Re: Exaptation and cookie
J. Moore (j#d#.moore@canrem.com)
Wed, 18 Oct 95 10:35:00 -0500
TC> >JM> If, as it seems from your post, you know nothing about "swamp
TC> >monkeys"
TC> >JM> except the name, what do you base your thinking they are "almost a
TC> >JM> perfect model" on?
TC> All is know about them is accounts in "semipopular " works by the likes
TC> of Calvin and Diamond. I am certainly no primate expert. But the
TC> accounts I have read describe a primate living on the water margin,
TC> frequently swiming, with a tendency toward more bipedal locomotion than
TC> is usually found in most primates.
TC> If you like, I could probably locate the sources my sources of info on
TC> the "swamp monkey". Some are books that I read years ago though and are
TC> back on the library shelves. I happen to have the Diamond book out now,
TC> that one should be easy [provided I haven't misremembered the source:-].
Why don't you? That is, if you care about facts at all. Thatr's
not a flame, just based on what you said below...
TC> >Informed speculation based on study of current, and accurate,
TC> >evidence? Sure.
TC> >Wild speculation based on bogus "facts" and without any references
TC> >or support forthcoming? Well, no.
TC> I guess we have different views of usenet. I think of it as more like
TC> graduate students at lunch, informally playing with ideas, less like a
TC> formal research seminar where every source must be cited.
TC> Tom Clarke
Grad students at lunch, hearing another spout dogma based on
erroneous "facts", would be far harsher on you than anyone here
has been. Why, some of them actually care about facts, and ideas,
and are trying to learn. In fact, most of them are far more
serious and critical than older academics, in my experience at least.
Formal research, on the other hand, is far more strict than
anything you're gonna see here. Formal research is reading 300+
scientific papers in order to make a 2-page chart; that sort of
thing.
Jim Moore (j#d#.moore@canrem.com)
* Q-Blue 2.0 *
|