
> through their largely arboreal past is not very adept at swimming.
Nope. It's not. If increased adiposity
was entirely cost-free, you might have
a case.
> > > If hominids lived in hot tropical water-side
> > > habitats they would be more likely to go for dips
> > > to keep cool than ape ancestors
> >
> > This is both wrong and ridiculous.
> > Native people in hot countries rarely
> > do this sort of thing. Nor do the great
> > bulk of other mammals. They don't
> > have the time nor the energy, and
> > insofar as they need to keep cool,
> > they find other ways. Human
> > mothers with small infants do not
> > go into deep water.
>
> Native people are not the same as hominids.
If you had a serious argument, then we'd
see natives of hot countries regularly
taking 'cooling dips'. We don't.
> 'Human mothers with small infants do not go into deep water'?
>
> http://www.babyswimming.com/
>
> http://www.babyworld.co.uk/information/baby/swimming/swimming_lessons.asp
>
> Just search Google for 'mothers+babies+swimming'.
You find all manner of nonsense with
that method.
> > > and evolve
> > > sweat cooling mechanisms to supplement it.
> >
> > That's getting even more ridiculous.
> > Sweating is essentially an adult male
> > phenomenon. (a) The whole of the
> > species does not consist of adult males
> > (even if that is the working assumption
> > of both yourself and standard PA);
> > (b) When you find a feature that affects
> > only a certain part of the population,
> > you explain it by the behaviour (or
> > other characteristics) of that part --
> > not of the whole.
>
> You keep saying that. Have you any evidence for it? My mum (bless her)
> used to sweat cobs and so do my kids, when they're hot and
> over-dressed.
Only superficially. Go into the changing
rooms of a group of adults after they've
played a game of football, and compare
them (and their shirts) with a group of
children (and their shirts) who've played
as long on the same day. There will be no
comparison in the degree of sweating.
Paul.
J Moore
Algis Kuliukas <al...@RiverApes.com> wrote in message
Again, you look at the features they say we share with these "more aquatic
than apes" mammals and you have seals, whales, and sirenia. That tells you
they're not actually talking about wading about or a little "less than an
otter" swimming, unless you're suggesting some sort of "homeopathy theory of
human evolution" where the magic power of water creates changes in inverse
proportion to contact with it.
> [..]
> > > You've missed the plot. Morgan's 'list of aquatic traits' were
> > > speculations. Some of them are more speculative than others. The
> > > hymen, the ventro-ventral copulation and the salt tears arguments are
> > > cases in point. It is easy to focus in on those and claim that you've
> > > exposed a great fallacy. Langdon did the same thing. He listed out the
> > > dreaded 23 traits with equal weighting and equal ridicule. This is
> > > just not fair. Morgan (1997) didn't do that. She had four chapters
> > > just on bipedalism for instance. Anyone that critiques this hypothesis
> > > fairly has to give appropriate weightings to the traits which are
> > > claimed may have a more aquatic explanation. Why we walk, why we're
> > > naked and why we're fat are the three biggest ones. Your critique, and
> > > Langdon's, simply don't do that. They clearly have an agenda to focus
> > > in on the more minor, weaker, points.
> >
> > The "naked" (we aren't, you know)
>
> What amount of body hair (that is number of hairs x average length)
> does an adult male human have compared to an average male chimpanzee?
> Make the same comparison for females and then for all people at
> different ages. Repeat for different ethnic groups. Add the data all
> up and work out an average. If it failed to reach even 0.5% (which I
> doubt) then, to the nearest integer, we're naked compared to chimps.
You at least have to look at the fact that we aren't naked, that we have
lots of head hair (and far longer than apes) and that the way it varies
between the sexes and during the lifespan shows clearly that it's a sexually
selected trait rather than due to convergence. This same is true of fat,
btw.
> > and fat (not all humans are, you know) --
>
> Not all but even the least fattest humans are typically fatter than
> primates. Your own Caroline Pond says so.
> "More than half the 31 captive monkeys that we examined were less than
> 5% fat, thinner than most laborotory rodents, although all of them had
> continuous access to food and little opportunity to exercise. ... The
> minimum fatness recorded for teenage girl athletes is 7%, and for men
> 5%. Thus most human beings are not only much fatter than most wild and
> captive mammals, but women and girls are consistently fatter than men
> and boys." Pond (1987:63)
>
> Pond, Caroline M (1987). Fat and Figures. New Scientist Vol:
> Pages:62-66
>
> So, again, you're just wrong. Compared to apes we ARE naked and
> compared to all primates we're fat. How could that be, Jim? What's
> your ecological scenario for explaining that? Is it the
>
slightly-less-wooded-than-chimp-habitats-but-slightly-more-wooded-than-might
-be-labelled-savannahs-because-that-was-a-straw-man-invented-by-Elaine-Morga
n
> habitat? And if it is why did it have such a drammatic effect?
Both features are quite obviously sexually selected, and in amount of fat I
agree with Pond that this is something one expects to see in an animal which
hasn't had to deal with much predation (for quite some time now) just as you
see with other animals. Again, if it were an aquatic trait, then you are
comparing us to seals, whales, and sirenia, plus you would see an incredibly
different pattern of differences between the sexes and during the lifespan.
> > well, maybe you don't, but there you go -- are traits "shared" with
seals,
> > whales, and sirenia. And of course those traits aren't really the same
in
> > humans as in those other mammals, so that's another problem for the
AAT/H
> > (and esp. it's claim of parsimony). And of course when we look at
> > bipedalism, aquatic anything isn't where it's at, but other primates
are.
>
> Blaa blaa - still banging on about seals and whales. Jim, we've moved
> on.
If you've moved on, why are you still using as evidence features found only
in seals, whales, and sirenia and claiming theose features are similar to
humans?
> > > If hominids waded through water more than ape ancestors they would be
> > > more likely to move bipedally. That's not vague.
> > >
> > > If hominids swam through water more than ape ancestors they would be
> > > more likely to gain buoyancy through increased adipocity. That's not
> > > vague.
> > >
> > > If hominids lived in hot tropical water-side habitats they would be
> > > more likely to go for dips to keep cool than ape ancestors and evolve
> > > sweat cooling mechanisms to supplement it. That's not vague.
> >
> > It's vague when it doesn't give any sort of time needed to affect these
> > changes -- of course, since the features in question are those of
virtually
> > or completely aquatic mammals which have been aquatic for between 25-50
> > million years, there's a really good reason to be vague on your part.
>
> Yes it does - time since the LCA of course. We don't actually know how
> long that was but if it was 5.5 Ma or 13Ma, increased selection from
> moving through water is going to have some effect isn't it?
>
> I mean your position is either saying:
>
> a) Our ancestors did not move through water more than the ancestors of
> chimps since the LCA. (Not backed up by the fossil record and not by
> comparative anatomy either)
>
> b) If they did move through water more, then no significant selection
> took place. (Illogical since an increased terrestriality has certainly
> had traits selected for.)
Since you are using as evidence features found only in seals, whales, and
sirenia I don't think the idea seems very sensible, especially since the
featrues in humans are dramatically different in differences between the
sexes and during the lifespan, indicating that they are sexually selected
rather than due to convergence.
> [..]
> > > I want you to do that, Jim. I want you to cite references to the
> > > claims you make. That's what you criticse Elaine Morgan for not doing
> > > but you rarely do it yourself..
> >
> > You read that page and you still can't tell where Hardy said what I
> > reported? Wow.
>
> You still don't get it, Jim. I can read your page and I have. But I
> want you to get into the habit of writing a claim and putting a
> reference next to it. The technique goes something like this...
>
> Hardy claimed that the aquatic phase occurred in the fossil gap that
> was apparent in 1960. He wrote "It is interesting to note that the
> Miocene fossil Proconsul, which may perhaps reprsent approximately the
> kind of ape giving rise to the human stock, has an arm and a hand of
> very unspecialised form: much more human than that of the modern ape.
> It is in the gap of some ten million years or more, between Proconsul
> and Australopithecus that I suppose Man to have been cradled by the
> sea." Hardy (1960:645)
>
> Hardy, Alister (1960). Was Man More Aquatic in the Past?. New
> Scientist Vol:7 Pages:642-645
>
> See? It's easy. Now you try...
Check out his later statement then -- what did he say then? Did he mean
what he said then, or not? If so, you have a statement that it was 20 plus
million years, far longer than hominids have existed; if not, you're stuck
now saying that he was so incompetent that he couldn't even remember or read
what he'd said previously. Either one is damning, yet on the basis of that
you think he should have been taken seriously.
> [..]
> > > I know that New Scientist is not peer reviewed but it's a more serious
> > > and important journal than Zenith.
> >
> > How non-serious need one get before they're allowed to spout nonsense
and
> > have it accepted as acurate science? I say that any science writing,
> > especially that which purports to be trying to get a new idea accepted,
> > should be accurate, no matter where it's published -- you obviously
> > disagree, so again, just how non-serious does one have to get in choice
of
> > publishing venue before one's work gets accepted uncritically in
science?
>
> Ideally every single statement one reads should be absolutely truthful
> and fully referenced but, unlike you apparently, I'm not living in
> fantasy land.
How many untruthful things are you allowed to have uncritically accepted in
science? Does it vary by venue, or age, or whether one has grandchildren,
as many AAT/H proponents over the years have insisted in newsgroups? I'm
getting on now, I have a grandchild -- can I now write up something in an
appropriately unserious venue and have it uncritically accepted as
scientific fact, as you suggest?
> When you claimed that I'd said that Hardy and Morgan's work was
> 'absolute trash' I was appauled but, hey, it's only a newsgroup and I
> expect you'd had a few - so no probs. If you'd have written the same
> thing in the local edition of the Cleveland Telegraph, I'd have been a
> little more pissed off - but journalism doesn't have such high
> standards either. If it had been in New Scientist I'd have written a
> letter of complaint. Of course such a silly statement would never have
> got past the editor of such a journal and if it had arrived at a
> scholarly journal like AJPA they wouldn't have even opened the
> envelope.
>
> Elaine Morgan made errors but so does everyone, even you.
I'm not insisting that scientists accept my radical new theory -- and I've
got a grandkid! Where do I apply for "my I'm an old grandpa get into
science free" card?
If you wish to have the AAT/H simply be one of many entries in a long list
of things that hominids did when bipedal, you would have no argument and,
incidentally, no hypothesis -- just one item in a long list. But that's not
really the AAT/H, is it? And look at the hair reduction business -- a) from
the presumed ancestral condition, it seems from the evidence that we could
have done well to either become more hairy or completely non-hairy -- we did
neither. Swimmers use two methods when it comes to hair -- they remove it,
which shows that the condition we find ourselves in is not good for swimming
fast, and nowadays they often use bodysuits which mimic the boundary layer
effects seen in dolphin's dermal riges or seals' hairy skin. The one thing
they don't do is to leave us as we are -- and don't even look at head hair
and swimming speed. (But then AAT/H proponents don't, do they?)
> [..]
> > > In the New Scientist paper he cites 10 My. In the Zenith paper he
> > > cites twenty. This tells us something about a) the relative quality of
> > > the editors, b) how much Hardy had declined in another 17 years after
> > > his retirement and c) the determination of Jim Moore to give the worst
> > > possible slant on anything to do with this idea.
> >
> > Ah yes, it's the editors' fault, not Hardy's -- poor fellow. Just as
you
> > suggested that Morgan's problems with leaving words out of quotes
without
> > any indication of their absence is her editors' fault... which would
mean,
> > of course, that her editors also crept into her home or office and
altered
> > newsgroup posts before she sent them along. Wow -- these editors have a
lot
> > of power, and the poor author. Well, Algis, let me respectfully submit
that
> > that theory is bullshit.
>
> You missed out points b and c. Editors are supposed to check the copy
> before putting it in to print. I'd have thought that any decent
> scientist reading Hardy's 'twenty million year' reference in Zenith
> would have known better, wouldn't you? Hardy was 81 at the time, I
> think your miserliness of spirit is appauling.
Again, where do I apply for my "my I'm an old grandpa get into science free"
card? I am not an ageist as you are, Algis, when you attempt to excuse
errors by Hardy and/or Morgan by referring to their age.
I haven't looked at your site's critiques yet, Algis, and as I've said
before, I don't want to assume they are all so facile and ridiculous as your
complaints about my URL. On the contrary, I hope that some might be the
sort of valid criticsm that does me a favor, as the Carl Sagan quote on my
opening page puts it. Of course, having seen you claim that I found only "4
tiny errors" makes me wonder if I will be disappointed in your efforts --
but I'll keep my hopes up; I'm an optimist by nature.
Here the assumption is that scientists didn't take a look at it; the ones I
knew in the field did, and they didn't find it to be sensible -- you can
take a look at all sorts of claims and not feel they're worth the time to
painstakingly dissect them in print -- it's far easier to spout speculations
backed up by "false facts" than it is to take them apart.
Then why do you and Marc and Elaine complain so when someone does take a
look at the evidence?
Algis Kuliukas
Yes, it would be. The same Tobias, in fact, that also wrote these...
"The AAH was largely ignored by Hardy's contemporaries and it has
received little attention from succeeding generations, until recently.
. . Sadly few scientists had lingered long enough over this AAH to
give it fair-minded thought and analysis. In 1997, John Langdon of
Indianapolis made a critical analysis of the AAH. Of 32 features he
culled [! - quite right!] from the literature, and which had been
proposed as aquatic traits, he concluded that 3 were possible aquatic
adaptations, whist 7 were "consistent with AAH". Of these 7, 4 may be
read from the fossil record. ...
As the competing savanna hypothesis is no longer tenable since I
presented much evidence against it in my Daryll Forde Lecture at
University college London in 1995, I believe that scientists have a
duty to re-examine these claims, much as Langdon (1997) has done."
Tobias (2002:15)
"1) The AAH highlights a real problem that needs to be addressed. I am
not yet convinced that the AAH is correctly applied to all of the the
traits that its proponents have listed, but for at least some of the
enumerated characters it may well provide the most reasonable, or
perhaps the only, explanation which has yet been proposed.
2) We should not telescope too many phases and charactersistics of
hominid evolution into this single, over-arching hypothesis.
3) Those traits for which there are sounder and better-supported,
alternative explanations, should be expunged from the AAH.
4) What is left may still be substantial enough to warrant more
research. We need new investigations such as by fresh, open-minded
research students or post-doctoral fellows.
5) Above all, let us keep our thought processes open to changes of
paradigms, and especially to the change which would be necessitated if
some aspects of the AAH proved to be valid. In sum, the role of water,
while long appreciated and emphasised by ecologists, has been sadly
neglected by human evolutionists." Tobias (2002:16)
"This is a plea for the heavy, earth-bound view of hominid evolution
to be lightened and leavened by a greater emphasis upon the role of
water and waterways in hominid development, survival, diversification
and disemination." Tobias (2002:16)
"TRIBUTE AND THANKS
Hereby, I express my personal tribute, admiration and felicitations to
Mrs Elaine Morgan. I am grateful to Professor Letten Saugstad and
Professor Ole M. Sejersted for inviting me to the Oslo Fest in honour
of Elaine Morgan and, even though illness prevented me from attending,
for insisting that I provide this slight offering for publication. I
am grateful to Professor Michael Crawford. As always my thanks are
extended to Mrs Heather White." Tobias (2003:16)
Want to get into a pissing contest? I make the score 5-1 so far.
No-one has ever claimed that Tobias *supports* the AAH, you great
wally. The fact that you keep trotting out your little response from
him to prove that every time I quote him shows how way off the mark
you are on this. The point I was making amd the point I always make
when citing Tobias on Morgan was that, unlike your magnus opus hero,
he actually rates Elaine Morgan's work quite highly and values her
input into the debate on human evolution.
Whereas Moore seems obsessed with performing a one-man character
assasination of Morgan's work to bring this damned AAH thing down once
and for all, no matter how he does it, Tobias has no problem
recognising the value of her espousal of an alternative view. Moore
cannot bring himself to admit Morgan did anything right and sleazily
twists and distorts all four (or was it just one) of her tiny errors
into shock-horror massive fraudulent deceptions whereas Tobias is
generous in his praise of the 'superb' quality of her books.
A bit of a contrast, I'd say. Moore twists, Tobias praises - as I
suggested, people will make their own minds up. Just like here with
your little posting. One the one hand we have what Tobias said on
camera in a BBC documentary interview and what he has published in the
literature and on the other we have a snippet of a personal
correspondence from him to you. We don't know what else he wrote just
before the 'Nowehere...' bit, or what you wrote to him to invoke such
a response. People will make their own minds up as to which is the
more significant.
Algis Kuliukas
Algis Kuliukas
> Algis Kuliukas <al...@RiverApes.com> wrote in message
[..]
> > So when you claimed that I'd said their work was 'absolute trash'
> > what, exactly, was that? Was it a lie or just sloppyness? As this is
> > limit of the big, terrible claims you make against Elaine Morgan
> > doesn't this put you firmly and squarely in the same boat as her?
Nothing to say there, Jim? If I'd have done that you'd have leapt on
me from high above and maybe it would have ended up on your 'Can AATer
research be trusted?' page. It's just one rule for you and one rule
for us, isn't it?
[..]
> > In five books and several articles it is posible to find a couple of
> > words and quote them out of context to prove that the authors meant
> > anything you fancy, Jim. But if you were to change the habit of a
> > lifetime and be fair and reasonable for half an hour or so and read a
> > whole chapter of any of Morgan's books or Hardy's whole article and
> > get a feel for the broad context that they are referring to, you'd
> > have to agree that they're not postulating anything more than humans
> > merely being more aquatic than our ape cousins. All you have done is
> > to hunting for slight errors and misrepresnted them as fraudulent.
> > You've filtered out the more ambiguous phrases and exaggerated them
> > into 'humans were like whales' claims. It's just sleazy crap, Jim. You
> > ought to try to get a job as science correspondant for the UK rag, The
> > Sunday Sport.
>
> Again, you look at the features they say we share with these "more aquatic
> than apes" mammals and you have seals, whales, and sirenia. That tells you
> they're not actually talking about wading about or a little "less than an
> otter" swimming, unless you're suggesting some sort of "homeopathy theory of
> human evolution" where the magic power of water creates changes in inverse
> proportion to contact with it.
Amazing. The author of aquaticape.org just never got the whole point
all along.
[..]
> > > The "naked" (we aren't, you know)
> >
> > What amount of body hair (that is number of hairs x average length)
> > does an adult male human have compared to an average male chimpanzee?
> > Make the same comparison for females and then for all people at
> > different ages. Repeat for different ethnic groups. Add the data all
> > up and work out an average. If it failed to reach even 0.5% (which I
> > doubt) then, to the nearest integer, we're naked compared to chimps.
>
> You at least have to look at the fact that we aren't naked, that we have
> lots of head hair (and far longer than apes) and that the way it varies
> between the sexes and during the lifespan shows clearly that it's a sexually
> selected trait rather than due to convergence. This same is true of fat,
> btw.
The head hair happens to be largely out of water whilst swimming the
breast stroke. If it was purely sexual selection how come both men and
women have lost their body hair? If sc fat was sexual selected how
come even the leanest males are generally still fatter than the
fattest primates? There may be an element of sexual selection going on
but it can hardly explain male hairlessness or male sc fat.
[..]
> > So, again, you're just wrong. Compared to apes we ARE naked and
> > compared to all primates we're fat. How could that be, Jim? What's
> > your ecological scenario for explaining that? Is it the
> >
> slightly-less-wooded-than-chimp-habitats-but-slightly-more-wooded-than-might
> -be-labelled-savannahs-because-that-was-a-straw-man-invented-by-Elaine-Morga
> n
> > habitat? And if it is why did it have such a drammatic effect?
>
> Both features are quite obviously sexually selected, and in amount of fat I
> agree with Pond that this is something one expects to see in an animal which
> hasn't had to deal with much predation (for quite some time now) just as you
> see with other animals. Again, if it were an aquatic trait, then you are
> comparing us to seals, whales, and sirenia, plus you would see an incredibly
> different pattern of differences between the sexes and during the lifespan.
You completely avoided my question. What ecological scenario would
have allowed this sexual selection positive feedback loop to cause
such a marked difference between humans and chimps?
No I'm not comparing to seals and whales. People that are fatter are
less likely to drown than people who are thinner. It's called
buoyancy.
The lifespan differences are not so hard to explain. Infants are most
vulnerable to drowning hence it makes sense for them to establish a
thick layer of sc fat at birth and in the early months. Later in life,
the argument that they are to show sexual maturity is not incompatible
with a more aquatic lifestyle. The function of advertising to the
opposite sex that you are mature need not have involved nakedness
and/or fat (it didn't in any other primate, did it?) and it is
certainly an odd and very expensive method to use for a hominid that
is supposed to have been moving into more open and arid habitats. It
makes perfect sense, however if these hominids were spending a
significant part of their lives in water. Seen in this light extra
female sc fat might be seen as advertising to males that they are
relatively fit in water (more buoyuant and hence less likely to drown)
and therefore a better bet for a male to invest in, and vice versa
with females too.
[..]
> > Blaa blaa - still banging on about seals and whales. Jim, we've moved
> > on.
>
> If you've moved on, why are you still using as evidence features found only
> in seals, whales, and sirenia and claiming theose features are similar to
> humans?
I don't need fully aquatic animals to show that more fat in humans
makes you more bouyant and less likely to drown.
I don't need them to show that shaving body hair off a human reduces
drag significantly in water and that hair reduction aids dip/sweat
cooling.
[..]
> > I mean your position is either saying:
> >
> > a) Our ancestors did not move through water more than the ancestors of
> > chimps since the LCA. (Not backed up by the fossil record and not by
> > comparative anatomy either)
> >
> > b) If they did move through water more, then no significant selection
> > took place. (Illogical since an increased terrestriality has certainly
> > had traits selected for.)
>
> Since you are using as evidence features found only in seals, whales, and
> sirenia I don't think the idea seems very sensible, especially since the
> featrues in humans are dramatically different in differences between the
> sexes and during the lifespan, indicating that they are sexually selected
> rather than due to convergence.
You can keep repeating that all you like, Jim, but as I said, we've
moved on. The aquatic mammals were only an analogy, a wake-up call for
Hardy to realise what might be going on. It seems, Jim, that you've
just never understood that. What a waste of time, then, your attempted
character assination of Elaine Morgan has been. Any increased
aquaticism in humans as compared to chimps would predict increased
adipocity and reduced body hair irrespective of what's going on in
aquatic animals. They're almost irrelevant. They only act to show that
in mammalia, as an order, nakedness and fat are most likely associated
with aquatic factors.
[..]
> Check out his later statement then -- what did he say then? Did he mean
> what he said then, or not? If so, you have a statement that it was 20 plus
> million years, far longer than hominids have existed; if not, you're stuck
> now saying that he was so incompetent that he couldn't even remember or read
> what he'd said previously. Either one is damning, yet on the basis of that
> you think he should have been taken seriously.
The later reference was clearly an error. An error made by an 81 year
old that had retired 17 years earlier. An error he and the editor of
the student magazine it was published in should have picked up on. As
usual Jim Moore tries to twist simple errors into something much
worse. It's all he has done. It's sleazy and dishonest just like his
URL, www.aquaticape.org.
Anyone reading this will see that you have a clear agenda to use the
worst possible AAH material every time to twist and distort into the
worst possible light.
[..]
> > Ideally every single statement one reads should be absolutely truthful
> > and fully referenced but, unlike you apparently, I'm not living in
> > fantasy land.
>
> How many untruthful things are you allowed to have uncritically accepted in
> science? Does it vary by venue, or age, or whether one has grandchildren,
> as many AAT/H proponents over the years have insisted in newsgroups? I'm
> getting on now, I have a grandchild -- can I now write up something in an
> appropriately unserious venue and have it uncritically accepted as
> scientific fact, as you suggest?
Well that's what you *have* done, Jim. It's called www.aquaticape.org.
It's ok, now, suddenly, I'm beginning to understand.
> > When you claimed that I'd said that Hardy and Morgan's work was
> > 'absolute trash' I was appauled but, hey, it's only a newsgroup and I
> > expect you'd had a few - so no probs. If you'd have written the same
> > thing in the local edition of the Cleveland Telegraph, I'd have been a
> > little more pissed off - but journalism doesn't have such high
> > standards either. If it had been in New Scientist I'd have written a
> > letter of complaint. Of course such a silly statement would never have
> > got past the editor of such a journal and if it had arrived at a
> > scholarly journal like AJPA they wouldn't have even opened the
> > envelope.
> >
> > Elaine Morgan made errors but so does everyone, even you.
>
> I'm not insisting that scientists accept my radical new theory -- and I've
> got a grandkid! Where do I apply for "my I'm an old grandpa get into
> science free" card?
Try www.aquaticape.org. I think that qualifies you.
[..]
> > Apes wade bipedally ... and we walk bipedally on land.
> > Apes don't swim as well as we do ... and they're less buoyant.
> > Shaving body hair reduces drag in water and helps sweat cooling... we
> > are more naked than apes.
>
> If you wish to have the AAT/H simply be one of many entries in a long list
> of things that hominids did when bipedal, you would have no argument and,
> incidentally, no hypothesis -- just one item in a long list. But that's not
> really the AAT/H, is it?
It's more than that, Jim, and you know it. The wading hypothesis is
the strongest on that list. The one that is most causative, the one
with the most evidence in extant apes and in the fossil record.
> And look at the hair reduction business -- a) from
> the presumed ancestral condition, it seems from the evidence that we could
> have done well to either become more hairy or completely non-hairy -- we did
> neither.
How do you know that? Perhaps Homo erectus or early Homo sapiens was
completely without body hair. How would we know?
> Swimmers use two methods when it comes to hair -- they remove it,
> which shows that the condition we find ourselves in is not good for swimming
> fast, and nowadays they often use bodysuits which mimic the boundary layer
> effects seen in dolphin's dermal riges or seals' hairy skin. The one thing
> they don't do is to leave us as we are -- and don't even look at head hair
> and swimming speed. (But then AAT/H proponents don't, do they?)
But how do you know that more body hair wouldn't make us worse in
water? It seems a logical enough interpretation and until that study
has been done, it must remain a plausible hypothesis. The body suit
evidence isn't that great actually. From my discussions with experts
in swimming exercise physiologists in WA (they know their swimming
here in Australia) they apparently reduce drag only to about the same
level that shaving would.
It's just not been looked at properly yet. There's been, what? three
studies done. None of them quantified the hair removed and so
attempted to see if there was a correlation between hair removed and
reduced drag, none of them continued the study as the hair re-grew.
What you are basically arguing is that to get any drag reduction in
water you need *absolute* hair reduction. Going by that, if a single
hair was left unshaven anywhere on the body, or if some hair was left
only half shaven, then the *entire* benefit would be lost. That is
clearly a ludicrous position. There are likely to be some body
surfaces where having hairs present, orientated in a certain way,
would actually benefit the swimming stroke. The hairs on the back of
one's arm are a good case in point. Whilst swimming the breast stroke
the orientation of the hair (laterally towards the midline when arms
are held down at the sides in a supine position) would cause greater
friction in the water during the power stroke but not in the recovery
stroke. No-one has studied this effect, or any other specific region
of body hair for that matter.
It is fair enough to be sceptical about this but that's not what
you're doing - you're just trying desperately to rubbish the whole
thing, using whatever snippets you think you can find to do so. In
doing this, you're actually doing exactly what you claim Morgan did.
You still missed my point c. (Gosh, it's hard getting you to see any
fault in your own reasoning) Hardy was an FRS and his 1960 paper was
written when he was at the peak of his career. It was written just
after his Brighton speech and published in a reasonably reputable
magazine. The Zenith paper was written 17 years later when he was long
into retirement and, at 81, not of certain good health. It's not being
ageist to suggest that the earlier paper is the more significant, just
fair minded. It's instructive that you *refuse* to use the ten million
year quote from the earlier paper, but insist on using the twenty
million year one from the second - just to make his argument look that
much weaker. I still haven't even got an admission from you that the
1960 paper was saying ten million years, you even tried to deny that!
Can you admit that you were wrong, Jim? Ever?
[..]
> > > > Look, I'll make it easy for you...
> > > >
> > > > Click this link http://www.riverapes.com/AAH/Hardy/HardyPage4.htm
> > > >
> > > > Scroll down the third column, last but one para, last sentence.
> > > >
> > > > Now if I'd made an error like that, or Elaine or any AAH proponent, it
> > > > would find it's way on Jim Moore's 'Can AATer Research be Trusted?'
> > > > page.
> > > >
> > > > See http://www.aquaticape.org/quotes.html for the original twists
> > > >
> > > > and http://www.riverapes.com/AAH/Arguments/JimMoore/Quotes.htm for the
> > > > expose.
> >
> > Nothing to say there, Jim?
> >
> > See that? He's very quick to pounce on the slightest error any AAH
> > proponent makes but when you show that he's just as prone to making
> > errors (or are they deceptions?) - oops, he just tries to slip away
> > into the mist.
>
> I haven't looked at your site's critiques yet, Algis, and as I've said
> before, I don't want to assume they are all so facile and ridiculous as your
> complaints about my URL. On the contrary, I hope that some might be the
> sort of valid criticsm that does me a favor, as the Carl Sagan quote on my
> opening page puts it. Of course, having seen you claim that I found only "4
> tiny errors" makes me wonder if I will be disappointed in your efforts --
> but I'll keep my hopes up; I'm an optimist by nature.
Sorry, but you missed my point. My earlier link was to a scanned image
of Hardy's whole paper which I put on my web site so that people could
access the whole original article very easily rather than just take
the headline (another Moore twist was that I "insisted" people only
read the title.) I was kind of hoping that you'd concede that in the
1960 paper Hardy actually cited a figure of 10 My, not 20 My. I was
kind of hoping that the great Jim Moore might admit that even he makes
mistakes. I know this is difficult for you, Jim, and that it kind of
destroys your whole argument. After all, if you make as many mistakes
as Elaine Morgan does, it makes all that self-righteousness (what was
it? 'you won't find those here'?) all seem a bit silly.
I want to see if you can admit that you were wrong. The Hardy (1960)
quote clearly refers to ten million years.
As to the critiques of your web site. Blimey, still haven't read them
five months on. Seems to me that you're not really very interested in
getting any feedback positive or otherwise. Not much of scientific
critique that.
A link to my critique would be enough to regain some credibility. Can
you do that?
[..]
> > So are you conceding that I didn't actually claim that Hardy's paper
> > per se was 'mild and borringly obvious' as you tried to twist?
Jim's not saying.
> > But see, here's another Moore twist. You know I think I'm going to
> > start a page of 'Mooreish deceptions' myself.
> >
> > 1. "And what, I wonder, given the above, did Elaine say when you said
> > that her
> > work, and Hardy's, was all just incomptetent trash?" Moore
> > (2004-Aug-30 sap 'What is the Aquatic Ape Theory?')
> >
> > 2. "It was one of the many times you *insisted* [my emphasis] that all
> > should read only Hardy's title and ignore all the words that
> > followed..." Moore (2004-sep-10 sap 'What is the Aquatic Ape Theory?')
> >
> > 3. "I disagree with your idea that one should stop reading after the
> > title." Moore (2004-sep-03 sap 'What is the Aquatic Ape Theory?')
> >
> > Keep 'em coming, Jim.
No comment there, either.
[..snipped a tonne of Hardy quotes in response to Moore's amazing
claim that I insisted that people only read his title - something of
course I've never done, I've even put a scanned copy of Hardy's
original paper on my web site in full so people can read it all for
themselves.]
http://www.riverapes.com/AAH/Hardy/HardyPage1.htm
> Here the assumption is that scientists didn't take a look at it; the ones I
> knew in the field did, and they didn't find it to be sensible -- you can
> take a look at all sorts of claims and not feel they're worth the time to
> painstakingly dissect them in print -- it's far easier to spout speculations
> backed up by "false facts" than it is to take them apart.
Rubbish. When you say they 'took a look at it' - what? you mean over a
coffee, or whilst they were sat on the toilet? I meant, of course, a
proper scientific investigation of the kind I'm doing now, 44 years
later.
I thought in science we publish thoughts on hypotheses in peer
reviewed journals not bitch about them in corridors or write one-sided
web sites. Save Langdon 1997 and those aquasceptic chapters in Roede
et al (1991) - exactly where is this great AAH refutation? It
certainly is not your one-sided whitewash of a masquerading web site.
When it comes to the AAH it has been dismissed on the grounds of
misunderstandings, gossip, rumor, sleaze and no science.
You are as guilty (if not more) of spouting false facts as Elaine ever
was.
[..]
> > But you don't give references to the 'errors' except on four ocassions
> > and even those are just pathetic. If you say there are more... let's
> > have them - WITH FULL CITATIONS! Can you do that?
Apparently not.
[..]
> > Morgan's works were "blunders filled with falsehoods and distortions"
> > - Jim Moore (2004-sep-10 sap 'What is the Aquatic Ape Theory')
> >
> > ... that's one opinion.
> >
> > "I see Elaine Morgan, through her series of superbly written books,
> > presenting a challenge to the scientists to take an interest in this
> > thing, to look at the evidence dispassionately. Not to avert your gaze
> > as though it were something you that you hadn't ought to hear about or
> > hadn't ought to see. And those that are honest with themselves are
> > going to dispassionately examine the evidence. We've got to if we are
> > going to be true to our calling as scientists. Phillip Tobias 1998
> > ("BBC Documentary 'The Aquatic Ape Hypothesis'").
> >
> > ... there's another. Take your pick.
>
> Then why do you and Marc and Elaine complain so when someone does take a
> look at the evidence?
You're quoting selectively again, Jim. Did you notice? He said 'look
at the evidence *DISPASSIONATELY*.' (you snipped that word out,
conveniently.) You have made it abundantly clear that this is not what
you have done. Hardy (1960) "ten million years", Hardy (1977) "twenty
million years" - which one do you take?, the later - simply because it
makes Hardy look like a fool. Anyone looking at his claims
*dispassionately* would have given him the benefit of the doubt.
Another example: Morgan's (1997) book has four chapters on bipedal
origins. Wading is the biggest claim in the AAH and yet you only
stress the miniscule, teeny-weeny-itsie-bitsie change in emphasis over
Morgan's reporting of the Aldosterone evidence out of Ganong and twist
it into another shock-horror deception rather than discuss the bulk of
Morgan's treatment or the block of evidence that is growing all the
time for it. Langdon's treatment was almost as bad. If you were
looking at the evidence dispassionately you'd have considered the
wading hypothesis full on, and not tried to twist it like you have
into another straw man.
Algis Kuliukas
Algis Kuliukas
> (From personal communication, 8/31/2001)
>
> "...I am interested to learn that you are submitting an article on fringe
> would be so kind.
>
> With best wishes,
>
> Yours sincerely,
>
> (Professor Emeritus) Phillip V. Tobias"
So, did you ever write your article on "fringe theories" then,
Michael? Or was that just a ploy to embarass Tobias into giving you
the words you were looking for?
Let's see this great article. Is it published anywhere? If not, what
about a draft of it on your computer. You surely must have written
something by now. I mean this was over three years ago.
While you're at it, how about letting us see the full text of the
letter you sent to Phillip Tobias? I think scientific objectivity
requires that people see how you managed to put him in such a
situation that he felt obliged to state that he had never supported
the AAH - something no-one has any doubts over in any case. You trot
this treasured piece out often enough, I think the public have the
right to see the full context, don't you?
Algis Kuliukas
Rick Wagler
> "Rick Wagler" <taxi...@shaw.ca> wrote in message news:<q7dZc.291163$gE.117190@pd7tw3no>...
> > "Algis Kuliukas" <al...@RiverApes.com> wrote in message
> > news:77a70442.04083...@posting.google.com...
> > > "Rick Wagler" <taxi...@shaw.ca> wrote in message
> [..]
> > > > > So Morgan, even after nearly 30 years of writing about it, wasn't
> "really
> > > > > even at the stage to be able to define the hypothesis"?! That's
> > > > astounding.
> > >
> > > I agree. But if you read her books you'll see that she does never
> > > actually define it.
> >
> > Then what's the point?? And especially given Elaine's endless
> > claims to have a 'theory' that deserved equal consideration with
> > the work of genuine scientists this observation of yours is the most
> > damning criticism of EM work that I've seen.
>
> The point was to try to get people to think about it, to discuss it
> and to investigate it. I'm doing that. I'm doing it because,
> apparently every professional paleoanthropology departmental gead just
> knew it was a load of crap and wasn't worth looking at, even though -
> truth be known - they couldn't even tell you what it was. The fact
> that I'm doing what Elaine Morgan has expected PAs to do is hardly a
> damning criticism of her contribution. I admire her more than most
> people who have written about human evolution.
>
what she intended - get a new viewpoint established - she had to do
something she is manifestly incapable of doing - present a genuinely
provocative critique of prevailing theories and present new ideas and
concepts in a challenging way. Whales are naked and so are we just
doesn't cut it.
> > Her works are merely all about trying to get
> > > people with open minds (a very rare phenomenon in paleoanthropology
> > > when it comes to the outrageous idea that our ancestors might have
> > > actuially gone in the water sometimes, it seems) interested in this
> > > thing.
> >
> > A chatty 'critique' with very poor research and no substantive
> > position to put forth? I'm sorry, Algis, either you were abducted
> > by space aliens or you weren't. What's the point of timid half
> > measures like this.
>
> The "very poor research" is , what exactly? The four tiny errors on
> Jim Moore's masquerading one-sided web site? Four tiny errors out of
> hundreds of citations and claims. You could find as many errors in any
> popular science book if you were obsessed enough to try to find them.
> Do you have any others?
>
Your characterization of the quality of Elaine's research is bogus.
The great overarching error of her work is that it represents a conclusion
in search of evidence. This is why the substantial - not trivial - misreadings
of sources are so blatant and so damaging. What Jim has pointed out are
not minor factual errors as you claim but substantial examples of her
methodology. But since your hypothesis is precisely the same kind of
enterprise it is, of course, only to be expected that you can't see this.
As for citations and claims the first are few and far between and one
cannot identify the source for most of her claims. Your attempted
rejoinder to Jim that he does not give precise page references to
a clearly identified article does not clear up the mess Elaine has made
but merely indicates that you don't appreciate the problem.
> 'No substantive position?' - really, Rick - it must be you who's been
> abducted by aliens. The very substantive positon is the beauty at
> which a whole host of ape-human differences are explained away with
> consumate ease - we moved through water more than they did.
>
And your evidence is? BRING ON THE WHALES!! The AAT 'evidence' has
been examined in detail on this group and it is flummery. But that's
just my opinion.
> > That's why it's not as rigorously researched as Jim Moore would
> > > like.
> >
> > Nonsense. It's not rigorously researched because she couldn't
> > do it. Jim's website contains ample evidence of this. This doesn't
> > make Elaine a bad person but if you are going to make the demands
> > she did for a hearing from the field you have to put on a better
> > show than this
>
> 'Ample evidence' - FOUR FRIGGING TWISTS OF TINY ERRORS?
>
See above.
> So... the Darwin misquote - oh yeah, really terrible that.
> The The Elsner & Gooden Misquote was the worst but even that hardly
> deflected her general point.
> The Negus quote - from a newgroups chat-line.
> The Denton quote - where it's Moore, not Morgan, doing the twisting.
>
> See http://www.riverapes.com/AAH/Arguments/JimMoore/Quotes.htm for
> details
>
> And this is your ample evidence from her five books - wow. You're just
> making it up or, actually, following the pied piper Jim Moore.
>
I've read two of her books and they are as Jim and many others describe.
Very thin reads. A monument to unexamined alternatives. No substantial
examination of PA. Refusal to actually come to grips with central
concepts such as the nature of savannah environments and on and on.
To be blunt I was really surprised at how effervescent these books
were. Richard Hoaglund, Ivan Sanderson, Graham Hancock present robust,
fully mounted arguments. That they are basically nonsense when they
aren't downright insane is beside the point. They know what the game
is. Elaine doesn't. Which is why her oft-stated claim to be the only
thing on offer was so bogus and why her latter-day recantation is so
astonishing.
> > They're a series of popular science think pieces, not PhD
> > > theses.
> >
> > More guff. Popular science pieces are incredibly difficult
> > to write. You have to have a familiarity with the field and
> > be able to write about it without dumbing it down. Walker's
> > "The Wisdom of the Bones" is an escellent example.
>
> Desmond Morris' Naked Ape is worse than Morgan's worst, and so are
> several others. Craig Stanford's 'Upright' is also pretty poor except
> from a point of view of historical commentary on the subject.
>
Well I won't debate Morris but I will say that I rather doubt that
Stanford's work is on a par with Elaine's no matter what the
shortcomings.
<snip>
> > And what is "scrutinising it like a PhD thesis" supposed to mean?
> > You may find out that scrutinzing a PhD thesis involves checking
> > the candidates work for consistency of argument and knowledge
> > of the field. Popular science books - the good ones at any rate - pass
> > this test. Do you think pop science means you don't have to make
> > a sound argument, be careful with sources and understand the concepts
> > they are trying to explain? Pop science that doesn't do this is justifiably
> > scorned.
>
> The basic arguments were very sound - if one or two examples (like
> ventro-ventro copulation and salt tears) were over extended or not
> checked thoroughly enough. She made a few tiny errors that would have
> been picked up if it was a PhD thesis. That is, obviously, the point I
> was making.
>
Again see above. That you say her arguments were very sound is revealing.
> > > Quoting from the student rag again, Jim?
> > >
> > The 'New Scientist"? Hardy had a bundle of connections and
> > a big reputation. He could have given this thing a real good
> > push by putting a decent attempt at a comprehensive argument
> > together. He would have had absolutely no problem finding a
> > publisher. Is the fact that he chose not to an indication of how serious
> > he was about this stuff?
>
> Jim was quoting from his Zenith article, I think. He likes to do that
> because it contains the weakest Hardy arguments.
>
He has responded to the NS piece. Which is the great Hardy piece
of theorizing. I can't imagine how the Zenith article could be weaker
unless he was losing it completely which you seem to hint at.
> I've spoken to his son about this and he informs me that he was very
> serious about it. He really though that the fossil evidence was about
> to prove him right. I agree that it a real shame that he didn't write
> that book he had promised.
>
> > > > This statement of Algis' is truly astonishing. I don't think
> > > > he would get Elaine Morgan to agree with his characterization
> > > > of the situation.
> > >
> > > I think she did, actually. This is what she wrote to me recently on
> > > this subject:
> > >
> > > "I have never spelled it out. I think I made it clear that the
> > > mermaid-ish vision some people were attacking was very wide of the
> > > mark.
> >
> > What mark? She never spelled it out. It was left to her
> > critics to try and figure out what the f*** she's talking
> > about???? Well MV employs similar....tactics is not the
> > word....
>
> Hardy said 'More aquatic' right? He said 'not as aquatic as an otter',
> right?
And used what as evidence? If you don't understand the consequences
of an argument from analogy it's high time you found out. Or as
Jim helpfully points out it is a genuinely good idea to read an
article and not just surmise the contents from the title.
Morgan made many similar comments which made it clear that she
> wasn't talking about 'full-on aquatics' - it's just the imaginings of
> some people that pushed and extended the arguments to such a point
> that they could be easily ridiculed and dismissed - what do we call
> this... tactic is the word... it's a strsaw man argument.
And this prevents her from noting the striking resembleance between
the seal's flipper and the human foot? By your account a whole host
of differences between modern apes and man are explained by water
and then you turn around and claim an involvement with water which
produces no such effects in animals which are analogues in behaviour to
your wading apes. Or to put it another way your proposed ape waders
would not lose their fur. It would, in all likelihood, become thicker.
Water enormously increases heat loss. The only reason you make reference
to 'nakedness' is because nakedness - of the genuine variety - is only
found in profoundly aquatic sea mammmals. That's it. There is, otherwise,
not the slightest reason to suppose that a wading ape would lose fur.
>
> [Elaine Morgan]
> > > All I wanted to do was to say: "These are the
> > > data that need explaining. Here are some facts about Homo and about
> > > other animals.
>
> > And this is where it all falls apart as jim ably
> > demonstrates
>
> Jim twists and exaggerates - anyone could do that with any argument.
>
> > > Here is my guess about their possible significance."
> > > It's a starting-off point for discussion. I am not an authority, and
> > > AAT is not a dogma." Morgan (pers. corr. 2004)
> > >
> >
> > Given the demands she continuously made about the status her
> > "theory" should have in the field this statemnet is, as I said,
> > astonishing.
>
> Then I think you misunderstood her, or misrepresent her. She might
> have been guilty of over-enthusiasm on ocassion but that is all.
>
Nonsense. She made explicit claims and demands about the status her
theory should have.
> > > > One of the claims she endlessly repeated
> > > > on this ng is that the AAT - specifically her version - was
> > > > the only theory "on offer" and that conventional PA had
> > > > nothing to offer as a competing theory. Leave aside that
> > > > the claim was utter nonsense since PA is full of scenarios
> > > > that are more than a match for what EM was putting forth.
> > >
> > > Oh yeah, like which?
> > >
> > Start with Aiello and go through to Zihlman.
>
> You dodged the question - what is *ONE* competing theory which more
> satisfactorily and parsimoniously explains our nakedness, bipedality,
> sc fat, ability to swim, etc etc.
>
Nakedness - thermoregulation
Bipedality - increased foraging ranges brought on by environmnetal change
SC fat - reproduction and, in modern man, the ability to do it. Greater
opportunity - we're real good at finding stuff to eat and reduced
cost - we are very dangerous prey. In any event the unwillingness
of AAT 'researchers' to address extreme variability in human
fat levels make this argument a non-starter since wet apers actually
refuse to engage the issue.
ability to swim - a modest capability developed by an enormously curious,
adventurous apes. Thinking of a reason to want to do something
and then doing it are the hallmarks of the human story.
That was easy. Got any more?
And, no Paul, I don't know when we stopped sleeping in trees....
> > > Her point there, which is absolutely right, is that if the official
> > > savanna paradigm is now being backed away from (some would even deny
> > > that it ever existed) what the hell is it that replaces it?
> > >
> > A theory who's major proponent now airily admits was never
> > fleshed out and argued in any serious way perhaps?
>
> You dodged the question again - I wonder why.
A lot of things replace it. Its called the interdisciplinary work
that describes in ever greater detail the environments of early
hominins. Yet another major area of research that AAT'ers refuse
to engage with their rock-ribbed reliance on a 'plains, whatever'
- another MV classic - approach to the issue.
>
> > > You mean the 'Hominids evolved in a mosaic of slightly more open
> > > habitats than chimps live in today but not quite as open as might be
> > > characterised as savannah because that's a straw man argument'
> > > hypothesis?
> > >
> > Your ineptitude is showing again.....
>
> If it's inept, tell me in simple, clear terms what the current
> orthodox paradigm actually *IS* then.
>
There are alot of 'orthodox paradigms' I could send you off to the
Friedmann / Bromage collection but since you wouldn't be bothered to
read it why bother. The field is very active right now with piles of
interesting stuff addressing all areas and new fossils regularly
comming to light. And go back to my Aiello-Zihlman crack. Every PA
at some point comes out with a "What does it all mean" statement
of some sort. And they are all much fuller than Elaines five books
and three million internet postings. That's the point.
> > > How does this miniscule change explain all the differences between
> > > humans and chimps and gorillas?
> >
> > Miniscule change? You really need to get to grips with some basic
> > ecology. Try looking into the work of Robert Foley for one.
>
> If it's not savanna - it's miniscule change. Which is it?
>
As I said....You really need to get to grips with some basic ecology.
> > > "The original savannah model - though it did not stand the test of
> > > time - was argued in strong and clear terms. We are different from
> > > apes, it stated, because they lived in the forest and our ancestors
> > > lived on the plains.
> > > The new watered-down version suggests that we are different from the
> > > apes because their ancestors, perhaps, lived in a different part of
> > > the mosaic. Say what you will, it does not have the same ring to it."
> > > Morgan (1997:17)
> > >
> > It would be nice if EM had actually made a critique of the 'savannah
> > theory' then we'd actually know what she is arguing against. So go
> > ahead, Algis, what's a savannah theory and where can I get some?
>
> You know Rick.... hominins left the trees and, for some reason, went
> out onto the savanna and began moving bipedally because it gave them a
> more flexible response to the new challenges ahead. Funny how you seem
> to have some kind of amnesia about this idea - how convenient for you.
>
> Others are not so fuzzy minded though.
>
> "As the competing savanna hypothesis is no longer tenable since I
> presented much evidence against it in my Daryll Forde Lecture at
> University college London in 1995, I believe that scientists have a
> duty to re-examine these claims, much as Langdon (1997) has done."
> Tobias (2002)
If Tobias is talking about Dart it was basically done by the time
the Leakey team at Lake Rudolph and the Coppens/Howells team in the
Lower Omo started publishing their findings. This was in the sixties.
What Tobias is disposing of in 1995 I have no idea.
>
> Tobias, Phillip V (2002). Some aspects of the multifaceted dependence
> of early humanity on water. Nutrition and Health Vol:16 Pages:13-17
>
> Or how about this...
>
> "Although the savanna hypothesis has gained recent support, it has
> also been strongly contested. Some authorities advocate a
> contradictory model?the woodland/ forest hypothesis?which argues for
> the importance of closed vegetation in early hominin evolution. Early
> australopiths, according to some interpretations, were closely
> associated with wooded environments, exhibited significant arboreal
> activity, and should be considered adapted to closed habitats (Clarke
> and Tobias, 1995; Berger and Tobias, 1996)." Potts 1998
>
> Potts, Richard (1998). Environmental Hypotheses of Hominin Evolution.
> Yearbook of Physical Anthropology Vol:41 Pages:93-136
>
> How many more quotes do you want? I've got an ever growing database of
> them.
Keep them coming. The concept EM and other wet apers argue against is
Dart's stuff from the 1920's. As for more recent and more sophisticated
arguments they avoid like the plague. As an aside I just looked through the
recent volume on Lothagam put out by Meave Leakey and there is an
interesting article on colobines. Seems that in late Miocene times they
were basically terrestrial and ML makes the explicit point that a lot
of environmental reconstructions that use colobines to infer forest
will have to be revisited.
>
> Don't tell me... it was all invented by Elaine Morgan, right, Rick -
> keep takling the pills.
>
Well you still haven't provided a definition of the savannah theory
that the AAT represents the counter to. Tobias and Potts make reference
to one. I'll find out what they are talking about in due course. I
know better than to expect a definition from a wet aper.
> > > So yes, Elaine was right to say that the AAH was the 'only game in
> > > town' but even that was not defining what the AAH was exactly.
> > > Essentially she was saying that water must have played some role.
> > > Essentially the opposition say: 'no, it didn't'.
> >
> > So that's it. She made no critique, offered no competing hypothesis
> > but its the only game in town? Ain't science easy! As for what the
> > opposition said no one ever said water played no role. We only try
> > to deal with the arguments of people who say that it did. Stuff like
> > hairlessness. Pointing out that there is absolutely no reason to
> > suppose that living an aquatic lifestyle of some sort should result
> > in hair loss brings out the seals and the whales. And it is the
> > proponents who do this.
>
> She made a huge critique of the existing paradigm - that's exactly
> what she did. Have you ever read any of her books? She never defined
> the AAH, because she just wanted to get it in the public arena.
>
"She never defined the AAH, because she just wanted to get it in
the public arena" ????? Jois --sig alert! sig alert! Really, Algis,
do you not now realize how utterly misconceived her project was.
As for the 'huge critique' it escaped my notice entirely sad to say.
She made / makes numerous bleats of dyspeptic dissatisfaction but
that is not a critique.
> If you are not saying that water played no role in discriminating
> between apes and humans then what are you arguing about? But, of
> course, you *are* arguing against that, aren't you - otherwise what's
> your problem with wading leading to bipedalism and swimming and
> dip/sweat cooling leading to nakedness etc?
>
I have utterly no problem with it. I do not reject any of these a priori
in the manner that I reject a priori the notion that some ancient
civilization was making monumental carvings on Mars. But I have this
thing about wanting to see what argument backs up the proposition. And
this is where it collapses.
> Hypocrite!
Charge denied....
> > > I put it to you that this opposition view is totally untenable. The
> > > fact that we swim better than chimps is proof enough of that.
> > >
> > Proof of what? It's obvious that modern humans have more
> > facility in the water than modern apes but that's not the guts
> > of the case you're trying to make.
>
> AAH: The hypothesis that water acted as an agency of selection in
> human evolution more than the evolution of the apes. Yes I am.
Right. We have everything from row boats to battleships and apes don't.
This explains bipedalism how precisely? If you reduce your proposition
to gaseous ephemera the next stage is oblivion. You really need to put
something together that's a little more robust than this. MV, to his
credit, does. Ditto Hagstrom. Surely you can at least match them. It's
not as if they have set the bar impossibly high after all....
>
> > > That's what I'm saying and she would agree. (see above) So what are
> > > you arguing against?
> > >
> > A body of arguments made for four decades by AAT proponents.
> > You know bipedal wading, cork-headed infants, tossing coconuts
> > at nesting crocodiles and on and on...
>
> Just mock personal incredulity then - and no science.
>
My personal incredulity is not mock! The last two Kulikisms were
shock inducing. And this is the point. You want the 'obvious, reasonable'
nature of the vapid proposition to stand as vindication of supporting
arguments no matter how daffy they are. This is ass backwards. At the
present time we simply have to say that water as an agency for the
evolution of the characteristic feature of early hominis was minor at
beat and probably non-exixstent.
> > > So what say you on my definition?:
> > >
> > > The Aquatic Ape Hypothesis (AAH):
> > > The hypothesis that water has acted as an agent of selection in the
> > > evolution of humans more than it has in the evolution of our ape
> > > cousins and that, as a result, many of the major physical differences
> > > between humans and the other apes may be explained, at least in part,
> > > as adaptations to moving (wading, swimming and/or diving) better
> > > through various aquatic media.
> > >
> > > Elaine Morgan said: "I'll drink to that!"
> > >
> > Good for her. Well make your arguments. Oh shit..
> > here come the seals and the whales....
>
> I try not to use the seals and the whales, Rick, haven't you noticed?
> I tend to concentrate on apes and humans.
>
Then this means you give up your hairlessness arguments. This is what it means.
Really....
> > And spend an afternoon in the Google archive
> > and see what a load of nonsense is Elaine's claim
> > to have only been timidly and modestly venturing
> > a few mild questions re PA. She was hunting bigger
> > game than that. It's not our fault she went hunting
> > elephants with a slingshot.
>
> Why should I? I've read all of her books - that's what counts. She's
> made her case there and she's absolutely right on most of her points.
>
Well there you go. Now just how is the human foot like the seal's
flipper? And why do bad backs in old folks matter from an evolutionary
perspective?
Riuck Wagler
Bob Keeter
Just wondering if anyone has pointed out to Algis that no less than an
illustrious Nobel laureate has commented on the AAH (at least Algis'
version)? Amazing aint it? Particularly since the laureate in question is
none other than Richard P. Feynman of Physics/1995 fame! Yeppers! He
absolutely skewers Angis' fuzzy theory of hairlessness as it relates to
aquaticism, and hominid evolution, with a quick pass on netloon scientific
method, and . . . .
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself -- and you are the
easiest person to fool."
Surely You Must Be Joking, Mr. Feynman (1985) p.343
"Another thing I must point out is that you cannot prove a vague theory
wrong. If the guess that you make is poorly expressed and rather vague, and
the method that you use for figuring out the consequences is a little
vague - you are not sure, and you say, 'I think everything's right because
it's all due to so and so, and such and such do this and that more or less,
and I can sort of explain how this works'...then you see that this theory is
good, because it cannot be proved wrong! Also if the process of computing
the consequences is indefinite, then with a little skill any experimental
results can be made to look like the expected consequences."
"The Character of Physical Law" (1992) pp.158-159
And notice that I DID offer up direct references if you or he cares to
question the context! Well, in trugh Feynman may not have been wasting his
time even considering any of Algis' actual fantasies; but seriously, it does
look as if the shoe fits nicely!
If the truth be known, I suspect that Dr. Feynman is a pretty sharp cookie,
but then the Stockholm crew usually makes sure of that! ;-) Wonder if they
have a category for loondom, since I dont think that our resident gang have
much of a chance in Science and EVERYONE should have a goal in life! 8-)
Regards
bk
firstjois
Has it gotten to the point where Tobias goes around saying, "Geeze, I wish
I had a nickle for every time Algie mentioned my name"?
Jois
--
Well, Algis, let me respectfully submit that that theory is bullshit.
J. Moore 091004
firstjois
People will make their own minds up as to which is the
more significant.
Now that's a thought!
People making up their own minds.
Hum.
firstjois
> She made a huge critique of the existing paradigm - that's exactly
> what she did. Have you ever read any of her books? She never defined
> the AAH, because she just wanted to get it in the public arena.
[snip]
Wow! I could do that. Thanks, Rick.
Jois
--
She made a huge critique of the existing paradigm - that's exactly
what she did. Have you ever read any of her books? She never defined
the AAH, because she just wanted to get it in the public arena.
Algis the Amazing
091104
firstjois
A Cinderella story!
Woo! Woo!
Bob Keeter
"firstjois" <firstj...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:I7OdnRZjMPZ...@comcast.com...
Snip. . . . .
>
> A Cinderella story!
>
> Woo! Woo!
OK, you got me! HOW are my little quotations from a Nobel price laureate a
Cinderella story? Am I out of the ashes, is Feynman, is Algis, ar you?
And just a clue, there aint no glass slipper made that fits my ugly foot
and no matter how hard some might wish it, I will not turn into a pumpkin at
the stroke of midnight!!! ;-)
Regards
bk
firstjois
"Bob Keeter" <rke...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:dY71d.18312$az6....@newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net...
:
: "firstjois" <firstj...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
Ah, I was thinking of (gasp) Algis and definitely in the "if the shoe fits"
kind of way. Feynman was a pretty smart guy, wasn't he. I think there
are tapes of some of his lectures floating around someplace and I'd like to
hear those sometime. Lecture doesn't always make good reading as good
reading doesn't always sound as good aloud. Hey, it's 12:21 A.M.
Jois
Algis Kuliukas
> al...@RiverApes.com (Algis Kuliukas) wrote in message news:<77a70442.04090...@posting.google.com>...
> > The point was to try to get people to think about it, to discuss it
> > and to investigate it. I'm doing that. I'm doing it because,
> > apparently every professional paleoanthropology departmental gead just
> > knew it was a load of crap and wasn't worth looking at, even though -
> > truth be known - they couldn't even tell you what it was. The fact
> > that I'm doing what Elaine Morgan has expected PAs to do is hardly a
> > damning criticism of her contribution. I admire her more than most
> > people who have written about human evolution.
> >
> what she intended - get a new viewpoint established - she had to do
> something she is manifestly incapable of doing - present a genuinely
> provocative critique of prevailing theories and present new ideas and
> concepts in a challenging way. Whales are naked and so are we just
> doesn't cut it.
She is a very nice person. She deserves far, far better than the nasty
vitriollic abuse that has been heaped on her from some of the people
here.
'Whales are naked so are we' is an astonishingly ignorant portrayal of
her view.
Herea couple of points she made which, I think, are very strong indeed
against the orthodox paradig,:
"It has been repeatedly asserted (for example on the internet) that
there was never such a thing as the 'savannah theory', that it was
simply a straw man constructed by Elaine Morgan for the pleasure of
knocking it down again, and that no reputable scientist can be shown
ever to have used the phrase 'savannah theory'. The last part of that
statement is true. I would no more have expected them to use that
phrase that I would expect a Creationist to refer to 'the God theory'
- their faith in it was too strong for that." Morgan (1997:14)
[She then follows with many examples which give the lie to this
perverse attempt to twist paleoanthropological history]
"The original savannah model - though it did not stand the test of
time - was argued in strong and clear terms. We are different from
apes, it stated, because they lived in the forest and our ancestors
lived on the plains...
... The new watered-down version suggests that we are different from
the apes because their ancestors, perhaps, lived in a different part
of the mosaic. Say what you will, it does not have the same ring to
it." Morgan 1997:17-18)
Morgan, Elaine (1997). The Aquatic Ape Hypothesis. Souvenir Press
(London)
[..]
> > The "very poor research" is , what exactly? The four tiny errors on
> > Jim Moore's masquerading one-sided web site? Four tiny errors out of
> > hundreds of citations and claims. You could find as many errors in any
> > popular science book if you were obsessed enough to try to find them.
> > Do you have any others?
> >
> Your characterization of the quality of Elaine's research is bogus.
> The great overarching error of her work is that it represents a conclusion
> in search of evidence. This is why the substantial - not trivial -
> misreadings of sources are so blatant and so damaging.
Rubbish. Tobias called them a 'series of superbly written books' and
he was right. For someone who is not trained in the science of
paleoanthropology she puts professionals to shame with her insightful
summaries of the state of knowledge in such a wide range of areas.
She never presents a conclusion but, like Hardy, asks lots of
questions. That was her aim - to stimulate a debate and, boy, has she
succeeded!
> What Jim has pointed out are
> not minor factual errors as you claim but substantial examples of her
> methodology.
So, are you defending Jim Moore's shock-horror twisting of four (no
just one really) errors, or what?
Take Jim Moore's number one revelation for an example: the famous
Darwin misquote. It's just sleazy crap - exactly what you'd expect
from the gutter press.
Have you read my expose on these yet?
see http://www.riverapes.com/AAH/Arguments/JimMoore/Quotes.htm
What say you on that Rick? How can you defend what Jim has done?
What 'substantial examples of her methodology'? Can you be more
specific, or give us a page cited example?
It's a popular science book. It's supposed to be entertaining to the
lay person. Like Craig Stanford's 'Upright' it's written in a style
that's more about keeping the reader's attention than being
technically spot on in every sentence.
> But since your hypothesis is precisely the same kind of
> enterprise it is, of course, only to be expected that you can't see this.
All Hardy and Morgan ever did (and I am trying to emulate them ) is to
wonder aloud if there might be something in this thing. It's you guys
who seem to just know a priori that it is wrong - even though there's
been no real scientific investigation into it, and if pressed, none of
you can even define what it is you're so sure is crap.
For me, I'm taking on board the criticisms that AAH proponents have
been weak in coming up with timelines, linking it to the fossil
evidence and coming up with testable predictions. I'm using the
hypothetico-deductive method, perhaps for the first time, in an
enquiry into bipedal origins.
That you have to tar me with the great, thick, sticky anti-AAH brush
because I dare to suggest that it might be right says more about your
lack of objectivity than it does mine.
> As for citations and claims the first are few and far between and one
> cannot identify the source for most of her claims. Your attempted
> rejoinder to Jim that he does not give precise page references to
> a clearly identified article does not clear up the mess Elaine has made
> but merely indicates that you don't appreciate the problem.
Morgan (1997) is as well a referenced popular science book as you
might find. The criticism of her earlier work were more justified but
even 'Descent of Woman' was far better referenced than Jim Moore's
'Claims and Facts' page.
See for yourself...
http://www.aquaticape.org/aatclaims.html
Not a single citation for 23 claims. It took me hours to trawl through
trying to check them.
At least Morgan, Elaine (1972). The Descent of Woman. Souvenir Press
(London)
has 29 references.
But I know you'll defend your super hero... anthrosciguy!! (Saviour of
the world from drippy wetness!)... under any circumstances. Such
loyalty.
> > 'No substantive position?' - really, Rick - it must be you who's been
> > abducted by aliens. The very substantive positon is the beauty at
> > which a whole host of ape-human differences are explained away with
> > consumate ease - we moved through water more than they did.
> >
> And your evidence is? BRING ON THE WHALES!! The AAT 'evidence' has
> been examined in detail on this group and it is flummery. But that's
> just my opinion.
No. Stuff the whales!
Apes move in water bipedally - a bit of a clue there to our
bipedalism.
Humans are more bouyant the fatter they are - a bit of a clue there to
our increased adipocity.
Humans swim more efficiently when body hair is shaved off - a bit of a
clue there to our unique nakedness amongst the primates.
This group is full of egotistical people who wouldn't admit they were
wrong under any circumstances.
[..]
> > And this is your ample evidence from her five books - wow. You're just
> > making it up or, actually, following the pied piper Jim Moore.
> >
> I've read two of her books and they are as Jim and many others describe.
Which two?
> Very thin reads. A monument to unexamined alternatives. No substantial
> examination of PA. Refusal to actually come to grips with central
> concepts such as the nature of savannah environments and on and on.
Well Tobias didn't think so.
[..]
> > Desmond Morris' Naked Ape is worse than Morgan's worst, and so are
> > several others. Craig Stanford's 'Upright' is also pretty poor except
> > from a point of view of historical commentary on the subject.
> >
> Well I won't debate Morris but I will say that I rather doubt that
> Stanford's work is on a par with Elaine's no matter what the
> shortcomings.
Stanford's is excellently referenced but some of his arguments are
facile in the extreme in my humble opinion.
[..]
> > Jim was quoting from his Zenith article, I think. He likes to do that
> > because it contains the weakest Hardy arguments.
> >
> He has responded to the NS piece. Which is the great Hardy piece
> of theorizing. I can't imagine how the Zenith article could be weaker
> unless he was losing it completely which you seem to hint at.
Moore insists that Hardy said there was a twenty million years gap -
even when I pointed him to the actual sentence in the New Scietist
piece. He's clearly twisting to imply that the man's a fool. In the
Zenith magazine, 17 years later, he and the editor manage to let
twenty million slip through but it's cleary just an error. But can Jim
give him the benefit of the doubt - no way. He clings to this dirt as
a morsel of proof of AATer bad research methods.
[..]
> > Hardy said 'More aquatic' right? He said 'not as aquatic as an otter',
> > right?
>
> And used what as evidence? If you don't understand the consequences
> of an argument from analogy it's high time you found out. Or as
> Jim helpfully points out it is a genuinely good idea to read an
> article and not just surmise the contents from the title.
That humans swim better than most terrestrial animals under water for
one.
'Jim helpfully points out'? The fact that you have to stick up for
your sleazy, twisting (no, lying is the word) super-hero,
anthrosciguy, even on points like this, is informative, Rick. I have
posted many quotes from Hardy's paper. Hell, I even scanned the entire
Hardy article in full for my web site precisely so that people should
read past the headline. It seems that most PAs haven't even read that
much, though - they didn't have to because they'd heard all the gossip
and rumor in the staff rooms and dismissed it over a coffee.
Enough.
Algis Kuliukas
Jason Eshleman
> Rick,
>
> Just wondering if anyone has pointed out to Algis that no less than an
> illustrious Nobel laureate has commented on the AAH (at least Algis'
> version)? Amazing aint it? Particularly since the laureate in question is
> none other than Richard P. Feynman of Physics/1995 fame! Yeppers! He
> absolutely skewers Angis' fuzzy theory of hairlessness as it relates to
> aquaticism, and hominid evolution, with a quick pass on netloon scientific
> method, and . . . .
> "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself -- and you are the
> easiest person to fool."
>
> Surely You Must Be Joking, Mr. Feynman (1985) p.343
>
> "Another thing I must point out is that you cannot prove a vague theory
> wrong. If the guess that you make is poorly expressed and rather vague, and
> the method that you use for figuring out the consequences is a little
> vague - you are not sure, and you say, 'I think everything's right because
> it's all due to so and so, and such and such do this and that more or less,
> and I can sort of explain how this works'...then you see that this theory is
> good, because it cannot be proved wrong! Also if the process of computing
> the consequences is indefinite, then with a little skill any experimental
> results can be made to look like the expected consequences."
> "The Character of Physical Law" (1992) pp.158-159
"I'm vague because it doesn't matter" -Algis
Marc Verhaegen
Marc Verhaegen
> > So, again, you're just wrong. Compared to apes we ARE naked and compared
to all primates we're fat. How could that be, Jim? What's your ecological
scenario for explaining that? Is it the
slightly-less-wooded-than-chimp-habitats-but-slightly-more-wooded-than-might
-be-labelled-savannahs-because-that-was-a-straw-man-invented-by-Elaine-Morga
n habitat? And if it is why did it have such a drammatic effect?
> Both features are quite obviously sexually selected,
Man, you're raving: how can features that are seen in both sexes as well as
in children be sexually selected. Apes are less fat than men & women &
children, and are more naked than men & women & children. Think a bit before
saying something. For a scientific critique of AAT see
http://allserv.rug.ac.be/~mvaneech/Symposium.html
firstjois
Now, that is too true to be really funny.
Jois
Philip Deitiker
message ID news:XJCdnc-Uxfj...@comcast.com:
Y'all must be really bored.
>>>> be made to look like the expected consequences." "The
>>>> Character of Physical Law" (1992) pp.158-159
>>>
>>> "I'm vague because it doesn't matter" -Algis
>
>
> Now, that is too true to be really funny.
What's not funny however is if a person is using this ploy as
a form of propoganda for a cause. Like a politician making a
plan real enough to be believe but vaque enough so that it
cannot be fault.
BTW this is nothing new, I pegged on Morgan this back in
96 and 97, because I would ask her to be specific about
when s.c. fat and hairlessness evolved, and she would
never be too specific. The point she kept claiming,
irregardless of what other fossils were doing, SOMETHING
(_it_ dropping the sh) had to change to cause the
evolution of humans. If you would say _it_ couldn't heve
evolved at this point, then she would argue that _it_
evolved at some other point. On one day it was 8 million
years ago, on the next it was 2 million years ago, and the
third 5 million years ago.
On this point I pegged her, because she kept claiming that
the proof of the theory was Sc fat and hairlessness. So
what I said was basically this.
1. They discount that either of these traits could have
occurred in the last 1.8 million years. 2. That during this
_it_ s.c. fat and hairlessness evolved.
Yet they could provide no evidence what so ever about when
s.c. fat or hairlessness evolved, or if they even evolved
about the same time.
But their claim was that aquaticism was a shortlived
diverticulation which lead to this _it_
Therefore if one concludes the _it_ was 500,000 years, there
is a one in 16 chance that s.c. fat and hairlessness evolved
at the same time. In addition there is a 30% chance that
either or both evolved in the last 1.8 million years.
Therefore without and direct evidence that they evolved at
the same time, a theory based on both evolving in support of
a short period is about 1/20 if we assume at least one could
be used as evidence, in fact there was a 86% chance that
neither will evolve in any 500ky bracket.
The conclusions for the support of s.c. fat and hairlessness.
1. 30% chance these evolved in the pliestocene and would
provide no support of the pliocene aat.
2. 94% chance that one trait evolved in the same 500,000 year
period if the AAT period could be between 8 my and 1.8 mya.
3. 86% chance that neither trait evolved in any selected
500,000 year period.
This is how one deal with vaqueness. In this case there is
only a 6% chance that both traits would offer some sort of
support for any hypothesis within that time frame.
The response to this claim is that then _it_ was not
shortlived but longlived; however its a catch 22, because if
_it_ is longlived then 'something magical' didn't actually
happen. None the less despite the above disproof I noticed
that proponents continued to move this aquatic intermediate
around with each new discovery, there is no particular
movement that can reconcile it with the statistic, other than
proving both evolved at the same time, and that they both
evolved before 1.8 mya.
The basic problem is that when arguing with these
individuals they continue to circumvent critiques by changing
the argument midstream, refreshening the vaqueness of the
argument. I want to have intelligent discussion with people
who have a perspective to offer, this type of shell game
vaqueness is useless to scientific discussion, which is why
all these pliocene cat morsels are in my killfile ;^).
Y'all must be really bored.
--
Philip
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Mol. Anth. Group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DNAanthro/
Mol. Evol. Hominids http://home.att.net/~DNAPaleoAnth/
Evol. of Xchrom.
http://home.att.net/~DNAPaleoAnth/xlinked.htm
Pal. Anth. Group
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Paleoanthro/ Sci. Arch. Aux
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sciarchauxilliary/
DNApaleoAnth at Att dot net
J Moore
news:77a70442.04091...@posting.google.com...
> "J Moore" <anthro...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:<4cO0d.396323$gE.286961@pd7tw3no>...
> > Algis Kuliukas <al...@RiverApes.com> wrote in message
> > news:77a70442.04091...@posting.google.com...
> [..]
> > > So when you claimed that I'd said their work was 'absolute trash'
> > > what, exactly, was that? Was it a lie or just sloppyness? As this is
> > > limit of the big, terrible claims you make against Elaine Morgan
> > > doesn't this put you firmly and squarely in the same boat as her?
>
> Nothing to say there, Jim? If I'd have done that you'd have leapt on
> me from high above and maybe it would have ended up on your 'Can AATer
> research be trusted?' page. It's just one rule for you and one rule
> for us, isn't it?
Seems I did say something about that -- you claimed (inaccurately, IMO) that
neither Hardy or Morgan had given any idea of how aquatic or semi-aquatic
their purported hominid ancestors were, even after they'd been thinking
about the idea for nearly 50 years in Hardy's case and nearly 30 years in
Morgan's. Yet that's a fundamental step in formulating such a hypothesis,
so if it were true (and I disagree with you on that) it would a sign of
incredible incompetence.
If you say so. I notice you go for ad hominems rather than addressing this
serious failing of the AAT/H versions to reconcile what they say they're
talking about with the evidence they use -- evidence which indicates they
are actually talking about something very different than they say they are.
> [..]
> > > > The "naked" (we aren't, you know)
> > >
> > > What amount of body hair (that is number of hairs x average length)
> > > does an adult male human have compared to an average male chimpanzee?
> > > Make the same comparison for females and then for all people at
> > > different ages. Repeat for different ethnic groups. Add the data all
> > > up and work out an average. If it failed to reach even 0.5% (which I
> > > doubt) then, to the nearest integer, we're naked compared to chimps.
> >
> > You at least have to look at the fact that we aren't naked, that we have
> > lots of head hair (and far longer than apes) and that the way it varies
> > between the sexes and during the lifespan shows clearly that it's a
sexually
> > selected trait rather than due to convergence. This same is true of
fat,
> > btw.
>
> The head hair happens to be largely out of water whilst swimming the
> breast stroke. If it was purely sexual selection how come both men and
> women have lost their body hair? If sc fat was sexual selected how
> come even the leanest males are generally still fatter than the
> fattest primates? There may be an element of sexual selection going on
> but it can hardly explain male hairlessness or male sc fat.
These features are classic cases of sexual selection, and Pond points out
the bit about predation and fat which I have repeated, and which AAT/H
proponents have consistently ignored. The idea that head hair, and beards,
of course, are not in the water during breast stroke (that's the high speed,
predator escaping swimming stroke you claim we used?) seems just a tad,
what's the word? wrong.
(http://www.gatorswimteam.org/2004/5/breaststroke.html) I've always been
amused at these explanations of AAT/H swimming styles -- the "hair tracts
method" which requires you to swim with the crown of your head facing
forward and your arms at your sides, or the "AAT/H variation breaststroke"
where the entire head, including beard, is held out of the water -- and
these are supposed to be high speed swimming strokes to account for hair
loss, too!
This idea is not borne out by comparisons to other aquatic mammals -- except
of course to seals, whales, and sirenia, and even there Pond points out that
their fat seems adapted to shaping for streamlining along with the general
use of fat, in all animals, as a food store. Your assumption (unstated, as
usual for AAT/H accounts), of course, is that hominids spent one hell of a
lot of time swimming instead of the just a little "more" you put forth
whenever a critic mentions this problem with the AAT/H.
> The lifespan differences are not so hard to explain. Infants are most
> vulnerable to drowning hence it makes sense for them to establish a
> thick layer of sc fat at birth and in the early months. Later in life,
> the argument that they are to show sexual maturity is not incompatible
> with a more aquatic lifestyle. The function of advertising to the
> opposite sex that you are mature need not have involved nakedness
> and/or fat (it didn't in any other primate, did it?) and it is
> certainly an odd and very expensive method to use for a hominid that
> is supposed to have been moving into more open and arid habitats. It
> makes perfect sense, however if these hominids were spending a
> significant part of their lives in water. Seen in this light extra
> female sc fat might be seen as advertising to males that they are
> relatively fit in water (more buoyuant and hence less likely to drown)
> and therefore a better bet for a male to invest in, and vice versa
> with females too.
And this is your "parsimonious" idea? Can you say "ad hoc"?
> [..]
> > > Blaa blaa - still banging on about seals and whales. Jim, we've moved
> > > on.
> >
> > If you've moved on, why are you still using as evidence features found
only
> > in seals, whales, and sirenia and claiming theose features are similar
to
> > humans?
>
> I don't need fully aquatic animals to show that more fat in humans
> makes you more bouyant and less likely to drown.
>
> I don't need them to show that shaving body hair off a human reduces
> drag significantly in water and that hair reduction aids dip/sweat
> cooling.
You use our present body (and head) hair as evidence of an aquatic past --
aquatic to some vaguely stated degree of "more". But of course our present
condition -- the state that AAT/H proponents says this vaguely-defined
aquaticness created -- turns out to be just exactly what competitive
swimmers don't want -- they go either for hair removal or (and/or) body
suits that mimic the effect of hair or dermal ridges. If we can speed up
our swimming by removing our body and head hair, how is it that our body and
head hair were adapted to swimming speedily?
Ahh, again with the "they were just trying to get you to think" idea -- so
beloved ofthe pseudoscience crowd -- I'd think you might want to try to
avoid that particular association by not using their tactics. This
"association" of nakedness and fat and "aquatic factors", though, is seen
only in seals, whales, and sirenia -- sorry, but you guys are the ones
dragging them back into the argument all the time. True, you don't like to
actually mention them by name, but then that's a tad disingenuous (to be
polite).
> [..]
> > Check out his later statement then -- what did he say then? Did he mean
> > what he said then, or not? If so, you have a statement that it was 20
plus
> > million years, far longer than hominids have existed; if not, you're
stuck
> > now saying that he was so incompetent that he couldn't even remember or
read
> > what he'd said previously. Either one is damning, yet on the basis of
that
> > you think he should have been taken seriously.
>
> The later reference was clearly an error. An error made by an 81 year
> old that had retired 17 years earlier. An error he and the editor of
> the student magazine it was published in should have picked up on. As
> usual Jim Moore tries to twist simple errors into something much
> worse. It's all he has done. It's sleazy and dishonest just like his
> URL, www.aquaticape.org.
>
> Anyone reading this will see that you have a clear agenda to use the
> worst possible AAH material every time to twist and distort into the
> worst possible light.
This insistence that older people are senile old farts who can't get a fact
straight is one I have always found abhorent in AAT/H supporters, and one
which I do not agree with. But even if it were true, one has to look at
what they said and see if it's accurate and sensible, just as one does with
their earlier work -- there is no "I'm an old grandparent so I get to place
nonsense in science free" card.
> [..]
> > > Ideally every single statement one reads should be absolutely truthful
> > > and fully referenced but, unlike you apparently, I'm not living in
> > > fantasy land.
> >
> > How many untruthful things are you allowed to have uncritically accepted
in
> > science? Does it vary by venue, or age, or whether one has
grandchildren,
> > as many AAT/H proponents over the years have insisted in newsgroups?
I'm
> > getting on now, I have a grandchild -- can I now write up something in
an
> > appropriately unserious venue and have it uncritically accepted as
> > scientific fact, as you suggest?
>
> Well that's what you *have* done, Jim. It's called www.aquaticape.org.
> It's ok, now, suddenly, I'm beginning to understand.
Beginning to understand? That's encouraging, but actually I doubt it, based
on your history.
> > > When you claimed that I'd said that Hardy and Morgan's work was
> > > 'absolute trash' I was appauled but, hey, it's only a newsgroup and I
> > > expect you'd had a few - so no probs. If you'd have written the same
> > > thing in the local edition of the Cleveland Telegraph, I'd have been a
> > > little more pissed off - but journalism doesn't have such high
> > > standards either. If it had been in New Scientist I'd have written a
> > > letter of complaint. Of course such a silly statement would never have
> > > got past the editor of such a journal and if it had arrived at a
> > > scholarly journal like AJPA they wouldn't have even opened the
> > > envelope.
> > >
> > > Elaine Morgan made errors but so does everyone, even you.
> >
> > I'm not insisting that scientists accept my radical new theory -- and
I've
> > got a grandkid! Where do I apply for "my I'm an old grandpa get into
> > science free" card?
>
> Try www.aquaticape.org. I think that qualifies you.
If I've said things which were inaccurate, I don't expect them to be
accepted as scientific fact, as you and other AAT/H proponents have
repeatedly suggested be the case for the works of AAT/H supporters. I can't
see my age, my status as a grandparent, or any other factor coming into play
other than the accuracy of what I say, but that is what is, and has been
many times over the years, asked for in the case of Hardy and Morgan by
AAT/H supporters. I have been astounded and dismayed at the number of times
their supporters have made velied suggestions that they are incompetent
because they are/were old -- and even more dismayed that those supporters
expect that to be an excuse which allows their work to be valid even when
it's inaccurate.
> [..]
> > > Apes wade bipedally ... and we walk bipedally on land.
> > > Apes don't swim as well as we do ... and they're less buoyant.
> > > Shaving body hair reduces drag in water and helps sweat cooling... we
> > > are more naked than apes.
> >
> > If you wish to have the AAT/H simply be one of many entries in a long
list
> > of things that hominids did when bipedal, you would have no argument
and,
> > incidentally, no hypothesis -- just one item in a long list. But that's
not
> > really the AAT/H, is it?
>
> It's more than that, Jim, and you know it. The wading hypothesis is
> the strongest on that list. The one that is most causative, the one
> with the most evidence in extant apes and in the fossil record.
Once you get away from the aspect of bipedalism (which leaves the AAT/H as
one item in a long list rather than a hypothesis) you get into territory
which neccessitates a great deal more aquaticness than any of it's
proponents seem willing to claim -- indeed, more aquaticism than our
species' history has time for.
The use of bodysuits in swimming demonstrates that increased body hair would
almost certainly have had a beneficial effect, albeit very small (we are
still, at best, incredibly slow swimmers, even for Olympic atheletes). I've
been over this many times, and you don't want to see it, and I can't
disagree witht eh evidence as you are able to allow yourself to do, so this
seems to be an unproductive argument.
You again use the senile old goat line. Can you ever get over this idea
that old people are incapable of thought? I know it disturbs you that Hardy
was so inaccurate in his later paper, and I notice you dwell on this paper
and the critiques of it so you can use that ageist argument. I frankly see
little sign that Hardy (or Morgan for that matter -- others have used this
ageist argument in her defense) were senile or any different in thought from
their younger days. He said things that weren't true; you object to their
being pointed out. You blame all errors on their editors, and besides, they
were just trying to make us think about it, and anyway, they just wanted to
hustle the idea out into the world quickly for that purpose, even though
that rush took decades. A litany of excuses for their work, which you then
say should net degrees.
I know you're upset that your page fell off the first page of Google results
(it was about that time you started fishing for a link), but I am sorry that
I haven't had time to go over your pages and write up a response; I wouldn't
want toassume all your complaints were so facile and ridiculous as your
complaints about my URL.
> [..]
> > > So are you conceding that I didn't actually claim that Hardy's paper
> > > per se was 'mild and borringly obvious' as you tried to twist?
>
> Jim's not saying.
>
> > > But see, here's another Moore twist. You know I think I'm going to
> > > start a page of 'Mooreish deceptions' myself.
> > >
> > > 1. "And what, I wonder, given the above, did Elaine say when you said
> > > that her
> > > work, and Hardy's, was all just incomptetent trash?" Moore
> > > (2004-Aug-30 sap 'What is the Aquatic Ape Theory?')
> > >
> > > 2. "It was one of the many times you *insisted* [my emphasis] that all
> > > should read only Hardy's title and ignore all the words that
> > > followed..." Moore (2004-sep-10 sap 'What is the Aquatic Ape Theory?')
> > >
> > > 3. "I disagree with your idea that one should stop reading after the
> > > title." Moore (2004-sep-03 sap 'What is the Aquatic Ape Theory?')
> > >
> > > Keep 'em coming, Jim.
>
> No comment there, either.
It didn't need one (this didn't either, really).
> [..snipped a tonne of Hardy quotes in response to Moore's amazing
> claim that I insisted that people only read his title - something of
> course I've never done, I've even put a scanned copy of Hardy's
> original paper on my web site in full so people can read it all for
> themselves.]
>
> http://www.riverapes.com/AAH/Hardy/HardyPage1.htm
>
> > Here the assumption is that scientists didn't take a look at it; the
ones I
> > knew in the field did, and they didn't find it to be sensible -- you can
> > take a look at all sorts of claims and not feel they're worth the time
to
> > painstakingly dissect them in print -- it's far easier to spout
speculations
> > backed up by "false facts" than it is to take them apart.
>
> Rubbish. When you say they 'took a look at it' - what? you mean over a
> coffee, or whilst they were sat on the toilet? I meant, of course, a
> proper scientific investigation of the kind I'm doing now, 44 years
> later.
I meant read, snorted at the many glaring errors, and put it aside in favor
of productive work.
When you read something dispassionately and you see it's full of glaring
errors, even at first reading, you don't tend to think much of the idea or
the author. When you dig further then, I guess you're no longer
"dispassionate", according to you, which seems to mean "uncritically
supportive".
Bob Keeter
Snippage. . . .
> Ah, I was thinking of (gasp) Algis and definitely in the "if the shoe
> fits"
> kind of way. Feynman was a pretty smart guy, wasn't he. I think there
> are tapes of some of his lectures floating around someplace and I'd like
> to
> hear those sometime. Lecture doesn't always make good reading as good
> reading doesn't always sound as good aloud. Hey, it's 12:21 A.M.
>
> Jois
Feynman was a very smart man with enough intelligence to actually recognize
the things that he did not know and the humanity to not become overly
impressed with the things he did know! I use some of his quotes in a
training session that I sometimes teach; if the more abstract elements of
electromagnetic wave propagation mystified Feynman, I have no problem saying
"here, magic occurs" and the students dont feel quite so inadequate that
they cant picture the magic either!. Matter of fact there are several
online and printed collections of his humor to go along with dissertations
on quantum physics!
"Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but
that's not why we do it."
-- Richard P. Feynman
http://www.kolmogorov.com/Feynman.html
Sort of summed up in his "autobiography", "Surely You're Joking, Mr.
Feynman!": Adventures of a Curious Character"
Times Review: The outrageous exploits of one of this century's greatest
scientific minds and a legendary American original. In this phenomenal
national bestseller, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard P. Feynman
recounts in his inimitable voice his adventures trading ideas on atomic
physics with Einstein and Bohr and ideas on gambling with Nick the Greek,
painting a naked female toreador, accompanying a ballet on his bongo drums
and much else of an eyebrow-raising and hilarious nature.
He was the type of character that would have been painting graffitti on the
sides of any Ivory Tower he could find!
Regards
bk
firstjois
[snip]
>> http://www.kolmogorov.com/Feynman.html
[snip]
Excellent, thanks! Maybe when I finish the list from Su I can start this.
Jois
Marc Verhaegen
PV Tobias 1998 Water and human evolution Out There 3:38-44
http://allserv.rug.ac.be/~mvaneech/outthere.htm
Repudiation of the Savannah Hypothesis
My disavowal of SH was based in the first place on evidence which had been
coming forth from excavations in South and East Africa. From Sterkfontein,
suggestions of greater woodland cover at the time when Australopithecus was
deposited in Member 4, had emerged from studies on fossil pollen, but these
were not compelling. Then Wits team member Marian Bamford identified fossil
vines or lianas of Dichapetalum in the same Member 4: such vines hang from
forest trees and would not be expected in open savannah. The team at
Makapansgat found floral and faunal evidence that the layers containing
Australopithecus reflected forest or forest margin conditions. From Hadar,
in Ethiopia, where "Lucy" was found, and from Aramis in Ethiopia, where Tim
White's team found Ardipithecus ramidus, possibly the oldest hominid ever
discovered, well-wooded and even forested conditions were inferred from the
fauna accompanying the hominid fossils.
All the fossil evidence adds up to the small-brained, bipedal hominids of
four to 2.5 million years ago having lived in a woodland or forest niche,
not savannah. The evidence for the presence of big forest trees supports the
idea we had gleaned from the bones of "Little Foot" that tree-climbing had
been a part of the lifeways of these early African hominids. At least, one
could conclude, there had been trees big enough to bear the weight of the
Australopithecines (for which stunted acacias of the savannah would have
been unsuitable).
To a large London audience in 1995 I said: "All the former savannah
supporters (including myself) must now swallow our earlier words in the
light of the new results from the early hominid deposits... Of course, if
savannah is eliminated as a primary cause, or selective advantage of
bipedalism, then we are back to square one."
Humans are not savannah-adapted animals
In rejecting the SH, I was moved primarily by the evidence unearthed in
South Africa and East Africa. Meanwhile, Elaine Morgan had been piecing
together a number of other arguments against the SH, based on some
anatomical, biochemical and physiological data of modern humans, much of
which was collected by Belgium's Dr Marc Verhaegen, which contrast sharply
with the traits in present-day animals that are truly adapted to savannah
life.
As examples, modern humans lack sun-reflecting fur and are virtually
hairless. The cooling system in our skin is quite unfit for hot, dry,
exposed environments: we have numerous sweat glands and we waste water and
sodium - not very suitable for life on the savannah. Our ability to
concentrate our urine is poor and too low and if ever our earliest ancestors
were savannah dwellers, we must have been the worst, the most profligate
urinators there.
Adapted savannah-dwellers need to drink more water at a time, but most
humans are not able to drink much at a time. The quantity of our
subcutaneous fat, which would insulate us against heat loss, is never found
in truly savannah-adapted animals.
In our bodily functions, chemistry and microscopical anatomy, we should be
hopeless as savannah-dwellers. So Marc Verhaegen and Elaine Morgan, in her
remarkable book, The Scars of Evolution, came to the same conclusion that we
had reached from quite different lines of evidence: the old Savannah
Hypothesis was not tenable. All former savannah supporters must recant and
this I did in London. It was an exciting moment - living through a change of
paradigm.
Max Planck, the German physicist and Nobel laureate, once wrote these words
on the replacement of an outworn paradigm: "A new scientific truth does not
triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but
rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows that
is familiar with it."
That must be one of the masterpieces of cynicism on the scientific process.
Paradigm changes, I like to think, flow overwhelmingly from new evidence
and, where the evidence is sound and even irresistible, they should be
embraced just as lief by the old as by the young. It was three weeks after
my 71th birthday and I went on to declare, "A change of paradigm shakes us
up; it rejuvenates us; and, this above all, it prevents mental
fossilisation - and that is good for all of us."
What the demise of the SH means for the AAT
My formal slaying of the SH removed a key objection to the AAT. Supporters
of the Hardy-Morgan concept hailed this event as my espousal of the aquatic
ape hypothesis. This was not strictly correct for there were other theories
on the "primary causes" of bipedalism, though, to my knowledge, there was
none to explain those physiological and biochemical aspects which seemed to
ally us to marine mammals. Now, at least, anthropologists should be able to
examine this with a more open mind than previously when the thinking of so
many was clouded by the SH.
It seems, however, that the name Aquatic Ape Theory has become a handicap.
For nearly 40 years since Hardy first put the idea forward, AAT has been a
bit of a joke to many scientists, conjuring up visions of a creature that
spent all - or almost all - of its time in the water. Yet Hardy's original
1960 article was modestly entitled, "Was man more aquatic in the past?" In
scientific writing a name can send very misleading messages and the term
"Aquatic Ape" does just that. Replace it with something else, I urged Elaine
Morgan. Then, I think the implications of those apparently water-adapted
features like humans' loss of hair will receive less cynical attention from
those who have hitherto smirked at the mere mention of "The Aquatic Ape"!
At the Dual Congress at Sun City in 1998, Marc Verhaegen and Pierre-François
Puech of France summed the evidence that hominid evolution did not begin in
warm and dry, but in warm and wet conditions. This included new thinking on
what one can infer from the micro-wear on the teeth as to the food of early
hominids: they found signs of marshland plants, molluscs, aquatic herbs.
Dr Michael Crawford of the Institute of Brain Chemistry and Human Nutrition,
London, Dr L Broadhurst of the USA., and other collaborators presented an
unexpected and fascinating study. In his book The Driving Force: Food,
Evolution and the Future (1989), Crawford explores many issues around "the
land-water interface". To develop the large brain characteristic of the
hominids, a chemical known as DHA was necessary. The lack of DHA in savannah
food may explain the "degenerative evolution" of the brains of savannah
species and the reason why Homo sapiens could not have evolved on the
savannahs. The marine food chain, on the other hand, has an abundant supply
of DHA. Early hominids had to make use of the marine food chain to enable
the evolution of brain and brain size to keep pace with body size. Their
claim that the human brain depended on the marine food chain suggests
independent evidence in support of the importance of water in human
evolution.
In the face of all this evidence, old and new, it is time for human
evolutionists to open their minds and give fair and objective thought to the
role of water in the evolution of mankind. We need a new holistic emphasis
on water: first for drinking, secondly as a source of food from aquatic
plants and animals and, thirdly, as waterways facilitating - or impeding -
the spread of humanity across the globe. Fourthly, we may no longer shy away
from the questions posed by those especial features of the human skin,
sweat-glands, chemistry of sweat, body temperature control and fluctuations,
heat and radiation tolerance and water consumption, which in modern humans
appear so different from those of savannah-adapted mammals and so
reminiscent, in some cases, of aquatic mammals.
As the Savannah Hypothesis still held sway when the Valkenburg Conference on
AAT took place 11 years ago, many arguments raised at that meeting are no
longer tenable. Another international forum should be set up to explore the
whole question in the light of the demise of the SH - but please, let it be
under a different name!
_______
"Michael Clark" <bit...@spammer.com> wrote in message
news:10k5um4...@corp.supernews.com...
Algis Kuliukas
> In sci.anthropology.paleo, firstjois created a
> message ID news:XJCdnc-Uxfj...@comcast.com:
>
> Y'all must be really bored.
Yes. Bored stupid.
> >>>> be made to look like the expected consequences." "The
> >>>> Character of Physical Law" (1992) pp.158-159
Oh, that's so clever. Bob. Genius.
> >>> "I'm vague because it doesn't matter" -Algis
Jason's been taking lessons from Jim Moore on how to quote people out
of context.
> > Now, that is too true to be really funny.
Jois is as insightful as ever.
> What's not funny however is if a person is using this ploy as
> a form of propoganda for a cause. Like a politician making a
> plan real enough to be believe but vaque enough so that it
> cannot be fault.
Just like PA's attempt at the current orthodox paradigm, then. I say
'attempt' because it isn't real enough to be believed by anyone with a
critical mind and even it's vagueness doesn't stop it from being
faulted.
Exactly, so all of the waffle preceding that simple statement was
almost worthless.
> however its a catch 22, because if
> _it_ is longlived then 'something magical' didn't actually
> happen.
Who said it had to be 'magical'? If our ancestors actually (gosh, dare
I say it? - I know it's *so* controversial) stepped into the water
more than the ancestors of chimps then what? what do you expect would
happen? Something magical? No, I expect it was just good ol' natural
selection. Boringly obvious actually.
> None the less despite the above disproof I noticed
> that proponents continued to move this aquatic intermediate
> around with each new discovery, there is no particular
> movement that can reconcile it with the statistic, other than
> proving both evolved at the same time, and that they both
> evolved before 1.8 mya.
This 'aquatic intermediate' is a fantasy you have created so you can
more easily dismiss the uncomfortable feeling that you might have been
completely wrong about all of this.
Forget 'aquatic intermediates' amd think of human ancestors that were
merely more aquatic (i.e. more likely to move through water - that is
wade, swim dive) than chimp ancestors. It might help.
> The basic problem is that when arguing with these
> individuals they continue to circumvent critiques by changing
> the argument midstream, refreshening the vaqueness of the
> argument. I want to have intelligent discussion with people
> who have a perspective to offer, this type of shell game
> vaqueness is useless to scientific discussion, which is why
> all these pliocene cat morsels are in my killfile ;^).
I've not changed my argument now for - what? - about four years. If
you find the concept that humans moved through water than chimps since
the LCA vague, I'm sorry, but I think it's a bit clearer than the
alternative - which is what exactly?... humans were more
kind-of-generalist in slightly more open habitats (but no quite open
enough to be labelled 'savannah' because that was a straw man invented
by Elaine Morgan) than chimps and this 'generalismo' magically
transformed us, but not them, into walking, talking, naked, fat,
brainy people.
Keep your hands over your ears, Phillip. Then, you might not even
notice when the paradigm shift comes.
Algis Kuliukas
Philip Deitiker
message ID news:77a70442.04091...@posting.google.com:
> Keep your hands over your ears, Phillip.
Yes and thanks for notifying me of your email address change
This is how to do it folks.
<plonk>.
firstjois
>> In sci.anthropology.paleo, Algis Kuliukas created a
>> message ID news:77a70442.04091...@posting.google.com:
>>
>>> Keep your hands over your ears, Phillip.
>>
Can you imagine what life would be like if you had to actually **listen**
to Algie?
Wouldn't be equal to "blah, blah, blah" but something more shrill? You
know, "yada, yada, yada" is within the realm of "polite" - not aggravating
enough. Consider "quack, quack, quack" or "quaaaack, quaaaack, quaaaack"
or a mix of the two: "quack, quaaaack, quack, quack,quack" - how's that?
Jois
Algis Kuliukas
> Algis Kuliukas <al...@RiverApes.com> wrote in message
> news:77a70442.04091...@posting.google.com...
> > "J Moore" <anthro...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:<4cO0d.396323$gE.286961@pd7tw3no>...
> > > Algis Kuliukas <al...@RiverApes.com> wrote in message
> > > news:77a70442.04091...@posting.google.com...
[..]
> > Nothing to say there, Jim? If I'd have done that you'd have leapt on
> > me from high above and maybe it would have ended up on your 'Can AATer
> > research be trusted?' page. It's just one rule for you and one rule
> > for us, isn't it?
>
> Seems I did say something about that -- you claimed (inaccurately, IMO) that
> neither Hardy or Morgan had given any idea of how aquatic or semi-aquatic
> their purported hominid ancestors were, even after they'd been thinking
> about the idea for nearly 50 years in Hardy's case and nearly 30 years in
> Morgan's. Yet that's a fundamental step in formulating such a hypothesis,
> so if it were true (and I disagree with you on that) it would a sign of
> incredible incompetence.
Sorry, Jim. More twisting. I didn't claim that Hardy or Morgan hadn't
"given any idea how aquatic or semi-aquatic their purported ancestors
were", I stated a fact: that they hadn't *defined* the aquatic ape
hypothesis. I've quoted Hardy and Morgan often enough showing where
they suggest only 'more aquatic than an otter' or 'not a mermaid' but
despite this, they never laid out the hypothesis with a formal
definition. I am criticising them but that's not the same as saying
that their work was - how did you put it? - "incompetent trash".
My point is that if Morgan had ever claimed anyone said something as
far of the mark as you claimed I did - it would have gone into your
web site as more evidence of AATer's sloppy research methods. If you
are doing the same thing as *you claim* Morgan did it makes a mockery
of your claimed moral superiority.
[..]
> > Amazing. The author of aquaticape.org just never got the whole point
> > all along.
>
> If you say so. I notice you go for ad hominems rather than addressing this
> serious failing of the AAT/H versions to reconcile what they say they're
> talking about with the evidence they use -- evidence which indicates they
> are actually talking about something very different than they say they are.
I'm sorry if I've hurled any personal abuse at you. (I don't think I
did.) I certainly try not to. I recognise that you do not engage in
this sort of behaviour yourself and I respect you for that.
My studies are absolutely taken up by addressing the evidence for the
AAH. At the end of my study if the evidence doesn't stack up, I'll
drop the idea like a stone and move on. So far, however, the evidence
appears to be stronger than ever.
[..]
> > The head hair happens to be largely out of water whilst swimming the
> > breast stroke. If it was purely sexual selection how come both men and
> > women have lost their body hair? If sc fat was sexual selected how
> > come even the leanest males are generally still fatter than the
> > fattest primates? There may be an element of sexual selection going on
> > but it can hardly explain male hairlessness or male sc fat.
>
> These features are classic cases of sexual selection, and Pond points out
> the bit about predation and fat which I have repeated, and which AAT/H
> proponents have consistently ignored.
I gave you credit for those on my critique, actually, Jim. But you
didn't answer my questions (again) - if it;s classic sexual selection,
how come both males and females are generally naked and generally fat?
> The idea that head hair, and beards,
> of course, are not in the water during breast stroke (that's the high speed,
> predator escaping swimming stroke you claim we used?) seems just a tad,
> what's the word? wrong.
The high speed thing is bogus, as I've made clear before. As usual you
pick out an idea (hair loss for drag reduction) twist it (hair
reduction for swimming speed) and ridicule it (swiming to avoid sharks
and crocodiles). That's Straw Man, cubed.
It's not just hair reduction for reduced drag, it's also for helping
in dip/sweat cooling. It's not just for speed, it's more for energy
efficiency and for greater staying power. It's absolutely not for
avoiding predators (although it might have been partly about not being
the last of your group to get out ofd the water when one has been
spotted approaching), it's for swimming against currents and tides.
Just refuse to take on any of the ideas in their moderate form, don't
you? That's what I meant when I said that the reason aquascpetics
don't do that is because it becomes boringly obvious.
> (http://www.gatorswimteam.org/2004/5/breaststroke.html) I've always been
> amused at these explanations of AAT/H swimming styles -- the "hair tracts
> method" which requires you to swim with the crown of your head facing
> forward and your arms at your sides, or the "AAT/H variation breaststroke"
> where the entire head, including beard, is held out of the water -- and
> these are supposed to be high speed swimming strokes to account for hair
> loss, too!
Hominids probably swam with a variety of strokes just like we do
today, just like we have a variety of terrestrial modes of locomotion
too. You're exaggerating again, as always.
[..]
> > You completely avoided my question. What ecological scenario would
> > have allowed this sexual selection positive feedback loop to cause
> > such a marked difference between humans and chimps?
> >
> > No I'm not comparing to seals and whales. People that are fatter are
> > less likely to drown than people who are thinner. It's called
> > buoyancy.
>
> This idea is not borne out by comparisons to other aquatic mammals -- except
> of course to seals, whales, and sirenia, and even there Pond points out that
> their fat seems adapted to shaping for streamlining along with the general
> use of fat, in all animals, as a food store.
You just want to keep bringing on the seals, even though they're a
side issue. Humans that are fat are less likely to drown than those
that are skinny. It's simply a mater of increased buoyancy.
> Your assumption (unstated, as
> usual for AAT/H accounts), of course, is that hominids spent one hell of a
> lot of time swimming instead of the just a little "more" you put forth
> whenever a critic mentions this problem with the AAT/H.
The more time they spent in water the more buoyancy would be selected
for. Why do you have to try to raise the bar all the time - oh yeah, I
know, because that way you think you're ridiculing the idea.
> > The lifespan differences are not so hard to explain. Infants are most
> > vulnerable to drowning hence it makes sense for them to establish a
> > thick layer of sc fat at birth and in the early months. Later in life,
> > the argument that they are to show sexual maturity is not incompatible
> > with a more aquatic lifestyle. The function of advertising to the
> > opposite sex that you are mature need not have involved nakedness
> > and/or fat (it didn't in any other primate, did it?) and it is
> > certainly an odd and very expensive method to use for a hominid that
> > is supposed to have been moving into more open and arid habitats. It
> > makes perfect sense, however if these hominids were spending a
> > significant part of their lives in water. Seen in this light extra
> > female sc fat might be seen as advertising to males that they are
> > relatively fit in water (more buoyuant and hence less likely to drown)
> > and therefore a better bet for a male to invest in, and vice versa
> > with females too.
>
> And this is your "parsimonious" idea? Can you say "ad hoc"?
Well why don't you answer my question and state the orthodox paradigm
suggestion for explaining this. When no other primate uses nakedness
and fatness for sexual selection, how come our species suddenly did?
[..]
> > I don't need fully aquatic animals to show that more fat in humans
> > makes you more bouyant and less likely to drown.
> >
> > I don't need them to show that shaving body hair off a human reduces
> > drag significantly in water and that hair reduction aids dip/sweat
> > cooling.
>
> You use our present body (and head) hair as evidence of an aquatic past --
> aquatic to some vaguely stated degree of "more". But of course our present
> condition -- the state that AAT/H proponents says this vaguely-defined
> aquaticness created -- turns out to be just exactly what competitive
> swimmers don't want -- they go either for hair removal or (and/or) body
> suits that mimic the effect of hair or dermal ridges. If we can speed up
> our swimming by removing our body and head hair, how is it that our body and
> head hair were adapted to swimming speedily?
'Speedily' is a twist. Less drag makes it more efficient, more durable
as well as faster. How do you know that hairier men are not slower
than less hairy men, all other things being equal? Are you just
guessing?
[..]
> > You can keep repeating that all you like, Jim, but as I said, we've
> > moved on. The aquatic mammals were only an analogy, a wake-up call for
> > Hardy to realise what might be going on. It seems, Jim, that you've
> > just never understood that. What a waste of time, then, your attempted
> > character assination of Elaine Morgan has been. Any increased
> > aquaticism in humans as compared to chimps would predict increased
> > adipocity and reduced body hair irrespective of what's going on in
> > aquatic animals. They're almost irrelevant. They only act to show that
> > in mammalia, as an order, nakedness and fat are most likely associated
> > with aquatic factors.
>
> Ahh, again with the "they were just trying to get you to think" idea -- so
> beloved ofthe pseudoscience crowd -- I'd think you might want to try to
> avoid that particular association by not using their tactics.
Well if you actually read Hardy and Morgan you'd have realised that
this is exactly what they said they were doing...
"My thesis is, of course, only a speculation - an hypothesis to be
discussed and tested against further lines of evidence. Such ideas are
useful only if they stimulate fresh inquiries which may bring us
nearer the truth." Hardy (1960:645)
"The questions posed by the Aquatic Ape Theory are important and
valid. The answers it offers are speculative, but no more than those
of any other available model. It is now generally agreed that the last
common ancestor of apes and men lived in Africa in a landscape which
was a mosaic, a mixture of trees and grassland.
One sub-group of these animals - for some reason - began to change.
First, they stood up on their hind legs and began to walk bipedally;
at some point the haior on their bodies changed direction and
ultimately they became functionally naked; the larynx descended and
was relocated below the tonge; they became fatter; forgot how to pant;
lost their apocrine glands and much of their sense of smell; the
sebaceous glands proliferated; their nostrils pointed in anew
direction; finally they evolved larger brains, gave birth to more
immature babies, and learned to speak.
The mosaic theory implies that these changes were set in motion
because the hominid's ancestors chose to live in, or occasionally had
to cross, open spaces between the forested areas. Open speces never
caused any of these changes in any other mammal.
That explanation is not good enough. No one is very happy about this
state of affairs, or wishes it to persist any longer than is
necessary.
In July 1996 an article in the American magazine Discover predicted:
'For all the effort it has taken to bring down the savannah
hypothesis, it will take much more to build up something else in its
place.' This book is offered as a contribution to that building
process." Morgan (1997:176)
> This
> "association" of nakedness and fat and "aquatic factors", though, is seen
> only in seals, whales, and sirenia -- sorry, but you guys are the ones
> dragging them back into the argument all the time. True, you don't like to
> actually mention them by name, but then that's a tad disingenuous (to be
> polite).
No, forget them. Please.
[..]
> > Anyone reading this will see that you have a clear agenda to use the
> > worst possible AAH material every time to twist and distort into the
> > worst possible light.
>
> This insistence that older people are senile old farts who can't get a fact
> straight is one I have always found abhorent in AAT/H supporters, and one
> which I do not agree with. But even if it were true, one has to look at
> what they said and see if it's accurate and sensible, just as one does with
> their earlier work -- there is no "I'm an old grandparent so I get to place
> nonsense in science free" card.
Can you even admit that Hardy said "ten (not twenty) million years" in
1960? Yes or no?
[..]
> > Try www.aquaticape.org. I think that qualifies you.
>
> If I've said things which were inaccurate, I don't expect them to be
> accepted as scientific fact, as you and other AAT/H proponents have
> repeatedly suggested be the case for the works of AAT/H supporters. I can't
> see my age, my status as a grandparent, or any other factor coming into play
> other than the accuracy of what I say, but that is what is, and has been
> many times over the years, asked for in the case of Hardy and Morgan by
> AAT/H supporters. I have been astounded and dismayed at the number of times
> their supporters have made velied suggestions that they are incompetent
> because they are/were old -- and even more dismayed that those supporters
> expect that to be an excuse which allows their work to be valid even when
> it's inaccurate.
I think it's only fair to judge Hardy on what he wrote in 1960, not in
1977. That's not ageist, it's just being fair minded.
[..]
> > It's more than that, Jim, and you know it. The wading hypothesis is
> > the strongest on that list. The one that is most causative, the one
> > with the most evidence in extant apes and in the fossil record.
>
> Once you get away from the aspect of bipedalism (which leaves the AAT/H as
> one item in a long list rather than a hypothesis) you get into territory
> which neccessitates a great deal more aquaticness than any of it's
> proponents seem willing to claim -- indeed, more aquaticism than our
> species' history has time for.
The wading, the nakedness, the sc fat - and others - all make more
sense in a waterside scenario. You, of course, want to dissect it out
and put it in quarrantine so that you can twist each of the other
arguments separately for maximim ridicule. It's the high integrative
value of the AAH which is so compelling and so much better than the
alternatives.
[..]
That's an astonishing claim. Evidence?
> albeit very small (we are
> still, at best, incredibly slow swimmers, even for Olympic atheletes). I've
> been over this many times, and you don't want to see it, and I can't
> disagree witht eh evidence as you are able to allow yourself to do, so this
> seems to be an unproductive argument.
[..]
> > You still missed my point c. (Gosh, it's hard getting you to see any
> > fault in your own reasoning) Hardy was an FRS and his 1960 paper was
> > written when he was at the peak of his career. It was written just
> > after his Brighton speech and published in a reasonably reputable
> > magazine. The Zenith paper was written 17 years later when he was long
> > into retirement and, at 81, not of certain good health. It's not being
> > ageist to suggest that the earlier paper is the more significant, just
> > fair minded. It's instructive that you *refuse* to use the ten million
> > year quote from the earlier paper, but insist on using the twenty
> > million year one from the second - just to make his argument look that
> > much weaker. I still haven't even got an admission from you that the
> > 1960 paper was saying ten million years, you even tried to deny that!
> >
> > Can you admit that you were wrong, Jim? Ever?
>
> You again use the senile old goat line. Can you ever get over this idea
> that old people are incapable of thought?
Well when you show so much stubbornness and I have to keep reminding
you to answer my questions (were you wrong over the twenty million
quote in Hardy 1960, or what?), perhaps senility has kicked in, Jim.
>I know it disturbs you that Hardy
> was so inaccurate in his later paper, and I notice you dwell on this paper
> and the critiques of it so you can use that ageist argument.
It's not so much the age, it's the source. I also criticsed your use
of Morgan's newsgroup posting for one of your terrible four for the
same reason. But then, he was 81, and had retired 17 years earlier.
> I frankly see
> little sign that Hardy (or Morgan for that matter -- others have used this
> ageist argument in her defense) were senile or any different in thought from
> their younger days. He said things that weren't true; you object to their
> being pointed out.
I don't - I object to them being exaggerated, twisted and emphasised.
I object to his earlier, clearer, statements being ignored to distort
the image of Hardy into a silly fool.
> You blame all errors on their editors,
... another twist. I blame Hardy *and* the editor for the Zemith
errors. I accept Hardy made errors.
> and besides, they
> were just trying to make us think about it, and anyway, they just wanted to
> hustle the idea out into the world quickly for that purpose, even though
> that rush took decades. A litany of excuses for their work, which you then
> say should net degrees.
You're exaggerating again.
[..]
> > Sorry, but you missed my point. My earlier link was to a scanned image
> > of Hardy's whole paper which I put on my web site so that people could
> > access the whole original article very easily rather than just take
> > the headline (another Moore twist was that I "insisted" people only
> > read the title.) I was kind of hoping that you'd concede that in the
> > 1960 paper Hardy actually cited a figure of 10 My, not 20 My. I was
> > kind of hoping that the great Jim Moore might admit that even he makes
> > mistakes. I know this is difficult for you, Jim, and that it kind of
> > destroys your whole argument. After all, if you make as many mistakes
> > as Elaine Morgan does, it makes all that self-righteousness (what was
> > it? 'you won't find those here'?) all seem a bit silly.
> >
> > I want to see if you can admit that you were wrong. The Hardy (1960)
> > quote clearly refers to ten million years.
> >
> > As to the critiques of your web site. Blimey, still haven't read them
> > five months on. Seems to me that you're not really very interested in
> > getting any feedback positive or otherwise. Not much of scientific
> > critique that.
> >
> > A link to my critique would be enough to regain some credibility. Can
> > you do that?
>
> I know you're upset that your page fell off the first page of Google results
> (it was about that time you started fishing for a link), but I am sorry that
> I haven't had time to go over your pages and write up a response; I wouldn't
> want toassume all your complaints were so facile and ridiculous as your
> complaints about my URL.
Again, you didn't answer my point: can you admit that you were wrong
about the Hardy (1960) quote? It clearly refers to ten million years,
not as you insisted, 20.
For someone who claims to have written a serious scientific critique
you are amaziingly care-free about reading someone's critique of it.
[..]
> > > > So are you conceding that I didn't actually claim that Hardy's paper
> > > > per se was 'mild and borringly obvious' as you tried to twist?
> >
> > Jim's not saying.
See? He *accuses* Morgan of distorting peoples words (when she doesn't
really) but when you point out that he does... ooops, nothing.
> > [..snipped a tonne of Hardy quotes in response to Moore's amazing
> > claim that I insisted that people only read his title - something of
> > course I've never done, I've even put a scanned copy of Hardy's
> > original paper on my web site in full so people can read it all for
> > themselves.]
> >
> > http://www.riverapes.com/AAH/Hardy/HardyPage1.htm
Again Moore has nothing to say when you demonstrate his own brand of
false facts. (I insisting that people only read the headline)
[..]
> > Rubbish. When you say they 'took a look at it' - what? you mean over a
> > coffee, or whilst they were sat on the toilet? I meant, of course, a
> > proper scientific investigation of the kind I'm doing now, 44 years
> > later.
>
> I meant read, snorted at the many glaring errors, and put it aside in favor
> of productive work.
How productive has that bipedalism debate been now, Jim. 122 years
after Darwin and they're think it's more complex than ever. Don't you
think someone could at least have looked at the wading idea? I mean it
doesn't take a genius to see that in shallow water apes are likely to
move bipedally. Or were they too busy snorting?
[..]
> > > > But you don't give references to the 'errors' except on four ocassions
> > > > and even those are just pathetic. If you say there are more... let's
> > > > have them - WITH FULL CITATIONS! Can you do that?
> >
> > Apparently not.
[..]
> > You're quoting selectively again, Jim. Did you notice? He said 'look
> > at the evidence *DISPASSIONATELY*.' (you snipped that word out,
> > conveniently.) You have made it abundantly clear that this is not what
> > you have done. Hardy (1960) "ten million years", Hardy (1977) "twenty
> > million years" - which one do you take?, the later - simply because it
> > makes Hardy look like a fool. Anyone looking at his claims
> > *dispassionately* would have given him the benefit of the doubt.
> > Another example: Morgan's (1997) book has four chapters on bipedal
> > origins. Wading is the biggest claim in the AAH and yet you only
> > stress the miniscule, teeny-weeny-itsie-bitsie change in emphasis over
> > Morgan's reporting of the Aldosterone evidence out of Ganong and twist
> > it into another shock-horror deception rather than discuss the bulk of
> > Morgan's treatment or the block of evidence that is growing all the
> > time for it. Langdon's treatment was almost as bad. If you were
> > looking at the evidence dispassionately you'd have considered the
> > wading hypothesis full on, and not tried to twist it like you have
> > into another straw man.
> >
> > Algis Kuliukas
>
> When you read something dispassionately and you see it's full of glaring
> errors, even at first reading, you don't tend to think much of the idea or
> the author. When you dig further then, I guess you're no longer
> "dispassionate", according to you, which seems to mean "uncritically
> supportive".
I'm not uncritically supportive. I take Hardy and Morgan to task for
not defining the thing clearly enough. Blimey, you said that I'd
dismissed their work as "incompetent trash" on that very basis. Make
your mind up, Jim.
You see, you just can't do that 'balanced' thing, can you? It's either
a vitriolic diatribe or it's nothing. It's either twist, exaggerate
and ridicule or it's keep schtum.
Algis Kuliukas
Philip Deitiker
message ID news:Z76dnT1r7tD...@comcast.com:
> Wouldn't be equal to "blah, blah, blah" but something more
shrill? You
> know, "yada, yada, yada" is within the realm of "polite" -
not aggravating
> enough. Consider "quack, quack, quack" or "quaaaack,
quaaaack, quaaaack"
> or a mix of the two: "quack, quaaaack, quack, quack,quack" -
how's that?
Right and this is the guy who accussed me of being abusive
when he first joined the group. He was plenty nice until you
cornered him with logic, and then you see his dance.
The algis moto is "never let hard data get in the way of a
good theory" The caveot is good = foolish, wacko, obfuscated,
. . . . . .
J Moore
The aquatic ape aficionados are always nice as long as you uncritically
accept their ideas. They should take a page from Larry Spring, the old guy
in Fort Bragg who has a new theory of the atom (Bohr and crew and all who
followed were/are dead wrong, you see). He's a really nice guy, always
polite apparently, even with those with whom he disagrees. He makes some
really nice litle brushless, solar-powered motors -- I hope he's still
around; anyone going through Fort Bragg should look for his storefront and
drop by.
firstjois
[snip]
>>
>> The aquatic ape aficionados are always nice as long as you
>> uncritically accept their ideas. They should take a page from Larry
>> Spring, the old guy in Fort Bragg who has a new theory of the atom
>> (Bohr and crew and all who followed were/are dead wrong, you see).
>> He's a really nice guy, always polite apparently, even with those
>> with whom he disagrees. He makes some really nice litle brushless,
>> solar-powered motors -- I hope he's still around; anyone going
>> through Fort Bragg should look for his storefront and drop by.
>>
>> --
>> JMoore
>> __
>> For a scientific critique of the aquatic ape theory, go to
>> www.aquaticape.org
And who is to say Larry never got a name change?
firstjois
--
My studies are absolutely taken up by addressing the evidence for the
AAH. At the end of my study if the evidence doesn't stack up, I'll
drop the idea like a stone and move on. So far, however, the evidence
appears to be stronger than ever.
Algis 091404
And all the evidence is located? . There. Did you see it? . There. Yes,
that's it .
Jason Eshleman
> Algis Kuliukas <al...@RiverApes.com> wrote in message
> news:77a70442.04091...@posting.google.com...
> > You can keep repeating that all you like, Jim, but as I said, we've
> > moved on. The aquatic mammals were only an analogy, a wake-up call for
> > Hardy to realise what might be going on. It seems, Jim, that you've
> > just never understood that. What a waste of time, then, your attempted
> > character assination of Elaine Morgan has been. Any increased
> > aquaticism in humans as compared to chimps would predict increased
> > adipocity and reduced body hair irrespective of what's going on in
> > aquatic animals. They're almost irrelevant. They only act to show that
> > in mammalia, as an order, nakedness and fat are most likely associated
> > with aquatic factors.
>
> Ahh, again with the "they were just trying to get you to think" idea -- so
> beloved ofthe pseudoscience crowd -- I'd think you might want to try to
> avoid that particular association by not using their tactics. This
> "association" of nakedness and fat and "aquatic factors", though, is seen
> only in seals, whales, and sirenia -- sorry, but you guys are the ones
> dragging them back into the argument all the time. True, you don't like to
> actually mention them by name, but then that's a tad disingenuous (to be
> polite).
Well Morgan did get people to think, but when that thinking got to any
critical analysis of what she was saying, that thinking pretty quickly
runs to a "wow, what a load of garbage."
There ain't no form of vague "AAH" that provides any real help in
figuring out what happened all those millions of years ago with
respect to a particular feature unless it addressess a particular
feature. As an unmbrella hypothesis it still has to cover the
specifics, and insofar as Algis has attempted, it's failed miserably.
The so-called-aquatic traits we have are, as Jim's noting, only those
found in completely or damn near completely aquatic creatures, all of
whom are clearly more adapted to aquatic life. "Hairlessness" isn't
an aquatic feature unless you're making the comparison with whales and
sirenia. As analogies go, hairlessness screams *damn near completely
aquatic* else it screams some other factor not related to water. As
such, the stretch is to say that the reduction of hair can reduce drag
because *shaving* seems to do this in competitive swimmers. This is a
real stretch and doesn't address *reduction* of hair, but the actual
elimination of hair. Further, counter evidence (very limited, but
nonetheless actual evidence) indicates that reduction alone isn't a
factor but only with full elimination of hair does this increased
performance come to light.
To anyone not totally deranged, deluded or dead-set-pre-convinced that
we must have had an aquatic (or "more aquatic" past) this shouts out
that the hair reduction as exhibited in humans just ain't an aquatic
trait. There ain't no form of vague "AAH" saying that water vaguely
influenced us more than it did a chimp that clears this up.
J Moore
:) But he wouldn't, because that would mean he'd have to change his book,
"The Spring Atom, and every page on it, since he puts his name into every
other sentence (like adding Larry Spring every time he says "I" -- ie. "I,
Larry Spring"). But he's a nice guy for all that, very entertaining, and
physics profs apparently really liked his various gadgets that set out to
explain various aspects of physics. If he'd stuck to that, and maybe did
some lay teaching along the way, he might have not been a kook, but at least
he is (or was, if he's gone now) a very nice, polite, entertaining kook with
a practical bent.
Marc Verhaegen
message news:b7af43cb.04091...@posting.google.com... & miserably
fails to provide 1 argument against AAT. The man is too biased to grasp what
AAT is about: that Plio-Pleistocene human ancestors (genus Homo) spent some
time at the sea-coasts, where they developed the features that typically
discern Homo from australopithecines & African apes: a much larger brain,
longer legs, loss of climbing, sophisticated tool use & dexterity, reduction
of olfaction, reduction of masticatory musculature (MYH16), an external
nose, and the typically human features that discern us from chimps: SC fat
layer, loss of fur, swimming-diving skills & voluntary control of brathing
musculature (preadaptation to speech) etc. This sea-side phase could wel
have happened when early Homo left Africa (almost 2 Ma?) along the coasts,
and soon reached regions as far as Algeria (Ain-Hanech, tools found in a
coastal plain) & Java (Mojokerto, erectus skull found next to barnacles &
freshwater & marine shells). They fed on shellfish & other seafood, turtles,
birds & their eggs, stranded carcasses, coconuts etc.
The short-sighted idiots we see here at s.a.p are too fanatic to understand
the importance of AAT, but the leading PAs are now open to the possibility,
eg, Chris Stringer: "One of the strong points about the aquatic theory is in
explaining the origin of bipedality. If our ancestors did go into the water,
that would force them to walk upright" & "As for coastal colonisation, I
argued ... that this was an event in the late Pleistocene that may have
facilitated the spread of modern humans"; Phillip Tobias
http://allserv.rug.ac.be/~mvaneech/outthere.htm
Marc Verhaegen
http://www.onelist.com/community/AAT
http://allserv.rug.ac.be/~mvaneech/Verhaegen.html
______
Bob Keeter
Speaking of apes, aquatic or otherwise. . . . . .
http://www.artecy.com/lnoevil.jpg
Many would choose the path of the primate on the left of the tapestry when
they refuse to believe the bad things that some people do. Others just
choose the middle ground to again avoid having to take a stand against
things, even if they do find them offensive, when opposition might just be a
bit difficult. In this particular case, it might be best for all concerned
if both of these fineand wonderful fellows you addressed just imitated the
last chimp in the line. Might be a real challenge since that particular
primate is displaying some modicum of social graces, civility, self
restraint and dare I say it, humanity! 8-)
Regards
bk
Bob Keeter
snippage. . .
> The aquatic ape aficionados are always nice as long as you uncritically
> accept their ideas. They should take a page from Larry Spring, the old
> guy
> in Fort Bragg who has a new theory of the atom (Bohr and crew and all who
> followed were/are dead wrong, you see). He's a really nice guy, always
> polite apparently, even with those with whom he disagrees. He makes some
> really nice litle brushless, solar-powered motors -- I hope he's still
> around; anyone going through Fort Bragg should look for his storefront and
> drop by.
>
> --
> JMoore
Mr. Moore, sir!
You might ask yourself if your issue with the wet apers is their mockery
of intelligent and civilized scientific debate or is it that you simply want
to slam them for their ideas? If the later, that is of course your choice
to join them in the gutter. If its the former, perhaps there are other feet
that the shoe fits just as well. 8-)
Regards
bk
J Moore
Interesting trivia (well, I found it interesting). The three monkeys in the
original carving were langurs (apparently Douc langurs), btw, not Japanese
macaques as they are often portrayed (and of course, not chimps like the
guys in this picture) and are generally said to be representing the phrase
"hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil" but the "evil" part, implying a
moral component to the saying, was a later addition. The original meaning
was "no hear, no see, no speak" and if I remember correctly it represented
the spiritual stillness one sought in enlightenment.
I found this out 15 years ago in the book, "The Monkey as Mirror: Symbolic
Transformations in Japanese History and Ritual" (1989) by Emiko
Ohnuki-Tierney. Very interesting cultural anthropology book which, among
other things, corrects the common Western impression that Japan is a
homogenous society. If you read it and find I've remembered this wrongly,
btw, please kick me and correct it. :)
J Moore
I don't think I have an "issue", though I've had plenty of ad hominems
thrown at me (in newsgroups and emails) suggesting that plus many other odd
theories as to why I do this. I just want to look at their idea and point
out where they're wrong, which unfortunately for them is pretty much all
over the place. :) There are plenty of other theories to look at, of
course, but there seem to be loads of people looking at and critiquing most
of those (those that have any following at least) so I have concentrated on
one that hasn't been looked at critically much but has a large following.
Bob Keeter
Snip. . .
> Interesting trivia (well, I found it interesting). The three monkeys in
> the
> original carving were langurs (apparently Douc langurs), btw, not Japanese
> macaques as they are often portrayed (and of course, not chimps like the
> guys in this picture) and are generally said to be representing the phrase
> "hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil" but the "evil" part, implying a
> moral component to the saying, was a later addition. The original meaning
> was "no hear, no see, no speak" and if I remember correctly it represented
> the spiritual stillness one sought in enlightenment.
Ah yes, but neither the langurs nor the snow monkeys can really be called
apes and the double entendre as well as the segue would have been a bit
less pointed I think! ;-)
> I found this out 15 years ago in the book, "The Monkey as Mirror: Symbolic
> Transformations in Japanese History and Ritual" (1989) by Emiko
> Ohnuki-Tierney. Very interesting cultural anthropology book which, among
> other things, corrects the common Western impression that Japan is a
> homogenous society. If you read it and find I've remembered this wrongly,
> btw, please kick me and correct it. :)
>
I might just have to look up that book for some reading material. I trust
your interpretation though. Didnt this author also just recently publish an
analysis of Japanese society and the WWII kamakazi mindset? I think I saw a
writeup in the Globe's literary section. I was going to see if Barnes and
Noble had it. . . . Now I've got two to look for! 8-)
Domo, arigato, Moore-sama!
Regards
bk
J Moore
That I don't know. At the time I was just reading everything I could get my
hands on on Japanese macaques because I was looking at how the potato
washing precultural transmission info was often incorrectly repeated, and
what that meant for references and how they're done. It's a good cautionary
tale about using primary refs. Of course the Japanese macaque studies are
really fascinating, since they covered so many troops and so much time, and
since they set the style for modern animal studies, as later done by Goodal
and many others.. That is, identifying each individual, and giving them
both a name and code number so you could track individuals well over time,
and so on. They also saw the variation between troops and over time in a
number of activities, including several different ways that behaviors are
transmitted within troops depending on who picks the behavior up first.
Interesting stuff about female rank too -- for that matter, although their
troops were almost always headed by a male, one troop was headed by a female
for many years, showing some plasticity in behavior that people often don't
think exists, and making it even clearer that extrapolating from one group
or study is dangerous. Another interesting trivia bit: the Japanese macaque
studies were started by the guy who thought up the way they were done
(although he didn't do too much of the macaque work himself) but macaques
weren't the first animals this method was used with. It was Pere David
deer. Unfortunately, this sort of trivia is a little too esoteric to dine
out on; I haven't gotten a drink in a bar over it. :)
Algis Kuliukas
The evidence is located in primatology (extant ape behaviour in water
is almost totally bipedal); paleoecology/paleogeography (almost all
early hominid sites could have been wetland habitats);
paleoanthropology (postcranial anatomy of early bipeds is certainly
for upright (hence bipedal) locomotion, but almost certainly not the
kind of bipedalism we practice today); comparative anatomy (humans as
compared to chimpanzees have a number of traits which are most
parsimoniously explained by adaptation to increased exposure to moving
through water) and that's just off the top of my head.
Algis Kuliukas
Algis Kuliukas
> "J Moore" <anthro...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<0cn1d.420900$gE.131064@pd7tw3no>...
> > Algis Kuliukas <al...@RiverApes.com> wrote in message
> > news:77a70442.04091...@posting.google.com...
>
> > > You can keep repeating that all you like, Jim, but as I said, we've
> > > moved on. The aquatic mammals were only an analogy, a wake-up call for
> > > Hardy to realise what might be going on. It seems, Jim, that you've
> > > just never understood that. What a waste of time, then, your attempted
> > > character assination of Elaine Morgan has been. Any increased
> > > aquaticism in humans as compared to chimps would predict increased
> > > adipocity and reduced body hair irrespective of what's going on in
> > > aquatic animals. They're almost irrelevant. They only act to show that
> > > in mammalia, as an order, nakedness and fat are most likely associated
> > > with aquatic factors.
> >
> > Ahh, again with the "they were just trying to get you to think" idea -- so
> > beloved ofthe pseudoscience crowd -- I'd think you might want to try to
> > avoid that particular association by not using their tactics. This
> > "association" of nakedness and fat and "aquatic factors", though, is seen
> > only in seals, whales, and sirenia -- sorry, but you guys are the ones
> > dragging them back into the argument all the time. True, you don't like to
> > actually mention them by name, but then that's a tad disingenuous (to be
> > polite).
>
> Well Morgan did get people to think, but when that thinking got to any
> critical analysis of what she was saying, that thinking pretty quickly
> runs to a "wow, what a load of garbage."
Then people didn't do *enough* thinking, did they? If they only went
through Morgan's list of proposed traits which might be explained by
aquaticism with a fine toothed comb, like Langdon did, and upon
discovering a couple of ones that were overextended (like salt
tears/ventro-ventro copulation/hymens) decided to shout out
'rubbish!', they weren't being critical enough.
They weren't being critical enough of *themselves*. Anyone can read an
idea sceptically and pull it apart if it not constructed perfectly and
on that basis dismiss it and, in fact, ridicule it. It takes a more
critical thinker to consider if their interpretation of the idea might
be wrong, if the person making the claims might be wrong but that the
idea might, basically, be sound. This is what has been sorely lacking
in this debate - an open mind.
> There ain't no form of vague "AAH" that provides any real help in
> figuring out what happened all those millions of years ago with
> respect to a particular feature unless it addressess a particular
> feature. As an unmbrella hypothesis it still has to cover the
> specifics, and insofar as Algis has attempted, it's failed miserably.
You say that but...
Bipedalism explained rather easily by wading and backed up with more
evidence than any of the other models so far.
Nakedness explained by dip/sweat cooling and drag reduction.
Sc fat explained by bouyancy.
Rather specific, I'd say.
> The so-called-aquatic traits we have are, as Jim's noting, only those
> found in completely or damn near completely aquatic creatures, all of
> whom are clearly more adapted to aquatic life. "Hairlessness" isn't
> an aquatic feature unless you're making the comparison with whales and
> sirenia. As analogies go, hairlessness screams *damn near completely
> aquatic* else it screams some other factor not related to water. As
> such, the stretch is to say that the reduction of hair can reduce drag
> because *shaving* seems to do this in competitive swimmers. This is a
> real stretch and doesn't address *reduction* of hair, but the actual
> elimination of hair. Further, counter evidence (very limited, but
> nonetheless actual evidence) indicates that reduction alone isn't a
> factor but only with full elimination of hair does this increased
> performance come to light.
So, by this logic, any drag reduction has to be associated with
*absolute* elimination of body hair to work at all. If there is so
much as one hair remaining, all the benefit is lost. That view is just
absurd. How do you know, for instance, that hairier men do not have
greater drag in water than less hairy men. It's just a guess, isn't
it? The fact that shaving reduces drag is rather indicative that more
hair would cause more drag, but until that study is done, we just
don't know.
You like to compare us with full aquatics because that's where you
feel the hypothesis is at its weakest but when you say 'some other
factor not related to water' is screamed by our unique nakedess
amongst the primates - you are oddly mute. No screams there, I note.
> To anyone not totally deranged, deluded or dead-set-pre-convinced that
> we must have had an aquatic (or "more aquatic" past) this shouts out
> that the hair reduction as exhibited in humans just ain't an aquatic
> trait. There ain't no form of vague "AAH" saying that water vaguely
> influenced us more than it did a chimp that clears this up.
If I did a study which showed a correlation between hair loss and drag
reduction (and, of course, no such study has yet been done), though,
that would kind of blow a nuclear-sided hole in that argument though,
wouldn't it?
Algis Kuliukas
Algis Kuliukas
> "Algis Kuliukas" <al...@RiverApes.com> wrote in message
> news:77a70442.04091...@posting.google.com...
>
> > > > If hominids waded through water more than ape
> > > > ancestors they would be more likely to move
> > > > bipedally. That's not vague.
> > >
> > > It's just both wrong and irrelevant -- since
> > > you disdain to put forward any remotely
> > > likely theory as how it could have lead
> > > to terrestrial bipedalism.
> >
> > Oh yes I have. Many times. Over and over again.
>
> I've never seen it. You don't seem to
> be aware that selection has to operate:
> i.e. those better able to walk bipedally
> on land must have more descendants
> than others in the population.
>
> So Generation X is _for_some_distinct_
> and_well_defined_reason_ more bipedal
> on land than Generation X-1.
If Generation X is a better wader than Generation X - 1000 then
Generation X will almost certainly also be a better terrestrial biped
too, or at least better disposed for it.
> > As the water's edge of
> > rivers, lakes, seas - you know - all of em except swimming pools are
> > characterised by this thing called a gradient of depths, where deep
> > water, gradually becomes shallow water and shallow water gradually
> > becomes wet ground - this is *EXACTLY* the place where wading leads to
> > terrestrial bipedalism.
>
> Through a sort of process of osmosis?
No, through the same kind of selection that works on any organism in
any situation. Those can move better, quicker, more efficiently are
more likely to survive than those that don't.
> > That's more than putting foreward a remotely likely theory - it's
> > spelling it out in simple terms a six year old (but apparently not
> > people who think they're experts in paleoanthropology) can see.
>
> Somehow I just can't see any 'spelling out'.
Wading is a situation that, uniquely for hominoidae, it seems, compels
them to move bipedally in certain depths of water. It compels them
like no other factor on the planet. These depths are actually found
everywhere - in rivers, lakes, swamps, coasts etc and - guess what -
just a few metres away from them are the exact terrestrial substrates
which has been causing PA so much confusion - why, oh why, did they
start walking there? Every time an ape moved from the deeper water
(where he must move bipedally) to the shallows (where he need not, but
probably will) the perfect situation occurs for terrestrial bipedalism
to be encouraged and to evolve.
> > > > If hominids swam through water more than ape
> > > > ancestors they would be more likely to gain
> > > > buoyancy through increased adipocity. That's
> > > > not vague.
> > >
> > > It's just wrong. Other terrestrial species
> > > don't gain 'increased buoyancy' though
> > > increased adiposity. Nor do humans --
> > > by and large. I doubt if any of the
> > > Olympic swimming champions had
> > > significant levels of fat. Adult males
> > > and children of about five often have
> > > little fat, yet can learn to swim well.
> >
> > The leanest humans are, generally, fatter than the fattest primates.
> > Arguing that extra bouyancy is not going to be helpful to an animals
> > that, by I thought your own admission, is not a particularly adept
> > swimmer, is perverse in the extreme.
>
> Extra buoyancy may well be helpful.
> But (a) it does not seem essential;
> (b) even if it is, it could be achieved
> far more easily by creating extra air-
> spaces in the body (or the head) of
> the animal. Unlike fat, air-spaces
> weigh nothing, and cost nothing,
> they will not slow the animal down
> and they require no maintenance.
That is true. And, of course humans do have relatively large sinuses
which may be explained by exactly this. I don't think evolution works
by intelligent design, do you? It might make more sense to an engineer
to use air rather than fat but if the biological mechanisms are
already in place to lay down fat then perhaps that was just what
happenned.
> > Obviously, increased adipocity is
> > likely to be quickly selected for in a group of primates which,
> > through their largely arboreal past is not very adept at swimming.
>
> Nope. It's not. If increased adiposity
> was entirely cost-free, you might have
> a case.
Ok, fair point. But if water-side habitats also lead to an increase in
high energy food consumption - like would could be easily procured
from fish, shellfish etc then that solves that problem, doesn't it?
> > > > If hominids lived in hot tropical water-side
> > > > habitats they would be more likely to go for dips
> > > > to keep cool than ape ancestors
> > >
> > > This is both wrong and ridiculous.
> > > Native people in hot countries rarely
> > > do this sort of thing. Nor do the great
> > > bulk of other mammals. They don't
> > > have the time nor the energy, and
> > > insofar as they need to keep cool,
> > > they find other ways. Human
> > > mothers with small infants do not
> > > go into deep water.
> >
> > Native people are not the same as hominids.
>
> If you had a serious argument, then we'd
> see natives of hot countries regularly
> taking 'cooling dips'. We don't.
That's debatable.
[..]
> > > That's getting even more ridiculous.
> > > Sweating is essentially an adult male
> > > phenomenon. (a) The whole of the
> > > species does not consist of adult males
> > > (even if that is the working assumption
> > > of both yourself and standard PA);
> > > (b) When you find a feature that affects
> > > only a certain part of the population,
> > > you explain it by the behaviour (or
> > > other characteristics) of that part --
> > > not of the whole.
> >
> > You keep saying that. Have you any evidence for it? My mum (bless her)
> > used to sweat cobs and so do my kids, when they're hot and
> > over-dressed.
>
> Only superficially. Go into the changing
> rooms of a group of adults after they've
> played a game of football, and compare
> them (and their shirts) with a group of
> children (and their shirts) who've played
> as long on the same day. There will be no
> comparison in the degree of sweating.
Doesn't sound like a very objective study to me. The children are
smaller, for a start.
Algis Kuliukas
Paul Crowley
news:77a70442.04091...@posting.google.com...
> > > As the water's edge of
> > > rivers, lakes, seas - you know - all of em except swimming pools are
> > > characterised by this thing called a gradient of depths, where deep
> > > water, gradually becomes shallow water and shallow water gradually
> > > becomes wet ground - this is *EXACTLY* the place where wading leads to
> > > terrestrial bipedalism.
> >
> > Through a sort of process of osmosis?
>
> No, through the same kind of selection that works on any organism in
> any situation. Those can move better, quicker, more efficiently are
> more likely to survive than those that don't.
Here, you seem to have a grasp of the standard
processes of selection. So, if a population
moves to a new habitat which imposes new
pressures, there will be selection. And in
EACH generation, those worst at the new
requirements (perhaps something like living
at a high altitude) will leave fewer descendants.
> > I've never seen it. You don't seem to
> > be aware that selection has to operate:
> > i.e. those better able to walk bipedally
> > on land must have more descendants
> > than others in the population.
> >
> > So Generation X is _for_some_distinct_
> > and_well_defined_reason_ more bipedal
> > on land than Generation X-1.
>
> If Generation X is a better wader than Generation X - 1000 then
> Generation X will almost certainly also be a better terrestrial biped
> too, or at least better disposed for it.
But here, you have forgotten the basic rules.
You implicitly admit that there will be no
perceptible change, generation by generation.
Those worse at wading-in-water in Generation
X-1 will NOT leave fewer descendants than
the rest of the population. There is NO
mechanism of selection.
You propose an 'invisible mechanism'
where for no obvious reason (or non-
obvious reason) there could be a change
over 1,000 generations.
You simply do not have an understanding
of the basic principals of Darwinian evolution.
> > Somehow I just can't see any 'spelling out'.
>
> Wading is a situation that, uniquely for hominoidae, it seems, compels
> them to move bipedally in certain depths of water. It compels them
> like no other factor on the planet. These depths are actually found
> everywhere - in rivers, lakes, swamps, coasts etc and - guess what -
> just a few metres away from them are the exact terrestrial substrates
> which has been causing PA so much confusion - why, oh why, did they
> start walking there? Every time an ape moved from the deeper water
> (where he must move bipedally) to the shallows (where he need not, but
> probably will) the perfect situation occurs for terrestrial bipedalism
> to be encouraged and to evolve.
Complete nonsense. Anyone writing this
should fail Evolution 101. (Although, it
seems most people marking Evolution 101
would give it high marks.)
> > Extra buoyancy may well be helpful.
> > But (a) it does not seem essential;
> > (b) even if it is, it could be achieved
> > far more easily by creating extra air-
> > spaces in the body (or the head) of
> > the animal. Unlike fat, air-spaces
> > weigh nothing, and cost nothing,
> > they will not slow the animal down
> > and they require no maintenance.
>
> That is true. And, of course humans do have relatively large sinuses
> which may be explained by exactly this. I don't think evolution works
> by intelligent design, do you? It might make more sense to an engineer
> to use air rather than fat but if the biological mechanisms are
> already in place to lay down fat then perhaps that was just what
> happenned.
That's really absurd. There is plenty of
natural variation in this sort of thing --
in the size of heads, or of sinuses, or
body shapes. If there was selection for
buoyancy, those with the bigger sinuses,
or bigger gaps in their bodies, would do
better and have more offspring. (The
ones with the smaller gaps would often
have drowned.) The extremely expensive
method of laying down (fairly heavy) fat,
would never have evolved for this purpose.
In any case, you have vast amounts of
contrary evidence against your argument
(such as the thinness of children at the
age when they would start to swim).
> > > Obviously, increased adipocity is
> > > likely to be quickly selected for in a group of primates which,
> > > through their largely arboreal past is not very adept at swimming.
> >
> > Nope. It's not. If increased adiposity
> > was entirely cost-free, you might have
> > a case.
>
> Ok, fair point. But if water-side habitats also lead to an increase in
> high energy food consumption - like would could be easily procured
> from fish, shellfish etc then that solves that problem, doesn't it?
NO, it does not. It's another nonsense,
showing that you should have failed
Evolution 101. Populations will always
expand to take up surplus resources.
It is in the nature of things that
resources will be in short supply.
> > If you had a serious argument, then we'd
> > see natives of hot countries regularly
> > taking 'cooling dips'. We don't.
>
> That's debatable.
No, it's not. Quote an explorer
encountering any native people
anywhere who were taking a
'cooling dip'.
> > Only superficially. Go into the changing
> > rooms of a group of adults after they've
> > played a game of football, and compare
> > them (and their shirts) with a group of
> > children (and their shirts) who've played
> > as long on the same day. There will be no
> > comparison in the degree of sweating.
>
> Doesn't sound like a very objective study to me. The children are
> smaller, for a start.
Does it matter? The weight of water per
Kg of body weight exuded by the adults
will be MANY times that of the children.
Ask any teacher how much children
sweat after running around on a hot day
in the playground. It will be negligible.
Adult males doing the same amount of
movement in the same time would be
covered in sweat.
Paul.
Algis Kuliukas
> "Algis Kuliukas" <al...@RiverApes.com> wrote in message
> news:77a70442.04091...@posting.google.com...
>
> > > > As the water's edge of
> > > > rivers, lakes, seas - you know - all of em except swimming pools are
> > > > characterised by this thing called a gradient of depths, where deep
> > > > water, gradually becomes shallow water and shallow water gradually
> > > > becomes wet ground - this is *EXACTLY* the place where wading leads to
> > > > terrestrial bipedalism.
> > >
> > > Through a sort of process of osmosis?
> >
> > No, through the same kind of selection that works on any organism in
> > any situation. Those can move better, quicker, more efficiently are
> > more likely to survive than those that don't.
>
> Here, you seem to have a grasp of the standard
> processes of selection. So, if a population
> moves to a new habitat which imposes new
> pressures, there will be selection. And in
> EACH generation, those worst at the new
> requirements (perhaps something like living
> at a high altitude) will leave fewer descendants.
No disagreement there.
> > > I've never seen it. You don't seem to
> > > be aware that selection has to operate:
> > > i.e. those better able to walk bipedally
> > > on land must have more descendants
> > > than others in the population.
> > >
> > > So Generation X is _for_some_distinct_
> > > and_well_defined_reason_ more bipedal
> > > on land than Generation X-1.
> >
> > If Generation X is a better wader than Generation X - 1000 then
> > Generation X will almost certainly also be a better terrestrial biped
> > too, or at least better disposed for it.
>
> But here, you have forgotten the basic rules.
> You implicitly admit that there will be no
> perceptible change, generation by generation.
> Those worse at wading-in-water in Generation
> X-1 will NOT leave fewer descendants than
> the rest of the population. There is NO
> mechanism of selection.
Generation by generation, I doubt there was perceptible change but
that doesn't mean that change wasn't going on. The process of
encephalisation has certainly occurred but are you suggesting that at
any one generation X there was a perceptible difference in cranial
size over generation X - 1, much less any perceptible selective
advantage of having a slightly bigger brain.
> You propose an 'invisible mechanism'
> where for no obvious reason (or non-
> obvious reason) there could be a change
> over 1,000 generations.
It's not invisible, it's just very slight and (in terms of perceptible
time) very, very slow. In an evolutionary timescale, however, it may
have still been rapid. Encephalisation has happenned most in the last,
say 500 ky - that's very fast in evolutionary terms but you just
wouldn't have noticed if you'd been alive in any single generation out
of the 30,000 or so that were the agents of that change.
> You simply do not have an understanding
> of the basic principals of Darwinian evolution.
You're entitled to your opinion, Paul, but I think you're wrong.
> > > Somehow I just can't see any 'spelling out'.
> >
> > Wading is a situation that, uniquely for hominoidae, it seems, compels
> > them to move bipedally in certain depths of water. It compels them
> > like no other factor on the planet. These depths are actually found
> > everywhere - in rivers, lakes, swamps, coasts etc and - guess what -
> > just a few metres away from them are the exact terrestrial substrates
> > which has been causing PA so much confusion - why, oh why, did they
> > start walking there? Every time an ape moved from the deeper water
> > (where he must move bipedally) to the shallows (where he need not, but
> > probably will) the perfect situation occurs for terrestrial bipedalism
> > to be encouraged and to evolve.
>
> Complete nonsense. Anyone writing this
> should fail Evolution 101. (Although, it
> seems most people marking Evolution 101
> would give it high marks.)
Why is it nonsense?
> > > Extra buoyancy may well be helpful.
> > > But (a) it does not seem essential;
> > > (b) even if it is, it could be achieved
> > > far more easily by creating extra air-
> > > spaces in the body (or the head) of
> > > the animal. Unlike fat, air-spaces
> > > weigh nothing, and cost nothing,
> > > they will not slow the animal down
> > > and they require no maintenance.
> >
> > That is true. And, of course humans do have relatively large sinuses
> > which may be explained by exactly this. I don't think evolution works
> > by intelligent design, do you? It might make more sense to an engineer
> > to use air rather than fat but if the biological mechanisms are
> > already in place to lay down fat then perhaps that was just what
> > happenned.
>
> That's really absurd. There is plenty of
> natural variation in this sort of thing --
> in the size of heads, or of sinuses, or
> body shapes. If there was selection for
> buoyancy, those with the bigger sinuses,
> or bigger gaps in their bodies, would do
> better and have more offspring. (The
> ones with the smaller gaps would often
> have drowned.)
You seemed to have missed my point. Humans seem to have been exposed
to that selection. We do have larger sinuses, we have become more
gracile, we have become fatter - all of them point to greater
bouyancy.
> The extremely expensive
> method of laying down (fairly heavy) fat,
> would never have evolved for this purpose.
> In any case, you have vast amounts of
> contrary evidence against your argument
> (such as the thinness of children at the
> age when they would start to swim).
Only if you assume that they started to learn to swim at 6-8. What if
they started to learn to swim at 1-3?
> > > > Obviously, increased adipocity is
> > > > likely to be quickly selected for in a group of primates which,
> > > > through their largely arboreal past is not very adept at swimming.
> > >
> > > Nope. It's not. If increased adiposity
> > > was entirely cost-free, you might have
> > > a case.
> >
> > Ok, fair point. But if water-side habitats also lead to an increase in
> > high energy food consumption - like would could be easily procured
> > from fish, shellfish etc then that solves that problem, doesn't it?
>
> NO, it does not. It's another nonsense,
> showing that you should have failed
> Evolution 101. Populations will always
> expand to take up surplus resources.
> It is in the nature of things that
> resources will be in short supply.
Well humans did become fatter, did they not. That is a fact which is
not in any doubt, the only question is why?
> > > If you had a serious argument, then we'd
> > > see natives of hot countries regularly
> > > taking 'cooling dips'. We don't.
> >
> > That's debatable.
>
> No, it's not. Quote an explorer
> encountering any native people
> anywhere who were taking a
> 'cooling dip'.
Not an explorer but a field worker...
"Some members of the expidition would not swim at all because of the
infestation of the river [Awash] by crocodiles. But these were smaller
than the man-eating monsters of Kenya and Uganda, and did not seem to
be consuming any of the local Afar people, who were in and out of the
water constantly. After a couple of weeks most scientitist were
bathing daily." Johanson & Edyet (1981:151)
Johanson, Donald C; Edey, Maitland (1981). Lucy: The Beginnings of
Humankind. Simon & Schuster (New York)
> > > Only superficially. Go into the changing
> > > rooms of a group of adults after they've
> > > played a game of football, and compare
> > > them (and their shirts) with a group of
> > > children (and their shirts) who've played
> > > as long on the same day. There will be no
> > > comparison in the degree of sweating.
> >
> > Doesn't sound like a very objective study to me. The children are
> > smaller, for a start.
>
> Does it matter? The weight of water per
> Kg of body weight exuded by the adults
> will be MANY times that of the children.
> Ask any teacher how much children
> sweat after running around on a hot day
> in the playground. It will be negligible.
> Adult males doing the same amount of
> movement in the same time would be
> covered in sweat.
I'd rather see a citation from the literature rather than go on some
Quest to ask a teacher for their anecdotes. Have you got any real
evidence for this argument?
Algis Kuliukas
Paul Crowley
news:77a70442.04091...@posting.google.com...
> > > > So Generation X is _for_some_distinct_
> > > > and_well_defined_reason_ more bipedal
> > > > on land than Generation X-1.
> > >
> > > If Generation X is a better wader than Generation X - 1000 then
> > > Generation X will almost certainly also be a better terrestrial biped
> > > too, or at least better disposed for it.
> >
> > But here, you have forgotten the basic rules.
> > You implicitly admit that there will be no
> > perceptible change, generation by generation.
> > Those worse at wading-in-water in Generation
> > X-1 will NOT leave fewer descendants than
> > the rest of the population. There is NO
> > mechanism of selection.
>
> Generation by generation, I doubt there was perceptible change but
> that doesn't mean that change wasn't going on.
We are not talking about 'change' but
about 'change caused by processes of
selection'. I think your blindness here
comes from a lack of awareness of the
enormous size of the forces governing
almost every aspect of the behaviour
of every species. The niche imposes
a delicate balancing of those forces.
It's as though there was a strong tide
flowing one way and strong winds in
the other direction; the interaction of
the two forcing the organism to stay
in about the same place. And this
pattern is repeated in dozens of
different dimensions. So the species
is not going to change -- it cannot
change -- as the result of some
haphazard or trivial pressure.
IF they could (and if your model had
the least validity) there would be
almost no recognisable species.
Populations would rapidly alter in
all kinds of weird direct directions
all the time.
> The process of
> encephalisation has certainly occurred but are you suggesting that at
> any one generation X there was a perceptible difference in cranial
> size over generation X - 1, much less any perceptible selective
> advantage of having a slightly bigger brain.
Exactly -- which is why I hate to talk
about this subject. We have not the
faintest idea as to the selective forces
in operation here; nor as to how they
worked in practice. IMO brain size was
probably constantly going up and
down. The gradual 'encephalisation'
is something we only see in retrospect,
and then its very hard to assess,
except in the broadest of trends.
It is a mark of the weakness of your
argument that you have to use an
analogy to something so unknown
and uncertain.
> > You propose an 'invisible mechanism'
> > where for no obvious reason (or non-
> > obvious reason) there could be a change
> > over 1,000 generations.
>
> It's not invisible, it's just very slight and (in terms of perceptible
> time) very, very slow. In an evolutionary timescale, however, it may
> have still been rapid. Encephalisation has happenned most in the last,
> say 500 ky - that's very fast in evolutionary terms but you just
> wouldn't have noticed if you'd been alive in any single generation out
> of the 30,000 or so that were the agents of that change.
Let's assume that we could get 30
measurements of the average brain
size at each 1,000 generation stage
(a very big assumption). I would
not want to bet that any of them
were larger than the previous stage,
nor (I am sure) would anyone who
has studied the fossils.
(Btw, with 25 years per generation,
500 Ky would represent 20,000
generations -- which would be much
better. Your 16.7 years per generation
is far too small a figure.)
> > > Wading is a situation that, uniquely for hominoidae, it seems, compels
> > > them to move bipedally in certain depths of water.
This is a silly point. Hominoidae have
the capacity for bipedalism that other
quadrupeds don't possess. (That's
why some were able to become bipeds.)
You can't claim that the existence of
the capacity is, in itself, an argument
for your theory.
They use that capacity at times, in
unusual circumstances. You maintain
that our ancestors became bipedal
because of some kind of 'spread' of (or
from) some particular such circumstances.
While that's theoretically possible, it
could (theoretically) have happened in
numerous other ways. You have to
justify your theory, instead of simply
assuming it. You conspicuously fail
to do so.
> > > It compels them
> > > like no other factor on the planet.
Carrying things? Wielding weapons?
You've been given (many times) a
vastly more compelling scenario.
> > > These depths are actually found
> > > everywhere - in rivers, lakes, swamps, coasts etc and - guess what -
> > > just a few metres
Or many miles distant?
> > > away from them are the exact terrestrial substrates
> > > which has been causing PA so much confusion - why, oh why, did they
> > > start walking there?
There are plenty of better theories
than yours.
> > > Every time an ape moved from the deeper water
> > > (where he must move bipedally)
> > > to the shallows (where he need not . .
But why should he or SHE or THEM
-- (the infants and the small children)
OR he AND she AND them (as a group)
-- be in such waters at all?
This hideous model of 'the hominid' as
ADULT MALE is abominable. In spite
of the fact that you know I'll pick you up
on it, you can never remember to be more
careful. It is so integral to your 'thinking'
that you are incapable of avoiding it.
It's also basic to your whole theory.
IF you had in mind groups of females
with infants and with other young, you'd
soon realise the extent of the absurdity
of your scenario. They vary so much in
size that only a few would at any time be
at 'wading depth'.
You don't envisage scenarios with
females, infants and other young --
because even you are not foolish
enough to believe that such groups
would 'wade' in water. No activity
could be more dangerous, nor less
profitable.
> > Complete nonsense. Anyone writing this
> > should fail Evolution 101. (Although, it
> > seems most people marking Evolution 101
> > would give it high marks.)
>
> Why is it nonsense?
It focuses on adult males -- to the
exclusion of the females, infants and
young. Isn't that enough?
It also ignores everything that matters
and counts irrelevancies as 'pressures'.
> > The extremely expensive
> > method of laying down (fairly heavy) fat,
> > would never have evolved for this purpose.
> > In any case, you have vast amounts of
> > contrary evidence against your argument
> > (such as the thinness of children at the
> > age when they would start to swim).
>
> Only if you assume that they started to learn to swim at 6-8. What if
> they started to learn to swim at 1-3?
Swimming is an _extremely_dangerous_
activity. Children get drowned . . especially
in rivers with currents, and in rivers and lakes
with vegetation and/or occluded waters.
No parent would want young children to
swim in such waters without good reason.
It might (under some circumstances) be
justifiable for children of ~7 or above
to take the risk, but it would never be
justifiable for younger ones.
> > > Ok, fair point. But if water-side habitats also lead to an increase in
> > > high energy food consumption - like would could be easily procured
> > > from fish, shellfish etc then that solves that problem, doesn't it?
> >
> > NO, it does not. It's another nonsense,
> > showing that you should have failed
> > Evolution 101. Populations will always
> > expand to take up surplus resources.
> > It is in the nature of things that
> > resources will be in short supply.
>
> Well humans did become fatter, did they not. That is a fact which is
> not in any doubt, the only question is why?
You might as well say that seals became
fatter -- so they must have a surplus of
food. We know why seals have to be
(relatively) fat: they'd suffer too much
from the cold, and die, if they weren't.
All you have to do is to work out how
the same principle applies to humans.
> > > > If you had a serious argument, then we'd
> > > > see natives of hot countries regularly
> > > > taking 'cooling dips'. We don't.
> > >
> > > That's debatable.
> >
> > No, it's not. Quote an explorer
> > encountering any native people
> > anywhere who were taking a
> > 'cooling dip'.
>
> Not an explorer but a field worker...
>
> "Some members of the expidition would not swim at all because of the
> infestation of the river [Awash] by crocodiles. But these were smaller
> than the man-eating monsters of Kenya and Uganda, and did not seem to
> be consuming any of the local Afar people, who were in and out of the
> water constantly. After a couple of weeks most scientitist were
> bathing daily." Johanson & Edyet (1981:151)
Why were the Afar people in and out
of the water constantly? And was
this a modern fashion --- the result of
copying westerners?
Paul.
Algis Kuliukas
> "Algis Kuliukas" <al...@RiverApes.com> wrote in message
> news:77a70442.04091...@posting.google.com...
> > Generation by generation, I doubt there was perceptible change but
> > that doesn't mean that change wasn't going on.
>
> We are not talking about 'change' but
> about 'change caused by processes of
> selection'. ... So the species
> is not going to change -- it cannot
> change -- as the result of some
> haphazard or trivial pressure.
I think that assumption is just false. How did bats start to fly,
dolphins start to swim, primates start to climb trees? They changed
and it must have been due to the process of selection.
> IF they could (and if your model had
> the least validity) there would be
> almost no recognisable species.
> Populations would rapidly alter in
> all kinds of weird direct directions
> all the time.
You're exaggerating. I'm arguing that they change relatively slowly.
Populations usually live in fairly similar habitats and so the gene
pool is not being stretched in so many directions at the same time.
> > The process of
> > encephalisation has certainly occurred but are you suggesting that at
> > any one generation X there was a perceptible difference in cranial
> > size over generation X - 1, much less any perceptible selective
> > advantage of having a slightly bigger brain.
>
> Exactly -- which is why I hate to talk
> about this subject. We have not the
> faintest idea as to the selective forces
> in operation here; nor as to how they
> worked in practice. IMO brain size was
> probably constantly going up and
> down. The gradual 'encephalisation'
> is something we only see in retrospect,
> and then its very hard to assess,
> except in the broadest of trends.
>
> It is a mark of the weakness of your
> argument that you have to use an
> analogy to something so unknown
> and uncertain.
The mechanisms are unknown but the fact that it happenned is rather
well known. It shows, as clearly as possible, that human ancestors did
change, rather gradually (in generation terms) over the last .5My.
> > > You propose an 'invisible mechanism'
> > > where for no obvious reason (or non-
> > > obvious reason) there could be a change
> > > over 1,000 generations.
> >
> > It's not invisible, it's just very slight and (in terms of perceptible
> > time) very, very slow. In an evolutionary timescale, however, it may
> > have still been rapid. Encephalisation has happenned most in the last,
> > say 500 ky - that's very fast in evolutionary terms but you just
> > wouldn't have noticed if you'd been alive in any single generation out
> > of the 30,000 or so that were the agents of that change.
>
> Let's assume that we could get 30
> measurements of the average brain
> size at each 1,000 generation stage
> (a very big assumption). I would
> not want to bet that any of them
> were larger than the previous stage,
> nor (I am sure) would anyone who
> has studied the fossils.
No. That's my point. Slow change happens.
> (Btw, with 25 years per generation,
> 500 Ky would represent 20,000
> generations -- which would be much
> better. Your 16.7 years per generation
> is far too small a figure.)
Fair point.
> > > > Wading is a situation that, uniquely for hominoidae, it seems, compels
> > > > them to move bipedally in certain depths of water.
>
> This is a silly point. Hominoidae have
> the capacity for bipedalism that other
> quadrupeds don't possess. (That's
> why some were able to become bipeds.)
> You can't claim that the existence of
> the capacity is, in itself, an argument
> for your theory.
I don't think it's a silly point. Bears go bipedally sometimes when
making threat displays, as do apes - but in water they don't move
bipedally. Merecats go bipedally sometimes for sentinel behaviour as
do apes but if they ever found themselves in water they'd swim or
drown. Bovids sometimes feed bipedally as do apes but in water they
wade quadrupedally or swim.
Apes (and one or two other large primates) are unique in their
adoption of bipedal wading in shallow water. That's one big clue as to
why some of those apes started moving bipedally in the first place.
Apes are bipedal in many contexts but it is almost 100% predictable in
shallow water. That's another clues as to why some of those apes
actually became bipedal all the time.
> They use that capacity at times, in
> unusual circumstances. You maintain
> that our ancestors became bipedal
> because of some kind of 'spread' of (or
> from) some particular such circumstances.
> While that's theoretically possible, it
> could (theoretically) have happened in
> numerous other ways. You have to
> justify your theory, instead of simply
> assuming it. You conspicuously fail
> to do so.
Easy: hominoids that continued to move through shallow water a lot
became obligate bipeds, hominoids that didn't became knuckle-walkers.
Next!
> > > > It compels them
> > > > like no other factor on the planet.
>
> Carrying things? Wielding weapons?
> You've been given (many times) a
> vastly more compelling scenario.
Give a chimp a bunch of bananas, or a club, and it might (but then it
might not) stand up on its hind legs and carry them a few (50?) yards
before sitting down and eating them or throwing the club down. Put the
same chimp in a tank of shallow water and it will remain bipedal for
as long as the condition is maintained.
> > > > These depths are actually found
> > > > everywhere - in rivers, lakes, swamps, coasts etc and - guess what -
> > > > just a few metres
>
> Or many miles distant?
No, metres. From waist deep water to dry land is usually just a matter
of a few metres.
> > > > away from them are the exact terrestrial substrates
> > > > which has been causing PA so much confusion - why, oh why, did they
> > > > start walking there?
>
> There are plenty of better theories
> than yours.
Which ones? Clubbing, we know, is the one you favour - so any others.
> > > > Every time an ape moved from the deeper water
> > > > (where he must move bipedally)
> > > > to the shallows (where he need not . .
>
> But why should he or SHE or THEM
> -- (the infants and the small children)
> OR he AND she AND them (as a group)
> -- be in such waters at all?
If they lived in swampy wetlands i suggest that they might not have
much choice. Funny how you seem to be critcising me for not using SHE
this time, once I rememeber you pulled me up for being politically
correct when I did refer to an ape as 'she'. Just can't win with you,
Paul, can we?
> This hideous model of 'the hominid' as
> ADULT MALE is abominable. In spite
> of the fact that you know I'll pick you up
> on it, you can never remember to be more
> careful. It is so integral to your 'thinking'
> that you are incapable of avoiding it.
> It's also basic to your whole theory.
> IF you had in mind groups of females
> with infants and with other young, you'd
> soon realise the extent of the absurdity
> of your scenario. They vary so much in
> size that only a few would at any time be
> at 'wading depth'.
This is the most staggeringly hypocritical point I've ever heard.
This, coming from the guy who promotess MALE-ONLY clubbing and
aggression as the driving force of bipedalism (and presumably
everything else human.)
> You don't envisage scenarios with
> females, infants and other young --
> because even you are not foolish
> enough to believe that such groups
> would 'wade' in water. No activity
> could be more dangerous, nor less
> profitable.
If they lived in a wetland habitat they (male, female, adult, infant,
whatever) could hardly opt out from moving through water, could they?
> > > Complete nonsense. Anyone writing this
> > > should fail Evolution 101. (Although, it
> > > seems most people marking Evolution 101
> > > would give it high marks.)
> >
> > Why is it nonsense?
>
> It focuses on adult males -- to the
> exclusion of the females, infants and
> young. Isn't that enough?
Then you fail ten times more than I do - remind us again how it
goes.... Males bashing each other around the heads requires upright
posture thus leading to hominid bipedalism. Meanwhile the females and
the infants are sitting in the trees watching? Or what?
> It also ignores everything that matters
> and counts irrelevancies as 'pressures'.
Not drowning matters. It is hardly an irrelevant pressure.
> > > The extremely expensive
> > > method of laying down (fairly heavy) fat,
> > > would never have evolved for this purpose.
> > > In any case, you have vast amounts of
> > > contrary evidence against your argument
> > > (such as the thinness of children at the
> > > age when they would start to swim).
> >
> > Only if you assume that they started to learn to swim at 6-8. What if
> > they started to learn to swim at 1-3?
>
> Swimming is an _extremely_dangerous_
> activity. Children get drowned . . especially
> in rivers with currents, and in rivers and lakes
> with vegetation and/or occluded waters.
Sure, but that's one very good reason why increased fat in infants
would get selected for.
> No parent would want young children to
> swim in such waters without good reason.
> It might (under some circumstances) be
> justifiable for children of ~7 or above
> to take the risk, but it would never be
> justifiable for younger ones.
Again, you fail to see that if human ancestors lived in wetlands or on
the edge of wetlands they'd have no choice but to move through water.
[..]
> > Well humans did become fatter, did they not. That is a fact which is
> > not in any doubt, the only question is why?
>
> You might as well say that seals became
> fatter -- so they must have a surplus of
> food. We know why seals have to be
> (relatively) fat: they'd suffer too much
> from the cold, and die, if they weren't.
> All you have to do is to work out how
> the same principle applies to humans.
So the argument that fat is too expensive to have been used as a
buoyancy aid in human evolution is just tossed out of the window when
it comes to seals. Convenient.
> > Not an explorer but a field worker...
> >
> > "Some members of the expidition would not swim at all because of the
> > infestation of the river [Awash] by crocodiles. But these were smaller
> > than the man-eating monsters of Kenya and Uganda, and did not seem to
> > be consuming any of the local Afar people, who were in and out of the
> > water constantly. After a couple of weeks most scientitist were
> > bathing daily." Johanson & Edyet (1981:151)
>
> Why were the Afar people in and out
> of the water constantly? And was
> this a modern fashion --- the result of
> copying westerners?
Dunno. Washing and keeping cool, I suppose. If you read the sentence
you can see that it was the westerners that were copying the Afar
people.
Algis Kuliukas
Rick Wagler
"Algis Kuliukas" <al...@RiverApes.com> wrote in message
news:77a70442.04091...@posting.google.com...
news:<41c2a1f2.04091...@posting.google.com>...
> > al...@RiverApes.com (Algis Kuliukas) wrote in message
news:<77a70442.04090...@posting.google.com>...
> [..]
> > Apparently so. I think she's a nice person too. But in order to do
> > what she intended - get a new viewpoint established - she had to do
> > something she is manifestly incapable of doing - present a genuinely
> > provocative critique of prevailing theories and present new ideas and
> > concepts in a challenging way. Whales are naked and so are we just
> > doesn't cut it.
>
> She is a very nice person. She deserves far, far better than the nasty
> vitriollic abuse that has been heaped on her from some of the people
> here.
>
She may or may not deserve better than your attempted defense
> 'Whales are naked so are we' is an astonishingly ignorant portrayal of
> her view.
>
Is it? Do you now attempt to deny that this connection has been argued many
times
over by AAT proponents of various stripes? Forget your preferred variant.
Take the
AAT as a whole. The major thrust of the argument is to analogize human
features with
those of aquatic mammals. Hairlessness is still a foundation of AAT. So your
astonishment
is unwarranted.
> Herea couple of points she made which, I think, are very strong indeed
> against the orthodox paradig,:
>
> "It has been repeatedly asserted (for example on the internet) that
> there was never such a thing as the 'savannah theory', that it was
> simply a straw man constructed by Elaine Morgan for the pleasure of
> knocking it down again, and that no reputable scientist can be shown
> ever to have used the phrase 'savannah theory'. The last part of that
> statement is true. I would no more have expected them to use that
> phrase that I would expect a Creationist to refer to 'the God theory'
> - their faith in it was too strong for that." Morgan (1997:14)
So what is the strength of this statement? She note some assertions -true
or not- made on the internet and claims no one uses the term. Since
she never defined the term, either, it leaves her statement in limbo. She's
accusing somebody of something but what that something might be she
won't or can't say. This is no criticism at all let alone a strong one and
makes no defense against the claim that it is a straw man of her own
devising.
>
> [She then follows with many examples which give the lie to this
> perverse attempt to twist paleoanthropological history]
>
I don't happen to remember any of them. Who specifically did she
refer to? As I remember she is fond of saying things like ' a basic
anthropology text says...." without citing the text in question.
> "The original savannah model - though it did not stand the test of
> time - was argued in strong and clear terms. We are different from
> apes, it stated, because they lived in the forest and our ancestors
> lived on the plains...
No. The original savannah theory - Dart, presumably - argued that
the features typical of hominids evolved as a result of living in open
savannah environments. The notion that hominids living in relatively
open environments has been disposed of is AAT fancy. See the
difference?
> ... The new watered-down version suggests that we are different from
> the apes because their ancestors, perhaps, lived in a different part
> of the mosaic. Say what you will, it does not have the same ring to
> it." Morgan 1997:17-18)
Again what Elaine thinks of some nebulous concept like 'ring' as
applied to a totally undefined 'savannah theory' is not a criticism.
>
> Morgan, Elaine (1997). The Aquatic Ape Hypothesis. Souvenir Press
> (London)
>
This I have not seen. Sounds like she did not advance things much in 15
years...
>> > Your characterization of the quality of Elaine's research is bogus.
> > The great overarching error of her work is that it represents a
conclusion
> > in search of evidence. This is why the substantial - not trivial -
> > misreadings of sources are so blatant and so damaging.
>
> Rubbish. Tobias called them a 'series of superbly written books' and
> he was right. For someone who is not trained in the science of
> paleoanthropology she puts professionals to shame with her insightful
> summaries of the state of knowledge in such a wide range of areas.
Where??? In what topics, specifically, did she put professionals to shame?
In "Scars of Evolution" she went on and on about the various ailments
that can be attributed to bipedalism at least tangentially. Most PA don't
do this for one simple reason. Virtually all these ailments are a factor
late in life and don't, when considering the species as a whole, dent the
proposition that humans are very proficient bipedalists.It is all hugely
irrelevant. Was this one of the areas where she put professional to shame??
>
> She never presents a conclusion but, like Hardy, asks lots of
> questions. That was her aim - to stimulate a debate and, boy, has she
> succeeded!
>
Where? On the internet? Cold fusion has been revived on the internet.
> > What Jim has pointed out are
> > not minor factual errors as you claim but substantial examples of her
> > methodology.
>
> So, are you defending Jim Moore's shock-horror twisting of four (no
> just one really) errors, or what?
>
> Take Jim Moore's number one revelation for an example: the famous
> Darwin misquote. It's just sleazy crap - exactly what you'd expect
> from the gutter press.
>
> Have you read my expose on these yet?
>
> see http://www.riverapes.com/AAH/Arguments/JimMoore/Quotes.htm
>
> What say you on that Rick? How can you defend what Jim has done?
What did he do? Elaine made a claim to have never altered or edited
quotes without clearly marking these emendations. He demonstrated
that this claim was in error. Your estimation of the significance of the
emendations does not matter. But we were through this with the
Richmond-Strait paper a while back where I could not get you
to understand that proper citation and quotation is a bedrock of
intellectual discourse. So I'm not surprised you can't grasp what
Jim has done or why you are oblivious to the fact that Verhaegen
is a notorious abuser of sources. You think all this just doesn't matter
and that makes Jim's exposure an ad hominen. If you carry on at UWA
you'll discover the error of your ways. Just make sure you don't learn
the hard way.
>
> What 'substantial examples of her methodology'? Can you be more
> specific, or give us a page cited example?
>
Don't have the books in front of me, sorry.
> It's a popular science book. It's supposed to be entertaining to the
> lay person. Like Craig Stanford's 'Upright' it's written in a style
> that's more about keeping the reader's attention than being
> technically spot on in every sentence.
>
Balls! You keep saying this. because it is aimed at the general
reader scholarly standards can be thrown out the window. This
is absolute crap.
> > But since your hypothesis is precisely the same kind of
> > enterprise it is, of course, only to be expected that you can't see
this.
>
> All Hardy and Morgan ever did (and I am trying to emulate them ) is to
> wonder aloud if there might be something in this thing.
What thing? By your's and Elaine's admission this 'thing' was never
defined except as a collection of foolish analogies. Since you now want
to walk away from these what are you left with? Oh, right.....we swim
and chimps don't.
It's you guys
> who seem to just know a priori that it is wrong - even though there's
> been no real scientific investigation into it, and if pressed, none of
> you can even define what it is you're so sure is crap.
>
The various arguments made in support. As for us defining it....your
not about to adopt MV's "Do your own homework!" rant are you?
> For me, I'm taking on board the criticisms that AAH proponents have
> been weak in coming up with timelines, linking it to the fossil
> evidence and coming up with testable predictions.
That's a start. Keep going. You may yet salvage something
from your foray into post-graduate education....
I'm using the
> hypothetico-deductive method, perhaps for the first time, in an
> enquiry into bipedal origins.
>
This is highly doubtful. Not that you aren't using h-d but that you're
the first.
> That you have to tar me with the great, thick, sticky anti-AAH brush
> because I dare to suggest that it might be right says more about your
> lack of objectivity than it does mine.
>
No, Algis, I take you to task because you don't make any sense.
Sorry to be so blunt...
> > As for citations and claims the first are few and far between and one
> > cannot identify the source for most of her claims. Your attempted
> > rejoinder to Jim that he does not give precise page references to
> > a clearly identified article does not clear up the mess Elaine has made
> > but merely indicates that you don't appreciate the problem.
>
> Morgan (1997) is as well a referenced popular science book as you
> might find. The criticism of her earlier work were more justified but
> even 'Descent of Woman' was far better referenced than Jim Moore's
> 'Claims and Facts' page.
>
> See for yourself...
>
> http://www.aquaticape.org/aatclaims.html
>
> Not a single citation for 23 claims. It took me hours to trawl through
> trying to check them.
>
That may be apoint that Jim can satisfy you on. I am certain
that in all the AAT arguments I've seen that these claims are
made - some routinely -by AAT proponents.
> At least Morgan, Elaine (1972). The Descent of Woman. Souvenir Press
> (London)
> has 29 references.
>
> But I know you'll defend your super hero... anthrosciguy!! (Saviour of
> the world from drippy wetness!)... under any circumstances. Such
> loyalty.
>
> > > 'No substantive position?' - really, Rick - it must be you who's been
> > > abducted by aliens. The very substantive positon is the beauty at
> > > which a whole host of ape-human differences are explained away with
> > > consumate ease - we moved through water more than they did.
> > >
> > And your evidence is? BRING ON THE WHALES!! The AAT 'evidence' has
> > been examined in detail on this group and it is flummery. But that's
> > just my opinion.
>
> No. Stuff the whales!
> Apes move in water bipedally - a bit of a clue there to our
> bipedalism.
> Humans are more bouyant the fatter they are - a bit of a clue there to
> our increased adipocity.
Fat floats. Whether humans with *normal* fat levels gain any
apprecaible advantage is open to question to say the least.
> Humans swim more efficiently when body hair is shaved off - a bit of a
> clue there to our unique nakedness amongst the primates.
>
Sorry but this is a misreading of the evidence. See Jason E for
details
> This group is full of egotistical people who wouldn't admit they were
> wrong under any circumstances.
>
Sure we would. Do it all the time. But I'm not going to stroke your
ego by agrreeing to nonsense.
> [..]
> > > And this is your ample evidence from her five books - wow. You're just
> > > making it up or, actually, following the pied piper Jim Moore.
> > >
> > I've read two of her books and they are as Jim and many others describe.
>
> Which two?
>
The original 'Aquatic Ape" and 'Scars of Evolution"\
> > Very thin reads. A monument to unexamined alternatives. No substantial
> > examination of PA. Refusal to actually come to grips with central
> > concepts such as the nature of savannah environments and on and on.
>
> Well Tobias didn't think so.
Aparently not.
>
> [..]
> > > Desmond Morris' Naked Ape is worse than Morgan's worst, and so are
> > > several others. Craig Stanford's 'Upright' is also pretty poor except
> > > from a point of view of historical commentary on the subject.
> > >
> > Well I won't debate Morris but I will say that I rather doubt that
> > Stanford's work is on a par with Elaine's no matter what the
> > shortcomings.
>
> Stanford's is excellently referenced but some of his arguments are
> facile in the extreme in my humble opinion.
>
> [..]
> > > Jim was quoting from his Zenith article, I think. He likes to do that
> > > because it contains the weakest Hardy arguments.
> > >
> > He has responded to the NS piece. Which is the great Hardy piece
> > of theorizing. I can't imagine how the Zenith article could be weaker
> > unless he was losing it completely which you seem to hint at.
>
> Moore insists that Hardy said there was a twenty million years gap -
> even when I pointed him to the actual sentence in the New Scietist
> piece. He's clearly twisting to imply that the man's a fool. In the
> Zenith magazine, 17 years later, he and the editor manage to let
> twenty million slip through but it's cleary just an error. But can Jim
> give him the benefit of the doubt - no way. He clings to this dirt as
> a morsel of proof of AATer bad research methods.
>
When you've got two articles is it not fair to say that the
later is the current state of an author's thought? Why would it
be obvious that the claim is an error. How does one separate
earnestly argued bullshit from the slip of an editor's pen?
> [..]
> > > Hardy said 'More aquatic' right? He said 'not as aquatic as an otter',
> > > right?
> >
If this ape is not as aquatic as an otter it is*Not* going to have
features - naked skin, flipper feet etc etc -that resemble seals and
whales. Find out what an analogy is.
> > And used what as evidence? If you don't understand the consequences
> > of an argument from analogy it's high time you found out. Or as
> > Jim helpfully points out it is a genuinely good idea to read an
> > article and not just surmise the contents from the title.
>
> That humans swim better than most terrestrial animals under water for
> one.
>
Which ones. Large ungulates tend to keep their heads out of water.
As for the rest. Some dog breeds and at least one species of cat
are dandy underwater swimmers.
> 'Jim helpfully points out'? The fact that you have to stick up for
> your sleazy, twisting (no, lying is the word) super-hero,
> anthrosciguy, even on points like this, is informative, Rick. I have
> posted many quotes from Hardy's paper. Hell, I even scanned the entire
> Hardy article in full for my web site precisely so that people should
> read past the headline. It seems that most PAs haven't even read that
> much, though - they didn't have to because they'd heard all the gossip
> and rumor in the staff rooms and dismissed it over a coffee.
>
Well we on the internet have saved busy professionals the time
it would take to blow this nonsense to Hades. If you can't get this
stuff by us what the hell do you think will happen when you play
with the big boys?
Rick Wagler
Jason Eshleman
> "Algis Kuliukas" <al...@RiverApes.com> wrote in message
> news:77a70442.04091...@posting.google.com...
> Fat floats. Whether humans with *normal* fat levels gain any
> apprecaible advantage is open to question to say the least.
>
> > Humans swim more efficiently when body hair is shaved off - a bit of a
> > clue there to our unique nakedness amongst the primates.
> >
> Sorry but this is a misreading of the evidence. See Jason E for
> details
To the best of my findings, Algis is either incapable or unwilling to
understand the difference. It seems as though he is, at this point,
deliberately ignoring the problems with this "evidence," either
because he'd based so much on it (and without it, would have to admit
to depending on whales for a [poor] analogy), because really cannot
grasp the concept that "nakedness" as we exhibit it and "shaving"
aren't the same thing, or because he envisions these hominids shaving.
In any event, his steadfast refusal to change his position in light of
substantive criciticism and additional data speaks poorly of his
abilities as a scientist. I realize that he's going to hide with
charges of "double standards" and, like Marc, claim that the real
paleo people, those who are "brave" and possess "open minds" get it,
but in reality, this doesn't change the problems with his work.
Algis Kuliukas
> news:77a70442.04091...@posting.google.com...
> > taxi...@shaw.ca (Rick Wagler) wrote in message
> news:<41c2a1f2.04091...@posting.google.com>...
> > > al...@RiverApes.com (Algis Kuliukas) wrote in message
> news:<77a70442.04090...@posting.google.com>...
> [..]
of
>> the people here.
> >
> She may or may not deserve better than your attempted defense
I've tried to give a balanced criticism. I think her contribution has
been massive, but she should have defined the thing.
> > 'Whales are naked so are we' is an astonishingly ignorant portrayal of
> > her view.
> >
> Is it? Do you now attempt to deny that this connection has been argued many
> times
> over by AAT proponents of various stripes? Forget your preferred variant.
> Take the
> AAT as a whole. The major thrust of the argument is to analogize human
> features with
> those of aquatic mammals. Hairlessness is still a foundation of AAT. So your
> astonishment
> is unwarranted.
You're doing a Mooreish twist. In one posting you suggest the AAH
argument is: 'Whales are naked and so are we', in the next you're
pretending that I'm denying that there's a "connection". There is a
connection, and let me spell it out for you seeing you seem to have
misunderstood.
Humans are the only naked primates. It's a bit odd for an primate to
be naked. There are 300 or so species and we are the only ones...
naked. Get it? Now, as Desomond Morris wrote in 1967, in such
situations the zoologist looks at other species of mammals for
analogues and asks 'where else is nudity at a premium?'
Now if you do that you find that there are about a dozen instances
where mammals seem to have independently evolved hair loss. 4 (whales,
dugongs, walrus, hippos) seem to be unequivocally due to aquatic
forces (although large size seem to have played a part there too); 2
(elephants and rhinos) appear to have been due to large body size
(although they both might have had semi-aquatic ancestors too); 2
(pangolins and armadillos) seem to have been as a result of the
development of an alternative (armour plated) skin; 1 (naked mole rat)
seems to be due to subterrainean burrowing; 1 (partial), the bat, was
due to flying. That leaves just some pigs and humans.
Discounting the possibility that pigs may have also had a more aqiatic
past, if you look at those factors and ask, which ones may have
applied to human ancestors only the most blinkered could not conclude
that moving through water or proximity to water is the most likely
factor that may have induced our nakedness.
So, the point is - it has to be worth considering on comparative
evidence alone. When we find that human swimmers that shave body hair
gain even more advantage it can only add weight to that argument.
> > Herea couple of points she made which, I think, are very strong indeed
> > against the orthodox paradig,:
> >
> > "It has been repeatedly asserted (for example on the internet) that
> > there was never such a thing as the 'savannah theory', that it was
> > simply a straw man constructed by Elaine Morgan for the pleasure of
> > knocking it down again, and that no reputable scientist can be shown
> > ever to have used the phrase 'savannah theory'. The last part of that
> > statement is true. I would no more have expected them to use that
> > phrase that I would expect a Creationist to refer to 'the God theory'
> > - their faith in it was too strong for that." Morgan (1997:14)
>
> So what is the strength of this statement? She note some assertions -true
> or not- made on the internet and claims no one uses the term. Since
> she never defined the term, either, it leaves her statement in limbo. She's
> accusing somebody of something but what that something might be she
> won't or can't say. This is no criticism at all let alone a strong one and
> makes no defense against the claim that it is a straw man of her own
> devising.
The strength lies in the point that just because no-one referred to
the savannah theory per se, it does not mean that it what they
assumed. Just like no one referred to the Creationist theory before
Darwin.
> > [She then follows with many examples which give the lie to this
> > perverse attempt to twist paleoanthropological history]
> >
> I don't happen to remember any of them. Who specifically did she
> refer to? As I remember she is fond of saying things like ' a basic
> anthropology text says...." without citing the text in question.
Oh, lots. Raymond Dart and Robert Ardrey to start with, of course.
Then de Vore, Pfeiffer, Richard Leakey, Peter Wheeler, and Susamn.
Morgan could have listed far more. Even today people still write about
the savannhs having a big effect.
On the first page of Stephen oppenheimer's Out of Eden... her writes
"... And why us? What key forces in our evolutionary history took
descendants of apes that had just left the trees to walk the African
savannah and catapulted them onto the Moon within a couple of million
years? " Oppenheimer (2004:1) He makes many more such statements.
I find this whole idea, the most ibncredible twist of all. Oh, right,
so the savannah theory was all a big invention by Elaine Morgan.
No-one had even thought that we'd ever left the trees for the open
habitats of Africa before her. Get real. You're making a fool of
yourself and the whole of paleoanthropology.
> > "The original savannah model - though it did not stand the test of
> > time - was argued in strong and clear terms. We are different from
> > apes, it stated, because they lived in the forest and our ancestors
> > lived on the plains...
>
> No. The original savannah theory - Dart, presumably - argued that
> the features typical of hominids evolved as a result of living in open
> savannah environments. The notion that hominids living in relatively
> open environments has been disposed of is AAT fancy. See the
> difference?
You butted in too soon...
> > ... The new watered-down version suggests that we are different from
> > the apes because their ancestors, perhaps, lived in a different part
> > of the mosaic. Say what you will, it does not have the same ring to
> > it." Morgan 1997:17-18)
>
> Again what Elaine thinks of some nebulous concept like 'ring' as
> applied to a totally undefined 'savannah theory' is not a criticism.
See? She's arguing that if we're NOT arguing for savannah in the
strict old Dart sense (open treeless plains) then what the fuck are we
arguing for? It's the 'slightly more open than a chimp habitat is
today but not quite open enough to be labelled as savannah becaise
that was a straw man invented by Elaine Morgan' - as she says, it
does't have the same ring to it.
> > Morgan, Elaine (1997). The Aquatic Ape Hypothesis. Souvenir Press
> > (London)
> >
> This I have not seen. Sounds like she did not advance things much in 15
> years...
Well it's her best book. That you've never bothered to read it says
much about your arrogance to assume that it's all nonsense. Tobias
rates her books as "superb" and I agree wuth him.
> >> > Your characterization of the quality of Elaine's research is bogus.
> > > The great overarching error of her work is that it represents a
> conclusion
> > > in search of evidence. This is why the substantial - not trivial -
> > > misreadings of sources are so blatant and so damaging.
> >
> > Rubbish. Tobias called them a 'series of superbly written books' and
> > he was right. For someone who is not trained in the science of
> > paleoanthropology she puts professionals to shame with her insightful
> > summaries of the state of knowledge in such a wide range of areas.
>
> Where??? In what topics, specifically, did she put professionals to shame?
In dancing around the farce that is the origin of bipedality question,
for a start. Chapters 3, 4, 5 and 6. That's four chapters on bipedal
origins where Langdon provides two facile paragraphs in response (to a
single one of her points which he misrepresents) and Moore's critique
only focusses in on the Aldosterone citation of Ganong, where she
slightly changes the emphasis of his table of data! She does a similar
job in other areas, but never so well as in that one, in my opinion.
> In "Scars of Evolution" she went on and on about the various ailments
> that can be attributed to bipedalism at least tangentially. Most PA don't
> do this for one simple reason. Virtually all these ailments are a factor
> late in life and don't, when considering the species as a whole, dent the
> proposition that humans are very proficient bipedalists.It is all hugely
> irrelevant.
That's your opinion. In Scars her point was just that bipedalism has
come at a cost and that in shallow water those costs would have
probably been far less.
> Was this one of the areas where she put professional to shame??
Yes. But she did so better in her 1997 book.
> > She never presents a conclusion but, like Hardy, asks lots of
> > questions. That was her aim - to stimulate a debate and, boy, has she
> > succeeded!
> >
> Where? On the internet? Cold fusion has been revived on the internet.
Not just on the internet.
> > > What Jim has pointed out are
> > > not minor factual errors as you claim but substantial examples of her
> > > methodology.
> >
> > So, are you defending Jim Moore's shock-horror twisting of four (no
> > just one really) errors, or what?
> >
> > Take Jim Moore's number one revelation for an example: the famous
> > Darwin misquote. It's just sleazy crap - exactly what you'd expect
> > from the gutter press.
> >
> > Have you read my expose on these yet?
> >
> > see http://www.riverapes.com/AAH/Arguments/JimMoore/Quotes.htm
> >
> > What say you on that Rick? How can you defend what Jim has done?
>
> What did he do? Elaine made a claim to have never altered or edited
> quotes without clearly marking these emendations. He demonstrated
> that this claim was in error.
That error was in a web posting. For heaven's sake you're as bad as he
is. So what say you of Moore's errors. He said on page one of his web
site that you'd never find such errors here (meaning errors like not
giving citations) and yet in the AATer facts and claims page, not one
citation.
> Your estimation of the significance of the
> emendations does not matter. But we were through this with the
> Richmond-Strait paper a while back where I could not get you
> to understand that proper citation and quotation is a bedrock of
> intellectual discourse.
Rubbish. I never misreprented their argument which I always accepted
was to argue that a'piths had a k-w-ing ancestor. I was independently
interpreting their published data. I'm allowed to do that, aren't I? I
mean that's exactly what Rodman & McHeny did for Rowtree & Taylor's
work. The later had argued that energetics could not be argued as a
factor in bipedal origins but R & McH re-interpreted their finding and
concluded that, oh yes they could be.
You're just twisting, just like Jim Moore has shown you how.
> So I'm not surprised you can't grasp what
> Jim has done or why you are oblivious to the fact that Verhaegen
> is a notorious abuser of sources.
I can grasp exactly what Jim moore has done. I think I can grasp it
better than anyone because I've poured over ever tedious, twisting
sentence in his masquerading web site and tried to check how many of
his claims have any basis in fact.
http://www.riverapes.com/AAH/Arguments/JimMoore/JMHome.htm
> You think all this just doesn't matter
> and that makes Jim's exposure an ad hominen. If you carry on at UWA
> you'll discover the error of your ways. Just make sure you don't learn
> the hard way.
Moore twists slight errors into claims of fraud. That's just
dishonest.
> > What 'substantial examples of her methodology'? Can you be more
> > specific, or give us a page cited example?
> >
> Don't have the books in front of me, sorry.
How convenient. So, we're stuck with Moore's big four (actually just
one) then.
> > It's a popular science book. It's supposed to be entertaining to the
> > lay person. Like Craig Stanford's 'Upright' it's written in a style
> > that's more about keeping the reader's attention than being
> > technically spot on in every sentence.
> >
> Balls! You keep saying this. because it is aimed at the general
> reader scholarly standards can be thrown out the window. This
> is absolute crap.
Twisting again. I'm not suggesting that scholarly standarsd be thrown
out of the window. Morgan never did that, even with her first book.
It's just that as popular books there were one or two errors. Moore
leapt on them and tried to twist them into shock-horror mass
deceptions. People seem to have fallen for it but I'm trying my best
to expose his methods for all to see. If people are honest and open, I
think they'll agree that Morgan's works are, on balance, exceptionally
good.
> > > But since your hypothesis is precisely the same kind of
> > > enterprise it is, of course, only to be expected that you can't see
> this.
> >
> > All Hardy and Morgan ever did (and I am trying to emulate them ) is to
> > wonder aloud if there might be something in this thing.
>
> What thing? By your's and Elaine's admission this 'thing' was never
> defined except as a collection of foolish analogies. Since you now want
> to walk away from these what are you left with? Oh, right.....we swim
> and chimps don't.
Moore twisting. More aquatic than chimps is what Hardy and Morgan
meant although they should have spelled it out to avoid the confusion.
[..]
> I'm using the
> > hypothetico-deductive method, perhaps for the first time, in an
> > enquiry into bipedal origins.
> >
> This is highly doubtful. Not that you aren't using h-d but that you're
> the first.
Then name me one other study into bipedal origins that has used this
method.
> > That you have to tar me with the great, thick, sticky anti-AAH brush
> > because I dare to suggest that it might be right says more about your
> > lack of objectivity than it does mine.
> >
> No, Algis, I take you to task because you don't make any sense.
> Sorry to be so blunt...
You are entitled to your opinion.
[..]
> > Morgan (1997) is as well a referenced popular science book as you
> > might find. The criticism of her earlier work were more justified but
> > even 'Descent of Woman' was far better referenced than Jim Moore's
> > 'Claims and Facts' page.
> >
> > See for yourself...
> >
> > http://www.aquaticape.org/aatclaims.html
> >
> > Not a single citation for 23 claims. It took me hours to trawl through
> > trying to check them.
> >
> That may be apoint that Jim can satisfy you on. I am certain
> that in all the AAT arguments I've seen that these claims are
> made - some routinely -by AAT proponents.
Some are made by them, I agree. But Moore always exaggerates, twists,
or argues them out of context. As you seem to want to do too.
[..]
> > Humans swim more efficiently when body hair is shaved off - a bit of a
> > clue there to our unique nakedness amongst the primates.
> >
> Sorry but this is a misreading of the evidence. See Jason E for
> details
And what did Jason say? That the Kruger et al paper implied that there
was not necessarliy a correlation between the amount of hair removed
and drag reduction. Fine, but even their study still showed a drag
reductio with shaving. It's twisting it in the xtreme to pretend that
this is evidence *against* the AAH explanation for nakedness.
[..]
> > Moore insists that Hardy said there was a twenty million years gap -
> > even when I pointed him to the actual sentence in the New Scietist
> > piece. He's clearly twisting to imply that the man's a fool. In the
> > Zenith magazine, 17 years later, he and the editor manage to let
> > twenty million slip through but it's cleary just an error. But can Jim
> > give him the benefit of the doubt - no way. He clings to this dirt as
> > a morsel of proof of AATer bad research methods.
> >
> When you've got two articles is it not fair to say that the
> later is the current state of an author's thought?
Normally, yes, but when the later is 17 years after the former- 17
years further into retirement and published in a far lower ranked
journal, I think that such a premise needs to be questioned. it's
interesting that you don't apply similar criteria in judging Elaine
Morgan's thoughts. Not interested enough to read her latest thoughts
there, I note.
> Why would it
> be obvious that the claim is an error. How does one separate
> earnestly argued bullshit from the slip of an editor's pen?
The context of the citation of the sentence the 20 my reference was in
would be unaffected by the error being corrected. It was clearly a
simple error. That you have to scrape such barrels shows the paucity
of your arguments.
[..]
> > > > Hardy said 'More aquatic' right? He said 'not as aquatic as an otter',
> > > > right?
> > >
> If this ape is not as aquatic as an otter it is*Not* going to have
> features - naked skin, flipper feet etc etc -that resemble seals and
> whales. Find out what an analogy is.
Rubbish. See above.
> > > And used what as evidence? If you don't understand the consequences
> > > of an argument from analogy it's high time you found out. Or as
> > > Jim helpfully points out it is a genuinely good idea to read an
> > > article and not just surmise the contents from the title.
> >
> > That humans swim better than most terrestrial animals under water for
> > one.
> >
> Which ones. Large ungulates tend to keep their heads out of water.
> As for the rest. Some dog breeds and at least one species of cat
> are dandy underwater swimmers.
Do dogs go pearl diving?
> > 'Jim helpfully points out'? The fact that you have to stick up for
> > your sleazy, twisting (no, lying is the word) super-hero,
> > anthrosciguy, even on points like this, is informative, Rick. I have
> > posted many quotes from Hardy's paper. Hell, I even scanned the entire
> > Hardy article in full for my web site precisely so that people should
> > read past the headline. It seems that most PAs haven't even read that
> > much, though - they didn't have to because they'd heard all the gossip
> > and rumor in the staff rooms and dismissed it over a coffee.
> >
> Well we on the internet have saved busy professionals the time
> it would take to blow this nonsense to Hades. If you can't get this
> stuff by us what the hell do you think will happen when you play
> with the big boys?
Oh so you're just helping out the big boys trhough the internet. I
see. And you were doing this in 1960 too? Gosh, you guys were ahead of
your time.
Algis Kuliukas
J Moore
> news:77a70442.04091...@posting.google.com...
> > taxi...@shaw.ca (Rick Wagler) wrote in message
> news:<41c2a1f2.04091...@posting.google.com>...
> > > al...@RiverApes.com (Algis Kuliukas) wrote in message
> news:<77a70442.04090...@posting.google.com>...
> > [..]
> > "It has been repeatedly asserted (for example on the internet) that
> > there was never such a thing as the 'savannah theory', that it was
> > simply a straw man constructed by Elaine Morgan for the pleasure of
> > knocking it down again, and that no reputable scientist can be shown
> > ever to have used the phrase 'savannah theory'. The last part of that
> > statement is true. I would no more have expected them to use that
> > phrase that I would expect a Creationist to refer to 'the God theory'
> > - their faith in it was too strong for that." Morgan (1997:14)
>
> So what is the strength of this statement? She note some assertions -true
> or not- made on the internet and claims no one uses the term. Since
> she never defined the term, either, it leaves her statement in limbo.
She's
> accusing somebody of something but what that something might be she
> won't or can't say. This is no criticism at all let alone a strong one and
> makes no defense against the claim that it is a straw man of her own
> devising.
Apparently, according to what I've read when she wrote her first book she
was reacting to Ardrey's "Killer ape" idea, which was not supported by much
of anyone in academia, at least not for long (I never met any professional
who didn't think it was ridiculous trash). And the biggest problems with
her version of the "Savanna theory" are that she either explicitly or
implicitly says, suggests, or implies, that the savanna is some sort of
extremely arid, virtually waterless and treeless plain, and that
anthropologists teaching their students otherwise (ie. teaching them the
definition of savanna that has been in professional use for over a hundred
years) is some sort of dirty trick; the other problem is that she seems to
feel that any argument, article, paper, or book that mentions savannas is
using them as an environment which causes convergent evolution, just as she
(rather vaguely, as even her supporters now admit) uses aquatic
environments. In this way she continually makes assumptions such as her
claim that terrestrially evolved humans' sweating should resemble animals
such as "the wild ass and the camel" rather than other primates.
Marc Verhaegen
"J Moore" <anthro...@yahoo.com> wrote his usual irrelevant blabla in
message news:Dy%2d.463203$gE.192345@pd7tw3no...
Marc Verhaegen
news:b7af43cb.04091...@posting.google.com...
To the best of my findings, Eshleman is either incapable or unwilling to
understand the difference. It seems as though he is, at this point,
deliberately ignoring the problems with this "evidence," either because he'd
based so much on it (and without it, would have to admit to depending on
whales for a [poor] analogy), because really cannot grasp the concept that
"nakedness" as we exhibit it and "shaving" aren't the same thing, or because
he envisions these hominids shaving. In any event, his steadfast refusal
to change his position in light of substantive criciticism and additional
data speaks poorly of his abilities as a scientist. I realize that he's
going to hide with charges of "double standards" and claim that the real
Marc Verhaegen
"Algis Kuliukas" <al...@RiverApes.com> wrote in message
news:77a70442.04091...@posting.google.com...
> Bears go bipedally sometimes when making threat displays, as do apes - but
in water they don't move bipedally.
No? AFAIK, they often catch salmon bipedally.
--Marc
Algis Kuliukas
> > "Algis Kuliukas" <al...@RiverApes.com> wrote in message
> > news:77a70442.04091...@posting.google.com...
>
> > Fat floats. Whether humans with *normal* fat levels gain any
> > apprecaible advantage is open to question to say the least.
> >
> > > Humans swim more efficiently when body hair is shaved off - a bit of a
> > > clue there to our unique nakedness amongst the primates.
> > >
> > Sorry but this is a misreading of the evidence. See Jason E for
> > details
>
> To the best of my findings, Algis is either incapable or unwilling to
> understand the difference. It seems as though he is, at this point,
> deliberately ignoring the problems with this "evidence," either
> because he'd based so much on it (and without it, would have to admit
> to depending on whales for a [poor] analogy), because really cannot
> grasp the concept that "nakedness" as we exhibit it and "shaving"
> aren't the same thing, or because he envisions these hominids shaving.
The difference between what?
I am not ignoring the "problems". I've read Kruger et al and accept
that it provides an anomaly to the argument that body hair reduction
correlates with drag reduction. But this is only one study and they
didn't even quantify the hair removed. So, as far as we know, the
female swimmers might have had just as much body hair as the males.
They didn't repeat the experiments as the hair grew back either and
so, at the moment, the relationship between body ahir reduction and
drag reduction is not very well known.
Some things are clear:
1) Three studies now have shown that shaving body hair provides a
clear and significant benefit of drag reduction in water in adult
humans.
2) The Sharp & Costil study of free stwimming 'push off' strongly
indicates that this is not a psychological phenomenon but a function
of surface drag reduction through the elimation of body hair.
3) If it is actual hair removal that is responsible for the reduction
of drag then it is highly likely that the more hair that is removed
the more drag reduction occurs.
4) Further studies are necessary to clarify the Kruger et al results
and to identify the true nature of the relationship:
4.1 Did the female swimmers shave the same way as the males?
4.2 Was their body hair the same as the males? (The same follicle
density, same level of opacity?)
4.3 What avg length x density of body hair was removed from
males/females - was their any correlation between the drag reduced and
the avg length and/or density?
4.4 Are there any parts of the body where body hair actually helps
swimming (e.g. the medially orientated hairs on the back of the arms
when in the supine position)? And, if so, did the males have more hair
in these parts of the body than females to start with, and as a result
of shaving, could it be that this *reduced* their swimming abilities?
(Kruger et al, note, did not do the 'passive push off experiments')
> In any event, his steadfast refusal to change his position in light of
> substantive criciticism and additional data speaks poorly of his
> abilities as a scientist. I realize that he's going to hide with
> charges of "double standards" and, like Marc, claim that the real
> paleo people, those who are "brave" and possess "open minds" get it,
> but in reality, this doesn't change the problems with his work.
No, what I'm going to do is accuse you of having an agenda here,
Jason. (not that you're listening, of course - but I'm getting used to
talking to Eshleman's echo)
To hold up one study which gave very superficial anomalous data
against the view that shaving body hair might not be correlated with
drag reduction, as Jason does, is facile in the extreme.
To argue, as you do, that the Kruger paper is evidence against one of
the AAH threads - that human nakedness would have been selected for
through swimming - when even their study showed that body shaving gave
significant drag reduction is bizarre in the extreme.
You can criticse my work all you like. Please do, I have benefitted
from it every time. At least I'm constructively proposing further
studies in the area - all you seem to want to do is dimsiss the idea
and close the book on it. Some scientific approach, that.
Algis Kuliukas
Algis Kuliukas
What I meant, Marc, was that when moving generally in water, even
water that is too deep for them to move quadrupedally, bears do not
tend to get up on their hind legs and move bipedally. That seems to be
a peculiarity of hominoidae or at least large primates. A bit of a
clue, I think, to bipedal origins.
Algis Kuliukas
firstjois
Wasn't it bicycles? Why have four pedals when two will do. And what the
heck do bears have to do with anything? Aren't these threads silly enough
without involving bears? They don't wear clothes, have no use for thread,
and can ride bikes. Algis, get a life! You want to end up like Marco?
Jois
firstjois
[snip]
What does drag matter if you are wading? If we were hairless from the
knees down that might matter or if we were hairless in the front of our
bodies or how about hairless on the sides of our bodies? Weren't you the
guy that yaked about wading sideways?
This whole mess is a drag!
Jois
Marc Verhaegen
"Algis Kuliukas" <al...@RiverApes.com> wrote in message
news:77a70442.04091...@posting.google.com...
> > > Bears go bipedally sometimes when making threat displays, as do apes -
but in water they don't move bipedally.
> > No? AFAIK, they often catch salmon bipedally.
> What I meant, Marc, was that when moving generally in water, even water
that is too deep for them to move quadrupedally, bears do not tend to get up
on their hind legs and move bipedally. That seems to be a peculiarity of
hominoidae or at least large primates. A bit of a clue, I think, to bipedal
origins. Algis Kuliukas
OK. Bears are more bipedal than (all?) other terrestrial carnivores.
--Marc
Bob Keeter
Snip. . .
>
> Wasn't it bicycles? Why have four pedals when two will do. And what the
> heck do bears have to do with anything? Aren't these threads silly enough
> without involving bears? They don't wear clothes, have no use for thread,
> and can ride bikes. Algis, get a life! You want to end up like Marco?
>
> Jois
Perhaps the answer to your last question is self evident. I would suggest
that you see a "challenged" sense of intellectual honesty coupled with an
ego that demands the "honors" of discovery in spite of a determined
opposition from a host of respected but "obviously" ignorant and
"uninformed" people. Those two issues sort of nourish his childish need to
be "important" enough for a host of people to actually take issue with his
viewpoint, even if that issue is only to point out the blatant flaws in his
logic.
Which of those "clinical indications" does that cover now? 8-) Narcissism.
. . . Malevolence. . . . or just plain immaturity and a compulsion to be the
fairy tale "hero" I suspect.
Regards
bk
Jason Eshleman
> j...@ucdavis.edu (Jason Eshleman) wrote in message news:<b7af43cb.04091...@posting.google.com>...
> > "Rick Wagler" <taxi...@shaw.ca> wrote in message news:<rkQ2d.440920$M95.178048@pd7tw1no>...
> > > "Algis Kuliukas" <al...@RiverApes.com> wrote in message
> > > news:77a70442.04091...@posting.google.com...
>
> > > Fat floats. Whether humans with *normal* fat levels gain any
> > > apprecaible advantage is open to question to say the least.
> > >
> > > > Humans swim more efficiently when body hair is shaved off - a bit of a
> > > > clue there to our unique nakedness amongst the primates.
> > > >
> > > Sorry but this is a misreading of the evidence. See Jason E for
> > > details
> >
> > To the best of my findings, Algis is either incapable or unwilling to
> > understand the difference. It seems as though he is, at this point,
> > deliberately ignoring the problems with this "evidence," either
> > because he'd based so much on it (and without it, would have to admit
> > to depending on whales for a [poor] analogy), because really cannot
> > grasp the concept that "nakedness" as we exhibit it and "shaving"
> > aren't the same thing, or because he envisions these hominids shaving.
>
> The difference between what?
>
> I am not ignoring the "problems". I've read Kruger et al and accept
> that it provides an anomaly to the argument that body hair reduction
> correlates with drag reduction. But this is only one study and they
> didn't even quantify the hair removed. So, as far as we know, the
> female swimmers might have had just as much body hair as the males.
Mr. Kuliukas appears to have substandard reading skills, else he's
willfully ignoring things. The quote, direct from Kruger et al.
"Results show that body shaving leads to a clear gain in performance.
It can not be explained by the reduction of water resistance
by the loss of hair, as the nearly body-hairless girls show the
identical
effect as the boys with clearly more body hair."
In the grand tradition of the internet, Algis, can you frickin'
read?!?
Let's parse that again. "...the boys with *clearly* [my emphasis]
more body hair." Despite this rather clear statement otherwise from
the authors, Algis somehow tries to say that perhaps the female
swimmers were just as hairy as the males. Let's see. "...as the
nearly body-hairless girls show the identical effect as the boys with
clearly more body hair." I'm at a loss as to why he seems to think
that the female swimmers might have had just as much body hair as the
males. I'm at a loss unless he a) can't read, b) didn't read, c) was
so bothered by the contracdiction to his interpretation of Sharp and
Costill that he (either intentionally or subconsciously) simply
ignored the line. In any event, the challenge challenge that the
female swimmers might have been just as hairy as the males either
attacks the authors and calls their report disingenious or is a
disingenious claim by Algis, designed to salvage a claim of his that
he clings to like a tattered security blanket.
Rick Wagler
The latter I should think. The AAT is not a vast and dangerous
-not to say riduculous - plot to undermine PA. This botchup
by Algis is what seems to happen as a matter of course when
we have a conclusion out hunting for evidence. It is a process
that is exposed over and over again when the details come out
about how yet another poor bugger had years of his life stolen
away by a wrongful conviction. It is a fascinating psychological
problem but it sure ain't a proper investigation of a topic that
fascinates us all
Rick Wagler
Paul Crowley
news:77a70442.04091...@posting.google.com...
> > > Generation by generation, I doubt there was perceptible change but
> > > that doesn't mean that change wasn't going on.
> >
> > We are not talking about 'change' but
> > about 'change caused by processes of
> > selection'. ... So the species
> > is not going to change -- it cannot
> > change -- as the result of some
> > haphazard or trivial pressure.
>
> I think that assumption is just false. How did bats start to fly,
> dolphins start to swim, primates start to climb trees? They changed
> and it must have been due to the process of selection.
Yes, indeed, but in no case was it the "result
of some haphazard or trivial pressure" (to
quote my words above). You are trying to
use examples taken from hundreds of millions
of years of evolution, involving catastrophic
mass-extinctions and all manner of events of
which we have only the faintest glimmering
(or none at all). Whereas we do know that
there were no mass-extinction-type-events
during the evolution of hominids.
> > IF they could (and if your model had
> > the least validity) there would be
> > almost no recognisable species.
> > Populations would rapidly alter in
> > all kinds of weird direct directions
> > all the time.
>
> You're exaggerating. I'm arguing that they change relatively slowly.
> Populations usually live in fairly similar habitats and so the gene
> pool is not being stretched in so many directions at the same time.
You don't get the point. There are
enormous pressures operating on all
species, working in opposite directions,
with the result that they nearly always
stay in much the same place. So, for
example, there are often great pressures
encouraging larger size, but ones
equally as strong pushing towards
smaller size. And that's only one scale,
out of hundreds. You seem to think that
a single trivial pressure, with the weight
of a feather, would make a difference.
All I can say is that you have no
conception of the extent and power of
natural forces.
> > But why should he or SHE or THEM
> > -- (the infants and the small children)
> > OR he AND she AND them (as a group)
> > -- be in such waters at all?
>
> If they lived in swampy wetlands i suggest that they might not have
> much choice.
Mammals do not live in swampy wetlands.
You should know the main reason but, in
fact, there are many. A ground ape must
be one of the least likely of all terrestrial
mammals to be able to cope with such a
habitat.
> Funny how you seem to be critcising me for not using SHE
> this time, once I rememeber you pulled me up for being politically
> correct when I did refer to an ape as 'she'. Just can't win with you,
> Paul, can we?
You just do not have the mind of a scientist.
You are not interested in establishing the
truth. If you were serious, you would
welcome objections to your theory, and
you would try to deal with them. But
every time I strike home (as it is very easy
to do when you forget the PC rules) you
don't acknowledge your error, and say 'that's
a fair point . . . I'll have to think about it . ."
Instead, you AUTOMATICALLY go on
to the attack, and change the subject.
I'm sure you don't realise that you are
doing it.
You are not in this forum (nor studying
the subject) in order to find the truth.
You just want to win arguments, and any
convenient tactic will do.
> > This hideous model of 'the hominid' as
> > ADULT MALE is abominable. In spite
> > of the fact that you know I'll pick you up
> > on it, you can never remember to be more
> > careful. It is so integral to your 'thinking'
> > that you are incapable of avoiding it.
> > It's also basic to your whole theory.
> > IF you had in mind groups of females
> > with infants and with other young, you'd
> > soon realise the extent of the absurdity
> > of your scenario. They vary so much in
> > size that only a few would at any time be
> > at 'wading depth'.
>
> This is the most staggeringly hypocritical point I've ever heard.
Do you see my point? You don't begin to
consider whether or not what I am saying
is right. (In fact, you implicitly admit it is,
by not contesting it.) It's CHANGE THE
SUBJECT as fast as you can -- and hope
that both you and your opponent won't
notice that you are evading the point.
(If you noticed yourself, you might have
to change your mind about your theory,
or even think seriously about the problem
-- and what could be more disastrous for
you than either one of those options?)
> This, coming from the guy who promotess MALE-ONLY clubbing and
> aggression as the driving force of bipedalism (and presumably
> everything else human.)
I am fully aware of all the problems (in this
regard) in my theory. I fully acknowledge
that when one says that nearly all the
pressure for bipedalism (or for any other
feature) came from one gender, it must be
a super-strong pressure, and the other
gender . . AND the infants . . . must be
able to accept the changes as well --
and their doing so is likely to involve
huge modifications in behaviour and in
morphology. The problems in all this
are horrendous.
But you are not even aware of the most
superficial of them.
> > You don't envisage scenarios with
> > females, infants and other young --
> > because even you are not foolish
> > enough to believe that such groups
> > would 'wade' in water. No activity
> > could be more dangerous, nor less
> > profitable.
>
> If they lived in a wetland habitat they (male, female, adult, infant,
> whatever) could hardly opt out from moving through water, could they?
No -- they'd do what we'd do -- and get
to drier land.
> > > > Complete nonsense. Anyone writing this
> > > > should fail Evolution 101. (Although, it
> > > > seems most people marking Evolution 101
> > > > would give it high marks.)
> > >
> > > Why is it nonsense?
> >
> > It focuses on adult males -- to the
> > exclusion of the females, infants and
> > young. Isn't that enough?
>
> Then you fail ten times more than I do - remind us again how it
> goes....
There you go again. The first rule of a
politician when s/he does not have an
answer -- attack the opposition.
It never fails. Or you seem to think that
it never should fail. But it's not being a
scientist.
> Males bashing each other around the heads requires upright
> posture thus leading to hominid bipedalism. Meanwhile the females and
> the infants are sitting in the trees watching? Or what?
>
> > It also ignores everything that matters
> > and counts irrelevancies as 'pressures'.
>
> Not drowning matters. It is hardly an irrelevant pressure.
Sure. And what do you do in order to
avoid drowning? You stay away from
water.
> > No parent would want young children to
> > swim in such waters without good reason.
> > It might (under some circumstances) be
> > justifiable for children of ~7 or above
> > to take the risk, but it would never be
> > justifiable for younger ones.
>
> Again, you fail to see that if human ancestors lived in wetlands
IF . . . IF . . . IF . . . IF . . . IF . . . IF . . . IF . . .
Why should they? What sliver of evidence
can you provide that they ever did?
> or on
> the edge of wetlands they'd have no choice but to move through water.
If they lived on the edge of wetlands (as
many of us do) they'd have no reason to
go into it. They'd move about on the dry
land -- as we do.
> [..]
> > > Well humans did become fatter, did they not. That is a fact which is
> > > not in any doubt, the only question is why?
> >
> > You might as well say that seals became
> > fatter -- so they must have a surplus of
> > food. We know why seals have to be
> > (relatively) fat: they'd suffer too much
> > from the cold, and die, if they weren't.
> > All you have to do is to work out how
> > the same principle applies to humans.
>
> So the argument that fat is too expensive to have been used as a
> buoyancy aid in human evolution is just tossed out of the window when
> it comes to seals. Convenient.
Err . . . seals live in cold (often VERY cold)
water. How else could they maintain their
body heat? They DON'T have all that
fat for buoyancy.
Paul.
Algis Kuliukas
> "Algis Kuliukas" <al...@RiverApes.com> wrote in message
> news:77a70442.04091...@posting.google.com...
>
> > dolphins start to swim, primates start to climb trees? They changed
> > and it must have been due to the process of selection.
>
> Yes, indeed, but in no case was it the "result
> of some haphazard or trivial pressure" (to
> quote my words above). You are trying to
> use examples taken from hundreds of millions
> of years of evolution, involving catastrophic
> mass-extinctions and all manner of events of
> which we have only the faintest glimmering
> (or none at all). Whereas we do know that
> there were no mass-extinction-type-events
> during the evolution of hominids.
I don't think that evolutionary change requires mass extinctions to
result in the change of species.
> > You're exaggerating. I'm arguing that they change relatively slowly.
> > Populations usually live in fairly similar habitats and so the gene
> > pool is not being stretched in so many directions at the same time.
>
> You don't get the point. There are
> enormous pressures operating on all
> species, working in opposite directions,
> with the result that they nearly always
> stay in much the same place. So, for
> example, there are often great pressures
> encouraging larger size, but ones
> equally as strong pushing towards
> smaller size. And that's only one scale,
> out of hundreds. You seem to think that
> a single trivial pressure, with the weight
> of a feather, would make a difference.
> All I can say is that you have no
> conception of the extent and power of
> natural forces.
Sure, but isn't it rather unlikely that all of these "hundreds" of
forces all *exactly* balance each other out *all the time*. I'm not
insisting that the force of change would be the weight of a feather,
very slight shifts in strong opposing forces would also result in the
sort of change I'm talking about.
> > > But why should he or SHE or THEM
> > > -- (the infants and the small children)
> > > OR he AND she AND them (as a group)
> > > -- be in such waters at all?
> >
> > If they lived in swampy wetlands i suggest that they might not have
> > much choice.
>
> Mammals do not live in swampy wetlands.
> You should know the main reason but, in
> fact, there are many. A ground ape must
> be one of the least likely of all terrestrial
> mammals to be able to cope with such a
> habitat.
Really? The habitat of orang utans is pretty much characterised by
very wet rainforest and swamps and so is the bonobo and so is part of
the habitat of western lowland gorillas.
> > Funny how you seem to be critcising me for not using SHE
> > this time, once I rememeber you pulled me up for being politically
> > correct when I did refer to an ape as 'she'. Just can't win with you,
> > Paul, can we?
>
> You just do not have the mind of a scientist.
> You are not interested in establishing the
> truth. If you were serious, you would
> welcome objections to your theory, and
> you would try to deal with them. But
> every time I strike home (as it is very easy
> to do when you forget the PC rules) you
> don't acknowledge your error, and say 'that's
> a fair point . . . I'll have to think about it . ."
> Instead, you AUTOMATICALLY go on
> to the attack, and change the subject.
> I'm sure you don't realise that you are
> doing it.
If I see a hypocritical argument then I go onto the attack. Sorry. I
did address your criticism: In a wetland habitat all members of the
group (male, female, adult, infant) would ocassionally have the need
to move through water. I don't have to invoke any 'special clause' for
females and their infants, see? Whereas you're ideas do.
> You are not in this forum (nor studying
> the subject) in order to find the truth.
> You just want to win arguments, and any
> convenient tactic will do.
The convenient tactic I use is providing evidence and picking holes in
the evidence of the people arguing against me. When I see someone
being hypocritical or twisting arguments I try to expose them. What's
wrong with that?
But I didn't evade the point, Paul. You argued that the wading model
wouldn't work with females because they'd never go in the water.
That's just crap. Of course females (with infants) would, could and do
go in the water. In my Planckendael study the adult most likely to
step in the water was Hermien the alpha female, almost always with an
infant on her back. The video clippings of chimpanzees wading
bipedally in Conkuoati also include females with infants holding on,
and so does the footage of w l gorillas in Mbeli Bei. You're just
making up an objection that would seem to fit your little (male
centred) idea of how things *should* have been. Unfortunately, this
idea has no evidence to back it up. It's just a fantasy.
> > This, coming from the guy who promotess MALE-ONLY clubbing and
> > aggression as the driving force of bipedalism (and presumably
> > everything else human.)
>
> I am fully aware of all the problems (in this
> regard) in my theory. I fully acknowledge
> that when one says that nearly all the
> pressure for bipedalism (or for any other
> feature) came from one gender, it must be
> a super-strong pressure, and the other
> gender . . AND the infants . . . must be
> able to accept the changes as well --
> and their doing so is likely to involve
> huge modifications in behaviour and in
> morphology. The problems in all this
> are horrendous.
They are more than horrendous, they are a show stopper.
[..]
> > If they lived in a wetland habitat they (male, female, adult, infant,
> > whatever) could hardly opt out from moving through water, could they?
>
> No -- they'd do what we'd do -- and get
> to drier land.
What if that was 200km away? Gorillas, bonobos and orang utans (that's
3 out of 5) main types of great ape live in places where they often
get their feet wet.
> > > > > Complete nonsense. Anyone writing this
> > > > > should fail Evolution 101. (Although, it
> > > > > seems most people marking Evolution 101
> > > > > would give it high marks.)
> > > >
> > > > Why is it nonsense?
> > >
> > > It focuses on adult males -- to the
> > > exclusion of the females, infants and
> > > young. Isn't that enough?
> >
> > Then you fail ten times more than I do - remind us again how it
> > goes....
>
> There you go again. The first rule of a
> politician when s/he does not have an
> answer -- attack the opposition.
>
> It never fails. Or you seem to think that
> it never should fail. But it's not being a
> scientist.
I answered you point(?) about females not going into the water. The
evidence from extant apes just does not bare it out.
> > Males bashing each other around the heads requires upright
> > posture thus leading to hominid bipedalism. Meanwhile the females and
> > the infants are sitting in the trees watching? Or what?
> >
> > > It also ignores everything that matters
> > > and counts irrelevancies as 'pressures'.
> >
> > Not drowning matters. It is hardly an irrelevant pressure.
>
> Sure. And what do you do in order to
> avoid drowning? You stay away from
> water.
But sometimes (floods etc) you can't avoid it.
> > > No parent would want young children to
> > > swim in such waters without good reason.
> > > It might (under some circumstances) be
> > > justifiable for children of ~7 or above
> > > to take the risk, but it would never be
> > > justifiable for younger ones.
> >
> > Again, you fail to see that if human ancestors lived in wetlands
>
> IF . . . IF . . . IF . . . IF . . . IF . . . IF . . . IF . . .
>
> Why should they? What sliver of evidence
> can you provide that they ever did?
Yes, easily. Oreopithecus lived in a swampy habitat. Sahelanthropus
lived in the middle of the outer boundary of Mega Lake Chad, Hadar
(home of Lucy) was basically a wetland habitat and so was Nariokotome
Boy's. The majority of other hominid sites are also close to water
margins. But never mind the evidence, Paul, if it doesn't fit in with
your macho man fantasies, just ignore them.
> > or on
> > the edge of wetlands they'd have no choice but to move through water.
>
> If they lived on the edge of wetlands (as
> many of us do) they'd have no reason to
> go into it. They'd move about on the dry
> land -- as we do.
Most of us do today, but that doesn't mean that our ancestors did the
same 100kya.
[..]
> > So the argument that fat is too expensive to have been used as a
> > buoyancy aid in human evolution is just tossed out of the window when
> > it comes to seals. Convenient.
>
> Err . . . seals live in cold (often VERY cold)
> water. How else could they maintain their
> body heat? They DON'T have all that
> fat for buoyancy.
No but you were arguing that our ancestors could not sustain a little
more fat than apes for buoyancy becaiuse it required too much energy
to do so. But when it comes to seals - no problem there.
Algis Kuliukas
firstjois
[snip]
>>
>> Really? The habitat of orang utans is pretty much characterised by
>> very wet rainforest and swamps and so is the bonobo and so is part of
>> the habitat of western lowland gorillas.
>>
Why didn't the orangs become the bipedal wakers, you know, so much rain
forest and swamp?
Jois
--
Now, we became bipedal just like that. By pure chance. And
chimps can become bipedal any time, but they are not in the mood. When they
see a bipedal humans, how unsuccesfull they are, thay are not in the mood
to
follow their example.
Mario
SAP 041204