Re: Is the AAH a legitimate hypothesis? Of course it is.
From: Algis Kuliukas (algis_at_RiverApes.com)
Date: 01/31/05
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Date: 30 Jan 2005 17:43:07 -0800
jae@ucdavis.edu wrote:
> Algis Kuliukas wrote:
> > jae@ucdavis.edu wrote:
> > > Algis Kuliukas wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
> > > Is this shape of nose consistent with any other aquatic creature?
> >
> > BZZZZT!!! Sorry, wrong question. Do I need to tell you why? Have
you
> > not been listening to anything we've been arguing for the past
eight
> > years? Honestly, with 'experts' like this, no wonder the field is
so
> > ignorant about the AAH.
>
> When a proponent of a hypothesis starts dictating what questions can
be
> asked of his hypothesis, he has ceased to do science. It was a
> question. You do not get to define the right and wrong questions. I
> realize that you still quite naively only like to look at humans and
> apes when the comparison with anything else doesn't fit your
position,
> but you're not doing science in the process. You're engaging in pure
> propaganda defining the debate as you see it.
As the AAH is not proposing that humans were ever 'aquatic' in the
literal sense of the word, it's a false comparison.
> I've been listening to what you've said, Algis, but much of what
you've
> said is just bogus, irresponsible, and quite certainly not any way to
> go about a real scientific investigation.
>
> You're now trying once again to attack my credibility by implying
that
> A) I've said I'm an 'expert' and B) implying that I don't know
> anything. I'm not aware that I've ever referred to myself as an
> expert. Expertise is difficult to define. I don't think you're
> interested in my qualifications in any event, so you're just acting
> like a putz again. You're also pitting the "us against them" battle
> again, or was that the royal "we" when you ask if I've been paying
> attention to what "we" have been arguing. I've been paying attention
> to what you've been posting and it's lousy.
Get off your high horse, Jason. My point was exactly right. When people
who are some kind of authority of anthroplogy (you are a professional
in this area, are you not?) continue to misrepresent the AAH arguments
(comparing our noses to those of seals, dolphins etc) even after
they've been corrected time and time again for several years it does,
quite clearly, explain the impass that has resulted in the field.
Only when people like you actually manage to fully assimilate the idea
that the AAH is merely arguing that human ancestors were *more* (more
than other apes) aquatic in the past (not aquatic, semi-aquatic or any
other self-styled notion of imagined level of aquaticism you think it
*ought* to propose) can we hope to make any progress here.
The fact that you are so demonstratably determined *not* to assimilate
this point shows that you have no interest in making progress. You
prefer to sneer against the prejudicial view of it you have created for
yourself.
> > > Are
> > > there other creatures who appear to have evolved an extended hood
> > > redirecting their nostrils downward as a result of some selective
> > > pressure of water?
> >
> > No, but then how many such creatures evolved from an ape stock ?
> >
> > > Aren't most aquatic creatures who have modified
> > > nostrils capable of actually closing their nostrils?
> >
> > True, but an alternative way of voluntarily blocking off the
passage
> of
> > water into the lungs is, of course, possible with a descended
larynx.
>
> Making the nose irrelevent. But since you're arguing swimming shaped
> the morphology of the nose, it's interesting that you don't want to
> look at the noses that swimming appears to have shaped.
It doesn't make the nose irrelevant at all. It shields the nostrils
from the water and streamlines the face during swimming and diving and,
whilst swimming face down, perhaps looking for shellfish in clear
water, it provides an 'air bell'-like buffer. Compared to
chimps/gorillas it's a clear move in the direction of adaptation for
swimming.
> > > What is the selective pressure differentiating our nose from that
> of
> > an
> > > ape while swimming?
> >
> > 'Some'. More than 'none'. Enough for natural selection to make a
> clear
> > difference.
>
> This is not an answer to the question. You are asserting that it's a
> selective difference, but providing no indication that it is such.
I've done so many times.
1) Improved streamlining.
2) Shielding the nostrils from water whilst swimming/diving.
> > > How does having an unshielded nostril decrease one's fitness?
> >
> > You are more likely to drown. When swimming at the surface, face
down
> > in clear water, perhaps looking for shellfish, having a beaky nose
> like
> > ours provides a 'diving bell' kind of air buffer which would be all
> but
> > absent if a chimp or gorilla attempted to do so.
>
> Is this true or is it conjecture? I don't believe you've actually
got
> any data to support your supposition. Your probability that one
would
> be "more likely to drown" is not empirical, is it? It's again the
> product of your assertion. Since you seem to refuse to look at other
> creatures other than humans and apes to see what kind of noses they
> have, I'm not sure how your data can be anything other than your own
> unsubstantiated assertion. This is, again, not science that you are
> engaging in, despite your claims to the contrary.
The scientific thing to do would be to conduct a proper investigation
into it. Has anyone done that? Not to my knowledge. But then no-one had
published any study AFAIK investigating the propensity for apes to move
bipedally in water until my paper in 2002. Presumably, then, before
2002 you would hold that apes were no more likely to move bipedally in
shallow water than they were on land, even though it was just obvious
that they do. Heck, I bet you even hold that view today - even after
the paper was published. Your anti-AAH arguments, as usual, can be seen
as ad hoc and selective. Always, *always* based on the a priori
conviction that the AAH (in the form you have assigned personally to
it) just must be wrong.
Algis Kuliukas
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