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Re: Savannah strawman
JShreeve (jshreeve@aol.com)
2 Jul 1996 23:27:07 -0400
I don't know Tim White well enough to understand what motivates him, other
than the desire to do good research, but it is certainly not a lust for
funding or attention. He has made no attempt to capitalize on or
sensationalize a discovery which others have called "the missing link,"
and assiduously avoids discussing the fossil in the press. As for
changing the genus from Australopithecus to Ardipithecus, this was
prompted by the discovery of new ramidus material which White and his
colleagues considered distinct enough from all known australopithecines to
warrant naming a new genus.
And if you actually read the article Discover was "conned" into running
about the end of the savannah hypothesis (I guess I'm the con man, since I
proposed it and wrote it), you might have noticed that one of the points
was that bipedalism may indeed have evolved more than once. Also that
the hominid lineage is more bush-like than linear. So I really don't
understand what has prompted your flame.
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