Re: Morgan and creationists
HARRY R. ERWIN (herwin@mason2.gmu.edu)
2 Jul 1996 17:18:48 GMT
Karen (karen@uab.edu) wrote:
: herwin@mason2.gmu.edu (HARRY R. ERWIN) wrote:
: >:Two million years in the euprimates is between 0.1 (Proconsul africanus)
: >:and 4 species worth of evolutionary change. _Behavioral_ adaptation (where
: >:the population adopts the behavior without changing much physically) is
: >:about a species worth of change. It is hypothetically possible for a
: >:population of early hominids to have gone to sea (as we did about 60KYr ago),
: >:but only if the population was evolving rapidly at that time, and then
: >:only for a geological instant. The following null hypothesis is
: >:probably testable:
: >:"The lineage leading to H. sapiens experienced a phase extending over
: >:three chronospecies during which it was adapted to aquatic foraging
: >:behavior."
: I am curious about what kind of idea you have for testing such an
: idea.
To falsify the hypothesis, you would need to show the existence of an
ancestor/descendent chain of species separated by no more than 2 MYr in
each gap with solid evidence (environment, skeletal, later perhaps
behavioral) of non-aquatic adaptation. This doesn't knock out the AAH
completely, since behavioral adaptation could have occurred for a short
phase without skeletal change, but it makes it very unlikely. It's also
the spacing you need to track the adaptations to various biomes.
--
Harry Erwin, Internet: herwin@gmu.edu, Web Page: http://osf1.gmu.edu/~herwin
49 year old PhD student in computational neuroscience ("how bats do it" 8)
and lecturer for CS 211 (data structures and advanced C++)
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