Re: A'pith Predatory Realities: not like those of extant chimps (Repost from 08/2003)

<claudiusdenk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1167110735.331275.150520@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

You are ignorant of basic facts. Primates
(such as hominids) have colour vision, so
they cannot see well at night. The
animals would just walk around them.

Its common knowledge that hujmans see just fine at night,

Do a web search on the topic.

Oh brother. I'm not doing a web search to confirm the obvious.

Why not remain solidly ignorant? You
have all the qualifications for being a
standard PA.

http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/primer/java/humanvision/colorblindness/index.html
" . . . improvements in night vision may occur due to certain color vision
deficiencies. In the military, colorblind snipers and spotters are highly valued
for these reasons. . . "

http://www.start.ca/users/joneil/colour2.htm
" . . . when darkness falls, I move around very easily with minimal light. When
out observing with my telescope or on dimly lit beach, I can move around a lot
easier than most of my friends and/or family, so there are circumstances when
color blindness can be an advantage. . . "

Mammalian prey species (especially those
with a slow rate of reproduction) must
necessarily be 'equivalent to' their common
predators -- in that they will not suffer
predation unless they get sick or injured, or
old or unlucky. That's a necessary condition
for the survival of such species.

We have no data to base such speculations, retard.

It is not speculation. It is a simple
observation.

Hominids,
including Apiths could not have survived
predation in the scenarios set out by you,

Enough with the dimwitted speculation. If you have any SPECIFIC
reasons as to why you think A'pith could not have survived predation as
indicated in my model then present them. Otherwise get off your
soapbox.

I've given you numerous specific reasons
that apply to both Homo and to Apiths
You have not been able to deal with any.
Slow rates of reproduction. Hopelessly
vulnerable young and infants. Almost
complete night-blindness. Your answer to
all objections: "they waved their arms in the
dark, and that was enough to make the
predators go away".

and by standard PA types. That's why
they never discuss it. They merely assume
survival -- in exactly the same way as you do.

Don't all hypotheses assume hominids survived?

Bad hypotheses (like yours) M E R E L Y
assume that they did, and so predation
could not have been a problem. You do
not begin to attempt to show how hominids
could have dealt with it -- because in your
crazy scenario they couldn't have dealt with
it. Standard PA is exactly the same, in this
respect.

The predators would consume any animal
significantly weaker than themselves.
They'd eat every Apith they could find.
And, under your scenario, they'd find the lot.

Nonsense. You have no dispute with anything I'm saying so you come
back with these absolutistic notions that have nothing to do with
reality as we know it.

The 'reality as we know it' consists of HUGE
predators catching and tearing apart any
hominid it finds on its territory.

Are you saying that lions (or whatever predator filled the lion niche
at that time, 6 to 8 mya) of that era (late miocene) would have been
able to climb high in trees to get at every last member of a band of
our earliest chimpanzee-like ancestor.

Your scenario does not work for ANY stage
of hominid evolution. Chimps have special
adaptations for the time they spend in trees
(more than 50% of their lives) which are
essential to their survival. Hominids lost
those adaptations. They would not have
survived in your scenario; they would not,
have been able to raise young to adulthood.

If you are saying this then you
are flying in the face of the evidence that indicates that extant lions
(and hyena) don't climb trees.

Lions do climb trees -- to a limited extent
-- better than most humans. But leopard
predation would be more than enough to
stop Apiths reproducing (in your scenario).

If you aren't saying this, you evasive
twit, then why they hell are you talking about, "HUGE predators
catching and tearing apart any hominid it finds on its territory?" How
could they possibly have killed every last hominid?

They would have killed most, and prevented
the remaining few from reproducing. It
happened -- possibly millions of times -- with
small Homo populations (and with some large
ones) which were not able to cope when some
change in their situation left them open to
predation.

A large
party of well-armed and well-prepared
hominids might IN DAYLIGHT cope with
such a predator. But they would never seek
to confront them at night. Nor would they
be able to raise young if such predators were
commonly in the vicinity.

I don't know why you think your idle speculation has any value here.

Do you have anything specific? Or are you trying to bowl me over with
vagueness.

There is nothing in the least vague in what
I am saying. Your only response is to say
that hominids would wave their arms in the
dark, and the scared predators would run
away. You seem to be aware that this is
not a good response, because you are not
repeating it. You are being careful to say
nothing at all.

In your scenario there is no pressure from predators.

Not so. The hominids would be fairly safe
-- if not entirely so -- on off-shore islands.
But they would be constantly seeking to
expand to (and then on) the mainland. They
would have needed very large, well-organised
tribes to do that successfully.

This is pure whackonery. You just kind of skip over the part where you
explain the transition from apes to animals capable of, "very large,
well-organised tribes."

Nope. I don't skip it. Once hominids began
to live on the ground, each band or tribe had
to become much larger and better organised
in order to defend vital resources (such as
water-holes) -- against other large, well-
organised bands or tribes.

Thus it has no group selelctive aspect. And you are just assuming
human behavior, you are not describing its selective origin.

Since chimps demonstrate it, there is no need
to describe 'its selective origin'. It is the
ancestral condition.

You retard. Hominid traits are not ancestral.

The one we are talking about here -- the
tendency to group conflict -- is ancestral.

NO, I am not. I am trying to ask a sensible
question about your nonsensical scenario
-- which, I admit, is not easy. You say that
Apiths slept in trees. But tree-sleeping
primates select their sleeping-trees with
care. Most are quite unsuitable. None will
sleep in thorny acacias, for example. So
what kind of trees did Apiths sleep in?

We'll probably never know for sure. Just look at the fossil evidence.
Spores, etc.

You should be capable of discussing POSSIBLE
types of trees. Of course, since there aren't any,
you have a problem.

Do you have any evidence that trees didn't exist back then?

I was saying that there are no POSSIBLE
kinds of trees in which Apiths could sleep.

Evidence? Data? Dreams?

We are talking about YOUR hypothesis.
It is up to YOU to set out the possible
kinds of trees. You don't, of course --
because there aren't any remotely
suitable kinds of trees.

Your inability to suggest any is evidence
for that. In WHAT KINDS of trees did Apiths
sleep? It's a straightforward question. Were
they like those that baboons select (large
cedar type)? Or like those preferred by chimps:
big ones with lots of small branches where
each chimp can use all four limbs to cling on?

You seem to have a lot of interest in this subject. Why don't you
write a paper on it.

It's your theory (and that of standard PA).
Try to back it up. But there's no hope of
you doing that -- anymore than there is of
seeing an effort from a standard PA dope.


Paul.



.

Relevant Pages

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