Re: A critique of the BBC aquatic ape programme and the transcript.



J Moore wrote:
> firstjois <firstjoisyike@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
> news:mcedneTpi7CoZwzfRVn-sA@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > Algis Kuliukas wrote:
> >
> > "Maybe she didn't. But clearly Jim does and that's the point I'm making.
> > Jim's bitterness towards Elaine is, I think, rather transparent."
> >
> > I can't imagine an academic circle where "Tanner" isn't known.
> > Algis, you just don't know what you are talking about. This is just
> > stupid.
> >
> > Jois
> >
>
> Once again I come in just to say I'm off on a trip. :)

Maybe next time you might find a few seconds to put a link in your
'scientific critique' to an alternative view, then? I thought not.

> Couple points: Algis is apparently unaware that Elaine insulted people, like
> saying they were "just smearing like the worst kinds of politicians"; or
> calling them a "Joe McCarthy" -- I think I remember her comparing someone to
> the secret police once too, but that may have been one of her supporters.

When you say "people", Jim, do you mean *you*? And was, by any chance,
the reason for this 'insult' your scandalous attempt at a character
assasination that you try to pass off as a "scientific critique of the
aquatic ape theory"? Thought so. Can you honestly blame her?

> The other, and the reason I'm writing this when I should be packing, is to
> thank Algis for making me laugh with his nonsensical claim that I wrote up
> my site because I was miffed (he used various much more insulting terms, or
> at least what he intended to be insulting, rather than amusing, terms) that
> Morgan was more popular than Tanner. This is so weird that I just am
> baffled.

So wierd and funny, is it? So you saw Nancy doing all 'the right
things', having trained as an anthropologist at the 'proper' places,
doing her painstaking research promoting the role of women in human
evolution and then, oops, up pops this playwrite from Wales and gets
all the fame and attention. I'd be pissed off if that was my wife who
had been usurped.

And why is this theory at all insulting, Jim? I'd have thought you'd
have welcomed it. After all it practically excuses you from all your
transparent hostility to Elaine Morgan.

> Is he just that desperate or does he really think that
> anthropologists are likely to be as well known as pop writers? I mean,
> there's Mead, and Leakey, and maybe Goodall, maybe Fossey, and maybe
> Johansen. Mighty few, and that's par for the science course (how many know
> Geertz, or Washburn, or Lancaster -- the people I think are really
> something?). Entirely expected, at least by me. I do find it sad that
> Morgan, who claims to be a feminist, has repeatedly and for several decades
> pointedly ignored the very relevant work of women in the field she purports
> to be contributing to -- people I've mentioned, like Rowell, Linton
> (Slocum), Zihlman, Lancaster, Vrba, Behrensmeyer, and yes, Tanner.

So are you miffed by Morgan's popularity, or not? Even there, it sounds
like you are.

> What's really bizarre about Algis' odd new theory is that I clearly stated
> on my site, both on the first page and in mentions in a couple other places,
> why I did my site and what drives me.

Oh yeah - really bizarre that! Why, of course, I expected you to say,
straight off on line one... "Of course I only reason wrote this was
because I'm seathing with anger that Elaine Morgan became so much
better known than my wife..." Just like your URL aquaticape.org and
your incessant promotion of your web site as "a scientific critique"
are, shall we say, less than entirely honest, so were your proclaimed
motives for spending so much time writing the damned thing.

> I mean, I've taken issue with what
> Morgan has said, and her methods,

oh yes - and we've seen those terrible, shocking, distortions she made
- the scandalous big four: The Darwin misquote when Elaine, shockingly
I know, forgot to put in an elipses in an internet posting when she
referred to a boring passage from Darwin; The Elsner & Gooden misquote,
where you correctly picked her up for citing them giving evidence for
breathing control when it was actually bradycardia. An error, but not a
hanging offence. It was still a pro-AAH point, Jim; The Negus misquote,
when she again, outrageously, missed yet another couple of elipses out
of yet another internet posting - kill her!!; and the Denton 'misquote'
where Moore is as guilty of twisting Denton's original work as Morgan
was, if not more. Talk about scraping the barrel. And this was the
creme de la creme of 'the crap' from Morgan's five books from twenty
six years work!

See http://www.riverapes.com/AAH/Arguments/JimMoore/Quotes.htm for
details and, of course, for balance read the original...
http://www.aquaticape.org/quotes.html

> but I never saw the need to ignore her
> statements about why she got into the AAT (basically a reaction against
> Morris, and probably Ardrey -- and who can blame her). I wouldn't have
> thought of trying to do some pop psych nuttiness about her "true" motives.
> It's sad to see Algis reaching this hard to scoop mud, or something of
> approximately the same color and consistency :).

- But you *did* ignore them, Jim. Where do you give her a microgram of
credit for anything like that? Perhaps if you had, I might not have
concluded that sour grapes were the primary motivation for your site.

This is what you wrote about that...

"Did Morgan at least break new ground regarding the role of females
during our evolution?
Last is an oft-stated claim that, whatever the flaws in her theorizing,
Morgan at least was the first to emphasize the importance of women and
children, and the roles of mothers and offspring, in human evolution.
If this claim were true, it might be at least a point for her, despite
the fact that her theory is all wet, but this claim is in fact also not
true.
Morgan didn't break new ground in her treatment of women and children
(and in fact her treatment seems rather a lot like Desmond Morris's own
poorly drawn The Naked Ape, which she has stated was her source for her
interest in the "aquatic ape" idea). That ground had already broken
during the 60s by researchers such as Thelma Rowell and Jane Lancaster
(and also in a great deal of the excellent work on Japanese macaques by
many, mostly Japanese, researchers), and perhaps most directly by Sally
Linton in a paper ("Woman the Gatherer") which drew on the work of
Richard Lee among the !Kung. Linton's work provided much of the
inspiration for the later influential work of Nancy Tanner and Adrienne
Zihlman. It's a shame that Morgan's supporters ignore the incredibly
important and influential work of these pioneering women. "

http://www.aquaticape.org/whyanthro.html

See? You can't even give her one single word of praise there. Just
sounds like more bitterness to me.

The 'mud' I've scraped together is nothing compared to the muck raking
you've plopped together to pile onto Elaine Morgan, Jim.

> (ps. let me offer an additional thank you to Marc for his supporting role in
> the humor department by suggesting that I should have pyschically contacted
> the dead to get advice on my site.)

I'm glad you find it all so funny.

Algis Kuliukas

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: A critique of the BBC aquatic ape programme and the transcript.
    ... >>> Algis, you just don't know what you are talking about. ... >> my site because I was miffed (he used various much more insulting terms, ... > transparent hostility to Elaine Morgan. ...
    (sci.anthropology.paleo)
  • Re: What is the Aquatic theory?
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