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Author Topic:   Aquatic Ape theory?
Blue Jay
Member (Idle past 2697 days)
Posts: 2843
From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts
Joined: 02-04-2008


Message 84 of 138 (553766)
04-05-2010 12:08 AM
Reply to: Message 83 by arrogantape
04-04-2010 10:42 PM


Hi, Arrogant Ape.
arrogantape writes:
Remember, you can't use the brave hunter venturing into the savannah model. Upright Ardi was found to be living in a watery forest.
Brave hunters can't walk in forests?
Besides, there’s evidence of grasslands mixed with the forests in Ardi's habitat, too, so there's still plenty of places for Ardi to go walking around.
-----
arrogantape writes:
Try to race a chimp up a tree.
Deer survive very well in forests without being able to climb trees.
-----
arrogantape writes:
Our sweat not only cools us, it exudes salt. In a salty, sunny environment that is a plus for both categories.
Why would you think the Middle Awash, Ethiopia was a salty environment? And, if it was a forest, sunny is probably also dubious. Furthermore, arguing that perspiration is consistent with an aquatic animal is a sure sign of confirmation bias.
I think I’ve been largely convinced by RAZD’s sexual selection argument for human nakedness. Uprightness is still up in the air, but I can think of a fair number of hypotheses that explain it equally as well as the aquatic ape hypothesis.
Look, I agree that the aquatic ape hypothesis is somewhat consistent with the evidence, and I’m not philosophically opposed to it, but you’re really trying so hard to make every little, insignificant thing you see into evidence for it that I can’t really consider you credible. Like RAZD said, you’re experiencing confirmation bias.
But, keep on posting new information: it gives me the chance to keep up on the topic of human evolution. I would be very interested to learn of any real evidence for an aquatic phase in human evolution, but I don’t think you’ve really presented anything really substantive.
And, feel free to join in other discussions, too: you’re always welcome.

-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)
Darwin loves you.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 83 by arrogantape, posted 04-04-2010 10:42 PM arrogantape has not replied

  
Blue Jay
Member (Idle past 2697 days)
Posts: 2843
From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts
Joined: 02-04-2008


Message 87 of 138 (553915)
04-05-2010 5:58 PM
Reply to: Message 85 by arrogantape
04-05-2010 2:05 AM


Hi, Arrogantape.
arrogantape writes:
I will never believe a bare bod could be gene pooled without some other impetus other than through sexual preference.
I argued the same thing, long and hard, in why is the lack of "fur" positive Progression for humans?, and I still have a difficult time swallowing the sexual selection thing fully myself. But the evidence for it is good, and the evidence for everything else is less good.
You would do well to not set yourself philosophically against an idea when the evidence is still somewhat up in the air.
-----
arrogantape writes:
Chimps and Gorillas, and all the monkeys have never found nudity becoming at all.
I think you'll find that arguments by analogy can only go so far. For example, chimps, humans, gorillas, lemurs and spider monkeys don't find blue butts becoming at all, and yet...
That's a male mandrill, the world's largest monkey.
There is so much diversity in animals, even among mammals, that you're not going to be able to support a grand hypothesis like the Aquatic Ape Hypothesis just by appealing to similarities with other animals and telling a fun story.

-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)
Darwin loves you.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 85 by arrogantape, posted 04-05-2010 2:05 AM arrogantape has not replied

  
Blue Jay
Member (Idle past 2697 days)
Posts: 2843
From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts
Joined: 02-04-2008


Message 92 of 138 (554153)
04-06-2010 4:31 PM
Reply to: Message 89 by arrogantape
04-05-2010 7:44 PM


Hi, Ape.
Can you please start using the "reply" button at the bottom right corner of the message you're replyiing to: that makes it easy to follow who and what you're responding to.
Don't use the "Gen Reply" button unless you're not responding to somebody specifically.
arrogantape writes:
Our butts grew out of the enlargement of our gluteus medius and maximus muscles used in running and walking........ And, less we forget, swimming.
...and jumping and dancing and sitting in chairs...
...Seriously, learn to recognize confirmation bias and stop letting it determine your opinions about things.

-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)
Darwin loves you.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 89 by arrogantape, posted 04-05-2010 7:44 PM arrogantape has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 94 by arrogantape, posted 04-06-2010 6:57 PM Blue Jay has replied

  
Blue Jay
Member (Idle past 2697 days)
Posts: 2843
From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts
Joined: 02-04-2008


Message 93 of 138 (554155)
04-06-2010 4:43 PM
Reply to: Message 91 by arrogantape
04-05-2010 9:23 PM


Hi, Ape.
arrogantape writes:
So, what are you saying, Homo floresiensis is a shrunken Homo sapiens? Cladistic analysis puts flo after H habilis. There just are too many ape like features to link it to H erectus, let alone H sapiens.
I don't see anything that RAZD said that even remotely resembles this.
-----
arrogantape writes:
As far as I know this is the latest word on the environment Ardi was found: "According to Scott Simpson, the Gona Project's physical anthropologist, the fossil evidence from the Middle Awash indicates that both A. kadabba and A. ramidus lived in "'a mosaic of woodland and grasslands with lakes, swamps and springs nearby,'" but further research is needed to determine which habitat Ardipithecus at Gona preferred."
You somehow manage to overlook the word I underlined every time you read and quote this. If you were being really honest, you would have to admit that the inclusion of "grasslands" in the habitat of Ardipithecus kind of undermines your only real argument against the "brave hunter on the plains" model.

-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)
Darwin loves you.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 91 by arrogantape, posted 04-05-2010 9:23 PM arrogantape has not replied

  
Blue Jay
Member (Idle past 2697 days)
Posts: 2843
From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts
Joined: 02-04-2008


Message 99 of 138 (554232)
04-07-2010 12:45 AM
Reply to: Message 98 by arrogantape
04-07-2010 12:06 AM


Hi, Ape.
arrogantape writes:
What was it's advantage over the chimp?
Why did Ardipithecus need an advantage over a chimpanzee?
Outcompeting chimpanzees is not the only formula for survival.

-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)
Darwin loves you.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 98 by arrogantape, posted 04-07-2010 12:06 AM arrogantape has not replied

  
Blue Jay
Member (Idle past 2697 days)
Posts: 2843
From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts
Joined: 02-04-2008


Message 100 of 138 (554238)
04-07-2010 1:04 AM
Reply to: Message 94 by arrogantape
04-06-2010 6:57 PM


Hi, Ape.
arrogantape writes:
The reason I don't believe in the brave hunter model is because the few holdouts on the, "Peeking over the grass," impetus for uprightness don't really look at the difficulties presented by this model. The earliest upright walkers had no specialized tools. A pride of lions would make a quick meal of them caught out in the open.
Do you really think these "holdouts" think early hominids suddenly dropped out of the trees, walked away on two legs, and never looked back?
Seriously, put a little thought into this, please!
What intermediate would there be between a tree-dwelling ape and brave savannah hunter? Do you think maybe the intermediate would be a facultative biped that could still climb trees? What would such an organism look like? Wouldn’t it look like Ardipithecus?
-----
arrogantape writes:
I gave you three good examples of primates doing just that.
So, what did you think of the three monkeys I portrayed?
I think they're about as relevant to human evolution as three salamanders are to frog evolution.

-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)
Darwin loves you.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 94 by arrogantape, posted 04-06-2010 6:57 PM arrogantape has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 101 by arrogantape, posted 04-07-2010 1:23 AM Blue Jay has replied

  
Blue Jay
Member (Idle past 2697 days)
Posts: 2843
From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts
Joined: 02-04-2008


Message 103 of 138 (554305)
04-07-2010 9:33 AM
Reply to: Message 101 by arrogantape
04-07-2010 1:23 AM


Hi, Ape.
arrogantape writes:
And you still have not given me any alternative to my belief that would explain what pushed our former ape ancestor into an upright stance.
None that you're willing to consider, anyway.
The point of the problem is that we have an animal that is pretty well intermediate between bipedal and arboreal, and you're wanting to introduce another factor into the equation on the basis of... really, nothing, other than that you happen to be a water-lover and find the idea of a water-based phase of human evolution to be attractive.
The theory that the upright stance evolved so Ardipithecus could gather and carry armloads of food has more support and more parsimony than the aquatic ape theory.

-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)
Darwin loves you.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 101 by arrogantape, posted 04-07-2010 1:23 AM arrogantape has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 105 by arrogantape, posted 04-07-2010 8:30 PM Blue Jay has replied

  
Blue Jay
Member (Idle past 2697 days)
Posts: 2843
From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts
Joined: 02-04-2008


Message 110 of 138 (554386)
04-07-2010 11:24 PM
Reply to: Message 105 by arrogantape
04-07-2010 8:30 PM


Hi, Ape.
arrogantape writes:
My mind just can't wrap around the notion some ape (The Chimps and Gorillas split at 7 mil) female let the male know she is forsooth a housewife. To carry on the premise, the knuckle walker male set out on a perilous journey to find scarce food. There were predators, and territorial apes to avoid. Finally, after some harrowing near misses, he found some decent chewables, he gathered a bunch under his arm and carefully knuckled to home base. So here is the evolutionary impetus. There is an ever demanding bitch yelling at the male to get more!!!
I don't appreciate your caricatures of my arguments. Please address them as they are and try to refrain from embellishing them with your cornball humor.
Curiously, the situation I depicted is remarkably similar to the way apes live today, except that they don't carry their food very far from where they find it. Perhaps the evolutionary pressures exerted by predators forced Ardipithecus to carry its food back to a safe lair where it could be consumed.
This explanation is far simpler, and merges far more clearly with the data we have about ape and early human lifestyles, than does the aquatic ape hypothesis. It's frankly silly to think that anything more than this sort of simple explanation is needed to explain the evidence we have seen.

-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)
Darwin loves you.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 105 by arrogantape, posted 04-07-2010 8:30 PM arrogantape has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 113 by arrogantape, posted 04-08-2010 1:13 AM Blue Jay has replied

  
Blue Jay
Member (Idle past 2697 days)
Posts: 2843
From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts
Joined: 02-04-2008


Message 118 of 138 (554441)
04-08-2010 10:20 AM
Reply to: Message 113 by arrogantape
04-08-2010 1:13 AM


Hi, Arrogant Ape.
Do have a problem with my name? Bluebirds and blue jays are not the same thing. You're trying too hard to be cute and clever.
arrogantape writes:
I have to tell you, though, I was a bit hurt by the way you depicted your rejection of primate behavior as specious as would be a salamander and a frog.
There was as much as 240 million years between the advent of the salamander and the split to the frog. The old world monkeys are just 30 to 40 million years separate from us.
Timeframe doesn't matter. You've pointed out three examples of things that are not on our direct line of descent. So, even if those animals are adapting to the water (and, as RAZD has argued, they are not), what does this mean for us? The animals that fit between us and those monkeys in the Tree of Life are not aquatic, so, clearly, their aquaticism is not related to any putative aquaticism in our heritage.
They're irrelevent.
-----
arrogantape writes:
Anyway the Savannah theory has bit the dust.
What is the "savannah theory"? Is it just the idea that we evolved on the savannah?
What does that have to do with the impetus for evolving bipedalism?
Is walking not viable in woodlands or in mixed woodlands/grasslands?
The alternatives to the aquatic ape hypothesis are not really as reliant on there being a savannah as you seem to think they are.

-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)
Darwin loves you.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 113 by arrogantape, posted 04-08-2010 1:13 AM arrogantape has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 122 by arrogantape, posted 04-08-2010 12:59 PM Blue Jay has not replied
 Message 123 by RAZD, posted 04-08-2010 10:07 PM Blue Jay has not replied

  
Blue Jay
Member (Idle past 2697 days)
Posts: 2843
From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts
Joined: 02-04-2008


Message 126 of 138 (563425)
06-04-2010 8:09 PM
Reply to: Message 113 by arrogantape
04-08-2010 1:13 AM


Ardipithecus on the Savannah
I realize Arrogantape hasn't been around for awhile, but there was a new study published recently that is rather pertinent to this discussion that we were having.
arrogantape writes:
Anyway the Savannah theory has bit the dust. The environment Ardi was found in is a world of dense woods, meadows, streams, lakes, and springs.
This article details a new analysis of the put forward for Ardipithecus as a woodland species.
This re-analysis shows that the region Ardipithecus inhabited was clearly a savannah, with perhaps 5% to 25% tree cover. They are careful not to say that they support the "Savannah Hypothesis" (in fact, I think they reject the hypothesis themselves), but they do say that this data does nothing to refute it at all.
So, an alternative explanation for the earliest human evolutionary stages is not currently required or indicated.
Edited by Bluejay, : Subtitle

-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)
Darwin loves you.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 113 by arrogantape, posted 04-08-2010 1:13 AM arrogantape has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 127 by arrogantape, posted 06-04-2010 9:48 PM Blue Jay has replied
 Message 130 by RAZD, posted 06-04-2010 10:41 PM Blue Jay has replied

  
Blue Jay
Member (Idle past 2697 days)
Posts: 2843
From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts
Joined: 02-04-2008


Message 128 of 138 (563436)
06-04-2010 10:06 PM
Reply to: Message 127 by arrogantape
06-04-2010 9:48 PM


Re: Ardipithecus on the Savannah
Hi, Arrogantape.
arrogantape writes:
I just had an OPLL operation. That is a major operation on the spine, the neck in my case.
I hope everything went okay. You still seem your chipper, witty self, so I'll assume it went well.
-----
arrogantape writes:
The paper you latched onto is an opinion.
I didn't really "latch onto" it: I just wanted to throw it out there.
And, it's an opinion paper with a statistical analysis in it.
-----
arrogantape writes:
Dr. White countered that the monkeys found in the same dig were leaf eating forest monkeys.
By definition, savannahs have trees in them. Therefore, they also have tree-dwelling animals in them.
-----
arrogantape writes:
...Ardi was adapted to climbing.
...and for walking, too.
Ardipithecus is an intermediate form, after all.
And, savannahs are intermediates between forests and grasslands: they are therefore great places to harbor the evolution of grassland apes from forest apes.

-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)
Darwin loves you.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 127 by arrogantape, posted 06-04-2010 9:48 PM arrogantape has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 129 by arrogantape, posted 06-04-2010 10:21 PM Blue Jay has not replied

  
Blue Jay
Member (Idle past 2697 days)
Posts: 2843
From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts
Joined: 02-04-2008


Message 131 of 138 (563452)
06-04-2010 11:46 PM
Reply to: Message 130 by RAZD
06-04-2010 10:41 PM


Re: Ardipithecus walking on the emerging Savannah
Hi, RAZD.
RAZD writes:
That, to me, doesn't sound like it is "clearly savannah" but rather a mixed environment.
Well, a "mixed environment" is what a savannah is. So, my saying that it was clearly a savannah was my saying it was clearly a "mixed environment." (It was also supposed to be my presenting somebody else's conclusion, but it didn't come off that way).
I think the savannah model fits this geographic evidence perfectly. There were tree-climbing, forest apes in the forests; bipedal, grassland apes in the grasslands; and now, bipedal/tree-climbing apes in the savannahs.
This makes it a nice intermediary. I always thought this was the basic idea of the Savannah Hypothesis.

-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)
Darwin loves you.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 130 by RAZD, posted 06-04-2010 10:41 PM RAZD has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 132 by RAZD, posted 06-05-2010 9:20 AM Blue Jay has not replied

  
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