More Complete than Lucy

The environment is not only an interesting aspect, getting it right is crucial. One of the general theses of the advantage of bi-pedalism is that the boreal environment was disappearing, and was being replaced by savannahs. That suggested that bi-pedalism helped the early hominids to get from one food source to another, or from one band of forest to another. But if that is not correct, then somebody needs to work out exactly what the environment was, to put bi-pedalism into a more precise context.

However, it is also worth noting that this baby is several hundred thousand years before Lucy, and many, many changes in the flora and fauna of East Africa can have occurred in such a time span.

Hi FM,

Why do you say bepedalism is better aligned with Natural Selection than a 'big brain' hypothesis?

It sounds better ros.

It's the latest thing.

It's for the movers and shakers and all that jazz.

It sorts out the fuddies from the jetty-jetty whizz-wits

Like skirt lengths and thongs.

Might be paradigm fractures next.

hey ros. "Big brainedness" had never shown a precursor to itself. Its almost an irreducible complexity situation. There was no place to insert a big brains advantages within a monkeys body. Also, it was an abrupt morphology thing, axiomatically anthropocentric. Hell, to many, it was almost Creationist. its a statment that all the Creationists like to throw around without any pre-analyses or knowledge, you know, "fully formed". In other words , it was logically bullshit.
Something that could be seen to confer some sort of advantage and would be reinforced within the population generation after generation , seemed more in tune with something that could be tested within the context of an apparent adaptation. "Big brains" dont fit.
Remember, we dont see tools until "handy man". Were not even sure that A. afarensis was omnivorous and therefore able to be fueling its brain to embiggen.

RL may try to wedge in a thought that all this is merely selective selection , and, Id have to agree. However, all our evidence must fit some testable hypothesis. If it doesnt, the hypothesis is in need of modification.
Futuyama. Mayr, and Eldredge and Gould were always skeptical of "Big Brain Firsters".
Modestly, I was teaching such heresy that "biggened brains = bullshit" as one of a group of multiple hypotheses. However I also was critical of bipedalism as a first adaptation because I found it esthetically displeasing to see abunch of A afarenses running upright but , because their hipvertebrae were so fused, they would have to propellor their arms sideways while running. Here we have a little fossil that is clearly showing uprightedness, but in q manner that is an early feature, like our ability to swim doesnt mean that we are adapted to the aquatic life.
The Big brain thesis came from nothing and lead nowhere(IMHO). Natural selection, as youve always said, was (and is) blind, opportunistic and , primarily adaptive. Hence, a bunch of small changes could lead to the "NEED" for a bigger brain and not the other way around, therefore, to me, its more in tune with natural selection as a process, not a goal.

NOW HOWEVER , say we find a "big brained " hominid from 4.5 million years, then wed be back at the hypotheis drawing board all over. Our theories are only as good as our most recent evidence.

A paradigm fracture appears on request.

Interesting stuff, farmerman.

You think so do you E?

I could shred it but it takes too long and I have to roll my fags and I'm a bit tired.

That's the hope. Blind you with big words and mix a few down-homies in to patronise into submission.

He even admitted teaching bullshit. This is fresh.

I agree. Thanks FM.

shred away spendi , after all, it was opinion , not ex-cathedra.
However, if you do dip in, make sure that your reading comprehension skills are better tuned than those demonstrated in your last post.

I thought my reading skills were crap all through.

What's an "almost irreducible complexity" then. It's hard to concentrate after that.

But ros agrees and E seems to, she was ambiguous in case you didn't notice, so perhaps one of them might explain how such a ridiculous phrase could get into the writing of someone who's reading skills are superior enough to be able to judge those of others.

It's the old assertion reflex again I'm afraid. It has many disguises.

Spendi, think of it as a "not quite" tautology, sort of Spencerian. To be fully accurate, I said that it was an That should pesent you no problem in translation neh?

There's no need for that fm.

I discuused the asymptote of reducible complexity months ago.

It's the space your "almost" allows that needs filling.

It concedes the case I'm afraid.

Nature abhors a vacuum.

You know as well as I do that Creationism is a dead loss because that lower aspect of the asymptote has been reduced to our satisfaction.

You have no answer, and science never will have an answer,at the higher end.

Are you objecting to nature finding a vacuum abhorrent?

read the entire sentence , if you wish to insert your preffered meaning or make some kind of unintended twist in its statement and meaning, that says more about you than me.
Im really tired of even addressing you, you never have anything worth discussing and its always your own mind that conjures up these imprecisions. Oh well, youre stuck with you, I fortunately, am not.

And I shalll be sober in the mawning., and you shall still be a ... (insert epithet here) I probably just didnt pay any attention to your blah blah blah blah ****, however, did you realize that this is an oxymoron?)

fm wrote-



I hadn't actually. I thought it was straighforward and that you just probably, fine word, didn't pay any attention to my blah blah blah blah ****. What qualifies as an oxymoron in that?

I pay attention to what everybody says.

I wonder if bipedalism led to a need to modify the arms to carry infants around. Selection must have very strongly favored those that could travel/forage with their infants.

When we lost out fur it became important for the mother to carry the infant as there was nothing for the infant to grab onto. But even now newborns instictlively grab with their fingers.

I read somewhere a long time ago that human arms are structured for carrying infants. But I'm not sure if that was valid information or just folklore.

Nick wrote-



ros and myself thus being not sissies I presume.

The newborn haven't much choice except to grab with their nose or their ears or their mouth.

What do you make of the ancient Greeks exposing infants on the hillsides on frosty nights?

Please.

Do you take the fact that newborns grab with their fingers as evidence that humans once had fur?

It would seem like the loss of fur would be a 'survival disadvantage', the opposite of what evolution teaches.

Did the fur loss anticipate the ability of the mother to pick up the infant? This is too funny.

If bipedalism thus burdened the mother with carrying an infant where previously she did not do so, then are you saying bipedalism conferred a 'disadvantage'?

Not looking good.