Re: A Specification for a
J. Moore (j#d#.moore@canrem.com)
Wed, 25 Oct 95 09:25:00 -0500
Pa> j#d#.moore@canrem.com "J. Moore" writes:
Pa> > We know that humans today are one single species.
Pa> > We know that humans today vary in body hairiness.
Pa> > We know that this characteristic varies regionally.
Pa> > <snips>
Pa> > Therefore, since we see that this characteristic can come and/or
Pa> > go that quickly (a few 10s of thousands of years or less), any
Pa> > theory postulating its "loss" during the transition can only be
Pa> > an untestable, and unwarranted, assumption.
Pa> It may be untestable with current data and methodology, but it is hardly
Pa> unwarranted. There is a phenomenon that needs explanation.
What I said was unwarranted was the assumption that it happened
during the transition from CA to hominid.
That hair loss is something which we want to investigate is a given.
We see no evidence that it happened during the transition, however,
since we see that in our own late-arriving species, there is
considerable variation in this characteristic. This would suggest
that it happened pretty recently, or possibly that it's a trait that
comes and goes extremely quickly.
If it first changed during the span of our species, it didn't
happen during the transition from the CA. If, OTOH, it both appears
and disappears that quickly (a few tens of thousands of years),
the trait could have disappeared and appeared several times in our
past, but the assumption that it happened during the transition
from CA to hominid would still be unwarranted.
Jim Moore (j#d#.moore@canrem.com)
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