Re: Updated AAH Definition

From: Jason Eshleman (jae_at_vidi.ucdavis.edu)
Date: 11/17/04 

Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 17:36:37 +0000 (UTC)

In article <hOqdnbPWveIH3AbcRVnyvg@skypoint.com>,
Michael Clark <biteme@spammer.com> wrote:
>"Algis Kuliukas" <algis@RiverApes.com> wrote in message
>news:77a70442.0411161846.1db63141@posting.google.com...
>> jae@vidi.ucdavis.edu (Jason Eshleman) wrote in message
>> news:<cndbcm$n4e$1@skeeter.ucdavis.edu>...
>>> Michael Clark <biteme@spammer.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> >"Algis Kuliukas" <algis@RiverApes.com> wrote in message
>>> >news:77a70442.0411152304.33ba8d8f@posting.google.com...
>>
>>> >> Q: How many fossils have been attributed to Hominids in the last 2My?
>>> >> A: Thousands.
>>> >>
>>> >> Q: How many have been attributed to Pan/Gorilla?
>>> >> A: Zero.
>>> >>
>>> >> Q: What type of animal is most likely to get fossilised.
>>> >> A: Aquatic animals. They make up over 90% of all fossils found.
>>> >>
>>> >> Duh.
>>> >
>>> >"Duh". Algis in action. This isn't a test of anything,
>>> >genius. I asked you to provide convincing proof that human
>>> >ancestors lived in waterside habitats *more* than P/G
>>> >ancestors. You come back with some observation about
>>> >the relative number of fossils. This isn't a test and instead
>>> >is merely another wave of your puny little arms. MOST
>>> >fossils are found in water-borne sediments. This doesn't
>>> >make aquatic animals out of terrestrial ones. See?
>>> >Didn't think so. So you fail again --right on time.
>>
>> More from the Mike and Jason show.
>>
>> How can we "prove" anything about animals that lived 4 million years
>> ago? Human ancestors, we are told (sometimes), lived in wooded
>> habitats. More or less the same kind of wooded habitats that chimps
>> live in today, right? Or are you a savannah theorist? And yet not one
>> chip off a tooth of a chimp ancestor has ever been found dated in the
>> last 2My. Thousands of hominid fossils have been found in the same
>> period, thousands. If this evidence does not make you think that
>> perhaps this is more than just a wierd taphonomic bias (they all lived
>> our in the open patches between the woods but then mysteriously went
>> down to the water to die, whereas chimps or gorillas didn't) then
>> you're lacking something in the grey matter.
>
>And so you've filled up a whole paragraph and said nothing, again.
>I'm sorry that you have no fossils of P/G to point to. I really can't
>help that and I can't help you with your presentation (that would be
>cheating). You have not established that our ancestors spent any
>more time at the waterside than *anything* else --say nothing of
>the other apes. The above paragraph does not seem to address
>this problem or any of the myriad of other paragraphs that you seem
>to produce with such fury. Appeals to grey matter don't seem
>to be helping your case, either. Can I expect an argument from
>you anytime soon?
>
>>> Though there's a relatively straightforward use of data already collected
>>> that Algis could and should look at, he's taking a pre-school approach to
>>> fit his previous prejudice. 90% of all fossils found may be from aquatic
>>> creatures, but this doesn't mean that any fossil found must then be from
>>> an aquatic creature. He should note which creatures are found in
>>> deposits
>>> with hominids, notably, which terrestrial creatures are similarly
>>> present.
>>> Are hominids over-represented compared to, say, fossil gazelles and
>>> wildebeest? Without such a comparison, the presence of hominids in
>>> waterside habitats indicates only that waterside deposits favor
>>> fossilization, something that appears true.
>>
>> Sure. But even there you are making a couple of pretty huge
>> assumptions:
>>
>> 1) That the ancestors of gazelles lived in similar habitats to their
>> modern day descendants. There's evidence that savanna-type grassland
>> is actually a very recent phenomenon, suggesting that the ancestors of
>> such representatives were adapted to much more wet and wooded
>> habitats.
>
>Could you be a little more specific (chortle)? Which gazelles?
>Where? When? etc. (More wasted keystrokes)

Mike, it's not wasted. You've just seen the introduction of the Aquatic
Gazelle Hypothesis.

[snip]

>> Oh. Where's the selection? Gosh. That's a hard one. Thousands of
>> people drown every year - didn't you know? And for every one that
>> drowns there are an estimated four or five that nearly drown but
>> escape. This is in human populations today, note. That's selection -
>> going on right now under your very nose. It's almost certainly been
>> going on, similarly, for about seven million years. *But* I somehow
>> don't think it's been going on to a similiar extent for chimpanzees,
>> do you?
>
>Ummm, I looked but I didn't see your analysis of the selection
>going on in the above paragraph. Could you point it out? Besides
>the fact that death occurs, could you define just who is drowning,
>under what circumstances and frequency, where (specifically),
>and what sort of pressure this is putting on the rest of the population?
>Inquiring minds want to know.

I've said before that Algis doesn't seem to understand evolution well.
He's demonstrating this as well, confusing dying with selection.

>[Sharp and Costill special pleading]
>
>> And, of course, the two Sharp & Costil papers that had no such
>> sex-based ambiguity to deal with both also showed unequivocally that
>> shaving body hair reduces drag in water.
>>
>> I repeat this from my other, unanswered, posting...
>
>Somebody didn't respond to one (1) of your posts?
>A goddamned CRIME! Call out the marines.
>
>> The Sharp & Costil and the Kruger et al papers all show that shaving
>> body hair improves drag reduction. None of them studied the effects
>> during body hair grow-back or correlated the amount of body hair
>> shaved with the amount of drag reduction. So, we have no real data
>> there. But, JE seems to be arguing that *absolute* body hair shaving
>> is requred to get *any* benefit in drag reduction. Presumably, the
>> shavings in those volunteers was 100% perfect, then. Not one single
>> stubble was left intact, not one hair was missed. And, the day after
>> the experiments, presumably, that 0.5mm of hair re-growth suddenly
>> would have negated all of the effect of drag reduction at a stroke.
>> What a ridiculous posiiton to have to defend - but Jason's there doing
>> it! Good ol' Jason, eh, Michael? Defenders of the faith, unite!

Good ol' Algis, failing to deal with the argument, again misrepresenting
(actually, outright contradicting) what Krueger et al overtly stated--I
suspect he's not actually bothered to read this one either--coupled with
claims that I've argued something I haven't.

>Jason has an argument that you appear to be having trouble with.
>So what's it gonna be? Are you gonna argue for paleolithic razors
>now? And when you get this "benefit" from hair reduction, what
>are you gonna do with it (assuming that it's there)? Are you gonna
>argue that the more hairless escaped the crocs? But haven't we
>trod this ground before? (Sorry about the phrasing)

Krueger et al did not demonstrate drag reduction. They demonstrated
increased performance. They did not measure drag. While Algis would like
to conclude that they showed drag reduction (and perhaps this is
responsible for their results) they actually said something very
different. They dismissed the difference in performance as due to water
resistance on hair. They explicitly said this. They also noted, and this
has been pointed out time and time again, that going from being very hairy
to shaved gave not the slightest bit more advantage than from going to
very sparcely haired to shaved.

[snip]

>> Fat and skinny people both drown, of course. But I hesitate to say
>> that they drown with the same frequency. I've not seen any direct
>> evidence for this but the evidence shows that women are far less
>> likely to drown than males and that African Americans are more likely
>> to drown than European Americans. Both of those correlate with greater
>> levels of adipocity reducing drowning risk. We need more direct data
>> though, clearly.
>
>You could use *any* data for a start. And while you hesitate
>to say that they drown with the same frequency, somehow you don't
>hesitate to draw the conclusion that fat is a life preserver [guffaw]

He doesn't hesitate to ignore that the accidental death rate for males is
higher than for females for a number of reasons. I guess fat prevents
auto accidents too. He doesn't hesitate to ignore the fact that the
difference between the drowning death rate for males and females exists in
pre-pubescent children as well, before the pronounced difference in body
fat (a secondary sexual characteristic in women) presents itself. I guess
the potential to produce fat is enough to save one from drowning. He
doesn't hesitate to ignore any of the covariables with the difference in
drowning deaths between children of more recent African origin and
children of more recent European origin either.