Re: Fossils and Pseudoscience
Steven Fisher (fisher@ivy.dt.navy.mil)
19 Jan 1995 13:13:20 GMT
In article <3ffg17$esb@newsbf02.news.aol.com>,
Pat Dooley <patdooley@aol.com> wrote:
|>>
|>Children have to be taught to walk. Parents spend a lot of time
|>holding them upright and encouraging them to take those
|>first few steps. In turns out that young babies can swim
|>before they can walk and actually have instincts that stop
|>them from trying to breath underwater. They lose this ability
|>within the first year of life, and have to be taught to swim
|>later.
|>
This bit about babies bothers me. As I understand it, modern human babies
come out effectively "premature", because their large heads would make it
difficult to pass thru if they were allowed to mature more in the mother.
Since the fossil record indicates that large brain size occurred after full
bipedalism, wouldn't the pre-large-brain babies be more "mature" when born,
just like the other apes?
So, to argue using modern human babies in their first year of life seems
very misleading.
-steve
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