Re: Aquatic ape theory
Osmo Ronkanen (ronkanen@cc.Helsinki.FI)
8 Oct 1995 11:08:12 +0200
In article <hubey.812857049@pegasus.montclair.edu>,
H. M. Hubey <hubey@pegasus.montclair.edu> wrote:
>ronkanen@cc.Helsinki.FI (Osmo Ronkanen) writes:
>
>>In article <hubey.812627023@pegasus.montclair.edu>,
>>H. M. Hubey <hubey@pegasus.montclair.edu> wrote:
>>>ronkanen@cc.Helsinki.FI (Osmo Ronkanen) writes:
>>>
>>>
>>>>If the aquatic life bought bipedalism, then it must have happened some
>>>>4-5 million years ago. If it also caused the loss of body hair, then why
>>>>did the body hair not return when the aquatic life was over? If the body
>>----------------- restoring unmarked deletion- ---------------------------
>>>>hair would have been beneficial for living in land, it should have
>>>>returned. If it was harmful, then one needs no AAT to explain the loss.
>>>>I cannot think how having the hair or lack of it could have been so
>>>>irrelevant that millions of years of evolution did not change it.
>>--------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>>Gee, it is easy to argue when you delete the part where I tell that your
>>explanation makes the whose AAT unnecessary. If the body hair had become
>>unnecessary because other facts the evolution would have gotten rid of
>>it anyway for example so that the controlling of body temperature could
>>be done by sweating.
>
>>Please do not in the future resort to unmarked deletions.
>
>I cut it out because it was unnecessary.
It was not unnecessary. In anyway the message was not that long that it
needed trimming.
>
>Let's see how it goes.
>
>***** a) IF I fall into a lake, I will get wet.
>
>However this does not mean that
>
>****** b) If I am wet, I must have fallen into a lake.
>
>That's obviously because there are other ways of getting wet. What
>one can derive from (a) is:
>
> c) If I am not wet, I couldn't have fallen into a lake.
>
Hey, I know logic.
>
>
>Now, suppose this sentence is true:
>
>***** 0) If an animal has aquatic life style,
> then it will [eventually] lose its body hair.
>
>Naturally, the truth of this sentence (if true) does not imply
>that this sentence must also be true:
>
> 1) If an animal does not have an aquatic life style, then it will
> grow body hair.
>
> 2) If animal has lost its body hair, then it must have had an
> aquatic life style.
>
>If (0) is true, it's equivalent to
>
> 3) If an animal hasn't/will_not [eventually?] lost/lose its
> body, hair then it couldn't/doesn't have an aquatic life style.
>
>Of course, this is not true (!) since otters and bears could have
>aquatic life styles and still keep their hair/fur but that's the
>failure of bivalent logic when it has to deal with the real world.
>What we should really say is to make a more general and complicated
>statement. And I think it's being made by many people.
>
What my point is that whether a human being has hair is hardly
irrelevant for the survival. That means it is either beneficial or
harmful. If the hair is beneficial, then I see no reason why human
beings should not have developed the hair back in the millions of years
since the aquatic life. That strongly implies that the lack oaf hair is
beneficial in the land life. If it is beneficial one needs no aquatic
My intention was not to prove that aquatic ape theory is wrong. My point
is to show that one does not need it to explain the hairlessness. Maybe
there are other hard proof, like fossil records, to support the theory.
I know that we have evolutionary relics like appendixes but that those
relics hardly are in something as significant as body hair.
Maybe the hairlessness developed because of increased energy need
because of increased brain size, increased activity because of
hunting, increased intake of energy because of meat eating and
lowered surface/mass ration because increase in size humans needed
better method of regulating body temperature.
>
>>The fact is that we cannot ignore the most recent 5 or so million years
>>in evolution when one considers something as fundamental as body hair.
>
>>Osmo
>
Osmo
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