EVOLUTION: The Aquatic Ape

John K Clark (johnkc@well.com)
Fri, 17 Jan 1997 10:21:24 -0800 (PST)


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Thu, 16 Jan 1997 "E. Shaun Russell" <e_shaun@uniserve.com> Wrote:

>the answer [to bipedalism] appears quite evident. The
>increasing size in the brain of a pre-human began to pave
>lots of room for evolutionary innovation. When the
>pre-human started to think, he realized that he would love
>to have a weapon to kill his food; unfortunately, he couldn't
>yet brandish a weapon and run after his desired prey at the
>same time. Paralleling the need for weapons etc., the
>pre-human also started to think of how nice those apples
>started to look on those branches. Hmmm. Too bad he couldn't
>reach them.

That is a reasonable theory, very logical, but as in History that's not
enough to prove it's true. In spite of this the idea seemed so "right" that
until recently nearly everybody thought it must be true; then the fossil
record proved that it's completely wrong.

Lucy lived 3 and a half million years ago, she could walk upright as well as
you or me, in fact from the neck down was very similar to modern people,
and yet, her brain was only slightly larger than a chimpanzee. The huge
increase in brain size came AFTER bipedalism developed and after a hand
evolved that could perform complex movement. It would seem much more logical
if a big brain came first, but that's not what happened and nobody
understands why.

On 17 Jan 1997 Guru George <gurugeorge@sugarland.idiscover.co.uk> Wrote:

>The 'savannah' scenario just doesn't cut it, so far as
>I can see

I agree, that never made much sense to me, if anything it seems that
bipedalism would do better in a dense jungle that a open savanna, but if the
savanna theory is wrong that doesn't mean that the Aquatic Ape theory is
right.

John K Clark johnkc@well.com

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