is hubey lazy AND ignorant?
Alex Duncan (aduncan@mail.utexas.edu)
7 Oct 1995 20:56:31 GMT
In article <hubey.813022515@pegasus.montclair.edu> H. M. Hubey,
hubey@pegasus.montclair.edu writes:
>What exactly does it mean? We have significant tree-climbing
>ability right now. Can dogs climb better than us? No. How about
>sheep? No. How about fishes? No.
>
>So what does it mean?
>
>Is there a "tree-climbing" meter which is being used? Is there
>an operational definition which produces some numbers which can
>be compared? What is being done?
If you were familiar with any of the literature, you would know that
there is in fact a "tree-climbing meter". I refer you to recent work by
Kevin Hunt and by Diane Doran, who both have spent a lot of time in the
field quantifying exactly how frequently apes climb trees, why they climb
trees, what they do in the trees, etc. Since australopithecines (early
relatives of humans) are no longer extant (no longer living) we can't
make the same kinds of observations. However, we can note correlations
between morphology and behavior, and use those to develop models for
australopithecine positional behavior. And no, I won't summarize the
literature for you.
>I'd like to ask you for a favor. How about telling us which ones
>make some progress toward resolving the difficulty instead of
>carrying on with verbiage?
I see you've made a lot of assumptions about the articles I cited. Why
don't you read them instead? (I know, you're just too busy. If that's
the case I suggest you stop posting until you've accumulated the
knowledge that you might obtain from reading a single moderately advanced
text.) I repeat -- I will not summarize the literature for you. I
challenge you to read it. When you've done that, why don't you critique
the material for us, and tell us how you (in your infinite mathematical
wisdom) would do things better.
Alex Duncan
Dept. of Anthropology
University of Texas at Austin
Austin, TX 78712-1086
512-471-4206
aduncan@mail.utexas.edu
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