Re: Help me settle an argument...
- From: "Paul Crowley" <skjhkdjhffr@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 3 May 2007 15:12:33 -0400 (EDT)
"Vend" <vend82@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:f1ai1d$2c5h$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
It is generally agreed (from DNA studies)
that bonobos split off from the main chimp
population around 1.5 million years ago.
They are an isolated population on the
southern side of the Congo River.
(Chimps cannot cross major rivers.)
They did not exist at the time of the
chimp/hominid split.
My point is that it's not possible for the human-chimp ancestor to be
undistinguishable from modern chimp since there are two
distinguishable species of modern chimp.
This is a silly point. One can always
extend 'distinguishing', and say that
no modern species is the same as its
ancestor of 8 mya. I'm only saying
that they were as close as makes no
significant difference. They occupied
the same niche in the same way and
with the same anatomy. Whether they
looked more like bonobos than modern
chimps is irrelevant to the discussion.
Italy as a political entity was formed in 1861. The Sicilian Mafia is
estimated to have originated approximately in the same period.
This is about 5 human generations, obviously a time too short for any
significant evolution.
The factors that formed that culture go
back much longer -- the minimal central
government, the near-total absence of
a rule-of-law and the never-ending
feuding.
Moreover, the violent activities of the Mafia involve only a minimal
part of the Sicilian population
Nonsense. The male death rate from
feuding in the villages (i.e. in the great
bulk of that rural society) is known to
have been very high.
therefore couldn't have been a major
factor driving the evolution of the population.
Hopeless. Before 1861, they all lived long
lives in love and peace?
Anyhow, Sicilians aren't so short.
Who claimed they were?
Why do we need different explanations for facial and body hair
distribution in Asian people?
They are human features and we should
be able to use evolutionary arguments
to explain them -- and the differences
across human populations.
And why the explanation for the distribution of body hair should be
different for that of facial hair?
Since you don't have one for either,
this is a peculiarly pointless question.
I would expect a correlation between body hair and facial hair.
Maybe there is, but it is far from 100%.
Wild dogs and hyenas didn't kill every prey.
We can take it that (under your scenario)
they were present almost all the time
while hominids were evolving. They'd
have mopped up all the vulnerable
animals.
They aren't 100% efficient.
You have to state how hominids could
have muscled in to an already well-
occupied niche.
Canid and human niches are not totally overlapping,
Are you saying that canids (et al) were
absent from the hominid habitat?
Possibly in some areas. And even in the areas were they were both
present, they might not have been hunting exactly the same preys.
On which prey animals could hominids
have specialised?
The niches overlap, but not exactly (If they did, one of the of the
two groups would likely be extinct by now).
This is pious nonsense. You haven't
the faintest idea how it could have
been done.
Early hominids (Orrorin tugenensis?) probably hunted small preys such
as monkeys in a forest or near-forest environment, not very
differently from what modern common chimps do.
As hominids begun to exploit more and more the new open grasslands,
they gradually adapted to cursory hunting that is more fit to open
areas.
More pious nonsense. The question
was 'how'. Merely repeating the
assertion does not make it more
credible.
Anyhow, your arguments seems to imply that since there are hyenas,
other animals such as wild dogs, jackals and lions can't exist in the
same environment, since they use a similar hunting strategy.
They are not the same, and anyone
knowledgeable about them could specify
dozens of differences, indicating places
and types of prey where each has
significant advantages over the other.
(Hyenas being more adapted to savanna
grasslands, needing larger prey, competing
more with lions; dogs being better fitted
to semi-desert, and quite unable to compete
with lions.) You have not suggested any
kind of prey, nor any kind of location,
where hominids would have had advantages
over hyena or wild dog.
Yet they entered in an environment where they were not present before
and managed to compete with the existing species.
They entered the new environment fully-
formed. You claim that hominids EVOLVED
into one -- over thousands of generations --
from a state where they were quite unfitted,
into one where they were successfully
competing with hyenas and wild dogs.
The notion is ridiculous.
What is different
about humans from other species that
allows weak muscles and fragile bones?
It can't be any kind of running, since no
other prey or predator species (specialising
in running) demonstrates those
characteristics.
I'm skeptical about your claim that humans have the weakest muscles
and bones among all animal species.
It is common knowledge -- among forensic
and anthropological scientists.
Your "common knowledge" was already shown not to be a reliable source.
You have shown nothing. Scepticism
is fine, except when it is an unthinking
defensive reaction, based on ignorance,
and motivated by unexamined prejudice.
AFAIK, humans have various features that are considered to be
adaptations to cursory hunting:
The only reasons they are so 'considered'
is an inability to think of anything even
slightly reasonable, allied to an
unwillingness to critically examine such
ideas.
long legs,
This is implicitly a claim that if humans
had not exploited 'cursorial hunting'
they'd have shorter legs.
Are there good reasons why human legs
should be shorter?
lack of much long hair,
Human infants are the most naked
members of the species. Is that because
they run around the savanna? Females
are next -- with less hair than males.
They are not supposed to have been
the runners. In many populations, males
acquire a lot of extra hair at puberty.
According to your theory, the reverse
should apply.
This idea is worthless.
high surface density of sweat glands.
The big problem about sweat is that it
exudes body salts in the same proportion
as they are present in the blood. They
have to be replaced. Since salt is rare
inland -- especially for territorial species
-- few animals sweat.
Another very bad argument.
I don't know how you can explain
those features in a sloth-like or another alternative hypothesis.
It's not too difficult to think up something
better -- provided you are willing to drop
the ideas of human ancestors being both
heroic and sweetly peaceable.
Paul.
.
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