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Re: Reply from Elaine MORGAN on AAT
Jonathan E. Feinstein (jfeinstein@umassd.edu)
Tue, 13 Dec 1994 11:54:07 GMT
In article <765221947wnr@desco.demon.co.uk>, Elaine@desco.demon.co.uk (Elaine Morgan) writes:
Elaine,
You make your case well and lucidly. I hope, however, if you'll forgive
me if I remain unconvinced until the fossil evidence back you up. I will
promise to keep an open mind in the meantime. Just one question, however...
>FAT. Yes, ageing overfed captive apes esp orangs will become obese . I
>stated this too. So apes are the same as us? Wrong. Their fat adheres
>to underlying tissues, is not bonded to the skin as in humans and
>aquatics. Only in H sap. among primates do babies and infants have a
>thick fat layer. Why should this be?
>
>DIVING REFLEX. Yes, most land animals possess this in some degree. I
>conceded this decades ago as soon as it was established. It was not
>known in 1972
>
>DATE: It is not a suspicious circumstance that AAT claims the aquatic
>interlude happened during the fossil gap when it cannot be disproved by
>fossil evidence. The date of the ape-human split is supplied by the
>microbiologists and is not in dispute. Argument is about what triggered it.
>The most dramatic environmental event of that period in Africa was the
>flooding of the Afar Triangle.
>
>LONGDISTANCE RUNNING. The classic reference to this is a paper by
>Carrier. It could be a spin-off benefit of highly-evolved bipedalism
>but could not have triggered it. The original shambling apes could not
>have outrun a springbok.
>
> Re: Morgan did not originate the AAT idea. No, nor ever claimed to.That
>insight required genius which I do not possess. I only became its
>arch-defender by default because nobody else volunteered.
>
>FYI: OUP plan to issue an American edition of The Scars of Evolution
>in the spring together with The Descent of the Child (1994)
>
>Elaine Morgan .
>
>
>
>
>
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JFeinstein@umassd.edu
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Immortality is something you need to grow into.
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