Re: An alternative to ST and AAT
Gerrit Hanenburg (G.Hanenburg@inter.nl.net)
Wed, 27 Nov 1996 23:21:47 GMT
"John Waters" <jdwaters@dircon.co.uk> wrote:
>>As a layman you would have had an excuse but as a student
>>of anthropology you should have known better.
>JW: What do you mean by this Gerrit? Is this a feature of
>the American educational system? Are students to be
>discouraged from discussing alternative theories,
>hypotheses and propositions.
I was only suggesting that FsFlowers probably mistakes his/her own
ignorance on the subject of the origin of bipedalism for a lack of
theory and discussion in the field. Did he/she study the primary
literature and arrive at the conclusion on the basis of what he/she
found or did not find there?
The origin of bipedalism happens to be one of most discussed subjects
in paleoanthropology. Entire symposia are dedicated to it (e.g. the
International Symposium of the Singer-Polignac Foundation in Paris
held from 5-8 June 1990)
The Journal of Human Evolution regularly has an article on the subject
(the October issue contains the article "The evolution of bipedalism
in hominids and reduced group size in chimpanzees:alternative
responses to decreasing resource availability" by Isbell and Young).
There are several theories about the origin of bipedalism,so I really
don't understand how FsFlowers can say that he/she doesn't understand
that there isn't more theory and discussion on the subject.
How much effort did he/she take to find out what is really there?
>We know the professional approach is to sit on the fence and pretend to know
>everything.
BS.
>But surely students should be allowed to
>question, probe, dissect and discuss?
Nowhere was it suggested that they're not allowed to do that.
Gerrit
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