Re: Tobias 1995

On Dec 17, 12:54 pm, Lee Olsen <paleoc...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Dec 16, 4:27 pm, Algis <algiskuliu...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

A newsgroup posting and the photos are scraping the barrel.  The book
ref is interesting and I'd like to see the original refs.

I was referring to the miniscule time involved with *both* accounts,
swimming and standing in water as a double-standard argument. Nothing
is still
nothing to measure, no matter what yardstick you use.

It's not miniscule. Jo Myers Thompson reported 24% bipedality in
bonobos at Lomako. Clearly the more time apes spend in water the more
time they're bipedal.

The point is simple: humans are better swimmers than chimps.

The point is even simpler than that: both are rotten swimmers
in the element they would have to compete in with other better
qualified swimmers.  

The same argument (but about moving on the ground) has not stopped
three generations of anthropologists believing we evolved on the
savannah.

We throw
a curve ball better than chimps also, that doesn't mean we were
playing baseball millions of years ago. Chimps climb poles better
than tree-topping loggers, that doesn't mean chimps had a logging
history
somewhere in the remote past.

Swimming is a form of locomotion. Throwing baseballs, riding bikes,
playing musical instruments and dancing are artefacts of human
culture.
The former needs no technology and can be learned by new born babies,
with their mother's help. The later examples cannot.
As usual, you're in denial about simple little facts that contradict
your case.

Here is what happens in reality in the swamps.http://tinyurl.com/6ab9gb
"We watched the monkeys pull tender shoots of water plants and
 deftly eat the tasty parts while clinging to vines above the water.
 A crocodile lifted his head from the murky shallows and the
 monkeys shimmied away."
I have a photo from National Geographic with a orang hanging by all
fours sipping a drink of water, neatly avoiding getting in it other
than
with his lips. This is the thinking of closely related ancestors.

Wow, that's great, Lee. Cling to it if you like but the evidence is
clear that when an ape has to move through waist deep water (as oppose
to feed off slightly submergeed plants or drink) it will do so
bipedally. Get over it.

All the
evidence supports it.

None of the evidence supports it.

You're in denial.

These barrel scrapings do not contradict the
assertion. If humans are better swimmers than chimps a Darwinian
explanation is needed.

You just got the explanation above. Both are so rotten in the water
a Darwinian explanation is not necessary to explain what is nothing
more than scraping the bottom of the barrel claim.

Humans are not "so rotten" in the water. Tell that to the Moken people
of Indonesia. Most people, who are exposed to swimming early in their
life are able to swim and dive pretty competently. Better than any ape
has ever been observed doing so, better than most primates have been
observed doing so and even better than a large number of terrestrial
animals too. This is not to say we are, or ever were, *aquatic* just
that clearly some selection from moving through water has occured in
our lineage.

Just as differences in ER are used to suggest
that humans did more long-distance running in the past (and i have no
problem with that) differences in swimming and diving ability suggest
that some selection has occurred there too.

And yet you have not, will not, cannot accept it because that would be
accepting that waterside hypotheses have validity.

There is no selection on failure, except adding to the advantage of
those smart
enought to stay out of the water in the first place.

In a seasonally flooded gallery forest the smart thing to do is to get
down from the patch of trees you're in that has been exhausted of its
food and move across to another patch. Of course our early hominin
ancestors would have done that and, of course, they would have done so
bipedally. Again, you're in denial about simple little facts because
to concede this ground would be conceding that you're wrong about the
whole thing.

He's done that, rather like producing a photo of a flying fish proves
flying cappacity in fish.

I don't follow, why attack his source, "scraping the barrel"?

Ross is being binary about this. He's trying to argue that by
demonstrating capability he's demonstrating parity. By showing a few
anecdotal instances of an chimp swimming (which I'd really like to see
the source paper for by the way - I've still not seen anything that I
accept unequivocally as chimp swimming although I am open to the
possibility that it may have happenned) he's trying to claim that
there is nothing to explain about the difference between humans and
our ape cousins in this regard.

It's not binary, it's analogue. There is a continuum of degrees of
ability for any form of locomotion, including swimming and diving and
humans are clearly far better at it than our great ape cousins. If
people deny the very observational basis of an argument then it is no
wonder they cannot take the next step.

To take this as some kind of proof of
pariity and denial of a differential in swimming cappacity between
humans and chimps is just not being honest.

It is not being honest to claim some sort of swimming difference where
there
is nothin but miniscule differences.

Take a mother-infant pair. Take the infant from the mother and place
it in a 2m deep pool, just 2m from mum. Repeat 100 times. If the
species was H sapiens every single baby would bee rescued. If the
species was P. troglodytes or P. paniscus (not to mention species from
Pongo or Hylobates) they'd all drown and maybe a few mums too.

This is not miniscule it's clear cut selection.

It is perfectly true statement:
Seattle is not
 as close to the South Pole as
San Francisco. Since neither are very close, it is a crime to claim
either are
close by any geographical standards. Neither are we good swimmers
compared to creatures than have competency in the water.

That's a really daft argument. It's true that Seattle is clser to the
north pole than san fran and guess what, its climate is also very
different.

You are trying to make something that is analogue, binary. You want to
have humans and chimps neatly packaged away in a box called "rotten
swimmers" so that you can dismiss any idea of selection from moving
through water. The fact is that it's not like that at all. There are
clear differences in this ability between us and they're clearly the
sorts of differences that are the result of some selection.

Gallery forest habitats
were occupied hy early hominids.

You are claiming what you need to demonstrate, not some vague
"hominids"
lived there. As Deitiker used to say, you are leading the evidence.

Who disputes that hominids lived in galery forests? It's mainstream. I
thought you supported the mainstream.

These are
waterside habitats where moving through water simply could not have
been avoided in this way.

Orangs do a pretty decent job of avoiding getting wet, so that proves
an ape can spend a lifetime sucessfully avoiding water even though
living right on top of it.

Orangs live in tropical rainforests where the canopy is pretty much
continuous. This is not the same in gallery forests. This is why these
habitats have been put forward for orthodox ideas of human bipedalism
too. I agree with them. The only difference is that I recognise that
gallery forests are actually by the water's edge and flood seasonally,
whereas the authorities and their defenders seem to be blind to this
simple fact.

The Planckendael study was looking at locomotion in shallow water. It
showed that bonobos, like all great apes, tend to switch from
quadrupedalissm on land to bipedalism in water.

The Kano study said just the opposite. Both may be correct because
.000001% of a bonobos lifetime spent in the water is not enough time
to posulate Darwinian selection, anymore than a baboon crossing water
would need to develope bipedalism or a standing bear looking for
salmon
in a river. See Sir Hardy 1960 again for the 50% rule.

24% in bonobos at Lomako. (Myers Thompson 2002) The more an ape moves
through waist deep water the more bipedal it is. Duh. It's sooooo
difficult, isn't it?

You stress the limited
observation time of the study because it suits your argument.

Not really, the fact none of the other apes who spend more time around
water
didn't develope habitual bipedalism. Proves it didn't happen in the
trees.
The only real difference is we are not hooked on trees, they all are.

You are the one arguing that apes very rarely (what was it? .
000001% ?) went in the water. I agree. That's why they're not bipedal.
The argument is that our lineage went in the water *more*. We went in
the water sufficiently to add enough selection to push us over the
rubicon and make us bipedal. Why can't you see this simple point? It's
pretty easy.

Time in
water was rare, I accept, but as a percentage over 90% was bipedal
there.

OK, I expect some math competency from you here. We also know enough
food
ir both hands will drive them to their feet also, 100% of the time.

No it won't. Sometimes they'll move tripodally, sometimes
quadrupedally with the food in their mouth. Even if they did move
bipedally, it's only for a few paces before they can find a spot to
sit down and eat. In waist deep water - by complete contrast - the ape
will always move bipedally and continue to do so as long as the
conditions prevail because if it didn't it would drown.

(So does throwing chit at zoo patrons,
by the way). So what equals more time---100% x rare in water equals
how much
 time total?
 or 100% of all the time where there is a surplus amount of food
available?

It's not a matter of time alone. The question really should be : which
would give more selection? Taking food bipedally versus quadrupedally
or wading in waist deep water bipedally or quadrupedally? I think it's
pretty clear cut.

This was the same principle of Hunt's (1994) study.

The 6 events of swimming do show some cappacity, I accept. But it in
no way suggests parity in swimming ability or significantly closes the
gap between humans and chimps.

There is no proficiency gap between the two, both are lousy swimmers
to begin with, so there is nothing to explain.

"There is nothing to explain" ~ wonderful. The savannah theorist's
mantra. Hardly the sort of thing that makes you proud to be a
scientist and more the sort of thing you get in religious texts.

Algis Kuliukas
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Bipedalism in different substrates
    ... hypothetical wetland/wading ape today but that there are several ... this made the wading hypothesis less likely. ... Acquisition of bipedalism: the Miocene ... Wading through shallow water makes a quadrupedal ape move ...
    (sci.anthropology.paleo)
  • Re: Bipedalism in different substrates
    ... through shallow water the more bipedal they got. ... >> bipedalism out of water before you actually understand it? ... is that in waist deep water an ape has very ... of course some hominoidae would become obligate bipeds. ...
    (sci.anthropology.paleo)
  • Re: Bipedalism in different substrates
    ... >>And our close ape relatives are, along with us, probably the least ... > effects of water on the ground are more widespread than generally ... swimming like dolphins and enjoying the ... are red meat and body fat. ...
    (sci.anthropology.paleo)
  • Re: Bipedalism in different substrates
    ... > bipedalism out of water before you actually understand it? ... is that in waist deep water an ape has very ... Your speculations about what gibbons do aren't worth a hill of beans. ...
    (sci.anthropology.paleo)
  • Re: Bipedalism in different substrates
    ... models are merely observations about the general question of bipedalism. ... >> B. Your speculations about what gibbons do aren't worth a hill of beans. ... Water is obviously that something. ... > a terrestrial biped but three million years of ape wading would. ...
    (sci.anthropology.paleo)