Re: AAT Theory
H. M. Hubey (hubey@pegasus.montclair.edu)
24 Sep 1995 21:24:20 -0400
r3dlb1@dax.cc.uakron.edu (David L Burkhead ) writes:
>>Apes would not be more more streamlined than humans and neither
>>would animals like dogs or cats. Computing the drag coefficient
>>is a difficult business but it could be done experimentally.
> Jim didn't ask for how aquatic drag might be determined. He
>asked for a source for your claim that we _are_ "streamlined."
Since we're not discussing any numbers regarding streamlining
I responded in the same fuzzy way in which streamlining is
discussed. If intuition is not sufficient, I could recommend
taking a couple of courses in fluid dynamics.
>Several of the traits that go into that "streamlining" are of much
>more recent vintage than any hypothesized aquatic phase. The question
>wouldn't even be "are humans streamlined" it would be "were our
>_ancestors_ streamlined?"
Which ancestors? If we go back to the viruses and bacteria
it's pointless to ask the question. IF you're talking about
the divergence from the less bipedal primates' ancestors
then the streamlining must have obviously been after the
divergence. I don't even know what you're saying?
>so. If you, or anyone else, is going to cite "streamlining" as
>evidence of an earlier aquatic lifestyle, I'd just _love_ to hear the
>explanation for why we didn't develop that trait until millions of
>years after the lifestyle was _over_!
I don't know that the trait was developed millions of
years after the lifestyle was over? That's like asking why
we still have a "grasping thumb and fingers" millions of
years after we climbed down the trees. Did anything happen
after the AP was over in which we should have gone back
to crawling on all fours? Or should we have climbed back
onto the trees?
--
Regards, Mark
http://www.smns.montclair.edu/~hubey
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