Re: Where are the zoologists?
Joel Hanes (jjh@3do.com)
13 Dec 1994 00:27:50 GMT
patdooley@aol.com (Pat Dooley) writes:
>
>The AAH proponents have come from a wide variety of disciplines, but not
>Anthropology.
>
>The opponents have been almost exclusively Anthropologists.
>
>Most of the AAH is based on mammalian physiology and evolution, fields in
>which
>Anthropologists seem to be ill prepared. Perhaps the debate could be put
>on a more scientific basis if zoologists had a look at the arguments based
>on comparative physiology and evolutionary biologists exposed some of the
>simple
>errors that have made by both sides in describing evolutionary scenarios.
>Personally, I don't think the subject of human evolution pre tool-making
>belongs
>in Anthropology - it should be in Zoology's Ape department!
I'll bet you won't find many vertebrate paleontologists
supporting the AAH, either.
Both anthropologists and vert. paleontologists are
aware of the general falsity of "strict adaptionism" --
the idea that every feature of an organism is to be
explained, somehow, as an adaption to some selective
pressure.
It's my impression that many species are the way they
are "for historical reasons" (as we say in software).
By contrast, it seems to me that the larger scientific
community and the popular press have yet to hear
that evolution is contingent -- that some things just
end up the way they do by accident, for no particular
reason.
---
Joel Hanes
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