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Re: Aquatic eccrine sweating ref request, was Re: tears
Laurence Fiddick; (fiddick@condor.psych.ucsb.edu)
25 Nov 95 13:44:51 GMT
In <4840op$e0b@news.ycc.yale.edu> bdiebold@minerva.cis.yale.edu (Benjamin H. Diebold) writes:
>Your two examples are illustrative in this regard; data will out. Until
>the AATers can generate some real evidence they have no right to expect
>people to modify their ideas. And when the AATers do in fact generate
>some evidence, they can be pretty sure they will be ultimately
>vindicated, just as Wegener was.
well, here's two things that aat predicts, chimp infants won't swim the way
human infants do and chimps won't exhibit the diving reflex. now, i don't
know what the evidence in support of humans having either of these is, but
let's suppose that there is good evidence that human infants are
comfortable with and capable of swimming, and that adult humans exhibit a
diving reflex. perhpas i'm just invoking personal incredulity here, but
they strike me as highly improbable, yet functionally integrated--i.e.,
were we talking about something else most evolutionary biologists i know
with the exception of gould would say that this is evidence that they are
adaptations. ok, so far aat hasn't predicted anything because these are i
assume this data has already been collected. humans do exhibit these
traits. now, where the data may not yet be collected and hence aat could
make predictions is in similar traits in chimps (or bonobos). they should
lack these traits according to the aat.
fossil evidence is not the only evidence to speak to the issues (in fact,
there is a bias among some evolutionary biologists that fossil evidence
tells one very little some times and can even lead to distorted
viewpoints--case in point, steven j. gould who focuses on the fossil
record).
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