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Re: AAT a bust
David Froehlich (eohippus@moe.cc.utexas.edu)
Fri, 29 Sep 1995 09:37:55 -0500
On Mon, 25 Sep 1995, Elaine Morgan wrote:
> In article: <DFE5n4.7t9@logic.uc.wlu.edu> jsammons@liberty.uc.wlu.edu
> (James H. Sammons III) writes:
> >
> > I'm no expert but I don't see how one can believe that the same
> traits
> > would have evolved for either aquatic or land apes. For one thing look
> at
> > the feet!
>
> > Look at the skeleton of the foot of a Steller's sea lion. (you can find
> it illustrated in "The Aquatic Ape: Fact or Fiction" p. 100). t is a
> closer aproximation to the skeleton of a human foot than you will find
> anywhere else in the animal kingdom
>
I seem to remember that Van Daniken made the same sorts of arguements for
alien landing strips in the Nazca plains based on pictures with no scale
(you know the pictures, of a bird foot or something that looked like
parking spaces off of a runway that turned out to be about three feet wide)
Are you seriously argueing that there are more similarities in a stellar
sea lion foot than between a human foot and any primate foot? I would
argue that the derived features of a human foot (arch, pad, large halux)
are all as easily or more easily produced by bipedal terrestrial
locomotion than swimming. It seems like the AAS (aquatic ape
speculation) wants to fill a gap in the fossil record 5mya to 8?mya with
a completely unparsimonious and untestable just so story to explain a
series of observations that no one has ever demonstrated are related or
synchronous. I could as easily hypothesize, speculate, guess, whatever
that aliens produced the same results by genetic engineering ;-). My
theory is as plausible as AAS. Speaking of which maybe I should write it
up and get credulous people to buy it?
David J. Froehlich Phone: 512-471-6088
Vertebrate Paleontology Laboratory Fax: 512-471-5973
J.J. Pickle Research Campus
The University of Texas, Austin, Texas 78712
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