Re: First Family and AAT

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Alex Duncan <aduncan@mail.utexas.edu> writes:

>In article <hubey.812351061@pegasus.montclair.edu> H. M. Hubey,

>aquatic existence was a quadruped when it began its aquatic foray (w/ the
>exception of aquatic birds). They all remained quadrupeds or began to
>converge on fish in overall body shape and locomotion. Why would the
>early aquatic hominid have been any different? In other words, if
>becoming a biped is such a wonderful adaptation to an aquatic existence,
>why aren't polar bears, walruses, alligators, mososaurs and otters all
>bipedal?

I will try a rhetorical device to show the vacuousness of this argument.

To the best of anyone's knowledge, every tetrapod that ever transitioned
from an arboreal to a terrestrial environment ultimately became a
quadruped. Why would the early proto-hominid have been any different?
In other words why aren't chimpanzees and gorillas bipedal?

Tom Clarke

-- 

  People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment

  and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against

  the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices - Adam Smith, WofN

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