4. Morgan quotes Denton
J. Moore (j#d#.moore@canrem.com)
Tue, 5 Sep 95 17:54:00 -0500
*** Section 4: Morgan quotes Denton *******************************
Morgan quotes Denton, pg. 101:
"On the other hand, when an animal has had enough salt it will take
no more. In humans neither the compulsory search nor the abrupt
cut-off point can be relied on. Their intake bears no relation to
salt deficit or surplus. This is surely not a characteristic that
would have been acquired on the savannah. As Denton points out,
in savannah conditions '...selective pressures would favour retention
and perhaps elaboration of salt mechanisms'."
That's the context within which Morgan quotes Denton. Now I've
already shown that the claims Morgan makes in her first three
sentences are false, and in fact are contradicted by Denton's
work. But in this section we are concerning ourselves only with
Morgan's Denton quote, so let's take this quote apart:
"As Denton points out, in savannah conditions '...selective pressures
would favour retention and perhaps elaboration of salt mechanisms'."
As you'll notice from the full and unaltered quote of Denton's
sentence below (and the full paragraph I'll quote later for
context) Morgan's lead-in phrase, "in savannah conditions", is
a complete fabrication. Denton neither says it nor implies it.
He refers instead to the "environmental, dietetic and metabolic
conditions" which led to "the behaviour towards salt of a wide
variety of species of wild herbivorous mammals", and he points
out that these conditions could naturally have "operated on
hominoids over a large part of their evolution". So he is not,
as Morgan implies, referring to a relatively transient period
of a few million years or to only "savannah conditions", but
instead to a wide variety of environments and conditions over
tens of millions of years.
That this very long time period, and the largely vegetarian
(ie., non-salty) diet of our ancestors, is what he means is
clear from the sentence that opens this section of Denton's book:
"The principal consideration in this discussion of the 30 million
years of evolution of the Hominidae, is that diet was probably
almost exclusively vegetarian during the first 25 million years."
(Denton 1982:70)
He also points out that given data from humans who gather and hunt
today, "diet may also have been predominantly vegetarian over the
last five million years, though there was considerable variation
in diet according to the prevailing climate and conditions".
This lead-in fabrication ("in savannah conditions") giving a false
context to Denton's words is just the first bit of tweaking Morgan
does to make the quote say what she wants it to, and she hasn't
even gotten to the quoted material yet!
Denton, *The Hunger for Salt*, pg. 70 (Brackets shown words missing
from Morgan's quoting of Denton):
"[It follows that] selection pressure would favour retention and,
perhaps, elaboration of salt [appetite] mechanisms..."
Now about the word "appetite" being missing in Morgan's book.
Well, she changed "selection" to "selective" -- maybe she's just a
poor library researcher and proofreader. It is suspicious, though,
that it just happens to be a word that might well make many readers
realize that these "salt mechanisms" are part of their own
familiar, personal behavioral repertoire, rather than a "lost
instinct" as Morgan wants them to believe. It also leads into
the rest of Denton's sentence, which Morgan seems not have wanted
her readers to see at all:
Denton, *The Hunger for Salt*, pg. 70:
"[It follows that] selection pressure would favour retention and,
perhaps, elaboration of salt [appetite] mechanisms [--both hedonic
liking and the hunger with deficiency--which were developed at
earlier stages of phylogeny.]"
The hedonic liking of salt, a very recognizeable characteristic in
humans. The hunger with deficiency as well is present in humans
just as in other mammals, contrary to Morgan's claim, as Denton's
book clearly demonstrates. Morgan's edited quote puts one in mind
of what Philip Kitcher said about the quoting techniques of a of
creationists:
"Whitcomb and Morris do not quote that sentence. Perhaps this is
because it conflicts with the point they are trying to defend.
Or perhaps we should accept the explanation that Gish is reported
to have offered at the Arkansas trial: 'After all, you have to
stop quoting somewhere.'" (Kitcher 1982:182)
It sure *looks* like Morgan was trying to hide something, but who
knows; maybe, like Gish, she'd just say: "After all, you have to
stop quoting somewhere."
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Here's Denton's full paragraph; Denton, pg. 70:
"The behaviour towards salt of a wide variety of species of wild
herbivorous mammals has been recorded in Chapter 3. The
environmental, dietetic and metabolic conditions which determined
it could have operated on hominoids over a large part of their
evolution. It follows that selection pressure would favour
retention and, perhaps, elaboration of salt appetite mechanisms--both
hedonic liking and the hunger with deficiency--which were developed
at earlier stages of phylogeny. This may also have held for the
elaboration of salt retention by aldosterone secretion, which has
a multifactorial mode of control that includes special adaptations
to the assumption of the upright posture. This selection pressure
would have been ameliorated by meat-eating with the consequential
obligatory sodium supply during the latter 2-3 million years of
hominid evolution. Whether this resulted in regression of these
mechanisms to any extent is a matter of speculation (see Chapter
26)."
Refs **************************************************************
1982 *Abusing Science: The Case Against Creationism*,
by Philip Kitcher. The MIT Press: Cambridge, Mass. and London,
England.
1990 *The Scars of Evolution*, by Elaine Morgan.
Souvenir Press: London.
1982 *The Hunger for Salt*, by Derek Denton.
Springer-Verlag: Berlin, Heidelberg, New York.
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Lastly, Morgan attempts to convince us that we are marine
creatures at heart by telling us a tale of woe about children in
famines, and how their death rates were halved by oral rehydration
therapy:
Morgan, pg. 102:
"Oral rehydration therapy -- a simple cheap solution of sugar and
salt -- instantly halved the diarrhoea death rate in the villages
where it was administered."
So now, unless this whole section of her book was simply an
elaborate non sequitur, a completely off-the-subject digression,
Morgan now apparently also proposes that in addition to a few
million years spent in a saltwater environment, we must also have
have spent a similar period of immersion in sugar-water!
I don't think so, Elaine...
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Jim Moore (j#d#.moore@canrem.com)
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