|
|
Re: AAT:A method to falsify
Phillip Bigelow (n8010095@cc.wwu.edu)
13 Oct 1995 15:30:43 -0700
I wrote:
snip-O-ramma...
>5)Using published data on mean body temps., and energy metabolisms of #1
>above, plug all the data into a heat-loss computer program (which will
>probably have to be written, unless the U.S. Navy has something). Calculate
>if a haired ape can exist in thermal equilibrium with ambient water temp.
> ^^^^^^^^
> THEN....
>Repeat the calculations, except remove the hair.
>Then, using various shaven primates, do real-world experiments.
>Do the real-world experiments and the computer model match up closely?
>
>Lastly, however the experiments come out, PUBLISH THE RESULTS.
> <pb>
>
The pro-aquatic ape people may yet have a way to slither out of this
test: They may choose not to cooperate with the scientists.
If any of my fellow anti-AA people have noticed, Hardy and Morgan have never
been very talkative about predicting body masses for their animal. This
is not innocent oversight on their part..it is to their advantage not to make
such an estimate.
If they do so, they are placing their AA scenario into the realm of
real-world science. If physiologists ever got hold of a mass estimate, they
will immediately have something to work with, a quantifiable prediction that
the AA-people have given to the scientific community to "chew" on. Frankly,
I am not sure that the pro-AA group would want to put their aquatic scenario
is such jeopardy.
However, I don't want to be eternally cynical about the AA-peoples'
intentions. They may choose to provide upper and lower mass limits. All is
not lost if they don't, however. The scientific community could make the
mass predictions of the hypothetical aquatic ape, themselves.
Assuming that A. afarensis post-dates an "aquatic" phase, we probably have
an upper mass limit for the aquatic ape (i.e., the mass of a
male A. afarensis). This assumes, of course, that there was a trend toward
greater mass through geologic time, which, ironically, the pro-aquatic ape
people HAVE suggested.
<pb>
|