Re: Is the AAH a legitimate hypothesis? Of course it is.
From: Algis Kuliukas (algis_at_RiverApes.com)
Date: 01/19/05
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Date: 19 Jan 2005 00:15:23 -0800
jae@ucdavis.edu wrote:
> Algis Kuliukas wrote:
>
> >
> > I know, but don't really care, that my notion of what our form of
> > bipedalism is "optimised" for is not universally accepted (yet).
> >
> > It is based on simple empiricle experiemntal evidence that anyone
can
> > reproduce at any time. Measure VO2 from walking on various
substrates
> > and you'll find that walking on flat, firm, vegetation free
> substrates
> > is significantly easier. This is undoubtedly due to the opportunity
> to
> > employ an inverted pendulum gait in such places. As chimps do not
> > employ such gaits it is almost certain that we gain more from
walking
> > in such substrates than they do.
>
> You are now saying that you don't have to actually make the
comparison
> because it's "undoubtedly" the way you suggest it will be. This is
not
> science. Algis, you're a complete joke!
No, I'm not! Of course the comparison should be made. Of course we
could alsways do with more data. But until that study has been done,
the best guess is that human walking efficiency is more sensitive to
less-than-perfect substrates than chimps'. I've given reasons for that
assertion. They're logical enough.
Is it my assertion that chimps don't walk with a straight-legged
inverted pendulum gait (perhaps like Spot the Dog from the Woodentops)
that you are disputing, or that the reason our bipedalism is so
efficient is a result of that gait?
It's interesting that you have no such problems extrapolating the
results of two young chimps and two young capuchins walking on a
treadmill with evidence to support that energy efficiency was the
driver of human bipedalism. That, I note, was no joke.
> > > Your notion that sweat based thermoregulation
> > > is best suited for a creature heavily reliant on large water
> sources
> > > also does not seem to match any actual data, but is your
> conjecture.
> >
> > Sweat-based thermoregulation requires water to fuel it. It is just
> > common sense that it would best evolve in habitats where there was
> very
> > little possibility of ever running out of such fuel. Water-side
> > habitats are such places.
>
> "Common sense" is one of the poorest forms of scientific proof.
> Countrary to your "common sense," thermoregulation through sweating
> doesn't appear to be something either confined to, or prevalent in
> waterside creatures. It does appear to operate in at least one other
> primate who is not confined to this habitat. Whatever your "common
> sense" tells you needs to be backed with something empirical, but you
> are failing to do this.
Again, in the absence of any such study it's a reasonable assumption to
hold, that's all.
> > > It appears that no such limit is placed on other creatures who
use
> > > sweating extensively for thermoregulation.
> >
> > Perhaps but then they have compensating traits such as capacious
> > stomachs.
>
> Patas monkeys have big stomachs?
> Rather than start explaining away
> things with your regular mights, maybes, perhaps's, appeals to
"common
> sense" or things that are "undoubtedly" so (which appears to mean "I
> believe it" but nothing else) why not actually try to investigate
these
> things.
I'm investigating bipedalism. I think that's a big enough subject on
it's own. What? So I can't speculate about these things, discuss them
on a newsgroup unless I'm conducting research into them? Is that what
you're saying?
> You have proven yourself to be an exceptionally lazy scholar,
> recently saying you didn't know if there were taxa closely related to
> Nasalis with which to compare. Figuring out that there are other
taxa
> about as distant from them as chimps are from us would have taken you
> all of 3 minutes had you actually looked. Why again had you not if
you
> deemed it informative?
I was writing the posting from a PC away from my desk and not at uni -
as I'm doing again now. I'm sorry, I *was* lazy I know, but I also
know, from bitter experience, that no matter how studious I had been,
no matter what argument I had constructed, no matter how well the point
was put, Jason Eshleman would have objected to it anyway. You always
do, every single time. Any, every, single point that might, in however
small a way, act to back some kind of AAH, in no matter how mild and
modest a form, is *always* resisted by JE every single time. And yet
this high and mighty scientific scepticism is not invoked in every
argument on the newsgroup, only very selectively. Jim Moore gets away
with all of these kinds of criticisms, apparently, simply by stating
that his web site "isn't perfect!" Aquasceptics that make similar
points that you happen to agree with... 'never mind, I'm not
interested, let 'em go!' But when it's me, you cannot resist but to
respond to each and every posting and each and every argument.
It indicates a blatant bias that has nothing to do with science.
Algis Kuliukas
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