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Re: AAT:A method to falsify
Mike or Peni R. Griffin (TheGriffins@i-link.net)
10 Oct 1995 03:49:41 GMT
Excuse me for butting in -- I'm not a scientist or anything, and haven't
even read all the posts -- but as I understood the original Aquatic Ape
theory when I read about it in the popularization, it was never proposed
that the hypothesized apes actually lived in the water. If the theory
proposes only a population of apes adapting to a beachcombing existence
and evolving bipedalism, subcutaneous fat, etc. in response to the
exigencies of foraging in shallow water, isn't all this business about
degree of body heat lost compared to water temperature etc., pointless?
Or has the theory itself evolved since the book I read was written?
Incidentally, anybody here read Peter Dickenson's *Bone from a Dry Sea*?
It's fairly romantic -- the apes are way too smart -- but the important
thing is that the images are vivid and intriguing, and both the interest
and the politics of paleoanthropology are portrayed in a manner graspable
to the ordinary layman.
BTW, please don't get snippy about it because it's "only" a kid's book.
Kid books are generally better written than adult books, and today's kid
is tomorrow's paleoanthropologist.
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