Re: potassium and Tears 2
J. Moore (j#d#.moore@canrem.com)
Sun, 12 Nov 95 22:55:00 -0500
j#d#.moore@canrem.com (J. Moore) wrote:
>
>So you have the choice of either going with the idea of
>a land-based lifestyle for hominids, or the *extremely
>non-parsimonious* idea of an aquatic lifestyle.
JB> What about a fresh-water Aquatic Ape? What would we expect its
JB> tears to be like?
JB> James Borrett.
I think that emotional tears are likely to *not* be an early
feature of hominids, due to the involvement of the frontal lobes
in their production.
Now to consider other, less likely propositions is to speculate
wildly (and I mean wildly), but *if* you want to speculate wildly:
*If* emotional tears evolved primarily as an excretion device --
and I think that is extremely unlikely -- the evidence from these
terrestrial birds and reptiles would indicate it was for a very dry
climate rather than any aquatic environment.
Jim Moore (j#d#.moore@canrem.com)
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