Re: David Attenborough reporting chimp wading (and supporting a waterside model for human evolution)

On Jun 27, 1:07 pm, Algis Kuliukas <al...@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Jun 27, 10:12 am, rmacfarl <rmacf...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

The fact that they spent only 0.37% of their time in the water is also
an "obvious point". So is the fact that they were bipedal 3-5 times as
much of the time out of the water than in. The fact that most of the
time they were bipedal in the water they were attempting to pick up
food is a less obvious point, but it is still a point of fact.

Yes it's obvious but it's also obvious that if a similar group of apes
lived in habitats that were flooded then they'd move bipedally most of
the time.

Yes but you want to put the apes in gallery forests, surrounded by
savannah, seasonally flooded to waist depth, and apparently with no
trees along the edge. It doesn't add up. Forests that are flooded most
of the time are called "rainforests" and tend to have a continuous
canopy, which means that there is no reason for the arboreal apes to
come down and wade around in the water.

Your just-so story just isn't.

(e.g. bonobos 24% bipedality Jo Myers Thompson.)  Clearly
chimps and bonobos don't like getting into the water - that's why zoos
tend to put a moat around their enclosures - but it's even clearer
that if they have no choice they DO go in... and they go in and stay
bipedally when they do so.


Their reasons for going in water would largely be to do with
collecting food, I accept, but it would not be universal. The point
that you still haven't conceded is that my study showed that it was
the movement in water (and not the carrying) which resulted in a
switch to bipedalism... on land before getting the food (quadrupedal),
in water appraoching the food (bipedal), moving out of the water
carrying the food (bipedal) on land, with the food (quadrupedal).

The real point is that the importance of "92% bipedal in the water" is
an interpretation (yours), one of several viable interpretations, but
the one on which you have chosen to construct a large percentage of
your hypothesis. I'd venture to interpret that 92% of your hypothesis
is based on evidence that 0.37% of your paleoanthropological peers
would accept as valid.

If I was doing my PhD in Belgium I could have studied them for two-
three years and I'd have got a similar result. (There were several
post grad students observing them for diffrent reasons who had been
watching them for a long time and they told me it always happenned
like that - on land quadrupedal, in water bipedal - again and again
and again.) But you're not disputing that, are you? (at least I hope
not.)  What your claiming as your 'big' fact is that they still spend
most of their time on land. Well BFD, I know that. I'm not claiming
that bonobos ARE bipedal, they're great apes. The whole point is to
consider an evolutionary scenario where a great ape ancestor of ours
is MORE LIKELY to move bipedally. That's what shallow water does, it
gets apes to move bipedally.

Not it f@#$ing doesn't. Wild apes wade quadrupedally in water as
shallow as you observed at Planckendael all the time. You know this.

Jesus H Fuckmeister, you are so predictable. You just let your
emotional attachment to the aquatic idea run away with yourself, over
and over and over again.

You can't make a case that shallow water "guarantees" bipedalism. It
doesn't. You can't create a viable niche for "waist-deep wading". It
doesn't exist, certainly not in the form you've been proposing. And
you can't work out why the distinction is important.

Your "simple, satisfying explanation" is not simple, and satisfies ~no
one~ but you.

And your response is to attack them for being unscientific, comparing
them to creationists, and attributing their resistance to your ~grande
idee~ to "some bizarre tribal reason". (And then to bleat "shame,
shame" when someone returns fire to your misplaced ad hominem attacks.
Pathetic.)

How can such a simple, satisfying
explanation that clearly helps solve the biggest riddle in
anthropology for 150 years be resisted by people who claim to be
scientific? Because it would mean they'd have to admit to being wrong
and clearly to these people being "right" personally, today, is more
important that science being right in the long run. Some "scientists"
they are.

It ~is~ suggesting that a) wading was the evolutionary driving force
for bipedalism, and b) that this in some way provides support for a
putative aquatic origin. On ~extremely~ flimsy evidence.

Yes but it's thr MEDIUM that compels the bipedalism, not the food. No
matter how much you'd like it to be otherwise the evidence is clearly
against you. Please just concede that.

No, the medium does not compel the bipedalism, because the bonobos do
walk bipedally out of the water, more often than in, and because if it
wasn't for the floating food they wouldn't go into the water at all.

See how easy it is to make sweeping interpretations based on a few
minor facts? No? I'm not surprised.


I didn't deny it, I asked if you or anyone had seen it happen. And I
also posted that I stand corrected in reply. However do not kid
yourself, it does not bring you any closer to having made your case.

Well thanks for that, at least. I think it just adds yet more evidence
onto something that is overwhelmingly ovious to anyone who is
objective. Wading HELPS explain hominin bipedal origins better than
any other model.

I don't deny evidence. I deny spurious interpretations of
inconsequential evidence, especially those made by sad fools who can't
cope with their own failure in life.

What could be better evidence for a model of bipedal origins than to
say "take a group of great apes and put them in scenario x and they
WILL move bipedally, unsupported, for as long as the conditions
prevail"? How can this be construed as "spurious" or
"inconsequential"?

Because that isn't what happens, and you haven't succeeded in doing
that.

I repeat: you can't make a case that shallow water "guarantees"
bipedalism. It doesn't. You can't create a viable niche for "waist-
deep wading". It doesn't exist, certainly not in the form you've been
proposing. And you can't work out why the distinction is important.


Ad hominem noted. It's really all you can do, at the end. Attack the
messenger because the message is irresistable.

Hypocrisy noted. You were the one who started the ad hominems in this
thread, as you are 92% of the time when you're talking to me. Self-
delusion also noted.


... which yours doesn't [guarantee extant ape bipedalism]...

Oh, but it DOES, easily: Put a group of apes in a tank of waist deep
water and they WILL move bipedally for as long as the condition
prevail. If they moved quadrupedally they would DIE. Which other model
can say that?

... see, you have a habit of ramping up your ridiculous claims further
and further with every strident squawk ...

"ridiculous" claims? They are simple observable, repeatable facts. You
clearly just don't like being wrong. Shame.

My comment was in response to the ridiculous claim, which you snipped,
that your hypothesis is the "only only one that maps, almost exactly
onto human walking". That statement does not qualify as a "simple,
observable, repeatable fact", so your accusation is an ad hominem lie.
Shame.


If you ever come back with a hypothesis that fits any of those
descriptions, reapply for your PhD...

The hypothesis does and I might...


I won't hold my breath...

Ross Macfarlane
92% of Algis' hypothesis is based on evidence that 0.37% of his
paleoanthropological peers would accept as valid.

.

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