Re: Refs, please... was... Re: AAT Theory

H. M. Hubey (hubey@pegasus.montclair.edu)
21 Oct 1995 23:25:10 -0400

pnich@globalone.net (Phil Nicholls) writes:

>First of all the "SST" and "MST" are bogus concepts. The fact that
>you continue to invoke them demonstrates that you seem to be addicted
>to straw-man type arguments.

Why is it that you behave like a spelling checker. SST and MST
are three letters which stand for a whole concept, an idea,
a description, and explanation, a theory, a scenario,
a hypothesis,...blah blah....

I read your long list of references in your remark to Troy(?).

I read some of those. Some of them have the wrong dates. And the ones
that I read are essentially raw data, photos, with some of
the authors opinions. There's nothing there that can't be
put into a few words on this newsgroup. Instead you choose to
use authoritarianism. i.e. the guys who wrote the articles know,
so read them and you too will know.

There's no such thing. You are still doing it.

>Second, the transition from trees to ground does not present the same
>problem because all anthropoid primates are can move bipedally to some
>extent and because no one disagrees with the notion that there was
>movement from trees to ground.

yes.

>Hominid bipedalism is clearly a terrestrial adaptation.

Sure over the long run. We are terrestrial. It's the middle that
people are talking about. Suppose there are flightless birds,
I mean birds that never flew. Would you say that it's an air
adaptation because wings are for flying so therefore no matter
if the bird ever flew or not the wings (of the bird which
never flew) are still air adaptations?

>Finally, you continue to confuse habitate with niche. Hominids
>bipedalism is the result of an adaptation to a specific niche and not
>merely the result of moving out onto the savannah.

I think you are trying to confuse via overabstractification.

No habitat, no niche. That's the physics of it.

The niche [abstract concept] occurs within a habitat [an actual
physical existence]. The hominid niche had to occur in the
savannah mostly [because of the MST backpedaling] and the fact
is that we don't even know what they found on the savannah
that kept them going. The discussion so far has been on
why it would have been difficult for them to find any niche
at all in that habitat. And if they were scavenging leftovers
from predators there must have been plenty of prey animals
around. I don't see how that could have happened on a dry
savannah. I'd expect a lush steppe with tall grass with
millions and millions of prey. But then that would mean also
lots of predators. So far they look like easiest things to
catch. There was something else going on, but what?

Anway, what's the point?

-- 





				Regards, Mark

				http://www.smns.montclair.edu/~hubey