Michael Odent on "Homo, the Marine Chimpanzee"

Discussion in 'Alternative Theories' started by CEngelbrecht, Jan 22, 2018.

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  1. CEngelbrecht Registered Senior Member

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    That's the ape we're talking about, init? What, you can't look beyond a pair of breasts? Well done, scientist.

    BAM, there goes the theory of evolution. Congratulations, creationists, you won!

    (And bipedalism is only dependent on fresh water bodies, e.g. in the hinterland of Africa ~7mya and on. The big brain is dependent on salt water coast lines in e.g. the Afar Depression ~2mya and on, because only salt water food chains contain both DHA and iodine. That's why the dates differ. But water is still the agent. All these objections have been answered again and again, in true scientific discourse. But you just can't be bothered to read the litterature, 'cause you still think you don't have to.)

    Yeah, them fossils with surfers ear growth in Homo erectus specimens...

     
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  3. Daecon Kiwi fruit Valued Senior Member

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    It doesn't seem like you've looked at all the evidence both for and against the AAH and decided that the "against" stuff is irrelevant and therefore decided the AAH is true all along.

    It seems more like that you've started with the "AAH is correct" as your default position and only acknowledged the supporting evidence while ignoring anything that doesn't fit in with your conclusion.

    That's not science. You've not explained away any of the "against" evidence.
     
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  5. CEngelbrecht Registered Senior Member

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    What do you know about what I've looked at or not? I've spent twenty years on this idea, read thousands of pages about both dry and wet scenarios, trying to keep up with the litterature, just like you're supposed to. Why do you think I wouldn't make an effort weighing one against the other? Just because water would come out strong against the mainstream on the other side of convergent evolution and parsimony doesn't make it bad science.

    Are you sure it's not you doing the exact opposite? That you started with the "AAH is incorrect" as your default position and ignored anything that doesn't fit that conclusion?
     
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  7. Daecon Kiwi fruit Valued Senior Member

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    Nope. I looked at the reasons why the AAH doesn't hold up (such as the stuff I quoted from RationalWiki to start with) and decided that the aquatic ape hypothesis is probably incorrect.

    It's a nice idea, but it's all circumstantial and (and this is important) has evidence against it.
     
  8. CEngelbrecht Registered Senior Member

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    Sorry, mate, but you got it completely turned on its head. It's the fully dry scenario that is the nice idea, but is all circumstantial and with all the evidence against it. For one, you're completely rejecting any notion of convergent evolution in human origin. It is the exact opposite of parsimony to require special circumstances to make the dry scenario stick, when these unique ape traits just don't have dry analogies, while having nothing but wet ones. The waterside ideas are firmly rooted in convergent evolution ever since Hardy and wouldn't exist without it.

    https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/hippo-sweat-natural-sunscreen
     
  9. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    Since it's only a back shot

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    But even a full frontal would only a few moments attention and would not entice to read the junk text

    This savannah chimp knows junk when it sees it

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  10. Gawdzilla Sama Valued Senior Member

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    I'm lost. Why is this aquatic ape theory so important to some people. It was a groaner over at ISF last time I looked.
     
  11. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    No one is proposing a "fully dry" scenario. Now you are making up strawmen.
     
  12. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    That's not "the claim".

    Note how diligently and persistently the people objecting to this hypothesis put up strawmen, weak versions, etc. That's not how it's supposed to be done, eh?
    And lizards, mice, and elephants.
    So?
    None of that explains the radical alteration in form found in humans. The opposite - careful attention to such events reveals the high barrier that the hominid lineage overcame. Quadrupeds - including the apes - are seriously handicapped when bipedal, much clumsier and slower, much less efficient. (Except when wading, btw). The Darwinian pressure must have been something quite a bit more serious than reaching for fruit on occasion, or walking a tree limb now and then.
    1) We aren't talking about the ecology of ancient hominins. We're talking about the ecology of a tree dwelling quadrupedal ape.
    2) That seems to be a false claim - except for, possibly, the hairlessness, which actually does have a couple of solid alternative explanations (and the big brain, which is wrong in theory and on the evidence both). Instead, we get things like this:
    crude errors of sequence of the kind best handled in introductory biology classes,
    and this
    Uh, hello? Yes, we sure as hell do. Extraordinary occurrences require at least sufficient explanations.
    How would standing up in trees - something every tree climbing organism above a certain size does on occasion, afaik - make a quadruped's choosing to handicap itself with a lifetime of clumsy, slow, inefficient, exhausting, short-legged, crippled-up, predator-attracting, ground locomotion any more likely? Bears stand on their hind legs a lot already on the ground - even in trees, when they are cubs - but not when they want to get somewhere. Likewise chimps and baboons and baby gorillas.
    This is actually a strawman. Choosing somebody's overreach or error to set up as the target of criticism, is invalid argument against the hypothesis itself.

    Biologists who objected to the amphibious ape hypothesis itself, in good faith, would object to the strongest versions they could set up rather than the weakest they could find. And they would apply equivalent standards to other hypotheses competing for plausibility. Neither of those expected features of reasonable discussion appears to be common.
     
    Last edited: Jan 25, 2018
  13. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    The response to it is revelatory, and disturbing, is I think the basic problem. Like the response to the critics of nuclear power dissemination and industrial food modifications then, or gmo dissemination now, it highlights something we are supposed to be able to dismiss as a factor in the modern scientific age: scientists are not only individually human and irrational, they can form a consensus around that irrationality, establish a delusion as consensus fact. There is no emperor immune to fooling themselves about their wardrobe.
     
  14. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    This quote from the Wikipedia page is quite relevant:

    "The entirety of the "aquatic ape" proposal remains highly controversial, and is more popular with the lay public than with scientists."
     
  15. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    There's the problem

    Mermaid man knows some lay public will go for offbeat ideas

    It's the pesky monkey man scientists who need convincing

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  16. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    Let's examine that analogy.

    Imagine two groups who, over time, polarize due to the political forces arrayed for and against nuclear power. One side thinks that 100% nuclear power is the only way to go; any other source is inferior, and will lead to climate change, grid collapse, expensive power, hunger and starvation etc etc. To prove this they show all the glorious benefits of fusion and thorium reactors, technologies that (they say) are already here, and downplay or ignore the problems and accidents that have happened.

    The other side thinks that nuclear power must be banned. All plants must be shut down immediately lest they turn into Chernobyls and Fukushimas. They tout the radiation levels observed in the Ukraine and around Japan and point to all the cancers people are getting. They say that renewable energy is the only way to go, and a 100% renewable grid must be implemented within the decade.

    Which one is right?

    If you have let the politicization reach that point, then you've already lost - because neither side is really rational. And the voices that say "nuclear for baseload, but they make terrible load following plants" or "keep the plants we have" or "research new plants, then when they work build them" get lost in all the sound and fury.

    Likewise, the CEngelbrechts vs the savannah-only people (if any such people exist, which I haven't seen) are making a similar mistake. There's no question that mankind had contact with water during his evolution. There's ample evidence that early man fished and clammed, AND that he evolved primarily in a savannah environment; the two are not mutually exclusive. Anyone who reads that statement and feels their blood pressure go through the roof is probably one of those two extremes, and not really worth listening to.
     
  17. Gawdzilla Sama Valued Senior Member

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    Hairy humans find A source of food. ALL hairy humans go wet. They lose their hair. For a while. Then they get out of the water and go back to being regular humans, which is where we are today.

    What about the people who didn't live along a coast line. How about proto-Inuits? Skinny dip much, Nanuk?

    Beware monocausality, people, it's seductive and easy, but it's also a trap.
     
  18. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    No analogy present. An example, rather.
    Exactly. Its dismissal is a popularity consensus among scientists, not reasoned from evidence in good faith. That's what's disturbing about it.
    That and the fact that there are some startlingly bad arguments being accepted and granted respect by not only individual scientists but entire scientific communities. That's worse than layfolk falling for bad argument, imho.
    Meanwhile, the "savannah ape" notion gets a pass - it makes less sense, agrees with less in the way of evidence, has less explanatory power, but enjoys respectability. You find it in textbooks, as conventional wisdom.
    Why are you treating this as a political issue, with sides and so forth? Who is in charge of this "letting"? Are my posts irrational? Am I on a "side"?
    There is no evidence of the early evolution of bipedalism and its major physiological modifications, breath control, the subcutaneous fat layer, smaller canines, opposable thumbs, dietary proclivities, probably fire and tool mastery, etc, in a savannah environment. None. Instead, all evidence points to the first savanna dwellers being fully bipedal etc already - that these new features are good candidates for what enabled the colonization of the savannah.
    There were no proto-hominids not living along a coastline or shoreline, as far as we know. There were no proto-hominids living in cold climates, either - that came much later.
    Strawman.
    Forget monocausality, argue against the stronger hypotheticals.
     
    Last edited: Jan 25, 2018
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  19. Gawdzilla Sama Valued Senior Member

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    Nope, you have a monocausal issue that can't be resolved.

    BTW, you're not in charge of this thread, you should give up trying to control it. You don't have a hope.
     
  20. Daecon Kiwi fruit Valued Senior Member

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    What about if it were called "the riverside ape hypothesis" instead?
     
  21. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    Did mermaids go up rivers?

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  22. CEngelbrecht Registered Senior Member

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    I have myself seen Greenlandic children bathe in the ocean during their short summers. So yeah. That's how strong the aquatic drive is in any human group.

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    But the inuits have only been in the arctic for a few millenia. We're talking human aquaticism for two million years at least (or up to as much as 20, according to some).
     
  23. CEngelbrecht Registered Senior Member

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    Again, there goes the theory of evolution. Or the theory of plate tectonics. Sometimes these ideas pop up. Monocausality doesn't make at concept right or wrong in and of themselves.
     
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