Re: Morgan and creationists
HARRY R. ERWIN (herwin@mason2.gmu.edu)
1 Jul 1996 11:55:35 GMT
James Borrett (jamesb@hgu.mrc.ac.uk) wrote:
: Phillip Bigelow wrote:
: > Any of the well-known UNambiguous aquatic character traits that would
: > indicate an aquatic past for hominids, such as the presence of flippers,
: > or presence of oil-waterproofed fur, or reduction of size of legs (or
: > loss of legs), or the presence of a thick (THICK) layer of blubber, or a
: > hydrodynamically-optimized body shape, are all NOT found in humans.
: Do you really think that all of this could have happened in a maximum
: aquatic phase of two million years?
Two million years in the euprimates is between 0.1 (Proconsul africanus)
and 4 species worth of evolutionary change. _Behavioral_ adaptation (where
the population adopts the behavior without changing much physically) is
about a species worth of change. It is hypothetically possible for a
population of early hominids to have gone to sea (as we did about 60KYr ago),
but only if the population was evolving rapidly at that time, and then
only for a geological instant. The following null hypothesis is
probably testable:
"The lineage leading to H. sapiens experienced a phase extending over
three chronospecies during which it was adapted to aquatic foraging
behavior."
--
Harry Erwin, Internet: herwin@gmu.edu, Web Page: http://osf1.gmu.edu/~herwin
49 year old PhD student in computational neuroscience ("how bats do it" 8)
and lecturer for CS 211 (data structures and advanced C++)
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