Aquatic Ape Theory resurfaces.

Oh! I thought it was you that jumped on me! Which you did. And in the other thread.

Seriously: hypocrite. Grow up.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Bell
"Err no. Drop a baby into a pool and unless it has been taught to swim, it will drown."

I never said they wouldn't drown. Some things are so self evident I don't bother to explain them. As I said, they can swim and are naturally buoyant which assists them in staying alive long enough for help to arrive. Human baby's are completely helpless.

"And all humans are buoyant."

Buoyant, streamlined and capable of proficient swimming/diving.

GeoffP
"Silicon: a dropped larynx is, I admit, interesting. I'll look up prevalence in the rest of the Primates. But, however much better it might seem for us to have been aquatic, we have pretty strong proof of the Plains theory. I'd ascribe it to simple homoplastic convergence."

I never liked the Savannah Hypothesis. The first time I heard it I knew it was terribly flawed. In fact it's utter rubbish and has now been thrown out. Apes becoming erect to see over tall grass. Honestly!

I was talking to Elaine Morgan about this a couple of years ago. She wasn't surprisedthe Savannah Hypothesis got debunked. Because of political strife no expedition has been sent to Ethiopia yet to try and confirm AAT though. The Savannah Hypothesis is now history and AAT remains to be verified.

Bradley
"does any land animals have such a distinct taste for fish as humans do?"

In asia it makes up most of the diet. About a third of world supply. Fishing is certainly one of the oldest past times. But then humans can eat almost anything.

Wizard
"Why would the ancient primates have to hunt? I dont see that happening as well. Living in South Africa I know we have massive lightning storms here that often set the veldt on fire. I can imagine hungry apes eating some nice cooked game from those veldt fires.."

I don't think forest fires were all that common. Besides, our ancestors would have run at the first whiff of smoke. A lot slower than the rest of the animals too. I daresay the big cats would have feasted on various chargrilled primates after a big bushfire.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elaine_Morgan_(writer)

Fraggle Rocker
I'll look over your post later dude. Must get some work done.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Can other apes swim naturally from birth, or do they have to be taught too? Could this be an ability we've lost?

 

Bells:

How do they teach 4-12 month old babies to swim?

What do you think of water births?

 

In the first evidence we have of humans living on a savanna, they are already full bipedal. Convergence to what ? - a plains-dwelling animal picking up all manner of remnants of inconvenient aquatic physiology, how does it happen by "convergence" ?

A savanna ape that, in its initial transformations to bipedalism, couldn't have outrun a large snake ? With no hair in the wide temperature swings and fierce insects of the veldt ? With water and salt regulation so badly arranged that bands could make only short forays from open water, and live only a few miles at most from salt deposits? With a throat physiology found in no other dryland animal ?

Human babies can, for a few months after birth.

 

Baby Swimming Myths

 

I thought that the Aquatic Ape Theory claimed more than merely living near large bodies of water, catching aquatic animals for food, and wading/swimming a bit.

I thought that AAT referred to apes with abilities similar to dolphins or at least otters & penguins. I do not think there is any reasonalbe evidence for that type of ape.

 

Dinosaur
"I thought that the Aquatic Ape Theory claimed more than merely living near large bodies of water, catching aquatic animals for food, and wading/swimming a bit."

There are two main bodies of thought. The River Apes and Island Apes schools of thought. I subscribe to the island ape theory. I know that sea levels did indeed rise around the time we started to diverge from other apes. The common ancestor of both humans and chimpanzees lived in the Afar Triangle of north east Africa at this time and Danikil Island in particular would be an excellent site for a dig. Today it's a mountain but it became an island surrounded by smaller islands after sea levels rose. I haven't paid as close attention to the river ape theory.

"I thought that AAT referred to apes with abilities similar to dolphins or at least otters & penguins. I do not think there is any reasonalbe evidence for that type of ape.

We weren't mermen. Today we take our fondness towards water for granted. The best real estate is always river or sea front property. We take our holidays at the beach or go fishing. It seems so normal to us we couldn't imagine thinking in a different way.

We only lived in an semi-aquatic environment for a relatively short time. A good comparison would be stoats and otters. Genetically almost identical as they only diverged a relatively short time ago. Stoats mate doggy style like most if not all land animals but otters mate face to face. Stoats use their teeth to grip hold of the back of the females neck to keep her from moving and unfortunately this genetic heritage is still strong in otters. Zoo keepers always know when the females are in heat because they have bloody noses.

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

Stoat.

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

Otter.

Interestingly humans also mate face to face. Sometimes.

 

Well, Elaine Morgan is hardly an independent on the matter, and certainly not from the other camp. But why is the Savannah hypothesis wrong? You're aware, specifically, that various animals on the savannah benefit from vertical height, including antelopes and giraffes? Bipedalism reduces sun impact (though admittedly not so much for the head) and allows tool carrying. I tell you what: I'm not an expert in the period and I'm listening. Why don't we examine the direct evidence for the Savannah hypothesis piece by piece? Here's the wiki statement:

Best,

Geoff

 

No: I'll keep it in the open as befitting the nature of the forum insofar as they relate directly or indirectly to its management.

How odd. I wasn't aware that I'd actually meant those comments as anything other than the usual facetious Anglosphere jesting - most people are familiar with this - or even that I'd invited your ad hominem response. In any event, you're simply bashing me instead of laying about with the offensive phrase "the Jew" whilst citing a Holocaust denier and anti-semite - in other words, not an actual bigot - so I don't see any ethical reason to bring your comments to the attention of the forum organizer.

Best regards,

Geoff

 

I certainly will take it to another subforum, thankyou, providing the instigator (you) doesn't leap into an unrelated thread to attack me.

Best,

Geoff

http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=1840261&postcount=35

 

Nerd Fight!!!!

-gets 20 sided dice-

 

OK, we've got hominids not yet bipedal, chimp sized brains and pelvises, fangs, carrying tools and food. They're climbing trees with tools they invented fro some reason. OK.

And so when they have to travel with these tools and food, they get up on their short hind legs with inadequate pelvises and unsuitable feet, stick their heads up into the air where they can be seen and smelled for miles, grab a rock in each hand (or three legs even would be easier and safer) and stagger noisily out into a grassland full of large predators at a top speed of about 2 mph, for 'long distances" The leopards never catch on.

The explanation for this bizarre scene is a creationist, or at least remarkably prescient, one - it is "a way to give early hominids use of their hands" for things they are about to invent and do, such as cultivating food (at long distances, of course - they aren't that smart yet).

I don't think it adds up - and it goes downhill from there. They start losing their hair and fangs, adding fat, screwing up their larynx so they choke on their food, etc. The problem is the order of events - tools first, then long distance travel walking on their hind hands, then bipedalism on the savanna - and the nature of the selection pressure on the transitional stages.

I need a better just so story than that.

 

To the tune of "Girlfight"

[INTRO]
Boy stop
Its about to be a nerd fight
They really know
Da George Lucas
Uh huh uh huh
Big geek
A lil phreek!
Its about to be a what!
NERD fight !

We bout to throw dem bows
We bout to swang dem thangs

There's about to be a what? NERDfight!

[Chapter I]

There he go all talkin' mess
All round da Convention make me stress
He knock da Star Trek symbol off my chest!
He say if da Chess Club want some then they be next
It really ain't that complicated
Y' geeks and you sexually frustrated
Want some plex take out ya retainer
Ya acting real Shatner but I know ya fakin'

Know you really don't wanna roll a miss
And you plastic broadsword look like shit
'Bout to swing and prolly sprain a hip
It's about to be a what? Nerdfight!

We bout to throw dem bows
We bout to swang dem thangs
It's about to be a what? Nerdfight!

[Chapter II]

We takin a bus to ya neighborhood
The reason why we comin' is understood
Me and my boyz we down to ride
So ditch ya suspenders and bring ya butt outside
And if you try to summon an Orc and nem
Don't forget I got +5 bonus on dem
'Bout to go real hard 'bout to swang dem thangs
'Bout to feel my Sleep Spell all in ya brain

Know you really don't wanna roll a miss
And you plastic broadsword look like shit
'Bout to swing and prolly sprain a hip
It's about to be a what? Nerdfight!

We bout to throw dem bows
We bout to swang dem thangs
It's 'bout to be a what? NERDfight!

Oh! I know you don't want me to split yo dome!
Dude you makin me really mad...
Oh! I know you don't want me to split yo dome!
Donchu bruise ma face git French teacha mad...

[Big Boi]
Oh snap these losers they act like cats
In the middle of Shriners Hall now they preparing to scrap
Takin out they lightsabres and pullin' off their pressons
The one on the right is Green Lantern and the one the left is Wonderwoman
Someone please call Security
These boyz too purty
To get down to the nitty titty
I mean USS Kitty shitty
They nevah seen no titties
I'm trippin'
Being silly willy
Man go on let them dorks fight

We bout to throw dem bows
We bout to swang dem thangs
It's about to be a what? ...NERDfight!

Don't act like you don't know
Who shot da first - Han Solo!
See you peekin' out the window
I know you ain't talking noise on Halo!


Punk come outside
Don't act like you don't see me
Know you see my Darth Maul mask! uh
Come outside, uh, come outside, uh
We down to ride
But hurry cause I got to be home by nine

 

Actually, humans can run a fair bit faster than that. Much faster than chimps, for example, which also have to cross from woods to woods sometimes. Also, the intermediate stage isn't a slow Homo sapiens, but something smaller and faster and a lot more athetic.

I disagree here. Chimps use tools to fight off leopards. Sometimes they even kill them. And their landspeed is definitely worse than ours. How is this creationist?

Like I said: chimps. They're a transitional point also; their landspeed is bad and their tool use about as bad. What about a scenario not driven by predators? What about following migrating game on the open grasslands?

 

No it isn't. The intermediate stage is mechanically almost identical to a small chimp walking on its hind hands. Compared to its four-handed self, or even its three-handed (and one to carry) self: it's slow, it's awkward, it can't carry much, it's more visible, it has less endurance. It couldn't follow a migrating wildebeest four hundred yards, with or without a baby and a kit of tools.

It's about a thousand generations, minimum, of great advantage in hind hand walking across the leopard-ridden grassland, that needs explanation.

A chimp can move more stuff, faster and farther, in one hand using the other three for running, than it can in two hands using the other two for transport.

Looking at an ape better adapted to grassland, a baboon can also carry stuff better on three feet than two. Comparing baboons to chimps, we see that as expected grassland surroundings add to the advantages of intrinsically faster and more efficient four footed - or three footed - locomotion. Also fangs and hair, rather than dropped larynx's and layers of blubber.

Not to say there isn't a just so story that adds up, somehow, in the grassland transition notion - but what's been advanced so far is not reasonable.