Re: Guide for anti-AATers
H. M. Hubey (hubey@pegasus.montclair.edu)
21 Oct 1995 22:23:53 -0400
chris brochu <gator@mail.utexas.edu> writes:
>hubey@pegasus.montclair.edu writes:
>>Anything that gets rid of salt can be a salt excretion mechanism.
>>I agree that unless they wept a lot it would be ineffective,
>>certainly not as effective as kidneys or sweating but so what.
>As I stated in an earlier post, crocodylians regulate salt overload with
>glands in their mouth. Several studies have shown that the fluid coming
>from these glands is much more saline than normal body fluid. Sea
>turtles show something similar, but this does not appear to be a general
>reptilian trait.
Thanks for the references and i was staying out of this except
for one line in which I said that anything that excretest salt
can be used as a salt excretion mechanism (tautology :-).
But the problem is that we are talking about two different
time periods. Anti-AAT/AAS folks talk about today's humans;
the AAS/AAT folks are talking (actually theorizing or
should I say hypothesizing) about our ancestors who might
have lived in a salt water environment about 4-5 Mya (maybe
even more).
Under the circumstances, the only important question is this:
Could the human tear apparatus be an atrophied version of
something that was effective at getting rid of excess salt
at high concentrations about 4-5Mya?
Yes, sure it could be. That the rest of the discussion is
about whether all/some animals also have tear ducts, or
also weep or weep salty tears, or emotional tears are
various attempts to produce correlations about relevant
scenarios.
Please see also my other post on this.
--
Regards, Mark
http://www.smns.montclair.edu/~hubey
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