Re: Updated AAH Definition

From: Algis Kuliukas (algis_at_RiverApes.com)
Date: 11/18/04 

Date: 17 Nov 2004 18:45:27 -0800

jae@vidi.ucdavis.edu (Jason Eshleman) wrote in message news:<cng275$g62$1@skeeter.ucdavis.edu>...
> 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...

> >> 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?

So I was right. This evidence doesn't make you think. What a surprise.

Here's the significant scoreline...
Fossils attributes to hominids < 2Mya, 1000? - Fossils attributed to
Pan, 0.

And we're supposed to have evolved in pretty much the same habitats,
right? That *is* right, isn't it, Michael - because you're always
claiming that you're not a savannah theorist. So - why such a *huge*
discrepancy?

[..]

> >> 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)

Both Reed and Cerling show that it is naive to assume that the bovids
in the fossil assemblages associated with hominids lived in similar
habitats than they do today.
 
> Mike, it's not wasted. You've just seen the introduction of the Aquatic
> Gazelle Hypothesis.

Sneer if you like but your point was that the fact equuids and bovids
were found alongside hominids indicated that they probably lived (like
those species did) in more open habitats. I mean, that was your point,
right? Well, if it turns out that even those species *didn't* live in
as open habitats as you have assumed it kind of blows a big hole in
your argument doesn't it?

> [snip]

Yes, snip. So JE doesn't have to even see it. (I'm presuming I'm in a
JE killfile phase at the moment)

Here were my 2nd and 3rd points ...

2) That if open grassland species were represented then this indicates
that hominids must have shared a lifestyle close to theirs and not to
the lifestyle of the undoubtedly more numerous aquatic species that
are always present. Just because a wilderbeest has made a trek across
thousands of km of open plains to come down to a watering hole to die,
it does not mean that hominids followed them. Microhabitats
surrounding riparian woodland would be expected to produce a large
diversity of species, and this is what we see. The presence of
gazelles or wilderbeest is no evidence that human ancestors did not
remain by the water.

- That kind of blows his argument away too.

3) For such a baseline comparison to have any meaning in this debate,
we would need to compare the fauna of hominid sites with those of
Pan/Gorilla sites. Unfortunately there are *no* such sites to make any
comparisons. Odd that.

- and so does that. No wonder you snipped them out.

It's hard having a debate with the Mike and Jason show. Mike filters
out the bits he thinks Jason can't handle and then JE replies to the
bits that are left. It's like trying to argue with a couple of old
one-two con-tricksters here.
 
> >> 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.

For every accidental drowning, there are four or five that survive
near-drowning incidents, according to the drowning stats data I've
seen. That's selection, isn't it? Please explain, oh great master,
where I'm getting confused.

The question is which factors contribute to the increased risk in
those drowning and the decreased risk in those escaping. I think
increased buoyancy through greater adipocity is a pretty reasonable
assumption for one of the major correlates. Presumably, you don't.
Care to explain why not?

> >[Sharp and Costill special pleading]

No, much more than that. Actually several points (presumably ones MC
didn't think his hero should see) were snipped out...

[To counter JE's point that my argument about infants swimming better
than chimps was based on no data and that as humans could do things
like ride bikes it was no surprise that we could swim.]

This is a discussion group not a peer reviewed journal. I think the
anecdotal and film evidence of thousands of babies in early swimming
classes, plus the known fact of human infant adipocity compared with
the similarly known fact of distinctly low adipocity in infant chimps
is sufficient to make such assertions. As usual, the very best
evidence you have is absence of evidence - and you're clinging to it.
As with JM you have to try to hit below the belt by claiming some kind
of dishonesty in order to shore up your position, rather than
accepting what little evidence there is and going with that. It
indicates a rather peculiar bias unworthy of a scientist.

MC's facile point that as humans can do things like ride bikes we need
no explanation for our extra swimming ability is just so convenient.

[One point was made better in an earlier posting, I think, so I've
replaced it with this ...]
My point is that in every single other species in zoology, in every
other naturally occurring substrate, if species (a) showed greater
ability at moving through a given substrate than species (b), no one
would have any problem in citing that it was due to selection - of
*course* it was, that's what natural selection *is*. When it comes to
humans and terrestriality - no problem there either. But when it comes
to humans and water... la-la-la-laaa, dances away.. whistling
nervously... Suddenly the rules change. Must be something else,
mustn't it, chaps? Must be our wonderful intelligence, our cultural
learning - *anything* - because there couldn't have had been selection
for swimming, not in *us* - that would be disgusting.
Why is that? Why is it that humans' greater terrestriality compared to
chimps = evidence for selection. Chimps' greater arboreality than
humans = evidence for selection... (continue the series for billions
of species pairs in all the different habitats on the planet) ...
BUT... humans' better swimming abilities compared to chimps - *NOT*
due to selection.

- So why *is* that, you master evolutionary theorists, you.

What MC meant by Sharp and Costill "special pleading" was this...

JE wrote this:
Algis's misrepresentation of these papers is dishonest and
irresponsible.
The paper he sites ad nauseum by Sharp and Costill indicate that
*hairlessness as a result of shaving* causes drag in humans. It does
not
address hair reduction, though despite being reminded of this time and
time again, Algis seems to have some cerebral defect that makes him
ignore
this. Krueger et al did not show unequivocally that body hair causes
drag
in swimmers. In fact, they state quite clearly that the don't think
it's
drag. I quote: "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 [of shaving] as teh boys with clearly more body
hair."

- Note those words: 'misrepresentation', 'dishonest', 'irresponsible.'

And I replied:
Yes, of course you quote *those* words but not the thirteen
immediately before the bit you carefully copied out: "Conclusion:
Results show that body shaving leads to a clear gain in performance."
Kruger et al (2000:55)

Kruger, J; Mikoleit, J; Heck, H (2000). The influence of total body
shaving on performance and lactic acid behaviour in swimming. DEUTSCHE
ZEITSCHRIFT FÜR SPORTMEDIZIN Vol:51(2) Pages:55-58

Shades of Jim Moore bias there. That's just the sort of thing he does
on his self-styled 'scientific critique' of the AAH.

Look they found that shaving reduced drag. Fact. That was what they
found.
The second part, the part you quote, was their conclusion but this was
an interpretation only. They say the girls were "nearly body-hairless"
but where's their data? Did they weigh the body hair shaved off the
males and compare it with females? No. We've just got a subjective
opinion on that.

- I wonder why you snipped that part out? Doesn't show JE in a very
good light does it? Snipping the exact words out of an abstract to
argue his point, but - oops - carefully avoiding words that contradict
it. Just the sort of thing your magnus opus hero JM accuses Elaine
Morgan of doing (when she doesn't) on his masquerading web site.

-Their data, consistent with Sharp & Costil's, showed that shaving
body hair increased speed. All other factors were controlled. They
*concluded* that it wasn't due to drag reduction but that was only due
to their *assumption* that females had less body hair than males and
that no other factors contributed. The shaving still improved speeds -
in both males and females. Assuming nothing else changed, as their
paper reported, it must have been due to drag reduction.

[..]

> >> 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.

At least I didn't selectively snip out a direct quote from their paper
that contradicted the point I was making, as you (Jason) did.

Why didn't you answer my point? So, are you arguing that for drag to
be reduced you must have 100% 'perfect' shaving, and if that is not
achieved or if it is lost after a millimetre of hair re-growth, you'd
predict *all* of the drag reduction to be lost again? I mean that
absurdity is what you *seem* to be arguing.

I read Kruger et al - at least I read the abstract and a poor
translation of the German text of the paper. Yes, they found shaving
body hair increased swimming speed in water. If that wasn't through
drag reduction (as found in the Shapr & Costil papers) then what? All
other factors were the same. I think they discounted psychological
affects.
 
> >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.

Well, Sharp & Costil showed drag reduction from shaving. Kruger et al
found speed increased after shaving. Everything else was the same so
what do *you* think caused the increase in speed? Magic? They "said"
that their results didn't show drag reduction because they "said" that
the females were "nearly body-hairless". But they didn't measure it
therefore we have no data. For all we know, it was just an assumption.
Perhaps the girls hair was there in just the same amount but it was
more fair so it was less visible.

There are several other possible explanations for this anomaly - which
I've offered before but which perhaps you've never got to read because
you were wearing your anti-AAH blinkers at the time.

1) Size effects. Drag in water is clearly affected by several factors:
body shape, size as well as skin surface smoothness. In the three
studies only one of those factors was investigated - skin surface
smoothness via shaving body hair. It was clear from all three studies
that removing body hair improved performance (almost certainly through
skin drag reduction) but the combination of the factors was not
investigated. If the females were smaller than the males, this might
have given different results in drag reduction than we might expect.

2) Distribution of body hair. There are likely to be some parts of the
body on which body hairs, if orientated corectly, could actually
improve swimming performance. (Note Sharp & Costil specifically looked
at passive push-off deceleration to control for swimming ability and
stroke - and found a remarkably clear benefit in drag reduction from
body shaving hair.) For example the hairs on the forearm are
orientated medially when the arms are held down in the supine
position. It is likely that having such hairs would aid swimming,
particularly the breastroke.
Perhaps the males in the study had greater body hair in such places
than the females which, when removed actually reduced the overall
differential benefit of shaving body hair.

But you do not want to consider those possibilities. The most
important words from their study were these: "Further research work in
this field seems to be necessary." But you appear to think that it is
*not* necessary. You have discovered a tiny scrap of evidence which
(if you take their assumptions, their words, and their conclusions -
but not the basic data they report) appears not quite to back up the
claim that shaving more body hair leads to more drag reduction in
water. That's the result you wanted to find. Where's your scientific
objectivity or your thirst for more data to solve this anomaly?

> [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]

I think it's a reasonable position to hold. Fat floats. Buoyancy is
increased with greater adipocity. Being more buoyant is likely to help
someone survive a near-drowning incident. Until we see that definitive
study comparing levels of adipocity with victims of accidental
drowning with those surviving near-drowning accidnets, I think it's
the best we can do. What's your problem? Oh, yes, it's too near to the
knuckle, isn't it? It's just not comfortable to consider such a
heretical idea that water might have acted as an agency of selection
in human evolution more than it did in ape evolution - scary!
 
> 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.

I don't ignore any such thing.

Here's another snippet your lacky snipped out so that you wouldn't be
troubled...

I repeat for the third time now [in answer to JE's facile argument
that human fat deposits, unlike floatation devices, do not keep
airways out of the water] - you do not see obese people in swimming
pools floating with their feet or their butts in the air, but their
airways. Odd that.

We have an observation: humans are the fattest primates by far and
fatter than almost all terrestrial animal species.

We have an hypothesis: humans swam more than other primates and
increased adipocity was selected for because it slightly reduced the
risk of drowning.

We have a testable prediction: There should be a negative corelation
between people who drown compared with people who barely esacape
drowning in terms of their adipocity. Fat people should be more
represented in people that escape near-drowning incidents than skinny
people.

Easy.

It's called the hypothetico-deductive method. Why are you so opposed
to it?

So, Jason, Michael, anyone... why are you opposed to it? It's only an
hypothesis.

Algis Kuliukas

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