AAH and falsifiability

Alex Duncan (aduncan@mail.utexas.edu)
20 Oct 1995 14:17:30 GMT

In article <4687bc$kcv@scotsman.ed.ac.uk> , jamesb@hgu.mrc.ac.uk writes:
>The other thing that annoys me besides the claim that AAT is unfalsifiable >(sounds like a made-up
>excuse for mot having falsified it to me) is that there is no evidence in its >favour. Just because
>some evidence is anecdotal or can be interpreted in other ways or is based on >modern human
>physiology rather than fossils doesn't mean thhat this isn't supportive evidence .

Several of us have been after Ms. Morgan to provide predictions based
upon AAH for the postcranial anatomy of A. ramidus. Apparently,
postcrania have been discovered, but not published yet. Since A. ramidus
lived at the correct time and place (according to Morgan) to be THE
aquatic hominid, we might expect it to show some skeletal adaptations to
living in the water.

Ms. Morgan has steadfastly refused to make any predictions of this nature.

If your hypothesis can't make predictions like this, then I suggest it is
nonfalsifiable.

Alex Duncan
Dept. of Anthropology
University of Texas at Austin
Austin, TX 78712-1086
512-471-4206
aduncan@mail.utexas.edu