Re: Alex's gibbon-like CA
Paul Crowley (Paul@crowleyp.demon.co.uk)
Sat, 11 Nov 95 02:53:27 GMT
In article <48024r$aib@news.global1.net>
pnich@globalone.net "Phil Nicholls" writes:
> Paul Crowley <Paul@crowleyp.demon.co.uk> graced us with the following
> >> I think you make way too much of your cute little "evolution forces" idea.
>
> >It's basic to any serious thinking on evolution. The common failure
> >to grasp it is at the root of most bad ideas - like all the standard
> >ideas on the origin of bipedalism.
>
> I keep running this phrase over and over in my mind and each time I am
> stunned by the sheer chutzpah of this statement.
You call *that* chutzpah!! God knows what you're going to call a
little thing on which I've been working for a month or so and will
be posting in about a week.
I don't really disagree with most of your posting, except that I feel
that you are not focusing on the mechanism that mattered in hominid
speciation: the behaviour and subsequent isolation of a very small
group. Later hominid evolution also necessarily involved numerous
"choke points". There is no proper account of how these could have
occurred. Environmental change would have had no bearing on such
small groups. I'm sure that PA thought emphasises the climatic change
largely because of a complete dearth of better ideas.
Paul.
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