Re: Only idiots believe that humans evolved snorkel noses to run after gazelles

From: Kaz (KazVorpal_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 01/27/05 

Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 14:57:27 -0600

"Ross Macfarlane" <rmacfarl@alphalink.com.au> wrote in message
news:1106186811.905344.28710@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
>
> Kaz wrote:
>> Despite my overall belief that the AAH premise is more likely than
> its vague
>> alternatives, this seems to me a flawed argument.
>
> Maybe you should reconsider whether an umbrella hypothesis that claims
> to offer answers to everything, actually has the data & rigour to stand
> up to scrutiny.
>
> Extract from something I posted some months ago:
>
> "
> [From] ... the proceedings of a conference, The Aquatic Ape: Fact or
> Fiction, held in Valkenburg, Netherlands, in 1987:
>
[...]
> 'Our general conclusion is that, while there are a number of arguments
> favouring the AAT, they are not sufficiently convincing to counteract
> the arguments against it.'

[snip et cetera]

You're mistaking me for someone who worships...or at least
respects...authority.

You need to give the actual counter-arguments, not cite some bureaucratic
conclusions.

You might as well be claiming that because government "environmental
scientists" who profit from ecological fearmongering say there's
humanocentric global warming, it must be true.

One of the things I've been saying is that even if there are arguments
against AAH, they're weaker than the arguments against any alternative. If
the arguments /for/ AAH are too weak, they're still stronger than the
arguments for any alternative.

This does not prove AAH, or even make it more likely. But it makes its
wholesale dismissal irrational except from someone who dismisses ALL
proposed scenarios and says "why, there is NO viable explanation for humans
walking erect, or acquiring these other traits, at all".

Such is certainly a viable stance in science. There are several perfectly
reasonable unified theories in physics, though they're not complete and it's
a LOT of work to understand 11 or 26 dimension models...but most physicists
pretty much say "it's all a wash, so far, as far as I'm concerned there's no
likely solution yet".