Re: Gender and Bipedalism

From: Michael Clark (biteme_at_spammer.com)
Date: 03/01/05 

Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2005 11:00:47 -0600

"Paul Crowley" <slkwuoiutiuytciuyik@slkjlskjoioue.com> wrote in message
news:d6%Ud.48612$Z14.35999@news.indigo.ie...
> "Michael Clark" <biteme@spammer.com> wrote in message
> news:roKdnQVcTKAb0bnfRVnyrA@skypoint.com...
>
>> > I am talking about the SWITCH from
>> > quadrupedalism to bipedalism. As Pauline
>> > so percipiently remarked the other day,
>> > you can't climb a tree with an infant in
>> > your hands. In fact, there's very little
>> > that you can do with an infant in your
>> > hands. So pre-hominid females would
>> > not have become bipedal without one
>> > heck of a good reason.
>>
>> The SWITCH isn't something that happens
>> overnight, Pauli (and Pauline).
>
> This is a traditional conjuring trick much
> favoured by bad evolutionary theorists.
> (It's near the top of Algis's bag of tricks.)
> Someone points out an evolutionary problem.
> So you indicate the vast eons of evolutionary
> time over which it could have happened --
> then you bring in another few topics and
> events that could also have occurred at
> various times during it, you talk around
> them a bit, and -- hey, presto -- the original
> problem has mysteriously disappeared.

Do you deny that evolutionary changes like
the SWITCH between QUAD and BI take
time? Do you deny that there are other things
going on at the same time? You're a strange
"evolutionary theorist". Here's a clue: we
were bipeds before we got those 50% bigger
heads. This is *elementary stuff*, Pauli.

>> And along
>> with the SWITCH comes a host of other
>> tangentials -bipedalism first
>
> We are TRYING to consider WHY the
> first female primates to go bipedal made
> that choice. How did they carry their
> infants? Particularly the LARGE ones?

No, you are TRYING to build an elaborate straw
man that you can then set on fire in front of your
highly amused audience. You do so steeped in
some kind of righteous indignation that you picked
up when you flunked out of anthro 101. I don't
know where you get this fascination with females
and bipedalism but I can assure you that it is wrong-
headed. Bipeds carry their infants in their arms
and their LARGE toddlers slung over one hip.
This is the way it is and you should get used to the
idea.

>> *and then*
>> encephalization > changes in birth canal >
>> helpless infants, etc. Thus another Crowleyism
>> sputters and crashes in a heap.
>
> There's plenty of spluttering around here
> -- but it's not from me.

No, again, you miss the point --namely that your
"problem" isn't really a problem at all. Helpless
infants *came after* bipedalism. Hence your
difficulty with altricial infants hanging on to a mother
(who doesn't know what to do with her hands) doesn't
exist. I don't see what your impediment is. Perhaps
your mother dropped you on your head when she was
trying to figure out what to do with HER hands, eh?

>> > Yet they did become bipedal. So how
>> > could it have been done? What was
>> > that reason?
>>
>> Consider for a moment that they were
>> reasonably efficient bipeds before they ever
>> left the trees.
>
> Yeah, that makes sense. It's a bit like
> theorising that whales were fully aquatic
> before they left the land.

Interesting that you should bring up whales.
Did you think that whales "decided" one day that
they were going to leave the shore and become
full-time aquatics? Put down that gin bottle long
enough to check out Carl Zimmer's "At the Water's
Edge". ISBN: 0-68485-6239 You will find it
very revealing and discover that many of your
assumptions are just that. Oh, but that involves
*reading*, doesn't it.... I guess you're stuck with
your ignorance.

> WHY did these animals that lived (under
> your theory) in almost exactly the same
> way as chimps (eating the same food
> and spending the same amount of time in
> the trees -- including the 12 hours of night)
> go bipedal, when chimps show no sign
> of doing so?

What is this "your theory" stuff? And why do
you feel compelled to tell me what this theory
looks like? You'll have to construct your
straw hominid all by your lonesome.

> They just fancied it? Niche has nothing
> to with it?

What the hell are you on about? Don't
you know you're not supposed to drink and
post?

[gnashing of teeth, tearing of hair]

>> Consider that altricial infants
>> are a recent (compared to bipedalism) development.
>
> And how do you know that?

Fossils, my boy, fossils. Before you go blubbering on
about altriciality being a non-fossil, consider that altricial
infants are an adaptive response to something.

Now, what would ~that~ be? <-- Note the question.

> Oh, I remember -- you (and PA)
> just made it up.

Sorry, I don't "make up" fossils, and neither does "PA".
Have you bothered to check out the "Female + Anthropologist"
google search I posted?

> Paul. 

-- 
"But you can't begin to specify what the benefit
of a 'better brain' would be for the adult."
---Paul Crowley 03/17/2004

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