The aquatic ape hypothesis was never crazy

[CEngelbrecht]

More wear down than run down. That's how the painted dogs do it.

You still think it's such a brilliant argument to claim that your hominin ancestors could've done the same as a damn canine.

 

[CEngelbrecht]

Over long distances. That's the point. We can outrun animals much faster than we are - as long as we have enough time to do it. Prey animals (like gazelles) are much faster at sprinting, but do not have the cardiovascular or cooling systems to maintain that for long.

While we clearly do.

You really don't see just how stupid that argument is, do you?

 

[CEngelbrecht]

I love the idea of something calling itself “hydrofeminism”! What a load of pompous, right-on ballocks.

Why would females lose their body hair too, because men needed to lose it in order to hunt? "Men had to do this, men had to do that, so they evolved this and that, while the feeble womenfolk just sat back at the fire with the babies, waiting for the food and to get fucked." It was a deeply sexist approach to the entire debate about human evolution. Bitch had a point.

But I feel sure you are right that at least the “Waterside Ape Hypothesis”, which is what it later became, may be artificially bolstered for reasons of identity politics, rather than science.

Same as "continental drift" renamed to "plate tectonics" for the sake of precision. You keep wanting to misunderstand the aquatic ideas, so the term got upgraded for the sake of your willful ignorance.
And "aquatic ape" was coined by Desmond Morris in 1967, five years before Elaine Morgan picked up on the concept. Morris knew exactly that Hardy was talking about shallow water aquaticism, but "semiaquatic" didn't exist yet as a term in his field of zoology.
And that little piece of semantics history don't matter to you either. You don't want this to be about them beach apes, ever since 1960, 'cause that don't sound crazy at all. And you know the Earth is still the center of the universe.

As you point out, Elaine Morgan, an English graduate and writer, with no science background, was attracted to it in order to oppose what she saw as a macho patriarchal assumption by (male?) palaeontologists that aggressive “masculine” activities such as hunting were what drove the evolution of Man. She liked the idea that peaceful “feminine” activities such as gathering shellfish, or fishing, could have been important.

Why don't you just pick up more than that first book of hers? That one was to piss off the tarzanists thinking with their dick. The others are not.

But it doesn’t make much sense. Bears and otters catch fish without needing to lose their body hair.

Because they evolved in colder climates than hominins. Different thermoregulation balance.

 

[billvon]

While we clearly do.

Yes, we do. In fact, we still do, as pointed out above.

Your posting of a single person struggling to finish a marathon is laughable, given that I have several friends who regularly run 100+ mile marathons. I will counter that with the fact that there are 4000 drownings in the US every year. So much for the "aquatic ape" theory, eh?

So is spearfishing.

So is hunting with a 30-06. Neither was possible before we started developing tools.

 

[billvon]

Why would females lose their body hair too, because men needed to lose it in order to hunt?

Because 95% of our genome is shared between men and women. Thus an evolutionary change to one affects the other 95% of the time.

That one was to piss off the tarzanists thinking with their dick.

I tend to avoid people who write books with the sole purpose of pissing other people off. I tend to gravitate more towards science based authors.

 

[CEngelbrecht]

Your posting of a single person struggling to finish a marathon is laughable, given that I have several friends who regularly run 100+ mile marathons.

While needing water and electrolytes the entire way. Unlike your prey.

I will counter that with the fact that there are 4000 drownings in the US every year. So much for the "aquatic ape" theory, eh?

Almost all dolphins die by drowning.

 

[CEngelbrecht]

I tend to avoid people who write books with the sole purpose of pissing other people off. I tend to gravitate more towards science based authors.

Then read the rest of her works. Stop taking their word for it.

 

[DaveC426913]

So is spearfishing.

Another red herring.
No one has said spearfishing is not viable.

You have said persistence hunting is stupid; and yet this data shows it is highly effective.

No, it just says what you don't want to hear.

Your citation shows that we can't outrun exactly five species: horses, ostriches, sled dogs, antelope and camels.

Do you assert that persistence hunting is stupid because we apparently can't outlast those five animals? That it means we can't outrun any of myriad other animals available in their hunting area?

Notice by the way, that your citation refers to modern animals. It ways nothing about prehistorical animals. The ancestors of modern antelope were much smaller creatures that have not had millions of years of runaway evolution to speed them up.

Your response is really shoddy logic.

You vote Republican, don't you?

Another clear indication that you're not interested in science - you're here to grind your axe.

 

[Kristoffer]

 

[billvon]

While needing water and electrolytes the entire way. Unlike your prey.

Both need water and electrolytes. Humans are better at going a long time without those things.

Almost all dolphins die by drowning.

Right. But as in your example, a single counter-example of something invalidates everything about that example. So people could not have been aquatic - I gave you 4000 examples of why that is true, not just one.

Galileo grinded lenses.

Why do you dissemble so readily when it's so easy to prove you wrong? Galileo first went to school in the Vallombrosa Abbey, where he was taught logic by Jacopo Borghini. He then went to the University of Pisa to study medicine. He studied medicine for three years before he became fascinated by mathematics after seeing a swinging chandelier. He then switched his area of study to mathematics and natural philosophy instead of medicine. ("Natural philosophy" is what science was called at the time.)

In 1586 he published a book on the design of a hydrostatic balance he had invented. In 1589 he was appointed to the Chair of Mathematics at the University of Pisa, where he was working as a postgraduate.

So your attempt to portray him as an uneducated lens grinder has exactly as much validity as your aquatic ape claim.

 

[CEngelbrecht]

Another red herring.
No one has said spearfishing is not viable.

You have said persistence hunting is stupid; and yet this data shows it is highly effective.

You handfish catfish.

Your citation shows that we can't outrun exactly five species: horses, ostriches, sled dogs, antelope and camels.

Do you assert that persistence hunting is stupid because we apparently can't outlast those five animals? That it means we can't outrun any of the myriad other animals available in their hunting area?

You literally can't. From hares to camels. Try it.

Notice by the way, that your citation refers to modern animals. It ways nothing about prehistorical animals. The ancestors of modern antelope were much smaller creatures that have not had millions of years of runaway evolution to speed them up.

Oh yeah, that kills the argument, obviously.

you're here to grind your axe.

No shit. You still have no right to reject this brilliant idea just because you prefer sticking to dogma. Now take a long ass bath and think about it all one more time.

 

[CEngelbrecht]

This took 20 seconds:

 

[DaveC426913]

You handfish catfish.

Are you all right? You're having an internal conversation, but out loud.

You literally can't. From hares to camels. Try it.

How do you know this? Have you tried? Have you tried with relevant African savannah denizens? Or are you just guessing? Another red herring.

The study I referenced shows persistence hunting achieves up to 100% success.

Oh yeah, that kills the argument, obviously.

Your argument is based on saying persistence hunting is "stupid" . You're asserting that it can't be viable. So you have to plug every hole in your argument, or it leaks like a sieve. Suggesting we can't outlast modern sled dogs and horses does nothing whatever to help your argument, except demonstrate that you don't understand red herrings.

You still have no right to reject this brilliant idea just because you prefer sticking to dogma

I'm simply rejecting what you put here. Presumably, you are an expert on this and have put your best foot forward to present it.

But what you're presenting is weak, illogical and soaked with emotion.

If its strongest proponent can't effectively describe the idea compellingly, why on Earth would anyone go further?

 

[CEngelbrecht]

Are you all right? You're having an internal conversation, but out loud.


How do you know this? Have you tried?

Yes. I have straight up tried both approches, for the hell of it. And I know damn well which one is actually viable for any of you.

The study I referenced shows persistence hunting achieves up to 100% success.

Then you try it. Without constant access to drinking water like your hominin ancestors.

Your argument is based on saying persistence hunting is "stupid" . You're asserting that it can't be viable. So you have to plug every hole in your argument, or it leaks like a sieve. Suggesting we can't outlast modern sled dogs and horses does nothing whatever to help your argument, except demonstrate that you don't understand red herrings.

Which one of those two would you like to do right now?

Where would you actually be able to find food right now? Sapiens?

If its strongest proponent can't effectively describe the idea compellingly, why on Earth would anyone go further?

Because you won't even read Morgan's own words to form your own opinion. These are banned volumes to you. Before you read up, you have no basis to keep calling the entire concept crazy. Art historians rejecting Dan Brown actually do read his shit first. Until you stop being willfully ignorant from arrogant peer pressure and nothing else, your opinion on this topic remains irrelevant.

 

[exchemist]

Just read up a little, this is regarded as pseudoscience by main stream science. As you said although attending probably the most prestigious University in the UK & planet, she studied Dickens, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Hardy, Bronte and some American stuff. NOT, Leaky, Darwin, Weinberg Fisher, Mayr, Hardy, Maynard smith, Hamilton or Trivers.

Plus Beowulf in the original Old English.

(My mother also read English at Oxford (St. Hilda’s) in the early 1950s and that was then part of the curriculum. I think they’ve dropped it since. Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky” is probably intended as a parody of Beowulf or a similar Anglo-Saxon epic poem - if there are any others: I think Beowulf is about all that has survived.)

 

[Pinball1970]

Plus Beowulf in the original Old English.

(My mother also read English at Oxford (St. Hilda’s) in the early 1950s and that was then part of the curriculum. I think they’ve dropped it since. Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky” is probably intended as a parody of Beowulf or a similar Anglo-Saxon epic poem - if there are any others: I think Beowulf is about all that has survived.)

Tolkien was big on Beowulf and was at Oxford in the 1950s, Merton. Did your mother ever meet him? See a lecture?

 

[DaveC426913]

Yes. I have straight up tried both approches, for the hell of it. And I know damn well which one is actually viable for any of you.

One failure does not invalidate the plausibility of the theory. This is just not how logic - let alone science - works.

What you are doing is tantamount to taking one shot at sinking a basketball, failing, and declaring that the nature of basketball is stupid.

There are a thousand factors you have not bothered to account for (you're not 2 metres tall, you're not wearing professional runners and you have no idea if the net is set to regulation height). Any and all of these invalidate your test, and work in favour of the benefit of the doubt.

To declare it non-viable, you have to plug every hole. For example: what makes you think they had no access to water? Is this a guess? I think it's a guess.

Then you try it. Without constant access to drinking water like your hominin ancestors.

I'm not really interested in what you or I thinks is common sense or whether we personally can manage the feat. Neither of us are experts, and neither of us are even remotely good test subjects.

It is astonishing that you would make such a weak argument. Let's apply your logic to your AAH:
"I choose myself as a test subject. I personally can't swim. Therefore no one else could possibly do it. Therefore hunting in the sea is stupid. I have disproven AAH."

Here's another: "I live near temperate waters, but Popular Mechanics tells me I can't choke out a Narwhal (that lives in the Arctic). I have proven that I could not survive in temperate waters. I have proven once again that AAH is stupid."

Do you see, with the shoe on the other foot, that such arguments are not logical?

Because you won't even read Morgan's own words to form your own opinion.

Again: you are presumably more knowledgable than I about AAH, and you can hardly string together a logical argument, what with all your red herrings.

Before you read up, you have no basis to keep calling the entire concept crazy.

I've never called it crazy.

You have brought it here to SciFo to argue. You have a responsibility to support your argument.

Art historians rejecting Dan Brown actually do read his shit first. Until you stop being willfully ignorant from arrogant peer pressure and nothing else,

You actually have no idea what my knowledge base or stance on the matter is.

We haven't even gotten to any discussion AAH at the moment; all we're doing so far is figuring out why you reject persistence hunting. You're not very convincing.

your opinion on this topic remains irrelevant.

I am not convinced it's any less relevant then your opinion on the topic, if we go by what you've laid down so far.

 

[DaveC426913]

'Cause you've never picked up anything at the beach from chest high water.

See, that's the thing; you have all sorts of mitigating factors you're willing to apply to make your AAH work, but when it comes to another hypothesis suddenly you're not so generous.

You apply all sorts of artificial constraints:
- they have no access to water, so PH is stupid (woh says they have no access to water?>)
- we can't outrun sled dogs and horses, so PH is stupid (what does this have to do with the African Savannah?)

There's no science happening here, you simply have a personal favourite,
There's no conspiracy here, you simply have hypothesis that is problematic and not widely accepted.

You're the one doing the straw man like a muddafukka here.

And now, in addition to red herrings, I'm not sure you know what a straw man is. Perhaps you could point to this straw man I've constructed and am attacking.

Then read up.

Why would we do your homework for you?
A good hypothesis should be easily describable, but you haven't done that.
What's to discuss? You haven't presented anything.

 

[CEngelbrecht]

See, that's the thing; you have all sorts of mitigating factors you're willing to apply to make your AAH work, but when it comes to another hypothesis suddenly you're not so generous.

Find Hardy's 1960 quote back in post #22. Nothing has been applied. This is what it always was and still is. You're still cartooning Darwin as a chimpanzee for stupid sociological reasons.

You apply all sorts of artificial constraints:
- they have no access to water, so PH is stupid (woh says they have no access to water?>)

Because it's the semi-arid savannah.
The few people living there today only do so with post-neolithic technology. They're no more representational of human origin than the sherpas in the Himalayas. The vast majority of the rest of humanity sticking to shorefonts are much closer.

- we can't outrun sled dogs and horses, so PH is stupid (what does this have to do with the African Savannah?)

Then limit it to the numbers for the savannah species, same conclusion.

There's no conspiracy here,

All evidence to the contrary. The cardinals have had no excuse for thirty years now. They know what it is actually suggesting. And they keep lying to you about it. I can't assume good faith.

"Just 10 years ago, to a large London audience, with a histrionic gesture, I said, 'The Savannah Hypothesis is no more! Open that window and throw it out!' At Sterkfontein and other South African sites and East African ones, these early hominids were all accompanied by woodland and forest species of plants and animals. Of course, if savannah is eliminated as a primary cause for selective advantage of going on two legs, then we are back to square one."
— Phillip Tobias, 2005

you simply have hypothesis that is problematic and not widely accepted.

Why would we do your homework for you?

I expect you to recognize that it's just not that crazy. And that that's why it just won't go away. Like so many other brutalized ideas in history that is consensus now, such as heliocentric near-universe and plate tectonics. You would have refused to read up on them too, because the Fraternity told you to. It's a really fucked up herd behaviour, when an entire academic field just dump the scientific method when something becomes an inconvenient truth to them.

A good hypothesis should be easily describable, but you haven't done that.

Also in post #22. The one you didn't read the first time.

Hardy's quote is from 1960. Morgan's is from 2011. And both still apply. And you're still babbling about them dolphin apes that were never there in the first place. Nothing has been applied. Can we talk about what has been the suggestion all along? Or is that just too difficult to mock for comfort?

 

[exchemist]

Tolkien was big on Beowulf and was at Oxford in the 1950s, Merton. Did your mother ever meet him? See a lecture?

I don't know. She may have done. She's no longer alive so I can't ask her. I think she encountered C S Lewis, who was a don at Magdalen at the time and was a friend of Tolkein. But she wasn't very interested in Beowulf. She got her place by reciting John Donne to the don who admitted her, Helen , later Dame Helen, Gardner. Turned out she was also a fan of Donne.

I recently read a fascinating biography of Donne, written by a young woman called Katherine Rundell, who was elected a fellow of All Souls at the age of 35! I think she's a little bit in love with him, actually. One of Rundell's hobbies is running parkour over the rooftops of Oxford colleges:


What a woman!