Re: An alternative to ST and AAT
Phil Nicholls (pnich@digiworldinc.com)
Sun, 20 Oct 1996 13:31:59 GMT
Paul@crowleyp.demon.co.uk (Paul Crowley) wrote:
>In article <326796F4.16D@mailbox.hogia.net>
> magnus.sterky@mailbox.hogia.net "Magnus Sterky" writes:
>
>> Holly Reeser wrote:
>>
>> >What East African sites are coastal? Off the top of my head I cannot
>> >think of any coastal Australopithecine or early Homo coastal sites.
>> >And how will you test this?
>>
>> The ocean level has varied by some +-10 meters several times during he
>> last couple of hundred thousands years back.
>No, No. For most of the past 10 million years sea levels were
>about 100 (one hundred) metres lower. We're currently at the peak
>of an unsually warm interglacial and sea levels are at a 20 million
>year high. This basic fact has not got through to the bulk of
>paleoanthropologists -- see Holly's comment. Any East African
>coastal Australopithecine sites are likely to be under a 100 metres
>of water.
Well now, isn't that special. "Gee, I would have evidence, it's just
100 meters under water now so, sorry, you'll just have to take my word
for it."
The basic fact that doesn't seem to have got through to Paul is that
science can only work with the available evidence and that claims that
the evidence exists but is just inaccessible don't wash.
>So if hominids were essentially coastal animals (as I maintain)
without evidence
>what we will get is an extraordinarily distorted fossil record
>which will make little sense. And what do we have -- well, an
>extraordinary fossil record that makes little sense. We're
>at the end of the 20th Century and our understanding of human
>evolution is on a par with that of Chemistry around 1700.
No, I would say that your understanding of human evolution is on a par
with that of Chemistry about 1400 when the phligiston theory and
philosopher's stone were in vogue.
>Sense can be made, but it will require one heck of a paradigm shift.
Maybe, but when it occurs it will be driven by evidence and not
fantasy.
>Paul.
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