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



Paul Crowley wrote:
> "Algis Kuliukas" <algis@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
> news:1118360457.790320.193990@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

> > Well I think the reasons are not besides the point. The reasons *are*
> > the point. And, in my view, the reason the field is what you call
> > 'degenerate' are the same as the reason the AAH has been ignored for so
> > long: a lack of willingness to really understand any new idea from an
> > 'outsider',
>
> There is nothing special in that. It is an
> aspect of every discipline. In all genuine
> ones (say, maths, astronomy, physics)
> there will be bunches of freakish outsiders,
> often in organised groups, whose ideas
> are treated contemptuously by the
> professionals. The question is whether
> or not they deserve to be.

Fair point, and I agree.

> IMO, the AAT
> does deserve that treatment, but often for
> reasons that standard PA does not grasp
> or finds it hard to articulate. (The AAT
> shares most of the idiocy of standard PA,
> and both deserve contempt in that regard.
> For example, both ignore predation, and
> both seem incapable of realising that the
> species consists of more than adult males.)

See, I just can't see how you can think that. I think standard PA
models do those things, of course they do. Perhaps it's the wartime
Dartist vision you are thinking of but we have to accept that PA's
moved on a long time ago from that view. This is where I think people
like Marc Verhaegen makes his biggest mistake. He's still arguing with
people he thinks are Dartists.

The AAH's chief proponent, I might remind you, was a pioneer of the
role of women in human evolution and wrote a book called 'The Descent
of Women' and another called 'The Descent of the Child'.

Algis Kuliukas

.

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