Re: A *Dry* Discussion About The Origin Of Bipedalism


Paul Crowley wrote:
> "Jim McGinn" <jimmcginn@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
> news:1125126302.708791.228780@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
> > Classic Misassumptions of the Origins of Bipedalism:
> >
> > 1) Myth: It provided a locomotory advantage; speed or
> > efficiency.
> >
> > Fact: It was a locomotory compromise.
>
> A compromise between what and what?

Freeing of hands for other uses (obviously). See my hypothesis for
more details.

> Oh, I know the answer: you haven't a clue.
> You're just making it up as you go along.

Shut-up dimwit.

>
> > Bipedal apes are
> > much slower, and if more efficient at all it is so
> > slight as to be not worth considering.
>
> Agreed. But bipedalism was an ENORMOUS
> change, and it had a cause.

No duh. (All evolutionary changes have a cause.)

>
> > 2) Myth: Since bipedalism took place during a period of
> > climatic drying and subsequent thinning of forest
>
> It didn't.

Fossil evidence proves that the middle to late miocene was drier than
that that proceeded it. This is old news.

The statement is inherently
> nonsensical. The timescales are up the spout.

Read between the lines, dumbass.

> You might as well say that the presidency of
> G.W. Bush took place during a rainstorm.
> Bipedalism would have taken at least 50 kyr
> to evolve, and probably much longer.
> Episodes of drying (and forest-thinning) are
> much shorter and more variable.

Let the evidence be your guide.

Paul, as usual you want to argue about semantics. Facts are facts.
Get with it.

>
> > 3) Myth: The freeing of the hands that bipedalism
> > enabled in our earliest chimpanzee-like ancestors might
> > have enabled the use of weapons or tools to achieve
> > hunting or scavenging.
> >
> > Fact: These earliest hominids were millions of years
> > away from having the intellect, cooperative behaviors,
> > and manipulative abilities necessary to for such a
> > diminutive creature to have competed with the large
> > agressive social hunters and scavengers that are evident
> > in the fossil record of east Africa beginning in the
> > middle miocene, about 8 mya.
>
> They did somehow, at some point, manage
> to cope with such animals.

Agreed. 3mya at earliest.

They didn't learn
> how to do by avoiding them, or by delaying
> the contact.

Agreed. My hypothesis indicates constant opposition starting at 8 mya.

We just have to work out how
> -- and it's not too difficult.

I agree. And I have.

But bipedalism
> came about for an enormously important
> reason -- and that could only have been
> the 'freeing of the hands'.

On this point we certainly agree.

Jim

.

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