Re: Bipedal Orrorin?

From: Bob Keeter (rkeeter_at_earthlink.net)
Date: 10/18/04 

Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2004 03:30:54 GMT

"Pauline M Ross" <pmross@ross-software.co.uk> wrote in message
news:6135n0l9hekqnlnd3rlbhcpqdsj0pl0ee9@4ax.com...
> On Sun, 17 Oct 2004 14:00:55 GMT, "Bob Keeter" <rkeeter@earthlink.net>
> wrote:
>
>>Let me point out just a couple of things that caught my eye. The word
>>"professional" can mean a great many things. One can be very
>>"professional"
>>at just about any avocation or occupation, and one can be very
>>unprofessional in spite of all of the "wallpaper" that might be hanging on
>>the walls.
>
> Well, I think Algis was using the word in its basic sense of someone
> who is paid to do a job - in this case paleoanthropology - but OK.

Well, there are a lot of people paid to do a job, be it paleoanthropology,
engineering or whole host of occupations. If you want to define
"professional" as "getting paid for the job", Id offer that you are
providing a very shallow definition. Dont you think?

>>
>>The label of "unprofessional" is easily achieved when in a technical
>>debate
>>one "hangs on" to a point long after the hard logic demands that it be
>>abandoned (even if such act denounces ones own prior positions and
>>papers!).
>>You can get that label when boxed into a corner by undeniable facts and
>>then
>>reacting with non sequiteurs, ad hominem and insult instead of valid
>>counterpoint arguements. You can get that label by deliberately ignoring
>>facts, when selectively choosing favorable KNOWN evidence and ignoring the
>>KNOWN but unfavorable facts, in effect subverting science to stroke ones
>>own ego.
>
> You talk about "hard logic" and "undeniable facts", but most of PA is
> inference and interpretation from the very scanty data. I would assert
> that no one here is "deliberately ignoring facts", simply putting
> different weightings on the evidence and interpreting it accordingly.
> But we've had this same discussion before, so I won't labour the
> point.

Hard logic in the soft sciences, is usually best defined by the term
"parsimony". Logic can rarely be as rock hard as in physics or math, but
would you even say that the arguements for AAH ALWAYS even abid by my much
more generous defininition above? 8-) Undeniable facts are such things as
the Laetoli footprints, the webbed foot issue, the fact that none of the
"semi-aquatic" mammals share the features usually ascribed to a hypothetical
semi-aquatic early hominid, or I might even add, pictures of the locales
referenced as general analogs for ancient ecologies! 8-) But then. . .
thats just my opinions and I do have a few! 8-)))

But its very strange that any "compromising" evidence always gets a zero
weighting! Lets see, how does that work, a theory is "just fine" until it
runs into the one tiny little piece of evidence that does not fit the
theory? Hmmmmm. . . . .

> [Snip]
>>Getting down off of the soapbox just a little bit. . . . . . . . Many
>>people
>>have tried to take each little tid bit of the AAH and publicly pull it
>>apart, some have grappled with the total body of "arguements". I have
>>watched a gamut of different arguements offered up, and toss in a few of
>>my
>>own. The end result is always some sort of descent into ad hominem when
>>the
>>going gets too rough, a hiding behind non sequiteurs, a studied avoidance
>>of
>>the subject being disassembled, or just plain closing of ones eyes to the
>>most probable solutions because of a unwillingness to abandon prior
>>positions.
>
> Or honestly holding a different view of the evidence.
>

Honest disagreement is a very necessary part of the scientific discussion.
If nothing else it forces the two sides to reconsider the evidence, line up
the points of discussion. Who knows, it might even stimulate that "eureka
moment" where that new connection is discovered! 8-) That is NOT what I
mentioned up in that paragraph at all, and you know it, dont you!?!?!

>>When one side of an arguement at least attempts to maintian (in
>>most cases anyway) some degree of decorum and scientific arguement and the
>>other side (in most cases anyway) simply dives into a childish tantrum of
>>insult and unwillingness to apply reason, it becomes very hard to see the
>>"professionalism" at work.
>
> And which side of the AAH argument do you think is maintaining a
> degree of decorum and scientific argument, and which is having
> childish tantrums and unwilling to apply reason? Which sap posters
> would you put into the 'unprofessional' category? Do you think the
> answer is clear-cut?

Actually, I dont think that either side does exceptionally well. That is of
course why some who argue both sides of this particular point are so well
ensconsed in my "kill file". I do my very best to disassociate myself from
those that find the need to "indulge"in those little tantrums. 8-)

> I don't see things in such black-and-white terms as you appear to.
> There are no right or wrong answers in PA, just more or less fruitful
> lines of enquiry. There are no good guys and bad guys on sap, just
> real people who may be more or less coherent, logical, polite, witty
> or informative, and sometimes all of the above on the same day.

Well, I am a lot less forgiving that you on several points. The "bad guys"
are the ones that give this place a bad name with their "malevolent
narcissism" substituting for anything that approaches a scientific
discussion, NO MATTER WHAT "SIDE" THEY CHOOSE to pollute with their
presence.

> Whatever you may think of the 'professionalism' or otherwise of AAH
> proponents, the fact remains that there are a number of major
> questions about human evolution which the PA academics have so far
> failed to answer to the point of consensus. The AAH may not be the
> right answer, but it may give a new perspective on some of the more
> intractable problems.
>
> --
> Pauline Ross

I have no problem discussing the AAH, and see no reason why it should
necessarily be excluded from a discussion of anthropology (even though I
personally feel its a crock of fantasy). That is just my personal opinion
and you are most welcome to disagree. On the other hand, I refuse to
discuss the time of day with some of the miscreants (pro- and anti-AAT
alike) who insist on acting like small misbehaving children. I wish that I
could say that the AAHers had cornered the market for immature sociopathic
personalities, but I cant! 8-(

Regards
bk

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