Re: Ape sweat

J. Moore (j#d#.moore@canrem.com)
Sat, 22 Jul 95 12:07:00 -0500

Pa> So, unless Phillip Nicholls can give us information on more
Pa> recent experiments where researchers could induce eccrine
Pa> sweating in chimpanzees through thermal stress, I'll stand
Pa> by the AAT position that man is unique amongst the apes in
Pa> using profuse eccrine sweating for thermo-regulation.
Pa> Pat Dooley

Pat, once again not realising what he's saying, seems to suggest
that the AAT alone claims that humans are "unique amongst the apes
in using profuse eccrine sweating for thermo-regulation." This is
not a position peculiar to the AAT; it's a common one based on
what evidence we have so far. The AAT's peculiar position on this
matter is that the progression we see amongst primates in numbers
of eccrine glands (fewer in monkeys, more in apes, more in humans)
is not due to relatedness, as an evolutionary theory would suggest
in such a case, but rather is due to convergent evolution with
distantly related aquatic mammals, and that the fact that most of
these aquatic mammals seem to have few eccrine glands is simply a
another of those matters that need not be explained.

Again I am forced to ask: Why is the AAT, alone amongst theories of
hominid divergence, supposed to be given this preferential treatment?

Jim Moore (j#d#.moore@canrem.com)

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