Re: A layman's question on bipedalism
Robert Scott (rscott@mail.utexas.edu)
1 Jul 1996 21:55:45 GMT
In article <31D756BD.12A4@megafauna.com> Stephen Barnard,
steve@megafauna.com writes:
>Speciesist? I've heard this term used in the context of sarcastic
>humor, but this isn't humor. It's merely funny.
>
>Of course we people are more interested in our own origins than in the
>origins of, say, squid. That's not to say that the origins of squid
>aren't important or interesting. If intelligent squid were running
>the world I expect the state of affairs would be different.
>
You missed the point entirely. Forget about squid. What is speciesist is
to assume that human evolution was somehow "special" or " more
mysterious" than the evolution of any other species. We have no reason
to believe it was or to invoke any *extraordinary* type of mechanism for
human bipedalism or human evolution. You should read Misia Landau's
insightful book on how we tend to turn the story of human evolution into
a classic fairytale.
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