Bipedalism facts to deal with
J. Moore (j#d#.moore@canrem.com)
Sat, 18 Nov 95 11:11:00 -0500
AD> Apologies then to Jim Moore and Phil Nichols, but this list is a flawed
AD> oversimplification of the ideas put forward to account for the origin of
AD> bipedalism. Again, if Paul were more (even vaguely...?) familiar with
AD> the literature, he would know this.
The list Paul posted was of situations in which primates today have
been observed to indulge in bipedal locomotion. This was quite
clear from the preceding sentence, which Paul did not copy.
Removing context from quotes seems to be a popular AAT move.
Here's the post I just did for sci.bio.evolution:
JM> Phil said that "more than likely early hominids undertook a behavior
JM> shift toward increased frequency of bipedalism. Very likely it
JM> occurred under conditions that are likely to result in bipedalism
JM> in living apes today". Then he offered a list of situations when
JM> apes today have many times been observed using bipedalism in the
JM> wild:
Pn> - when hands are need to carry food.
Pn> - to obtain a better view of the surrounding area.
Pn> - jumping across small brooks
Pn> - treat displays.
Pn> - when watching an unusual part of the surroundings
Pn> - when locating another member of the group
Pn> - greeting and courtship displays.
JM> Yet Paul feels that the actual field observations of 45 years of
JM> primates are " wildly unrealistic", and offers only a typo flame
JM> as his contribution. Well, you're right Paul, Phil typoed and I
JM> didn't catch it, therefore the past 45 years of primate field
JM> observations never really happened. Mass hallucination, I guess.
I repeat the last line of that post:
Well, they happened, Paul; it's reality... Deal with it.
These are actual primate behaviors -- situations when primates
have been observed many times using bipedalism. These are what
are called "facts": facts are things that are real and cannot be
simply waved away as you're trying to do. You have to deal with
these inconvenient facts or you're gonna look more and more like a
crackpot.
Jim Moore (j#d#.moore@canrem.com)
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