Re: The Question Gerrit Won't Answer

On Feb 26, 5:39 am, "Paul Crowley"
<slkwuoiutiuytciu...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
<caldervang...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

news:7be4b15d-81fc-43aa-af6e-eeae5fd70000@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

On Feb 25, 1:27 pm, claudiusd...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
<snip>
Nonsense. The behavior of PA is like that of a cult. Whenever
anybody theorizes outside of what they deem the truth that person can
expect to be ignored, attacked personally, dismissed etc. A cursorial
glance at SAP will show that the Conventional theorists are incapable
of doing anything but propagandizing for their vague notions.
<snip>

I disagree.  PA appears to me to be in "the same boat" as just about
any other science... a loosely-organized collection of smart & curious
people, all working towards understanding just a mere fraction of
reality.

" . . . as just about any other science"?

The purpose of PA is to explain our
biological ancestry over the past 10
or so million years.  Just how well do
we understand that at this point in the
21st century?   How well does that
compare with other sciences in their
grasp of their basic issues?  How
many of the questions first posed
(around say 150 years ago) have
been answered?

PA as a discipline strikes me as a very cautious bunch of folks.
"They" were burned one too many times by the fossils. Cf: that we
were bipedal before we had big brains.


How many aspects of human (or
hominid) anatomy have a good
explanation?

I don't know.


Do we know
(a) why or how we became bipedal?
(b) why we are naked?

well, no. we don't really know these. But I "believe" that some one
of the various hypothesis currently in circulation will prove to fit
most of the data. I don't know which one it will be. Were you asking
me my opinion?

(c) why our infants are altricial?
(d) why we have so much fat?
(e) why so much of it is subcutaneous?

Jois and I had a long, long discussion about this many years ago, and
concluded very little, but did eventually "agree to disagree" about
some of the details. IMHO, fat in babies can NOT be just for
emergency backup for the brain in a starvation scenario because the
body begins to dissolve muscle tissue before all the fat is burned
up.

(f) when and why we stopped sleeping
     in trees?

Probably, again IMHO, when we stopped grasping our mom's fur as
infants in order to cling to her body. RE: recent research about
strenght of hair and the bipedal stance.

(g) the function and purpose of hand-
     axes?

I don't know. opening canned goods? <smile> Really, though, I use a
wood chisel on some of my stone sculptures. multipurpose...

(h) the reasons for the differences
between apiths and homo?

At the current time, and/or the current state of the known fossil
record, this seems to be related to encephalization.

(i) the reasons for the differences in
male and female anatomy?

I don't know what you mean here? That the universe is founded on yin/
yang?

(j) the reasons for every other
distinctive human and hominid
feature?

I agree that all features should have, no, NEED, a explanation for why
they evolved. (but would also add that I "believe" in sexual
selection, which can have a rather random outcome.)


Have we any comprehension of the
nature of the hominid niche -- at any
stage in our evolution?

Concerning niche, I would add ocean and space exploration to our niche
now, and this, a repost of mine from Jan. 2003:

"Today on NPR a guy was talking about the "stupid" war at the
Pakistan/India border... it is being fought in very high mountains.
In
this connection, he said that most soldiers died from what mountain
climbers would call "objective dangers." He also said that the human
body fails to acclimate above 18,000 feet... Oxygen problems....

So one could say that our upper limit was 18,000 feet above sea
level,
excluding technological advances in balloons, planes, spacecraft...

The lower limit seems to be no more than about 130 feet (39.6 meters)
underwater, for only about 3 minutes.
Cf this site about pearl divers:
http://www.pacificislandtravel.com/fr_polynesia/about_destin/pearlfar...
Medical effects of submersion:
http://www.dansa.org/medical/breath.html
this last site gives lotsa' very interesting data about physiological
effects from going into water, and also briefly mentions the diving
reflex.
Those terrestrial sites that are below sea level tend to have
desert-like conditions, so would be applicable to that concept, and
not
negative (below sealevel) altitude.
Regards,
Charles "

Concerning our "ancient niche", if that is what we can call that whole
period from the LCA some 6 mya up until 200kya. I beleive that we
must have evolved in relatively ideal conditions. That is, not
extremely hot or cold. Probably not above 105 degrees Farenheit, or
below freezing. The reason I "believe" this is that our currently-
evolved naked bodies are pathetic in dealing with extremes in
temperature. I have no problem imagining that early hominids dunked
under water in order to supplement the evolving sweat-cooling system.
And now that chimps have been observed wading up to their chins for
fun, it is well within the possibilities. My point is that with or
without fur, we did not survive through an extremely hot climate.




How much of human (and hominid)
culture has been explained by PA?
Do we know the reasons for the
evolution of language?  Or of music?
Or of anything in this field?

Can we blame PA for this? language would fall into the realm of
linguistics, for example. I'll start a new thread about
consciousness, since this quickly changes to that discussion for me,
and if i am going to type up a bunch of quotes, it deserves a new
thread.....


The 'science' has ceased to be one.
Not merely has it not advanced since
Darwin, it has gone backwards.  His
appreciation of almost all the crucial
issues was far superior to that of the
best modern PA 'scientists'.

Still, not sure i agree. The root of PA is the fossil! and fossils
are measurable and real and actually exist. Perhaps what you are
really angry about is all the speculation that all of us (meaning all
humanity) do in order to explain the meager fossil collection.


As a whole, science has a damn good grasp on reality

'Science' may sometimes have a
grasp on reality. PA does not.

 and
that cannot be easily dissed without falling into a creationist trap.

The 'creationist trap' is presumably
one of the reasons why the 'progress'
has been non-existent.  George W
Bush was hardly pressing hard for
answers, nor checking that tax-
payers' money was well spent.

But that cane be only a small part
of the answer.

Paul.

George has ruined my country, which once (say, in the days immediately
after 9/11) enjoyed considerable respect in the world and garnered the
world's sympathy.

--calder
.

Relevant Pages

  • Waterside evolution (Re: Follow the Evidence
    ... fossil record. ... Homo Sites Older than 0.2 Ma ... Nearby, in the Hata Member of the Bouri Formation, hominid fossils of a ... was recovered from deposits of the Hadar ...
    (sci.anthropology.paleo)
  • Recent Developments in Paleoanthropology
    ... number of changes have been suggested in the classification of hominid ... It has been proposed that the names Homo heidelbergensis and Homo ... Nature, 393:458. ... Science, 284:629-35. ...
    (sci.anthropology.paleo)
  • Key hominid fossil found at "Cradle of Humankind" is younger than thought
    ... PARIS - A key fossil found at South Africa's Sterkfontein Cave, a site dubbed "the Cradle of Humankind" for its trove of hominid relics, is far younger than initially thought, a new study says. ... "Little Foot," a fossil with both ape-like and human features, was found in the 1990s thanks to remarkable luck and diligent work. ... In 1994, Clarke spotted four left-foot hominid bones as he sifted through bags of fossilised animal bones that had been dumped after a mine blast, decades earlier, at a large cavern within the cave system. ...
    (sci.anthropology.paleo)
  • Re: News: Seattle shows little love for Lucy fossil exhibit.
    ... fossil remains of one of the earliest known human ancestors. ... of the staff, furloughs and a wage freeze, President Bryce Seidl ... shipped around the globe led the Denver Museum of Nature & Science ... Evidence that supports it has ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: "oldest biped" nonsense (Re: New Ethiopian Find - Oldest Biped At 3.8-4 mya
    ... > that fossil was bipedal is nonsense. ... > early Homo around the Old World along the African coasts & the Indian ... AAH explains the origins of hominid bipedalism, ... Algis Kuliukas ...
    (sci.anthropology.paleo)