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

From: Rick Wagler (taxidea3_at_shaw.ca)
Date: 03/18/05 

Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 04:37:17 GMT

"Algis Kuliukas" <algis@RiverApes.com> wrote in message
news:77a70442.0503171518.4cb35014@posting.google.com...
> "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

In this latest go-rouind all Jason is trying to do is establish
the point that if you want to make a comparative argument
you have to make a comparison between the types
of locomotion at issue. Simple enough point I should have
thoiught. Comparing humans in different substrates does
not help you engage the issue that is your professed interest.
All it does is prove that gravity is a real phenomenon and has
measurable effects. Its good to establish the basics but don't
get carried away with it.

Rick Wagler

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