Re: Homo & molluscs

Marc Verhaegen wrote:
>
> Yes, Lee, yes, sure, my boy, human ancestors got a poor sense of smell to
> run over the savanna...

http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2005/08/29_smell.shtml

Study shows humans have ability to track odors, much like bloodhounds
29 August 2005

BERKELEY ? Though humans may never match the tracking ability of dogs, we
apparently have the ability to sniff out and locate odors, according to a
new study by scientists from the University of California, Berkeley.

Student volunteers presented with odors to one nostril or the other could
reliably discern where the odor was coming from, and functional magnetic
resonance images of their brains showed that the brain is set up to pay
attention to the difference between what the left and right nostrils sense,
much the way it can localize sounds by contrasting input from the ears.

"It has been very controversial whether humans can do egocentric
localization, that is, keep their head motionless and say where the spatial
source of an odor is," said study coauthor Noam Sobel, associate professor
of psychology at UC Berkeley and a member of the campus's Helen Wills
Neuroscience Institute. "It seems that we have this ability and that, with
practice, you could become really good at it."
...
Porter, Sobel and their colleagues reported the results in the August 18
issue of the journal Neuron.

In a review appearing in the same issue of the journal, Jay A. Gottfried of
the Department of Neurology at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of
Medicine noted that the UC Berkeley findings open numerous avenues for
further research. "Finally, what are the implications for the Provençal
truffle hunt?" he wrote, only partly tongue-in-cheek. "In the traditional
world of the truffle forests, the dog (or pig) is king. The evidence
presented here suggests that humans are every bit as well equipped to carry
out the search."
...

> "Lee Olsen" <paleocity@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
> news:1125420211.486529.34080@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > Marc Verhaegen wrote:
> > > You keep missing the point:
> > > - AAT (shoreline adaptations sometime after the H/P split) is based on
> > > comparative data, eg,
> >
> >
> > Circumstantial musings are not evidence when there are many other
> > possibilities that explain our evolution better (see Langdon 2005).
> >
> >
> >
> > it's ridiculous to believe that olfactory reduction is
> > > for running over some plain,
> >
> >
> > Hunters like the long-legged-savanna Homo do not rely on olfactory
> > senses like a short-legged jackals, because Homo can see farther than
> > they can smell. Your savanna chimp argument is a nonstarter. There are
> > no chimp fossils on the savanna 2 Mya, so naturally they haven't been
> > hunting on the savanna as long as Homo, so I can't imagine why Homo
> > wouldn't have lost more sensor area than they since Homos had far more
> > time on the savanna to lose them.
> >
> > AAT completely fails to falsify this.
> >
> >
> > same for tens of other human features (AFAIK
> > > the *only* human feature that is often seen in cursorial mammals is long
> > > legs, but this is also often seen in wading birds).
> >
> >
> > "However, there is simply no evidence that early hominins were
> > dependent on aquatic habitats or foods and the model is
> > unparsimonious." (Langdon 1997).
> >
> >
> > > - So far, you completely fail to explain how archeol.data falsify this.
> What
> > > I see is a fast dispersal of Homo to Java & Algeria. Give 1 reason why
> not
> > > along the coasts.
> >
> >
> > Fast dispersal maybe, depending on who's dates one believes. You want
> > fast? Then it is ridiculous to believe that a crooked ocean beach is
> > the shortest distance between two points. The straight-line savanna
> > trail, following the cheetahs of course, is the shortest, fastest route
> > to China. Archaeologists have a trail of bones and tools to follow and
> > you are left with nothing more than your imagination as a guide.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > > Sorry, Lee, no time for empty "discussions".
> >
> >
> > Suit yourself, you haven't provided 1 little argument that refutes the
> > savanna/hunting hypothesis.
> >
> > <snipping what you failed to answer>
> >
.

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