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Jim McGinn · Guest

rmacfarl@alphalink.com.au (Ross Macfarlane) wrote

[quote]I expect Jim <snip> would not argue
that throwing long distances was as important as throwing accuracy -
otherwise what>s the point of throwing at all?
[/quote]
Wrong.

[quote]More idiocy. If you>re throwing rocks as a defensive measure, against
a leopard or another band of hominids, distance is more important than
accuracy. It means you can throw from further away. Thrown rocks
rarely kill; they are intended to scare away.
[/quote]
Yep. It would have been especially effective at scaring
off large competing browsing and grazing mammals during
the late miocene. (The achievement of which would have
been a matter of life in death due to the seasonality of
the habitat and their dependency on communally protected
resources to survive the dry season.)

[quote]Anyway, watch some cricket. Coming in off a 30m run-up doesn>t stop
Brett Lee from being dangerously accurate at 150 km/hr. Those batsmen
don>t wear helmets to keep the sun off.
[/quote]
There>s an 8 million year old reason why humans are so
fascinated with sports that involve throwing and batting.

Jim

Ross Macfarlane · Guest

"Paul Crowley" <slkwuoiutiuytciuyik@slkjlskjoioue.com> wrote in message news:<LO94b.29829$pK2.47893@news.indigo.ie>...
[quote]"Jim McGinn" <jimmcginn@yahoo.com> wrote in message

rmacfarl@alphalink.com.au (Ross Macfarlane) wrote
[/quote]
Dear me! My name seems to be embedded in a debate between Algis,Paulie
& Jim ! How did this happen? And who to side with - left brain, right
brain or "lower brain"? Maybe if I just stick my head up my - well,
that could be a solution, but not an attractive one...

[quote]I expect Jim <snip>[and Paul] would not argue
that throwing long distances was as important as throwing accuracy -
otherwise what>s the point of throwing at all?

Wrong.
[/quote]
Typically McGinnian standards of evidence...
[quote]
Right. Accuracy is, of course, extremely important.
[/quote]
Typically Crowleyan standards of reasoning (all things are relative,
including accuracy - except in Paulie>s black & white world...)
....
[quote]But they only scare away if they are dangerous
. . . i.e likely to hit. The local leopards will soon
know WHICH of the local hominids has the
capacity to score hits from a distance. They>ll
take only the amount of care necessary to keep
clear; i.e if they see a bunch of females and kids
they>ll get much closer.
[/quote]
Ah Paulie - you>re such an individualist when it comes to thinking,
it>s no surprise that you can>t see the benefit of a communal
response...
[quote]
Yep. It would have been especially effective at scaring
off large competing browsing and grazing mammals

Hominids would have no "large competing
browsing and grazing mammals". They don>t
eat grass, and scarcely any leaves. Someone
should tell Jim this sometime.
[/quote]
This is "evidence", Paul. It>s unfair to use this to argue against the
work of a "World-Class Evolutionary Theorist"...
[quote]
during
the late miocene. (The achievement of which would have
been a matter of life in death due to the seasonality of
the habitat and their dependency on communally protected
resources to survive the dry season.)

Weird -- how so many errors could be put into
one small paragraph -- and form the basis of
such an apparently complex theory.

Anyway, watch some cricket. Coming in off a 30m run-up doesn>t stop
Brett Lee from being dangerously accurate at 150 km/hr.

The run is made to increase the throwing speed.
In reality most throwing would be made from
a fairly static position -- as when they field balls
and throw for the wicket.
[/quote]
You>re English right Paulie? If so, no wonder the Poms are so crap at
cricket. Fielding & throwing can not be in any sense possibly
construed as static.

Of course the runup is to generate speed. But it>s still possible to
be accurate. (Takes years of practice of course - & when would a
hunter-gatherer male have time? He>d be too busy spending his
childhood surfing the net & trying to understand Crowleyan
evolution...)
[quote]
There>s an 8 million year old reason why humans are so
fascinated with sports that involve throwing and batting.

Err . . I wouldn>t want to used sports as a
reliable basis for evolutionary theories. How
about football . . or synchronised swimming?
[/quote]
Oooh, this is fun! I just can>t work out which loon to poke fun at!

Ross Macfarlane

Jim McGinn · Guest

"Paul Crowley" <slkwuoiutiuytciuyik@slkjlskjoioue.com> wrote

[quote]I expect Jim <snip> would not argue
that throwing long distances was as important as throwing accuracy -
otherwise what>s the point of throwing at all?

Wrong.

Right. Accuracy is, of course, extremely important.
[/quote]
Both are important.

[quote]
Algis wrote
More idiocy. If you>re throwing rocks as a defensive measure, against
a leopard or another band of hominids, distance is more important than
accuracy. It means you can throw from further away. Thrown rocks
rarely kill; they are intended to scare away.

But they only scare away if they are dangerous
. . . i.e likely to hit.
[/quote]
They scare pretty easy:
Take a look at this story about Jim Fowler bluffing an elephant.
It also indicates defensive social strategies of elephants and
man>s ability to control them with rocks! Mostly, however, it>s
just a good story:
http://www.wildkingdom.com/nostalgia/stories.html

[quote]The local leopards will soon
know WHICH of the local hominids has the
capacity to score hits from a distance. They>ll
take only the amount of care necessary to keep
clear;
[/quote]
Yes. This is my point. The same would be true with competing
species.

[quote]i.e if they see a bunch of females and kids
they>ll get much closer.
[/quote]
Sure, if they can get to them.

[quote]Yep. It would have been especially effective at scaring
off large competing browsing and grazing mammals

Hominids would have no "large competing
browsing and grazing mammals".
[/quote]
Wrong. The miocene was notable for abundance of competing
browsing species, including chalcitheres (think of a horse
crossed with a gorilla), mastodons, elephants, giraffes,
and more:

************ Begin Cut and Paste *****************

Mammal diversity reached its peak during the Miocene. Many were
hoofed grazers or browsers. The epoch was marked by further
evolution of horses, which became plains type animals as large as
ponies, the chalcitheres, camels, rhinoceroses and anthropoid apes,
including the Dryopithecus which inhabited Southern Europe, Asia,
and Africa. Also this period saw the appearance of the mastodons,
raccoons, and weasels. The first deer and giraffes also appear,
along with the first hyenas. The slow clumsy creodonts, well adapted
to the jungle thickets, were replaced by the swift intelligent cat
and dog type carnivora as the dominant predators. There were many
eccentric browsing types as well - the chalcitheres - think of a horse
crossed with a gorilla - were able to rear up on their hind legs and
pull down the branches of trees. The Asian indricatheres and the
American entelodonts both flourished then died out during this epoch.

http://www.palaeos.com/Cenozoic/Miocene/Miocene.htm

************* End Cut and Paste ******************

[quote]They don>t
eat grass, and scarcely any leaves.
[/quote]
Lots of species eat fruit.

[quote]Someone
should tell Jim this sometime.
[/quote]
You are failing to account for differences in fauna during
the Miocene. Firstly, the vegetation was different to thus
support a different fauna: more trees and bushes and less
grasslands. Secondly, and maybe most importantly, our
prehominid ancestors had yet to cause the extinction of many
of the browsing mammals to whom with which they competed.
If you weren>t such a complete paleo-ignoramus you would
have taken these factors into consideration.

Also:

************ Begin Cut and Paste *****************

I think you>re overgeneralizing here. Also you are not taking into
account the difference in the environment that existed back then in
comparison to the present. For just one example, migratory patterns
were very different back then in comparison to present. Nowadays
migration is mostly dominated by relatively smaller, faster, and
larger herds of grazing animals, like we currently find in treeless
savanna habitat. Seasonal migration tends to be from one region to
another, and the lions follow these same patterns. Back then larger,
slower, browsing animals were more numerous. And their migratory
patterns were local, not regional. There were no extensive grasslands
like we find today in Africa. All the animals were more robust,
slower, and less able to travel long distance. Smilodon, for example,
was about the same size as lions but weighed 50% more. And then there
was chalcitheres:

************* End Cut and Paste ******************

[quote]
during
the late miocene. (The achievement of which would have
been a matter of life in death due to the seasonality of
the habitat and their dependency on communally protected
resources to survive the dry season.)

Weird -- how so many errors could be put into
one small paragraph -- and form the basis of
such an apparently complex theory.
[/quote]
It>s unfortunate that you are unable to dispute any of it.

[quote]
Anyway, watch some cricket. Coming in off a 30m run-up doesn>t stop
Brett Lee from being dangerously accurate at 150 km/hr.

The run is made to increase the throwing speed.
In reality most throwing would be made from
a fairly static position -- as when they field balls
and throw for the wicket.
[/quote]
Who cares. The point is that if a communal group is attempting
to maintain a defensive front and not be outflanked, running,
throwing, wielding sticks, etc., is consistent with a shift to
bipedalism. Yourself and Algis can pretend to find problems
with this if you want but the fact is that if they use
projectiles and hand-held weapons to achieve survival benefits
by way of territorialism then bipedalism would be adaptive.
This really isn>t even an issue. The real issues here are
whether or not the dramatic shift to a climate that I indicate
actually took place place and whether or not it resulted in the
geographic factors (patchiness of remaining treed habitat) that
I indicate. You can dispute this if you want. But you are
wasting your time trying to dispute the supposition that rock
throwing, stick-wielding would be consistent with bipedalism.

[quote]
There>s an 8 million year old reason why humans are so
fascinated with sports that involve throwing and batting.

Err . . I wouldn>t want to used sports as a
reliable basis for evolutionary theories. How
about football
[/quote]
Territorialism.

[quote]. . or synchronised swimming?
[/quote]
I>m not an AAT theorist.

Be aware of the
following elements in this scenario:
1) The onset of a climate characterized by seasonal
dessication (a distinct and severe dry season).
2) Patchiness of their treed habitat (they were
isolated at these patches of treed habitat such that
if they ventured out into the surrounding treeless
habitat they>d be eaten by predators).
3) The adoption of a strategy that involves communal
territorialism (the reasons for this [depletion of
resources as the result of inmigration of other
herbivores and omnivores] will be explained).
4) Group selection (the specifics of which will be
explained).

*****************************************************************

Mob-oriented fits and tantrums, not calculated tool usage

no_one@home.guv (Curious Amateur) wrote

[quote]I think with hominids there was a different cause
and it has to do with territorialism, including
mob-oriented, rock throwing, stick waving behavior
against inmigrating species that would compete with
them for finite resources in a habitat characterized
by seasonal dryness as the main selective factor.

I>m sure it>s a factor, but the troop can>t be
everywhere at once. Invasion can occur while the
troop is elsewhere in its territory.
[/quote]
You are missing the point. See if you can follow this
argument:

Let>s say a community (comprised of multiple troops) just
happens to have behaviors that reduce inmigration of
grazing species by 10%. The resulting moderate reduction
in rate of resource depletion over several months may be
all that is needed for their to be enough resources
available to prevent the community from breaking down
during the depths of the dry season into an every man for
himself (or every troop for itself) infighting in which
the predators move in, find easy pickings, and decimate
the community. Accordingly, members of communities that
have said behaviors will survive in higher numbers than
members of communities that lack said behaviors, and they
will pass these behaviors on to their offspring. Members
of communities that lack said behaviors will be more
likely to end up as an easy meal for leopards, lions,
hyenas, and such during the dry season, or simply starving
to death. And this will be true regardless of whether
or not the members of this community have any conscious
understanding as to the net effect of said behaviors (which
they certainly could not have had in the earliest years of
hominid evolution).

This is really just plain old natural selection. The only
think peculiar about it is that it is a group selective
scenario. And this group selective aspect is reinforced
by the patchiness of the treed habitat in that a member of
a community has little choice but to stick it out. They
can>t just walk away without putting themselves at greater
risk out in the no-man>s land of treeless, predator-filled
habitat that surrounded these isolated community sites.

This is how HUMAN evolution got the kickstart that
eventually lead to what we are now. (Note: HUMAN
evolution is a group selective process. From the
perspective of comparative biology, this couldn>t be
more obvious. Anybody that tells you differently is
whacked. You can safely dismiss *any* scenarios that
don>t explicate a group selective process.)

[quote]It is most unlikely that these animals ever carried
rocks around much, and certainly not with any
long-term "plan" for using them against predators.

Agreed. It>s important to keep in mind that the
original hominids had the mentality of 3 to 5 year
olds.

Just what does that mean: "the mentality of 3 to 5"?
[/quote]
It means that the ancestral behavior of the earliest
hominids more closely resembled mob-oriented fits and
tantrums than it did calculated tool usage. From the
perspective of potential inmigrating herding species,
these were nothing but pesky critters who would start
screaming like babies if one ever should venture into
'their' treed habitat, drawing the attention of
predators. Needless to say, inmigrating species came
to realize that these rock throwing, stick wielding,
loud mouthed, mob oriented, little pricks (like the
adversaries of AAT in this NG) were best avoided.

[quote]How much life experience does a 3-5 year old have
compared to the hominids you are describing? A 3-5
year old would be unable to survive back then.
[/quote]
Instincts, incredible strength, and habitat that
was, most times of the year, fairly lush was all
they needed. Life experience was mostly unnecessary.

[quote]Besides, it was unneccessary. The resided at
a situated and isolated treed location, community
site, where rocks were plentiful.

An attractive assumption.
[/quote]
I think it>s a fairly reasonable assumption. And,
of course, if the rocks ever ran out there was
alway dirt clods :)

[quote]Bipedalism is, primarily, a throwing adaptation.

Bipedalism advanced too many abilities to be
limited to one primary ability, unless that
ability is locomotion (superior to knuckle-walkers).
[/quote]
From a locomotory standpoint bipedalism was a compromise.
The shift to a more communal and stationary lifestyle
deemphasized locomotion.

[quote]If chimps can throw as well as described, we have
to rule out bipedalism as a cause.
[/quote]
Chimps suck at throwing. And they aren>t any better at
batting. And it>s just about impossible to get them to
keep a mit on. :)

If they did evolve along the lines that I describe, we>d
expect those that were most successful to be capable of
maintaining larger and larger pieces of territory. And
this, IMO, would predict a trend of throwing longer
distances in that this would be the most efficient
way to keep potential trespassing species at bay.
(This, of course, assumes that they didn>t yet have
barbed wire :)

Jim

*************************************************************

ECOLOGICAL GATEKEEPER HYPOTHESIS: an
addendum the Ideological Ape Hypothesis

This addendum resolves a significant shortcoming that
I had with the larger hypothesis. Strangely enough, it
was only after I had hit upon this addendum that it even
occurred to me that my larger hypothesis had this
shortcoming. (Talk about falling in love with one>s own
pet theory.) What was the shortcoming? It has to do
with the transition from the chimpanzee lifestyle (small,
rambling bands) to the more situated, property oriented,
communalism. I had assumed the transition would have
been natural, a direct result of implications associated
with the change in environmental conditions (seasonal
dessication, patchiness of the remaining forested habitat,
etc.).

It turns out I was right. It was natural. But I was wrong
to have assumed that it would have been (or could have
been) just as simple as that. More specifically, I had them
cooperating, communicating, (In the context of a situated
community) and evolving consciousness before they really
had an evolutionary upramp to begin being selected for
such behaviors. With this addendum I think this problem
is solved. Additionally, this addendum provides a better
understanding of why and how bipedalism and manipulative
abilities began to be selected in the earliest years of
hominid evolution. Additionally it seems to explain the
human predisposition for sports fanaticism and the human
tendency to be confrontational to and otherwise controlling
of other species.

Let me begin by showing you two posts that triggered
my thinking:

*******************************************************
From sci.bio.paleontology:

<snip>

. . . about 10mln years ago the Earth entered climatic
roller-coaster, with periods of advancing and retreating
glaciation. <snip>

<snip>

. . . . the very fact that the Earth became a colder and
more inhospitable place to live, led to the creation of
man, so we shouldn>t complain too loudly about how
cold it is outside. If the Earth were still warm and wet,
then we>d just have big, dumb, lumbering creatures
who would just eat easy-to-find plants all day long --
doesn>t require the development of much intelligence.

<snip>

Yousuf Khan

*******************************************************
From sci.bio.evolution:

I fail to understand why people are sports fans.
They spend a lot of money, and they yell and
scream when their home-town football team wins.
When they move to another town they just as
ardently yell and scream for their new home-town
team, although the new team may have been the
opponent of the previous team.

This behavior seems to defy rational analysis.
Why scream and yell, anyway, just because a
bunch of millionaires beat each other up in a
public arena?

Is this behavior possibly a leftover from eons
ago when it was important (a survival factor)
to look up to tribal leaders, to cheer them on,
and to claim solidarity with them?

It seems to me that, in this day and age,
evolution would favor survival factors in the
intellectual arena, and yet, here are these
masses of people who get excited about
strangers who beat each other up, as in
football..

Can anyone explain the phenomenon?

Walter

*******************************************************

The relevance of this second post will become
obvious once you get into this explanation. The first of
these two posts is the most important. It really jarred
my perspective into considering something I hadn>t
considered before: previous to 10mya there was little
or no migration but there has been a lot since then.
(I>m thinking mostly of relatively large mammals here.
Let>s say about the size of a housecat and bigger. But
it really includes any and all species that migrate.)
I started to wonder if there might not be more than a
coorelation between the observation that hominids
appeared at or about at the same time that large
mammals started to become migratory. Might it be
causal? In other words, might an environment that is
characterized by migrating species be an environment
that provides selective factors that triggered hominid
evolution?

With this question in mind, I started thinking about
migration in the context of the environmental
assumptions of my hypothesis: seasonal dessication,
spatial polarity of resources (patches of forest that
persist near sources of perrenial water, lakes, ponds,
streams, rivers, areas of high ground water). (For a
more comprehensive description of the environmental
assumptions of this hypothesis see a post I put on this
newsgroup recently entitled: Questions Regarding
Selective . . . ) Then I asked myself what kind of
migrational patterns would I expect given these
assumptions. The answer was obvious. During
periods increasing dessication and resulting scarcity
there would be a tendency for all of the species in this
environment to begin to migrate toward and into these
treed havens, our ancestor>s "community sites." And
with the onset of the rainy season they would migrate
back out again.

Then I started thinking about how all of this would
appear from the perspective of our earliest, recently
rainforest dwelling, prehominid ancestors. Every year
their patches of remaining forest, their "community
sites," got overrun with other species. Many of these
species would have competed directly with them for
food and thus would have caused the depletion of
resources at a time when these resources were
increasingly scarce, the dry season. Other herbivores
may not have directly competed with them, but all of
them brought predators with them: lions, tigers, hyenas,
dogs, etc. The negative implications are obvious.
When these inmigrating species had depleted the
resources at these community sites they would simply
migrate over to other less depleted areas (other
community sites). But our tree dwelling ancestors,
being less mobile, had fewer options. They were
now left vulnerable to starvation and/or predation.
Lacking the ability to run fast, they didn>t have much
choice but to stay put, wait out the predators, and
hope the rains returned. Surely their population would
often have been decimated as a result.

Among a number of other adaptations, which I will get
to shortly, I predict that territorial based peskiness will
have begun to be selected among our chimpanzee-like
ancestor. This would have been a direct result of the
above described factors associated with migration.
The reason I believe this scenario predicts the relatively
rapid adaptation of territorial based peskiness behaviors
among these still tree dwelling apes is because apes
that have such predisposition will tend to harass any other
animals that it percieves to be trespassing on its territory.
This will act as a deterent to these inmigrating species
who--all other things being equal--will follow the path of
least resistance to their migratory goals. If one patch of
forest is associated with pesky apes--regardless of the
fact that these pesky apes may be mostly harmless to
them--and another patch of forest is relatively free of
pesky apes then the inmigrating individuals would follow
the path of least resistance to the patch that is relatively
free of pesky apes.

More specifically, how and why do I contend that these
above mentioned implications predict the rapid
adaptation of territorial peskiness amongst our earliest
prehominid ancestors? I think the answer to this
question is fairly obvious. The members of community
sites that reduced inmigration, even if only marginally
(let>s say, for example, they reduced it by only 10%),
would increase their own community>s probability of
surviving through and, at one and the same time, reduce
the probability of survival of those who reside at other,
neighboring, community sites who, lacking territorial
based peskiness behaviors, would now have to deal
with more inmigration and, of course, more of the
negative implications thereof: more depletion of
resources, more predators, and more resulting
decimation.

This comprises a classic group selectionist scenario:
behavior that increases one>s own communities survival
decreases the survival of other communities. This is
not to say that the members of these respective
communities would have had the ability to recognize
that they were competing against other communities
on a community vs. community basis. In fact it seems
unlikely--especially in the earliest years of hominid
evolution--that they would have even had the ability to
recognize that they were members of communities.
Regardless of wether they were capable of realizing it,
apes that had whatever behavior and/or morphology
that would enable or cause them to dissuade other
species from migrating into their community site would
have a tremendous selective advantage over those that
lacked such. The more their behavior dissuaded
inmigration the greater the selective advantage to their
own community and the greater the selective
disadvantage to neighboring communities.

It is, of course, normal to be hesitant about asserting
group selective factors such as those that I have
asserted here. But in the context of this scenario this
hesitancy is, I contend, completely unwarranted. This
contention is based on the group selective implications
of the two factors mentions above, 1) the patchiness of
the remaining forested habitat which divided our
ancestors up into "communities" between which gene
flow (interbreeding) was greatly reduced, and 2) the
fact that the grim reaper,seasonal dessication, focussed
on whole communities whose territorial resources at
their community sites had become, for whatever reason,
deplete. So, the selective realities of our ancestors
shifted from those of the chimpanzee lifestyle--focussed
only on being successful individuals and members of
successful breeding groups (bands, extended family
units)--to those of the A>pith lifestyle--focussed on being
successful individuals and members of successful
breeding groups AND on being members of communities
that successfully effect the preservation of resources at
their community sites in the face of the onslaught of
multi-species inmigration to their community sites.

It is also important to point out that there is a positive
feedback aspect associated with inmigration. Specifically
this has to do with the herding or grouping instincts of the
inmigrating species: if one or a few members of an
inmigrating species is able to infiltrate a community site
then the probability is higher that more members of the
same species, and/or members of ecologically related
species, will follow. When this aspect is considered in
conjunction with the fact that this scenario clearly
indicates the community as the group entity that is being
selected, it is apparent, I contend, that the better a
community is at closing the gate of its ecosystem--sealing
its borders--the more likely the members of the community
will survive the grim reaper of this habitat, seasonal
dessication (the dry season).

In the context of these peculiar selective factors, we can
start to ask ourselves what other adaptations, in addition
to territorial peskiness, would we expect to evolve? This
can be more explicitly delineated in the context of what
is mentioned in the above paragraph: what additional
behaviors or morphologies would cause/enable these
chimpanzee-like territorially pesky apes to be better able
and/or more inclined to "close the gate" and effectively
seal the borders of their community sites? I propose the
following:

Cooperation (in the context of mob oriented harassing
behaviors): The tendency to confront and attempt to prevent
inmigrating species collectively rather than just individually.
This would involve collecting into larger groups from
neighboring and other closely situated "properties" (see
below) within a community site and confronting inmigrating
species: throwing rocks, sticks, and generally making a big
racket. As I envision it, this would involve the same kind of
emotion based behaviors that we currently associate with a
mob mentality, including sports fanaticism.

Communicativeness:
The ability to communicate the relative level of threat
associated with potential inmigrating species so that mobs
can form at vulnerable infiltration points quickly and efficiently.
This also involves such behaviors as cheering, booing, and
other behaviors that would tend to draw attention of other
members of a community to such events.

Consciousness:
Awareness of the meaning of emotional outbursts that
they might see or hear in the distance so that one might be
excited into being additive to whatever mob oriented
activities are taking place in one>s vicinity. Awareness of the
property of others due to the implications of the, below
mentioned, selective benefits of property oriented communal
territorialism.

Property Oriented Communal Territorialism (rather than
just communally oriented territorialism):
Property oriented communal territorialism involves a
community being comprised of subgroups each of which
has its associated property in the context of the larger
community site. The reason, I contend, that we would
predict property oriented territorialism is because this
would, firstly, cause them--by way of their percieved
incentive--to spread out to the different infiltration points of
the community site so that they will be in position to better
effect the collective sealing of the community sites borders.
Secondly, property oriented territorialism will give them the
percieved incentive to defend "their" property. (Which, as
indicated above, could also include calling out to one>s
neighboring property holders for assitance to effect a mob
and/or responding to one>s neighbors call for assistance.)
The particular group that I envision as the entity that
maintains ownership of the different intracommunal
"properties" of a community site would be based upon the
band or extended family unit, similar in size and
composition to that of the bands that extant chimpanzees
tend to form.

Gamesmanship:
I think it>s possible that the behavior that is
indicated in this hypothesis was to they themselves
little more than a game. Those who were passionate
about the game achieved the survival of themselves
and their whole community (by way of driving off
inmigrating species). (In other words, we>re descended
from sports enthusiasts.)

Also, this scenario gives us a sense of how and why we
evolved to be so controlling of other species. It even
suggests how we began to develop our weapon oriented
hunting skills and inclination, not to mention our weapon
oriented and mob oriented approach to intraspecies
conflicts (war). (I can foresee there being "Hunting
Hypothesis," variants of this hypothesis.)

Additionally, this scenario is the perfect setup for the
scenario in my larger hypothesis (which I now realize is
much more dependent upon the pre-existence of a
community), which better explains the evolution of other
hominid traits, such as our political, ideological nature,
our attentiveness to dance, art, storytelling, and other
artistic, our economic predisposition for trade, our
complex and logic oriented languages, and our pursuit
of knowledge and truth. However, the beginning of the
dynamics in my greater hypothesis (the Intraspecies
Capitalism stuff which is very difficult to explain), may
have to be pushed forward in time all the way up to the
transition to homo. But this may be a good thing in that
it better coorelates to the growth of brain capacity in the
homo lineage (which, as you know, is greatly lacking in
the A>pith lineage).

Regards to all,

Jim

Aristotle has said that the sweetest of all things
is knowledge. And he is right. But if you were to
suppose that the publication of a new view were
productive of unbounded sweetness, you would be
mightily mistaken. No one who disturbs his fellow
men with a new view remains unpunished.
-- Ernst Mach (1838-1916)

Paul Crowley · Guest

"Jim McGinn" <jimmcginn@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:ac6a5059.0308301952.72e272fd@posting.google.com...

A regurgipost -- in the best Verhagen tradition.

That>s one certain way of ensuring that your posts
won>t be read.

But to deal with the non-regurgitated bits:

[quote]Algis wrote
More idiocy. If you>re throwing rocks as a defensive measure, against
a leopard or another band of hominids, distance is more important than
accuracy. It means you can throw from further away. Thrown rocks
rarely kill; they are intended to scare away.

But they only scare away if they are dangerous
. . . i.e likely to hit.

They scare pretty easy:
[/quote]
They scare easy during the day. The problem
is that they hide during the day, and come out
at night when throwing stones at them would
be a dangerous waste of time and effort.

[quote]The local leopards will soon
know WHICH of the local hominids has the
capacity to score hits from a distance. They>ll
take only the amount of care necessary to keep
clear;

Yes. This is my point. The same would be true with competing
species.
[/quote]
There are none -- in any case browsers are
rarely territorial.

[quote]Hominids would have no "large competing
browsing and grazing mammals".

Wrong. The miocene was notable for abundance of competing
browsing species, including chalcitheres (think of a horse
crossed with a gorilla), mastodons, elephants, giraffes,
and more:
[/quote]
This is a typically crazy McGinn notion.
Firstly, it>s based on the idea that hominids
lived on a savanna; (why not take the worst
of traditional theories?) secondly, you forget
(as always) that there are 12 hours of darkness
in every 24. OK, ok, I appreciate just how
difficult it is to remember that one -- and how
all standard PA 'thinking' forgets it, and how
you so like to follow standard PA 'thinking' at
its worst. But these 'competing browsing and
grazing' species nearly all do their browsing
and grazing in the dark, when they>d be immune
from the stones of hominids -- all of whom
would be sound asleep in any case.

[quote]************ Begin Cut and Paste *****************
[/quote]
<Start of big unread snip>

Paul.

Jim McGinn · Guest

Richard Wagler <taxidea3@shaw.ca> wrote

[quote]Shouldn>t that be "had yet to come into existence" or do
you have sime more astounding revelations for us?
[/quote]
Rick, I think you should start by answering the questions you l
eft unanswered in our last conversation:

Richard Wagler <taxidea3@shaw.ca> wrote

[quote]As I indicated to Brent, unless you>re proposing time travel in
which hominids from 2.0 mya--who had the intellectual capacity
and manipulative abilities for tool/weapon usage--went back in
time to 6 to 8 mya I>m going to dismiss your objection as being
from somebody who won>t tell us the details of what the hell it
is you>re proposing.

No response.
[/quote]
So what>s the story Wagler, do you propose time travel? If
not then what do you propose?

[quote]And they didn>t look much like bears.

Yes, this is my point. This "suite of behaviors" notion is
easily refuted by anybody that cares to consider the details of
this supposition (thus the reason most people that propose this
are careful to keep their explanations vague. [Do you recognize
yourself in this comment, Rick?]). Firstly, variability
selection (multi-habitat hypothesis) is inconsistent with a
shift to bipedalism and small stature of A>piths. Instead we>d
predict something more along the lines of bears. Bears can eat
just about anything (except grasses) they hunt, forage, etc.
They are capable of climbing trees, swimming, mountainous
terrain, flat terrain, they run fast. They are large and
therefore less vulnerable to predators, their relatively
intelligent for a mammal, not lacking in social abilities.
But note that they don>t have the kind of expansive cultural
abilities that we see in humans/hominids. Why not? Because
such is unnecessary. The expansive nature of hominid cultural
capacity is completely inconsistent with the requirements of an
animals to achieve a "suite of behaviors." It>s way overkill.

No response.
[/quote]
So, Rick, you can>t dispute any of this, can you? Be honest
for once in your sorry existence.

[quote]

As for the 6-8MMy old a>piths.....What 6-8 MMy old a>piths?!

The ones that are evident in the fossil record in association
with the Ethiopian fauna that emerged about 8 mya. Do some
research on Sahalanthropus and Orrorin. (Oops, there>s the
"R" word again!)

No response.
[/quote]
Once again, you can>t dispute this, can you?

[quote]

The ability to move over significant distances? Human
bipedalism is dedicated to that.

If they were moving significant distances then, obviously, they
would have stayed quadrupedal. A shift to bipedalism is
inconsistent with an ape that travels long distances over
treeless, large predator infested, habitat. (What>s this, about
the 50th time I>ve had to explain this to you? You>re no better
than an AAT theorist.)

Possess a digestive tract
that when compared to forest apes was clearly designed
for or dependent upon a diet some significant proportion
of which did not require a lot of processing in the gut?

Yeah, like all apes.

Mark
up anther one. Throw in evaporative sweat cooling and
you.ve got the makings of an accomplished scavnger cun
hunter well adapted to relatively open savannah biomes.

This is complete BS. A>pith adaptations are inconsistent with
those of an open savanna creature. This is old news.

No response.
[/quote]
What about this regurgitated savanna nonsense?

[quote]

Throw in encephalization

You have a "rock soup" understanding of natural selection.
You can>t just "throw in encephalization," and call it a
hypothesis.

This is not a hypothesis.

You can say that again. It>s worthless, unexamined speculation.

This is a description of early Homo based on the fossil
evidence.

To me it seems to be based more on a combination of ecological
ignorance and wishful thinking.

The hypothesis re encephalization is how could they have
improved their diet in order to support encephalization.

Just-so-story nonsense. I think it>s the vagueness of your
thinking that gives you the illusion that you actually
understand what it is you>re saying. Why don>t you tell us
how your dimwitted notion supposedly predicts bipedalism in
A>piths. IOW, why don>t you actually try to do something with
this worthless BS that comes out of your head, then maybe
you>ll realize how ridiculous it is. And this BS about diet
causing encephalization is obvious nonsense.

No response.
[/quote]
Conventional fantasy.

[quote]

You have to explain the selective origins of this and
all adaptations. All you are doing is the classic
anthropologists nonsense of stringing together some
observations and calling it a hypothesis. This is the
epitome of pseudo-science.

Don>t be an ass...You think ascribing extremely advanced
behaviours to non-existent - as far as anyone knows - hominids
advances anything?

Hey, I>m not the one proposing tool-using A>piths.

How? You are essentially proposing extremely complex
behaviours generating the means that support them.

I think if you were to actually read my hypothesis you>d
see that I don>t propose complex behaviors for A>piths.
(Oh, that>s right. You have an aversion to actually
doing any work.)

In the gross all-encompassing way you talk
about it this is nonsense. Flight does not precede wings.
Flight will select for better wings. It won>t create them out
of nothing which is what all this 8MMy old a>piths with
their city states and rampaging armies is all about.

How can you pretend to discount a hypothesis that you,
obviously, haven>t read?

No answer.
[/quote]
This is the big question.

[quote]
It would seem from these comments
here that you>re only dispute with my hypothesis springs
from your own rather blatant mischaracterizations of it.

Lay the groundwork for complex behaviours we see in Homo.

This is exactly what my hypothesis achieves. It indicates
a gradual evolutionary upramp to the relatively sophisticated
behavior we see in homo. Again, you>d have to actually read
my hypothesis to begin to understand this.

Encephalization is the key and how do you support that?

By way of the communal selective aspects of my scenario.

Do you dispute this? (Please specific and explicit in your
response.)
[/quote]
?

[quote]

Instead we get hominids turning into bears.

Not in my scenario. My scenario predicts hominids/humans.
Your scenario predicts bears.

Wanna talk about pseudoscience?

I>ll pass.

Jim

In a case where there is no material evidence to support a
'hypothesis'
[/quote]
The truth is that you can>t dispute anything I>ve presented.

there is literally nothing to respond to. No
[quote]8MMy old a>piths that anybody other than yourself knows
about.
[/quote]
All we know is the fossil evidence. Deal with it. Unlike
any other hypothesis, my hypothesis is consistent with and
explanatory of the evidence.

And, no Jim, this does not mean I am arguing no
[quote]hominoid apes of any description at 8MMy. Unlike some
on this ng I am not consumed by a delusional fantasy of
my own devising. If you are not prepared to say exactly
what these animals are and are not able to understand
that the term Australopithecine refers to
[/quote]
A year ago you were trying to redefine the word savanna.
Now you>re trying to redefine the word Australopithecine.
Nothing ever changes for you. All we see are tactics and
evasiveness, no different than an AAT theorist.

a very distinct
[quote]group of bipedal apes and not just any fossil that may or
may not be on 'our' side of the LCA splitting then there
is nothing to discuss. Chasing around after your ..er..umm..
thought experiments achieves nothing
[/quote]
You>re evasiveness couldn>t be more obvious.

Who do you think you>re fooling? Michael Clark maybe?

Jim

Jim McGinn · Guest

"Michael Clark" <biteme@spammer.com> wrote

[quote]Yep. It would have been especially effective at scaring
off large competing browsing and grazing mammals

Hominids would have no "large competing
browsing and grazing mammals". They don>t
eat grass, and scarcely any leaves. Someone
should tell Jim this sometime.

This is "evidence", Paul. It>s unfair to use this to argue against the
work of a "World-Class Evolutionary Theorist"...

This is great! A "World-Class Evolutionary Theorist" at work.
One wonders how such a theoretical genius could miss ecology
101.
[/quote]
You just about have to be mentally retarded to assume
that because humans currently have no competing browsing
and grazing mammals that therefore we can assume A>piths
during the late miocene had no competing browsing and
grazing mammals.

[quote]during
the late miocene. (The achievement of which would have
been a matter of life in death due to the seasonality of
the habitat and their dependency on communally protected
resources to survive the dry season.)

Weird -- how so many errors could be put into
one small paragraph -- and form the basis of
such an apparently complex theory.

Paul can at least recognize bullshit when he sees it up close.
Go scrape it off your shoe, Paul, we>ll wait for yas.
[/quote]
It>s more than a little bit comical for someone with your
track record to be suggesting that you>d recognize bullshit
when you see it. Both yourself and Paul seem to think that
your own ignorance is the basis for a dispute with my
hypothesis. Sorry to burst your bubble, but this ain>t the
way it works.

Jim

Jim McGinn · Guest

"Paul Crowley" <slkwuoiutiuytciuyik@slkjlskjoioue.com> wrote

[quote]They scare pretty easy:

They scare easy during the day. The problem
is that they hide during the day, and come out
at night when throwing stones at them would
be a dangerous waste of time and effort.
[/quote]
Don>t misquote me, Paul, I was talking about grazing and
browsing species, not predators.

[quote]
The local leopards will soon
know WHICH of the local hominids has the
capacity to score hits from a distance. They>ll
take only the amount of care necessary to keep
clear;

Yes. This is my point. The same would be true with competing
species.

There are none -- in any case browsers are
rarely territorial.
[/quote]
God, are you some kind of mental retard. During the dry
season they>d have no choice but to get access to waterside
resources. This is just common sense here.

[quote]
Hominids would have no "large competing
browsing and grazing mammals".

Wrong. The miocene was notable for abundance of competing
browsing species, including chalcitheres (think of a horse
crossed with a gorilla), mastodons, elephants, giraffes,
and more:

This is a typically crazy McGinn notion.
[/quote]
Yes, and Gallileo was crazy for suggesting that the sun was
the center of the solar system. When we>re dealing with
unanswered questions whether it seems crazy is not the issue.
Until we arrive at the answer all notions *seem* crazy. The
issue is whether or not it is accurate. If you have any
evidence or theory to that effect then please present it,
otherwise keep your dimwitted comments to yourself.

[quote]Firstly, it>s based on the idea that hominids
lived on a savanna;
[/quote]
No. Read my hypothesis, you idiot.

<snip>

But these 'competing browsing and
[quote]grazing' species nearly all do their browsing
and grazing in the dark,
[/quote]
True.

when they>d be immune
[quote]from the stones of hominids
[/quote]
Not true.

-- all of whom
[quote]would be sound asleep in any case.
[/quote]
Keep in mind these other animals have a need for sleep also.

Jim

Ross Macfarlane · Guest

"Michael Clark" <biteme@spammer.com> wrote in message news:<vl42cp7dtigt66@corp.supernews.com>...
[quote]"Ross Macfarlane" <rmacfarl@alphalink.com.au> wrote in message
....

Dear me! My name seems to be embedded in a debate between Algis,Paulie
& Jim ! How did this happen? And who to side with - left brain, right
brain or "lower brain"? Maybe if I just stick my head up my - well,
that could be a solution, but not an attractive one...

I only see two of the three dunces here. Where you
asking for it? Oh well, I guess it can be entertaining.....
[/quote]
This all started in the other thread with Algis & Jimbo locking horns
over throwing. ALthough I could never align with Jimbo, I couldn>t
agree with Algis that you>re better off to throw while standing still.
[quote]
....
Typically McGinnian standards of evidence...

Jimmy has standards?
[/quote]
Of course! He just, like all his work, defines it in a uniquely
"McGinnian" way...
....
[quote]Oooh, this is fun! I just can>t work out which loon to poke fun at!

Always been my problem. Jimmy is swimming around in the bilge
bucket so I don>t see his affronts first hand. Maybe I>ll take him
out for some air. Would that be OK with you, "World-Class
Evolutionary Theorist"? How 'bout a little exercise?

You can deal with him. In my bucket he is, & there he stays (but I do[/quote]
like it when other loons respond to his twat - double the laughs...)

Ross Macfarlane

Richard Wagler · Guest

Jim McGinn wrote:

[quote]Richard Wagler <taxidea3@shaw.ca> wrote

Shouldn>t that be "had yet to come into existence" or do
you have sime more astounding revelations for us?

Rick, I think you should start by answering the questions you l
eft unanswered in our last conversation:
[/quote]
Why? It>s not all about you, Jim. You have no hypothesis
since you cannot identify any creatures it could possibly
apply to. Instead it>s empty appeals to 'ecological principles'
that you somehow never get around to enunciating.
And climate change. Found a webpage that gives a quick
sumup of what PA has been on to for close to four
decades and launch silly tirades about how ignorant PA
because - what - they don>t use web pages to sort out
the climate of Pliocene - early Pleistocene Africa?

As for your questions......you>d have to be capable
of understanding the answers to make it worth my time.

Arrogant enough for ya...

Rick Wagler

Jim McGinn · Guest

Richard Wagler <taxidea3@shaw.ca> wrote in message news:<3F53143D.72EC5CD7@shaw.ca>...
[quote]Jim McGinn wrote:

Richard Wagler <taxidea3@shaw.ca> wrote

Shouldn>t that be "had yet to come into existence" or do
you have sime more astounding revelations for us?

Rick, I think you should start by answering the questions you l
eft unanswered in our last conversation:

Why? It>s not all about you, Jim. You have no hypothesis
since you cannot identify any creatures it could possibly
apply to. Instead it>s empty appeals to 'ecological principles'
that you somehow never get around to enunciating.
And climate change. Found a webpage that gives a quick
sumup of what PA has been on to for close to four
decades and launch silly tirades about how ignorant PA
because - what - they don>t use web pages to sort out
the climate of Pliocene - early Pleistocene Africa?

As for your questions......you>d have to be capable
of understanding the answers to make it worth my time.

Arrogant enough for ya...

Rick Wagler
[/quote]

Answer the questions, you evasive twit:

************ Begin Cut and Paste *****************

Richard Wagler <taxidea3@shaw.ca> wrote

[quote]As I indicated to Brent, unless you>re proposing time travel in
which hominids from 2.0 mya--who had the intellectual capacity
and manipulative abilities for tool/weapon usage--went back in
time to 6 to 8 mya I>m going to dismiss your objection as being
from somebody who won>t tell us the details of what the hell it
is you>re proposing.

No response.
[/quote]
So what>s the story Wagler, do you propose time travel? If
not then what do you propose?

[quote]And they didn>t look much like bears.

Yes, this is my point. This "suite of behaviors" notion is
easily refuted by anybody that cares to consider the details of
this supposition (thus the reason most people that propose this
are careful to keep their explanations vague. [Do you recognize
yourself in this comment, Rick?]). Firstly, variability
selection (multi-habitat hypothesis) is inconsistent with a
shift to bipedalism and small stature of A>piths. Instead we>d
predict something more along the lines of bears. Bears can eat
just about anything (except grasses) they hunt, forage, etc.
They are capable of climbing trees, swimming, mountainous
terrain, flat terrain, they run fast. They are large and
therefore less vulnerable to predators, their relatively
intelligent for a mammal, not lacking in social abilities.
But note that they don>t have the kind of expansive cultural
abilities that we see in humans/hominids. Why not? Because
such is unnecessary. The expansive nature of hominid cultural
capacity is completely inconsistent with the requirements of an
animals to achieve a "suite of behaviors." It>s way overkill.

No response.
[/quote]
So, Rick, you can>t dispute any of this, can you? Be honest
for once in your sorry existence.

[quote]

As for the 6-8MMy old a>piths.....What 6-8 MMy old a>piths?!

The ones that are evident in the fossil record in association
with the Ethiopian fauna that emerged about 8 mya. Do some
research on Sahalanthropus and Orrorin. (Oops, there>s the
"R" word again!)

No response.
[/quote]
Once again, you can>t dispute this, can you?

[quote]

The ability to move over significant distances? Human
bipedalism is dedicated to that.

If they were moving significant distances then, obviously, they
would have stayed quadrupedal. A shift to bipedalism is
inconsistent with an ape that travels long distances over
treeless, large predator infested, habitat. (What>s this, about
the 50th time I>ve had to explain this to you? You>re no better
than an AAT theorist.)

Possess a digestive tract
that when compared to forest apes was clearly designed
for or dependent upon a diet some significant proportion
of which did not require a lot of processing in the gut?

Yeah, like all apes.

Mark
up anther one. Throw in evaporative sweat cooling and
you.ve got the makings of an accomplished scavnger cun
hunter well adapted to relatively open savannah biomes.

This is complete BS. A>pith adaptations are inconsistent with
those of an open savanna creature. This is old news.

No response.
[/quote]
What about this regurgitated savanna nonsense?

[quote]

Throw in encephalization

You have a "rock soup" understanding of natural selection.
You can>t just "throw in encephalization," and call it a
hypothesis.

This is not a hypothesis.

You can say that again. It>s worthless, unexamined speculation.

This is a description of early Homo based on the fossil
evidence.

To me it seems to be based more on a combination of ecological
ignorance and wishful thinking.

The hypothesis re encephalization is how could they have
improved their diet in order to support encephalization.

Just-so-story nonsense. I think it>s the vagueness of your
thinking that gives you the illusion that you actually
understand what it is you>re saying. Why don>t you tell us
how your dimwitted notion supposedly predicts bipedalism in
A>piths. IOW, why don>t you actually try to do something with
this worthless BS that comes out of your head, then maybe
you>ll realize how ridiculous it is. And this BS about diet
causing encephalization is obvious nonsense.

No response.
[/quote]
Conventional fantasy.

[quote]

You have to explain the selective origins of this and
all adaptations. All you are doing is the classic
anthropologists nonsense of stringing together some
observations and calling it a hypothesis. This is the
epitome of pseudo-science.

Don>t be an ass...You think ascribing extremely advanced
behaviours to non-existent - as far as anyone knows - hominids
advances anything?

Hey, I>m not the one proposing tool-using A>piths.

How? You are essentially proposing extremely complex
behaviours generating the means that support them.

I think if you were to actually read my hypothesis you>d
see that I don>t propose complex behaviors for A>piths.
(Oh, that>s right. You have an aversion to actually
doing any work.)

In the gross all-encompassing way you talk
about it this is nonsense. Flight does not precede wings.
Flight will select for better wings. It won>t create them out
of nothing which is what all this 8MMy old a>piths with
their city states and rampaging armies is all about.

How can you pretend to discount a hypothesis that you,
obviously, haven>t read?

No answer.
[/quote]
This is the big question.

[quote]
It would seem from these comments
here that you>re only dispute with my hypothesis springs
from your own rather blatant mischaracterizations of it.

Lay the groundwork for complex behaviours we see in Homo.

This is exactly what my hypothesis achieves. It indicates
a gradual evolutionary upramp to the relatively sophisticated
behavior we see in homo. Again, you>d have to actually read
my hypothesis to begin to understand this.

Encephalization is the key and how do you support that?

By way of the communal selective aspects of my scenario.

Do you dispute this? (Please specific and explicit in your
response.)
[/quote]
?

[quote]

Instead we get hominids turning into bears.

Not in my scenario. My scenario predicts hominids/humans.
Your scenario predicts bears.

Wanna talk about pseudoscience?

I>ll pass.

Jim

In a case where there is no material evidence to support a
'hypothesis'
[/quote]
The truth is that you can>t dispute anything I>ve presented.

there is literally nothing to respond to. No
[quote]8MMy old a>piths that anybody other than yourself knows
about.
[/quote]
All we know is the fossil evidence. Deal with it. Unlike
any other hypothesis, my hypothesis is consistent with and
explanatory of the evidence.

And, no Jim, this does not mean I am arguing no
[quote]hominoid apes of any description at 8MMy. Unlike some
on this ng I am not consumed by a delusional fantasy of
my own devising. If you are not prepared to say exactly
what these animals are and are not able to understand
that the term Australopithecine refers to
[/quote]
A year ago you were trying to redefine the word savanna.
Now you>re trying to redefine the word Australopithecine.
Nothing ever changes for you. All we see are tactics and
evasiveness, no different than an AAT theorist.

a very distinct
[quote]group of bipedal apes and not just any fossil that may or
may not be on 'our' side of the LCA splitting then there
is nothing to discuss. Chasing around after your ..er..umm..
thought experiments achieves nothing
[/quote]
You>re evasiveness couldn>t be more obvious.

Who do you think you>re fooling? Michael Clark maybe?

Jim

************* End Cut and Paste ******************

Paul Crowley · Guest

"Jim McGinn" <jimmcginn@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:ac6a5059.0308311905.7398583c@posting.google.com...

[quote]The same would be true with competing
species.

There are none -- in any case browsers are
rarely territorial.

God, are you some kind of mental retard. During the dry
season they>d have no choice but to get access to waterside
resources. This is just common sense here.
[/quote]
Are you really claiming that hominids would be
competing with browsers and grazers for
"waterside resources" in the dry season?

You have got the "savanna scenario" locked
into your brain. Do chimps, gorillas or baboons
compete with browsers and grazers in this respect?

[quote]Hominids would have no "large competing
browsing and grazing mammals".

Wrong. The miocene was notable for abundance of competing
browsing species, including chalcitheres (think of a horse
crossed with a gorilla), mastodons, elephants, giraffes,
and more:

This is a typically crazy McGinn notion.

Yes, and Gallileo was crazy for suggesting that the sun was
the center of the solar system. When we>re dealing with
unanswered questions whether it seems crazy is not the issue.
Until we arrive at the answer all notions *seem* crazy. The
issue is whether or not it is accurate. If you have any
evidence or theory to that effect then please present it,
otherwise keep your dimwitted comments to yourself.
[/quote]
I agree with you in some respect. IF you are
proposing a savanna theory, then you should
outline exactly how they compete with savanna
species -- and standard PA types (i.e. savanna
theorists) never do that . . . . but they never
pretend to justify anything, so there is nothing
in the least remarkable there. But I did not think
that you explicitly supported a savanna theory.

[quote]Firstly, it>s based on the idea that hominids
lived on a savanna;

No. Read my hypothesis, you idiot.
[/quote]
I have no idea where it is. But please don>t
tell me.

[quote]But these 'competing browsing and
grazing' species nearly all do their browsing
and grazing in the dark,

True.

when they>d be immune
from the stones of hominids

Not true.
[/quote]
Explain how hominids scare browsers in
the dark.

[quote]-- all of whom
would be sound asleep in any case.

Keep in mind these other animals have a need for sleep also.
[/quote]
Mammals are designed to be active at night.
That>s their 150 Myr inheritance. OK, you
don>t know that, and since you sleep at night,
you assume that all animals do so too. But
that>s quite wrong. Primates are unusual -- as
they need to be able to see when moving about
trees. Most mammals sleep by day (when it>s
hot) and eat, travel, etc., by night.

Don>t be ashamed of not knowing this --
even as a World Class Evolutionary Theorist.
Standard PA types don>t know it either.

Paul.

Jim McGinn · Guest

"Paul Crowley" <slkwuoiutiuytciuyik@slkjlskjoioue.com> wrote

[quote]God, are you some kind of mental retard. During the dry
season they>d have no choice but to get access to waterside
resources. This is just common sense here.

Are you really claiming that hominids would be
competing with browsers and grazers for
"waterside resources" in the dry season?
[/quote]
No. Or not exactly. You>ll have to read the whole
hypothesis. There>s no short answer.

[quote]You have got the "savanna scenario" locked
into your brain. Do chimps, gorillas or baboons
compete with browsers and grazers in this respect?
[/quote]
Read the hypothesis then you can make comments that don>t
make you sound like a complete jackass. (As explained in
my hypothesis, their biggest problem was poverty. The
most important poverty avoidance strategy is keeping
competing browsers and grazers away from their treed patch.)

[quote]
Hominids would have no "large competing
browsing and grazing mammals".

Wrong. The miocene was notable for abundance of competing
browsing species, including chalcitheres (think of a horse
crossed with a gorilla), mastodons, elephants, giraffes,
and more:

This is a typically crazy McGinn notion.

Yes, and Gallileo was crazy for suggesting that the sun was
the center of the solar system. When we>re dealing with
unanswered questions whether it seems crazy is not the issue.
Until we arrive at the answer all notions *seem* crazy. The
issue is whether or not it is accurate. If you have any
evidence or theory to that effect then please present it,
otherwise keep your dimwitted comments to yourself.

I agree with you in some respect. IF you are
proposing a savanna theory,
[/quote]
It>s not a savanna theory. In fact I>m careful to avoid
the word savanna.

then you should
[quote]outline exactly how they compete with savanna
species -- and standard PA types (i.e. savanna
theorists) never do that . . . . but they never
pretend to justify anything, so there is nothing
in the least remarkable there. But I did not think
that you explicitly supported a savanna theory.
[/quote]
I don>t support, "a savanna theory." In fact I don>t
know what that is. (I>ve been asking Travsky, Wagler,
Clark, Hanenberg, Love, MacFarlane, Kreger, et al. to
explain what "the savanna," theory is for quite some
time now. Apparently it>s a secret.) The habitat in
my hypothesis can best be described as a monsoon
habitat. But there>s more to it than just the habitat.

[quote]Firstly, it>s based on the idea that hominids
lived on a savanna;

No. Read my hypothesis, you idiot.

I have no idea where it is. But please don>t
tell me.
[/quote]
I have no intention of telling you anything but what
a complete jackass you are.

[quote]
But these 'competing browsing and
grazing' species nearly all do their browsing
and grazing in the dark,

True.

when they>d be immune
from the stones of hominids

Not true.

Explain how hominids scare browsers in
the dark.
[/quote]
Noise. (The origins of human ritual.)

[quote]
-- all of whom
would be sound asleep in any case.

Keep in mind these other animals have a need for sleep also.

Mammals are designed to be active at night.
That>s their 150 Myr inheritance. OK, you
don>t know that, and since you sleep at night,
you assume that all animals do so too. But
that>s quite wrong. Primates are unusual -- as
they need to be able to see when moving about
trees. Most mammals sleep by day (when it>s
hot) and eat, travel, etc., by night.
[/quote]
If they made a lot of noise during the night they
could scare them away. (Communalism solves these
issues. They aren>t wandering around in treeless
habitat here. Don>t be a dumbass and ask me questions
based on your own poorly considered assumptions.)

[quote]Don>t be ashamed of not knowing this --
even as a World Class Evolutionary Theorist.
Standard PA types don>t know it either.
[/quote]
Communalism solves all of these problems, Paul. So
your concerns, here, are unnecessary in the context
of the scenario that I propose. This ain>t no "wander
band" type of a hypothesis. I leave this kind of BS
to the proponents of standard hunter/gatherer fantasy.

Jim

Jim McGinn · Guest

"Paul Crowley" <slkwuoiutiuytciuyik@slkjlskjoioue.com> wrote in message news:<cha5b.30207$pK2.49049@news.indigo.ie>...
[quote]"Jim McGinn" <jimmcginn@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:ac6a5059.0309012051.6458ad9@posting.google.com...

[..]
Explain how hominids scare browsers in
the dark.

Noise. (The origins of human ritual.)

The ONLY reason why one animal is afraid
of another is that it is likely to do it harm.
True, one animal can temporarily fool another,
but when there is no real back-up that rapidly
stops working.
[/quote]
They were doing more than just calling names:
Sticks and stones can break bones.

The only thing that hominid
[quote]noise would do at night is to attract predators
to their location. What things make a loud
noise?
[/quote]
Chimp bands can make a lot of noise. And they can
back it up also.

Does your fear of them correspond?
[quote]You are more afraid of crickets than snakes?
Bullfrogs than leopards? Donkeys than
crocodiles?

Mammals are designed to be active at night.
That>s their 150 Myr inheritance. OK, you
don>t know that, and since you sleep at night,
you assume that all animals do so too. But
that>s quite wrong. Primates are unusual -- as
they need to be able to see when moving about
trees. Most mammals sleep by day (when it>s
hot) and eat, travel, etc., by night.

If they made a lot of noise during the night they
could scare them away. (Communalism solves these
issues. They aren>t wandering around in treeless
habitat here. Don>t be a dumbass and ask me questions
based on your own poorly considered assumptions.)

The most amusing thing around here is
the extent to which your 'theories' have so
little connection with the real world.
[/quote]
It seems to me that you think your own ignorance is,
in and of itself, a dispute with my scenario.

Jim

Jim McGinn · Guest

"Paul Crowley" <slkwuoiutiuytciuyik@slkjlskjoioue.com> wrote in message news:<U5H5b.30393$pK2.49256@news.indigo.ie>...
[quote]"Jim McGinn" <jimmcginn@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:ac6a5059.0309031150.707a3e28@posting.google.com...

The ONLY reason why one animal is afraid
o


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