Re: First Family and AAT
J. Moore (j#d#.moore@canrem.com)
Wed, 11 Oct 95 18:02:00 -0500
TC> >early aquatic hominid have been any different? In other words, if
TC> >becoming a biped is such a wonderful adaptation to an aquatic
TC> >existence,
TC> >why aren't polar bears, walruses, alligators, mososaurs and otters all
TC> >bipedal?
TC> I will try a rhetorical device to show the vacuousness of this argument.
TC> To the best of anyone's knowledge, every tetrapod that ever transitioned
TC> from an arboreal to a terrestrial environment ultimately became a
TC> quadruped. Why would the early proto-hominid have been any different?
TC> In other words why aren't chimpanzees and gorillas bipedal?
TC> Tom Clarke
You've missed the irony in Alex's question. You see, it's a
standard question among AATers, Morgan included, to continually
ask things like "if it was useful for hominids to be bipedal, why
aren't all non-forest primates bipedal?" Alex simply was
turning it around for effect and asking it of the AATers. I've
done this, as have others, because when we try to explain that
evolution doesn't work that way, we're ignored.
So since AATers apparently believe that a terrestrial transition
for humans means that many many open-country mammals should be
predominately bipedal, and that the fact that they aren't is a
grevious blow to all of paleoanthropolical theory, why shouldn't
they answer the question of why aquatic mammals aren't
predominately bipedal?
Jim Moore (j#d#.moore@canrem.com)
* Q-Blue 2.0 *
|