Re: Absence of Canines in Apiths

"Jim McGinn" <jimmcginn@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1XYnf.29248$BZ5.7882@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

> > Of course. The only way that the new
> > species can keep its identity, as such,
> > is NOT to re-merge with its mainland
> > ancestor. Nor can it compete directly
> > with its ancestor. It must necessarily
> > have established a new and quite
> > distinct niche.
>
> No, you have the cart in front of the horse, again. Species
> don't establish niches.

To some extent they do establish niches.
The range of Arctic species is very different
from that of the Antarctic. The niches are
different because they were 'created' by quite
different taxa. Penquins could do quite well
in the Northern hemisphere, and polar bears
and walruses in the Southern one -- if they
could get there.

> If there's an open niche they can fill it.

It is an interaction. More-or-less the
right animal has to be around at more-
or-less the right time.

> But your notion that they'd be rejoined to the mainland and
> just carve out a new niche is more of your wishful thinking.

It is not 'wishful thinking'. The species exists,
and we are obliged to explain its genesis.
Your theory is nuts, but you still attempt to
rule out mine on some 'theoretical' grounds
-- that somehow don't apply to yours.

The process that I outline may have taken
thousands of attempts over many millions of
years before it was successful. It certainly
took many attempts. There was nothing easy.
Your wishful thinking has them do it easily
on the one occasion the weather changed.

> > Almost all newly isolated populations
> > will experience an 'environmental change'.
> > (For example, there can be no large predators
> > in such an ecosystem.) But there may be
> > no change at all in climate (or in weather).
> > That will often enable it to find a new niche.
> > It may (on occasion) be able to maintain
> > that new niche when its isolation comes to
> > an end. The environmental conditions on
> > the mainland may never have changed at all.
>
> But in your model there is really no reason for them to establish a new
> niche. You just tack it on because it fulfills your model.

No reason? You sound as though you'd
expect them to have written up a manifesto
first. All any individual was doing was his
or her best to survive from day to day, and
bring up their offspring as well as they
could. That's all any individual in any
species ever does. If your model needs
any more than that, it's not scientific.

The animals on my island had no idea,
and less intention, of creating a new
species, or forming a new niche. They
simply found that to survive in their
new (predator-free and ground-based)
environment, they had to use clubs.
Later on, they found that they could
use sticks to dig out roots. Those with
harder teeth survived better, since razor-
sharp ones weren't needed much any
more for defence.

> This is not the case for my model. In my model it's
> essential that they achieve behaviors
> that enable them to survive the dry season.

That was (and is) a problem for most
tropical species. Nothing new (nor
interesting) there.

> And this is complicated by the
> fact that they are surrounded by many species that employ migratory
> behaviors to survive the dry season. This creates huge potential for
> conflict between themselves and the migratory species that depend on the
> resources that exist at locations where our early chimpanzee-like ancestors
> reside--locations near water, where forest habitat still persists year
> round.

What evidence can you show of such a
conflict anywhere on earth within the
last 100 years?

> It is this conflict and the fact that the only way to effectively
> deal with it is through communally cooperative war based behavior. This is
> how the hominid character began to be selected. Communities that were good
> at employing war-based behaviors to keep their fruit trees from being
> depleted by inmigrating food competitors survived and persisted through the
> dry season.

Such tree-living war-like hominids must
have done well, and got better at it.
In which forests are all the millions
(or billions?) of them living today?

This crap is as bad as the savanna
nonsense. Or Verhagen's grass-eating
swamp hominids.

> Communities that were poor at this became impoverished during
> the depths of the dry season and therefore became the targets of the
> opportunity seeking predators who layed siege and caused the decimation of
> the population.
>
> This is how the first hominids evolved. And the dominant behavior still
> persists to this day: we fight wars to improve our economy. The one thing
> that has changed is that now the enemy is ourselves.

Nothing changed there. Chimps kill
more chimps than any predator.

> >> > Apart from that, there
> >> > are unlikely to be any particular rules.
> >>
> >> It's funny that you seem to think you can make up rules and that anybody
> >> would pay attention.
> >
> > I'm not making up rules. I am denying
> > the existence of a whole range of rules
> > which you believe exist -- even though
> > you cannot state what they are.
>
> You stated, "Apart from that, there are unlikely to be any particular
> rules." And you have no basis for this.

Of course I do. There is only one true
'rule' in life and that is survival. Those
(such as yourself) who claim that there
are more, must (a) set them out; and
(b) justify them. You do neither.

> The group selective aspects of your scenario are missing, absent. There is
> no reason for them to assume human adaptations, intellect, etc. These group
> selective aspects are NOT missing from my scenario. I have no need to tack
> them on.

We all agree that "human adaptations,
intellect, etc" came about at some point.
Why do you insist that they came with
(or before?) bipedalism? There is no good
reason why they should. You finish up
having to explain far too much in one go.

> I have no need to attach notions of them suddenly and inexplicably
> chasing each other around with clubs as happens in your model when the
> predators are removed. That's pure nonsense. Very bad theory.

As I have told you numerous times, they
did little more than transfer a tree existence
to one based on the ground.

> Eventually you're going to have to face it, Paul. There is nothing about
> your model that indicates selective factors for the emergence of human
> intellect, culture, etc. Nothing.

Nor does there need to be -- at the initiation
of bipedalism. They began to live in much
larger groups -- with monogamy -- and that
was enough to form the basis.

> >> >> grains, nuts, bugs, dried fruit,
> >> >
> >> > Dried fruit does not, in effect, exist in nature.
> >> > Grains usually need grinding first -- the job
> >> > cannot be done by hominoid teeth -- and
> >> > then baking. (Ever tried to eat uncooked flour
> >> > or uncooked rice?) Hard teeth are not needed
> >> > for bugs -- their soft parts will be digested in
> >> > the gut and the rest passed out. There are no
> >> > (or very few) nuts which humans can eat that
> >> > chimps can't.
> >> >
> >> > In other words, your theory does not begin
> >> > to have a basis for the early hominid diet.
> >> > So you don't have the beginnings of an
> >> > account of hominid speciation.
> >> >
> >> > In this respect, you are 100% identical to
> >> > standard PA. You have tamely followed
> >> > them down their path of total ecological
> >> > ignorance.
> >>
> >> Your scenario epitomizes ecological ignorance overlain with ecological
> >> wishful thinking.
> >
> > Surely you can see that you make no attempt
> > to deal with the issues? WHAT was the
> > diet of early hominids?
>
> I've already answered this question.

You stated:
> >> >> grains, nuts, bugs, dried fruit,

And I've demolished that. Please attempt
to deal with my points.

> >> > You should not be so credulous. All this
> >> > is a PA fairy story. Dry seasons are next to
> >> > universal in the tropics.
> >>
> >> Paleoclimatologists tell a different story.
> >
> > Quote some -- or refer to a source.
>
> See my hypothesis.

Fake scientists always refer you to their
'sacred texts' where all the answers to all
questions lie. Of course, they can never
tell you what those answers are -- on that
in this secret book, all is explained. Jason,
and other PA dopes, do it with the claim:
" . . .it's all in the scientific journals . . ".


Paul.


.

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