Re: A layman's question on bipedalism
Stephen Barnard (steve@megafauna.com)
Mon, 01 Jul 1996 18:44:11 -0800
Robert Scott wrote:
>
> In article <31D756BD.12A4@megafauna.com> Stephen Barnard,
> steve@megafauna.com writes:
> >Speciesist? I've heard this term used in the context of sarcastic
> >humor, but this isn't humor. It's merely funny.
> >
> >Of course we people are more interested in our own origins than in the
> >origins of, say, squid. That's not to say that the origins of squid
> >aren't important or interesting. If intelligent squid were running
> >the world I expect the state of affairs would be different.
> >
>
> You missed the point entirely. Forget about squid. What is speciesist is
> to assume that human evolution was somehow "special" or " more
> mysterious" than the evolution of any other species. We have no reason
> to believe it was or to invoke any *extraordinary* type of mechanism for
> human bipedalism or human evolution. You should read Misia Landau's
> insightful book on how we tend to turn the story of human evolution into
> a classic fairytale.
I don't think I missed the point. Human evolution is special to us
because we're human. There's no denying that there is something
distinctly odd about humans as a species. The mere fact that we're
discussing this on the Internet confirms that.
I'll look for Landau's book.
Steve Barnard
Steve Barnard
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