Re: New Ethiopian Find - Oldest Biped At 3.8-4 mya

From: Algis Kuliukas (algis_at_RiverApes.com)
Date: 03/17/05 

Date: 17 Mar 2005 15:18:30 -0800

"JAE" <jae@ucdavis.edu> wrote in message news:<1111072673.958698.250470@l41g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>...
> Algis Kuliukas wrote:

> > I stand by the point I made at the beginning and have repeated many
> > times: Human bipedal efficiency only really works in certain flat,
> > firm and relatively vegetation-free substrates. As the substrate
> > becomes less perfect the efficiency gets worse. It's clearly due to
> > our inverted pendulum gait and this can only be practiced in certain
> > places.
>
> That you stand by a point based on anecdote, as you've got no
> comparison, is perfectly in line with the rest of your quackery.

As usual you avoid musing over the interesting subject in question,
the science and the implications on human evolution and instead try to
twist my arguments into something they're not and then go for the
jugular with nasty personal attacks.
 
> > As apes do not do the inverted pendulum gait I think it is reasonable
> > to assume that they would be less effected, efficiency-wise, by
> > walking in less-than-perfect substrates than we are.
>
> That you argue far more about what you believe is reasonable to assume,
> that you position this above actual study, that you atttempt in no way
> to expand beyond anecdote to investigate the relevent comparison--all
> this serves to make you look like the antithesis of a scientist. You
> are a propagandist with a cultish devotion to a notion that that you've
> admitted no evidence can move you from. It appears that neither does
> it take evidence to move you to this point.

That your only response is, again, to attack me and not the message
when you have repeatedly claimed that is what I do to you, merely
shows your hypocrisy and double standards.

My mistake was to share the results of an incomplete study with you
that was in progress. Charles Oxnard warned me of this. In most
scientific fields (in the good old days), he told me, you'd send your
results to your adversaries before publication, so as to get them to
critique the results first. People in those days were more interested
in the science, than in reputations, apparently. Not in anthropology,
though. I thought a scientist would appreciate such openness, instead
you've used it as a vehicle to attack me. Congratulations.

I admitted that no evidence could disuade me from the notion that
(shock, horror) water has influenced our evolution more than it has
the evolution of our great apes, true - because, after all, humans
swim better than apes. (It's illustrative how you didn't qualify that
- but left it out so as to make my position look as dodgy as possible
- a really scientific approach that.)
 
> > > "Efficient" is relative. You appear to be using it as absolute.
> The
> > > statement that bipedalism is efficient in certain substrates is
> > > meaningless without external reference on those substrates.
> >
> > I know and I've given that relative data several times. Walking in
> > tall grass is a lot more expansive than walking on concrete.
>
> Again assuming that your study was performed in such a way that it was
> worth a damn (and this is an assumption rather than anything I'd advise
> people to do) you have no comparison with which to view the relevence
> of this.

Not yet, but I will have. Note that I am not slinging four-letter
insults your way in response to the repeated, blatent slurs against my
methods, although that is surely the deserved response.

[... snipped yet more bitter vitriol ...]

I wasted enough time trying to communicate with you. All you are
interested in is reputation, not the subject, not the science, nor the
implications. You come here, not to share knowledge, ideas and
enlightenment but to strut around like some pompous old professor,
determined to show how superior he is and how stupid and inferior
anyone is who dares to challenge him. Specifically, as far as I'm
concerned, you seem to come here to pick on me like some great
lumbering pretentious academic bully. Well... up yours, Jason! (Sticks
middle finger in general direction of the computer screen.)

Algis Kuliukas

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Is Oreopithicus the Aquatic Ape Link?
    ... > randomly start critiquing the work of others all the time is beyond me. ... > there is actual evidence beyond your speculation. ... you'd be making some other criticism instead. ... Algis Kuliukas ...
    (sci.anthropology.paleo)
  • Re: Savanna nonsense
    ... >> Algis Kuliukas wrote: ... > abilities between two species in a given substrate may have been due to ... Since there is evidence, not conclusive by any stretch, but solid ... >> chimp mothers would even attempt a rescue. ...
    (sci.anthropology.paleo)
  • Re: Savanna nonsense
    ... >> Algis Kuliukas wrote: ... > abilities between two species in a given substrate may have been due to ... Since there is evidence, not conclusive by any stretch, but solid ... >> chimp mothers would even attempt a rescue. ...
    (sci.anthropology.paleo)
  • Re: Is Oreopithicus the Aquatic Ape Link?
    ... >> absolutely no evidence to support it. ... > AAH because it shows a simple plausible scenario where our ancestors ... Aquatic Ape Hypotheses, Algis Kuliukas and Marc Verhaegen, both ... > an agency of selection in human evolution more than it did in the ...
    (sci.anthropology.paleo)
  • Re: Is the AAH a legitimate hypothesis? Of course it is.
    ... less-than-perfect substrates than chimps'. ... inverted pendulum gait ... no matter what argument I had constructed, no matter how well the point ... Algis Kuliukas ...
    (sci.anthropology.paleo)