Re: Asking for AAT refs a no-no?
jamesb@hgu.mrc.ac.uk
13 Nov 1995 12:00:32 GMT
j#d#.moore@canrem.com (J. Moore) wrote:
>
>So you're saying she cannot be expected to provide any refs
>whatsoever, not even this one, despite the fact that, according to
>James Borrett, she is very "helpful in this respect". And while
Well she is always helpful to me, perhaps I have better manners than you.
>
>The theory that seems guilty of grouping distinguishing features
>at one or the other end of a time scale is the AAT; it has been an
>uphill battle trying to make AATers here realise that using this
>particular unexamined assumption doesn't make the slightest sense.
>
Wha? AAT sugests that bipedalism came first, in response to the need to
wade with the head above water 5 million-ish years ago, and that until
recently (like say, 200,000 years ago) our ancesters were still pottering
around in lakes and rivers. So the (ambiguous) aquatic adaptations
could either have all happened at once (unlikely) or been gradually
acquired over a timespan of 4 million years in response to an amphibious
lifestyle. The important point is that saying that these features were
recent rather than 5 million years old doesn't get you any closer to
explaning them unless you have hard evidence to back up the claim that
they are recent. Which you don't, do you?
James Borrett.
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