Re: Crowley's post to sci.bio.evolution
Thomas Clarke (clarke@acme.ist.ucf.edu)
15 Nov 1995 19:43:29 GMT
In article <48bfif$pmf@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu> Alex Duncan
<aduncan@mail.utexas.edu> writes:
> First, a comment on Paul's claim that the debate is "serious". It is
> not. There are several folks in s.a.p. that find the debate moderately
> interesting, mostly as an exercise in argument. However, the aquatic ape
> theory is simply not plausible. It consists of a list of supposedly
> unique human features that [according to AAT supporters] could only have
> evolved in an aquatic environment.
You confuse fact and theory.
It is perfectly possible that early hominids spent part of their
eveolution in an aquatic of near-aquatic environment. There is
nothing about hominids that is inconsistent with this.
It is perfectly possible that early hominds developed in a
moutain environment. !! Say does bipedalsim confer moutain
climbing abilities ?? :-)
[Although the gap between the pongid/hominid split as determined from
DNA and the earliest hominid fossils is getting narrow]
The evidence cited in support of and arguments made for
hominds actually having had an aquatic or near-aquatic episode,
the AAT theory, is of course as you have often pointed out not
up to full scientific scrutiny.
> Other features, such as bipedalism, have an
> evolutionary history that is well-documented by the fossil record.
Not so. There were non-bipedal miocene apes.
There were fully bipedal Australopithecines. There is nothing
in between. There is no documented evolutionary history of bipedalism.
> The
> fossil record provides no evidence that bipedalism evolved in an aquatic
> habitat.
Nor does it provide evidence that it evolved in any other
particular habitat.
I tend to agree that the rest of Crowleys's post is a bit confused.
Tom Clarke
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