Re: An alternative to ST and AAT
Paul Crowley (Paul@crowleyp.demon.co.uk)
Mon, 04 Nov 96 22:09:50 GMT
In article <01bbc9e0$6fed4aa0$f42270c2@default>
jdwaters@dircon.co.uk "John Waters" writes:
> JW: Human primate females carry their infants in their arms
> or on their hips. Nothing prevents them from maintaining an
> upright posture when travelling on the ground.
John, you cannot use the phenomenon you are trying to explain
to explain the phenomenon you are trying to explain.
> in Jane Goodhall's _The Chimpanzees of Gombe_ Jane relates
> the case of Madam Bee, a nursing female who lost the use of
> one arm through polio. This female learned to walk
> bipedally, holding her infant with the remaining good arm.
I don't have her book to hand. How old was the infant? Did
Madam Bee, in spite of the complete absence of predators from
the Gombe, successfully raise her infant?
> Surely, if a quadrupedally adapted specie like a chimpanzee
> could walk bipedally with an infant,
And dogs can manage unicyles. This tells us nothing about their
natural ecology.
> . . a non quadrupedally adapted ape could manage the same feat?
Please try to give us some sensible account of this non-
quadrupedal LCA. Which species evolved from it? How did
they evolve from it? How could it have managed an adaptation
from an arboreal existence? What did it eat? How did its
females carry their infants? How did it cope with nocturnal and
diurnal predators? How did it compete with baboons and other
competitors? What advantages did it have as compared with
them? What territory did it inhabit?
If you manage to present a clear account, you'll be the first.
Serious thought tends to make it evaporate.
> (Hominid fossils show no sign of quadrupedal adaptations.)
We all waiting for the details of Ardpithecus Ramidus.
So don't delay.
Paul.
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