Re: AAT:A method to falsify
Phillip Bigelow (n8010095@cc.wwu.edu)
5 Oct 1995 16:16:51 -0700
Troy Kelley <tkelley@hel4.brl.mil> writes:
I wrote:
>> The question to ask is: "Is it even physiologically possible for a
>small,
>>hairless hominid to be a ubiquitous-wader/occassional-swimmer, and not
>have
>>problems with hypothermia?"
Troy Kelley <tkelley@hel4.brl.mil> yelped (in part):
>What???? We went around this block before. Seems to me we came up with
snip...
>Also, the fat content of these animals (fresh water dolphins) was right
>around 20 percent. The fat content of moderday humans is right around 12
>percent. So early homo might have been a little more or a little less fat
>than the current 12 percent. But 20 percent applies to an animal which is
>in the water ALL THE TIME. I don't know why I have to keep repeating this
>but AAT says that early hominids were SEMI-AQUATIC, not completely
>submerged in water all the time. So 12 percent seems like a perfectly
>acceptable fat content for a semi-aquatic mammal in a warm environment.
Wait a minute, Troy...WHY do you say that "12 percent seems like a perfectly
acceptable fat content for a semi-aquatic mammal in a warm environment"?
The thermo-physiological experiments and computer models haven't been done.
I also noticed that you avoided the surface area/volume ratios, which are
vastly different between chimpanzee/human and cetaceans. Hominids have a
MUCH larger surface area/volume, which radiates core heat faster than does the
rounder shape of cetaceans. This is crucial to any future study to
discredit the AAT theory.
>Anyone who has spent a day at the beach, or a lake, or swimming all day
>in a river, knows that the hypothermia argument is a weak one.
This is false logic (with a bit of religious faith thrown in for good
measure). Modern-day humans' habitat is terrestrial. Morgan's "aquatic
ape" is *ecologically-linkied* to the shore. Big differences.
Try being less than 100 pounds, naked, hairless, wading and sleeping on a
windy beach/sandbar for your whole life......will you suffer debilitating
hypothermia from time to time? We don't know. No one has done the
calculations.
I am amazed at how resistent the pro-AAT-ers are toward tests for
falsification.
There is no living animal that is hairless, 100 pounds or less, with 12 %
body fat that is aquatic or semi-aquatic. None. Not even in warm tropical
waters.
I am simply offering to my fellow anti-AAT collegues a way to attack the
"theory" at it's core. All we need to do is the thermo-physiology and the
math. It hasn't been done.
<pb>
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