Thanks for the great post, Cali.

As a fishkeeper myself, I found the fish information particularly interesting.

I'm still sorry to see this train wreck of a thread pop again, with JayJay still making the same lame assertions :/

Oh, the fun part is, I found out a hell of a lot of interesting things by paying attention to the fish. For example, take my past populations of Corydoras panda.

Now this is one of those sky-high desirable Corydoras species, and once upon a time, people were paying £30 a pop for these fish. Trouble is, you only get the best out of them if you pay attention to how they behave in the wild, and take note of the fact that whilst most Corydoras are moderately gregarious, Corydoras panda stands out as being much more avowedly social. It actually needs the presence of a good sized number of its companions in a given setting to be truly happy, and consequently, if you want to stand a chance of success with this species, you have to procure a decent sized population right from the start - not easy back in the days when these fish were changing hands for £30 each.

However, if you do that, as I was able to do back in 2000, you notice something interesting. If you put in the usual "six constitutes a shoal" into your aquarium, they'll mope about and start declining due to lack of proper social contact. On the other hand, the moment you push those numbers into double figures, they start coming alive. I had 14 in my aquarium, and it was a fucking riot. At that population density, they started showing off a truly mammalian level of cuteness in terms of behaviour, almost like hamsters with fins. One of my specimens, for example, used to sit on an Amazon Swordplant leaf swaying in the current from the powerhead, for all the world like an underwater version of a budgie on a swing, just because it liked doing so. It would, after about 10 to 15 minutes of this (I noticed it was the same individual doing this each time, by the way), then scoot off and join two or three others surfing the powerhead bubbles. In the meantime, three or four others would be nosing about in the Java Moss looking for tasty morsels, and the moment one of them found something to its liking, it would go arse up, thrashing its tail to get ever closer to the tasty titbit, drilling its own little oil well in the Java Moss, and upon emerging with a mouthful of something yummy, I swear you could see that fish smile. Others would be exploring the bogwood caves, looking like a fish version of the computer game Lemmings whilst doing so, and they'd keep this sort of activity up right up to lights out.

Then, they decided they liked my aquarium enough to start breeding.

Hoo boy, that was something else. Several males would chase a female around, like a fish version of the Keystone Kops at quadruple speed, leaving the Cardinal and Lemon Tetras wondering what the hell had suddenly got into the Pandas, and then, the female would pick one male for the "T" position and mating. Except that this was a suitably hyperactive affair as well - the couple would frequently be observed doing Team Red Bull aerobatics during the T position. Then, the female, single egg pursed between her pelvic fins, would look for a nice bit of Java Moss to bury the egg in. Cue another Keystone Kops chase whilst this happened. Then, the whole procedure would repeat itself. They'd keep this sexual gymnastics up for five hours at a stretch. I kept telling people after seeing this, that if I tried emulating them, I'd end up, to borrow Warren Beatty's words, in a jar at the hospital.

I raised three generations of those little finned fizz bombs, and at one point seriously considered the possibility of going into full scale industrial production of these fish, because over a 3 year period, they spawned 110 times in my aquarium, which explains why I took to calling it the Panda Fun Palace.

You know you're doing it right when this happens.

Here's some of my photos from that time. First, the "budgie swing" catfish on its leaf. Then, a selection of hectic spawning photos. Enjoy!

THWOTH wrote:

Jayjay4547 wrote:Australopiths could doubtless do all that just as well as other higher primates. But what they lacked and what other higher primates have up their sleeve, are long sharp canines, which make other primates dangerous to attack. Either they were helpless little creatures or they weren’t helpless.

Or, given the nature of their social structures, the ability to act collectively negated the necessity for individuals to either procure resources or defend themselves entirely individually.

1. What level of social structure can we suppose for Australopithecus, a higher primate with a brain the size of a modern chimp’s and living in the same environment as a variety of baboons? Baboons and chimps both have well developed social structures and live in troops. And both are dangerous attack because of the sharp canines of their males and their aggression- see Boesch’s accounts of controntations between chimps and a leopard in the Tai forest
http://www.eva.mpg.de/primat/staff/boes ... dation.pdf and Cheney et al about Baboons in the Moremi reserve of Botswana.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1560071/
But a predator would not have anything to fear from the canines of Australopithecus. It’s one thing for a human child to lacerate the arm of a playmate, another to bite through the skin of a living leopard.

2.Patterson’s account of the Tsavo maneaters shows that when unarmed modern human beings are exposed to predators, the predators soon find out how vulnerable those humans are and are undeterred by fires, screams, banging of pots or the number of prey.

3. There’s no need to visualise an individual hominin defending itself alone. Baboons and chimps both respond to predators as groups.

Jayjay4547 wrote:

THWOTH wrote:

Jayjay4547 wrote:Australopiths could doubtless do all that just as well as other higher primates. But what they lacked and what other higher primates have up their sleeve, are long sharp canines, which make other primates dangerous to attack. Either they were helpless little creatures or they weren’t helpless.

Or, given the nature of their social structures, the ability to act collectively negated the necessity for individuals to either procure resources or defend themselves entirely individually.

1. What level of social structure can we suppose for Australopithecus, a higher primate with a brain the size of a modern chimp’s and living in the same environment as a variety of baboons? Baboons and chimps both have well developed social structures and live in troops. And both are dangerous attack because of the sharp canines of their males and their aggression- see Boesch’s accounts of controntations between chimps and a leopard in the Tai forest
http://www.eva.mpg.de/primat/staff/boes ... dation.pdf and Cheney et al about Baboons in the Moremi reserve of Botswana.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1560071/
But a predator would not have anything to fear from the canines of Australopithecus. It’s one thing for a human child to lacerate the arm of a playmate, another to bite through the skin of a living leopard.

2.Patterson’s account of the Tsavo maneaters shows that when unarmed modern human beings are exposed to predators, the predators soon find out how vulnerable those humans are and are undeterred by fires, screams, banging of pots or the number of prey.

3. There’s no need to visualise an individual hominin defending itself alone. Baboons and chimps both respond to predators as groups.

There's plenty of evidence for species of hominins subsequent to Australopithecus living in social groups, and surviving without canines. Are you making a horrendously-obfuscated missing link argument? Cry me a river, Jayjay. Goddidit, right?

But you're not really doing this because of religion, any more. You're just trying to preserve your personal delusion that you're some kind of primatologist-cum-paleontologist. If you want to do that, you have to consider all the data, not just the parts that suit your old ideology.

Oh look, he's trying to claim that the Cheney et al paper supports his fantasies, despite my having exposed this claim as yet another of his fantasies in this post way back on page 29 of the thread, where I examined the Cheney et al paper in detail to determine what it actually stated. For those who want to read the full text, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Part B makes it available in full as an HTML document here, and the PDF version can be downloaded for free here.

From that paper, here are the parts that destroy his fantasy assertions once again. First, from the abstract alone:

Cheney et al, 2003 wrote:The majority of deaths among adult females and juveniles were due to predation

Later on, in the main body of the paper, we have this:

Cheney et al, 2003 wrote:Although some researchers report that adult males are the primary combatants in attacks on leopards (Altmann and Altmann, 1970; Cowlishaw, 1994; DeVore and Hall, 1965), in Moremi adult females, subadult males, and juveniles were as likely as adult males to mob leopards. Certain individuals appeared to be more likely than others to attack. For example, one lowranking adult female was most often in the vanguard of mobbing attacks and once was severely injured when a leopard slashed her arm. She was killed by a leopard when 20 years old. Two adult males and 2 other adult females sustained severe injuries on their thighs and legs that appeared to be slash wounds from leopards. We first observed wounds on one female soon after the baboons had mobbed a leopard. It is not known whether the other wounds occurred as a result of an unsuccessful predation attempt or a mobbing attack.

Then we have this:

Hyenas (Crocuta crocuta) and wild dogs (Lycaon pictus).

Hyenas and wild dogs typically elicited little response other than scattered alarm barks and vigilance. Although hyenas may occasionally prey on peripheral or solitary baboons (Altmann and Altmann, 1970), we never observed them attempting to hunt baboons. Indeed, because hyenas usually foraged alone, they may have been vulnerable to mob attacks by baboons. Hyenas were occasionally chased by adult males and females, including females with infants. Once, several adult male baboons leapt onto a solitary hyena that was passing under the tree in which they were feeding. In the attack, the hyena sustained a severe wound on one of its legs.

Then there's this I presented back on page 29:

Cheney et al, 2003 wrote:In the case of infanticide, we distinguished the following additional categories (Palombit et al., 2000):

1. Confirmed infanticide: The infanticidal attack was witnessed by observers.

2. Strongly suspected infanticide: An infant disappeared after a fight involving a male and females, and after sustaining wounds resembling a baboon bite, or at the same time that its mother sustained wounds resembling a baboon bite. In one suspected case, we saw a male that had killed other infants eating a carcass that appeared to be that of an infant baboon.

3. Suspected infanticide: An apparently healthy infant disappeared at around the same time that a male had killed other infants.

My comments with respect to how those parts of the paper destroy JayJay''s fantasies can be read in full in the post on page 29 I thoughtfully provided a link to above.

Those Panda fish, are those long 'whiskers', er, extended canines...

Alan B wrote:Those Panda fish, are those long 'whiskers', er, extended canines...

(I have a breeding colony of C. panda as well; adorable little guys, one of my favourites! Seeing the new fry snuffling around in the sand is one of life's small joys Sorry for going off topic...but corydoras are perfectly adapted to their environment; their flat EVOLVED bellies are clearly ideal for bottom feeding)

Calilasseia wrote:From that paper, here are the parts that destroy his fantasy assertions once again. First, from the abstract alone:

Cheney et al, 2003 wrote:The majority of deaths among adult females and juveniles were due to predation

It’s actually essential to my argument that australopithecus was embedded in the food chain, like modern baboons. That’s the “niche” they lived in, and the problem for which they had blindly stumbled upon a bizarre solution- partial as it is for all living things- how to eat WITHOUT being eaten.

It’s rationalist posters here who argue that the australopiths didn’t display in their bodies, a distinctive style of making themselves as difficult a prey sort as baboons are.

Calilasseia wrote:
Later on, in the main body of the paper, we have this:

Cheney et al, 2003 wrote:Although some researchers report that adult males are the primary combatants in attacks on leopards (Altmann and Altmann, 1970; Cowlishaw, 1994; DeVore and Hall, 1965), in Moremi adult females, subadult males, and juveniles were as likely as adult males to mob leopards. Certain individuals appeared to be more likely than others to attack. For example, one lowranking adult female was most often in the vanguard of mobbing attacks and once was severely injured when a leopard slashed her arm. She was killed by a leopard when 20 years old. Two adult males and 2 other adult females sustained severe injuries on their thighs and legs that appeared to be slash wounds from leopards. We first observed wounds on one female soon after the baboons had mobbed a leopard. It is not known whether the other wounds occurred as a result of an unsuccessful predation attempt or a mobbing attack.

Cali doesn’t explain how this affects my argument. Everyone with any interest in the matter knows that mobbing attacks involve the whole troop. Imagine this case: Disease wipes out all the troop members except juveniles. Would they still mob a leopard? Surely not. Female baboons joining in a mobbing, can be understood at two levels. One is that the females as much as the males, really really hate the leopard and want to be in at the kill. At the functional level, the whole troop provides MIRV –like character. The leopard has so many targets it doesn’t know where to attack. I’m thinking the charming story where the encircled leopard attacks a human observer, and is instantly mobbed by 20 baboons, including a female with an infant.

The elephant in this room is the sex of the human researchers and the shadow of Robert Ardrey, who pushed sexist buttons in his extravagant presentaiton of male baboons.

Calilasseia wrote:Then we have this:

Hyenas (Crocuta crocuta) and wild dogs (Lycaon pictus).

Hyenas and wild dogs typically elicited little response other than scattered alarm barks and vigilance. Although hyenas may occasionally prey on peripheral or solitary baboons (Altmann and Altmann, 1970), we never observed them attempting to hunt baboons. Indeed, because hyenas usually foraged alone, they may have been vulnerable to mob attacks by baboons. Hyenas were occasionally chased by adult males and females, including females with infants. Once, several adult male baboons leapt onto a solitary hyena that was passing under the tree in which they were feeding. In the attack, the hyena sustained a severe wound on one of its legs.

I quoted that incident of baboons jumping on a hyena often enough, it’s mystifying how Cali can cite it supposedly against me.

Calilasseia wrote:Then there's this I presented back on page 29:

Cheney et al, 2003 wrote:In the case of infanticide, we distinguished the following additional categories (Palombit et al., 2000):

1. Confirmed infanticide: The infanticidal attack was witnessed by observers.

2. Strongly suspected infanticide: An infant disappeared after a fight involving a male and females, and after sustaining wounds resembling a baboon bite, or at the same time that its mother sustained wounds resembling a baboon bite. In one suspected case, we saw a male that had killed other infants eating a carcass that appeared to be that of an infant baboon.

3. Suspected infanticide: An apparently healthy infant disappeared at around the same time that a male had killed other infants.

My comments with respect to how those parts of the paper destroy JayJay''s fantasies can be read in full in the post on page 29 I thoughtfully provided a link to above.

More mystification from Cali. Alpha males of several species kill infants not related to them. In the case of baboons, that might be characteristic of particular alpha males, not all of them. What is definite is that most deaths of adult baboons are caused by predation as Cheney et al reported.

Talking about mobbing, there was a report (sorry I didn’t save a link and now can’t find it) about a leopard that took a female baboon and was then mobbed by the whole troop, in a sustained attack that left the leopard thoroughly flattened. The troop then moved off, leaving the dead baboon body. After a while, the leopard roused itself, grabbed the dead baboon and moved off. I’m not claiming that a baboon troop is incapable of “tearing a leopard to shreds” but that lying doggo might be surprisingly effective when the victor isn't a predator.

Oh look. More bollocks. The in tray is full again.

Jayjay4547 wrote:

Calilasseia wrote:From that paper, here are the parts that destroy his fantasy assertions once again. First, from the abstract alone:

Cheney et al, 2003 wrote:The majority of deaths among adult females and juveniles were due to predation

It’s actually essential to my argument that australopithecus was embedded in the food chain, like modern baboons.

The only thing that's "essential" to your apologetics, is ignoring the large amounts of DATA that have been brought here refuting your fantasies. Typified by you wasting large amounts of time cherry-picking papers in order to prop them up, whilst ignoring the large amounts of contradictory DATA contained in those same papers.

Jayjay4547 wrote:That’s the “niche” they lived in, and the problem for which they had blindly stumbled upon a bizarre solution- partial as it is for all living things- how to eat WITHOUT being eaten.

Oh wait, we've had plenty of commentary from those papers you cherry-picked and quote mined, providing us with an entirely different account. Now, who should anyone with functioning brain cells pay more attention to here - actual research scientists who spent long hours diligently cataloguing large numbers of observations, or a random Internet armchair apologist manifestly making shit up to prop up a deranged fantasy?

Jayjay4547 wrote:It’s rationalist posters here who argue that the australopiths didn’t display in their bodies, a distinctive style of making themselves as difficult a prey sort as baboons are.

More lies and bullshit. The feature you continue to fantasise as being "distinctive" here isn't, because there are large numbers of organisms that happily function, and maintain populations across generations, without that feature being in the least bit relevant. Worse still, your attempt to peddle baboons as being exemplars of your fantasy also fails dismally, courtesy of detailed examination of yet more scientific papers that you cherry-picked and quote mined, whilst avoiding in typically predictable creationist fashion all the contradictory refuting DATA contained therein.

Jayjay4547 wrote:

Calilasseia wrote:
Later on, in the main body of the paper, we have this:

Cheney et al, 2003 wrote:Although some researchers report that adult males are the primary combatants in attacks on leopards (Altmann and Altmann, 1970; Cowlishaw, 1994; DeVore and Hall, 1965), in Moremi adult females, subadult males, and juveniles were as likely as adult males to mob leopards. Certain individuals appeared to be more likely than others to attack. For example, one lowranking adult female was most often in the vanguard of mobbing attacks and once was severely injured when a leopard slashed her arm. She was killed by a leopard when 20 years old. Two adult males and 2 other adult females sustained severe injuries on their thighs and legs that appeared to be slash wounds from leopards. We first observed wounds on one female soon after the baboons had mobbed a leopard. It is not known whether the other wounds occurred as a result of an unsuccessful predation attempt or a mobbing attack.

Cali doesn’t explain how this affects my argument.

Oh, wait, I stated in my previous post that I covered this in detail way back on page 29. Do I really have to dredge that old post up in full, and point out how it renders your fantasies null and void?

Jayjay4547 wrote:Everyone with any interest in the matter knows that mobbing attacks involve the whole troop.

Oh wait, what does it say in that part of the paper that I quoted? Oh, that's right, baboons LACKING fuck-off big canines were just as likely to participate in the requisite mobbing activity, as those possessing them. Another piece of refuting DATA you keep ignoring.

Jayjay4547 wrote:Imagine this case: Disease wipes out all the troop members except juveniles. Would they still mob a leopard? Surely not.

Oh you know this for a fact, do you? Except that according to that part of the paper I quoted, the scientists observing that troop state clearly that they would.

Jayjay4547 wrote:Female baboons joining in a mobbing, can be understood at two levels. One is that the females as much as the males, really really hate the leopard and want to be in at the kill. At the functional level, the whole troop provides MIRV –like character. The leopard has so many targets it doesn’t know where to attack. I’m thinking the charming story where the encircled leopard attacks a human observer, and is instantly mobbed by 20 baboons, including a female with an infant.

In other words, what counts is numbers. If the numbers are sufficient, then even juveniles could, in principle, successfully persuade a leopard to go and look for something easier, at least in the daytime, but of course, it's a different story at night, as more DATA from those papers you keep ignoring tells us.

For that matter, in the case of that Central American Cichlid I presented above, Neetroplus nematopus, just two individuals are sufficient to beat off far larger opposition, if they co-ordinate their attack sufficiently well. Or are you going to make up more shit about Dr Paul Loiselle's observations, both in the wild and in the aquarium?

Jayjay4547 wrote:The elephant in this room is the sex of the human researchers and the shadow of Robert Ardrey, who pushed sexist buttons in his extravagant presentaiton of male baboons.

Oh look, more fantasy assertions. Got anything else to bring here?

Jayjay4547 wrote:

Calilasseia wrote:Then we have this:

Hyenas (Crocuta crocuta) and wild dogs (Lycaon pictus).

Hyenas and wild dogs typically elicited little response other than scattered alarm barks and vigilance. Although hyenas may occasionally prey on peripheral or solitary baboons (Altmann and Altmann, 1970), we never observed them attempting to hunt baboons. Indeed, because hyenas usually foraged alone, they may have been vulnerable to mob attacks by baboons. Hyenas were occasionally chased by adult males and females, including females with infants. Once, several adult male baboons leapt onto a solitary hyena that was passing under the tree in which they were feeding. In the attack, the hyena sustained a severe wound on one of its legs.

I quoted that incident of baboons jumping on a hyena often enough, it’s mystifying how Cali can cite it supposedly against me.

Oh wait, what part of "baboons usually don't treat hyenas as being as big a threat as leopards, because hyenas don't make a habit of hunting baboons" do you not understand? Which the authors clearly stated in that quoted paragraph, and which you again ignored?

Jayjay4547 wrote:

Calilasseia wrote:Then there's this I presented back on page 29:

Cheney et al, 2003 wrote:In the case of infanticide, we distinguished the following additional categories (Palombit et al., 2000):

1. Confirmed infanticide: The infanticidal attack was witnessed by observers.

2. Strongly suspected infanticide: An infant disappeared after a fight involving a male and females, and after sustaining wounds resembling a baboon bite, or at the same time that its mother sustained wounds resembling a baboon bite. In one suspected case, we saw a male that had killed other infants eating a carcass that appeared to be that of an infant baboon.

3. Suspected infanticide: An apparently healthy infant disappeared at around the same time that a male had killed other infants.

My comments with respect to how those parts of the paper destroy JayJay''s fantasies can be read in full in the post on page 29 I thoughtfully provided a link to above.

More mystification from Cali.

Oh look, it's pot, kettle, black time. Except that, oh wait, the authors provided evidence that a significant part of canine use in baboons centres upon intra-species conflict.

Jayjay4547 wrote:Alpha males of several species kill infants not related to them. In the case of baboons, that might be characteristic of particular alpha males, not all of them. What is definite is that most deaths of adult baboons are caused by predation as Cheney et al reported.

And that last fact alone destroys your "defensive biting" fantasy, because clearly, your fantasy DOESN'T WORK if the majority of baboon deaths are due to predation. And of course, most predation upon baboons by leopards is observed taking place at night, when the lowered state of alert of the baboons and the heightened night vision of the leopard skews the conflict in the leopard's favour. Another important and repeatedly documented piece of DATA you keep ignoring, in order to continue propping up your fantasy.

Jayjay4547 wrote:Talking about mobbing, there was a report (sorry I didn’t save a link and now can’t find it) about a leopard that took a female baboon and was then mobbed by the whole troop, in a sustained attack that left the leopard thoroughly flattened. The troop then moved off, leaving the dead baboon body. After a while, the leopard roused itself, grabbed the dead baboon and moved off. I’m not claiming that a baboon troop is incapable of “tearing a leopard to shreds” but that lying doggo might be surprisingly effective when the victor isn't a predator.

Given your manifestly cavalier treatment of such "reports", as exposed repeatedly in the past, I'm minded to take this one with a large bucket of salt.

Cali's posts about fish, in particular the extracts from his book "My fucking fish unexpectedly ate each other", have been hugely entertaining and informative.

JayJay's responses - not so much.

Sendraks wrote:Good points DH. However, this is about "defensive biting" remember. The whole idea being that if you don't have teeth to defend yourself with, you must be reliant on weapons - regardless of all the other possibilities (climbing, numbers, predator avoidance etc etc). All the other things are just blithely discounted in favour of this idea, despite there being no evidence to back it up.

Not only that, but there's an obsessive focus from jayjay on predator-defence being the driving factor behind tool development, as opposed to it being one of many factors, and quite possibly not the most important one.

Jayjay4547 wrote:It’s actually essential to my argument that australopithecus was embedded in the food chain, like modern baboons. That’s the “niche” they lived in, and the problem for which they had blindly stumbled upon a bizarre solution- partial as it is for all living things- how to eat WITHOUT being eaten.

But 'how to eat without being eaten' is merely a subset of the actual 'question' of life of 'how to survive and adequately reproduce'.

You just happen to be blindly obsessed with teeth.

And anyway, when it comes to hominim tool development, your 'how to eat' points to all kinds of tool uses which can be developed gradually, with immediate and obvious payoffs for the developer all along the way, rather than your pathetic image of humans carrying weapons around constantly and habitually training with them simply with the goal of preparing themselves for future occasional potential predator-defence combat.

Cito di Pense wrote:There's plenty of evidence for species of hominins subsequent to Australopithecus living in social groups, and surviving without canines. Are you making a horrendously-obfuscated missing link argument? Cry me a river, Jayjay. Goddidit, right?

Don’t you see, the species of hominins subsequent to Australopithecus also relied on hand held weapons to make them dangerous to attack, even more than Australopithecus? Because the subsequent hominins (that’s genus Homo) made better weapons than Australopithecus.

One could say, that Australopithecus marks the start of a coevolution of hominins and tools. Tools were welded into symbiosis with hominin bodies in the form of weapons used defensively against intelligent and fast acting mammal predators and where alternative prey in form of baboons and antelope were themselves highly adapted against predation. At first hominins evolved faster than the stem tools but with Homo, the inanimate partners in symbiosis bushed out, which continues today.

Cito di Pense wrote:But you're not really doing this because of religion, any more.

It’s true I’m not doing this because of religion. It seems to me that the most likely explanation for the obvious significance of Australopithecus having been ignored for nearly a century, is cross-talk from atheist ideology. The key word in the established human origin narrative is “cognition”. That’s what every new discovery is said to force a reconsideration of. And interest in cognition echoes Descartes’ Cogito..and with that, the Western Enlightenmen which was the seed of modern Western atheism. The rationalist prides himself on being a thinker. But the message in Australopithecus is about the body and about our ancestors being carried blindly along a swerving creative path. The message is also about preadaptation for the creation of language; broadband information sharing. We re just a primate that doesn't bite defensively, is fascinated by tools, and talks.

Once I came to appreciate how differently other people who accepted the theory of evolution were thinking about human origins and how wrong they were, and the connection with atheism, that did influence me about religion. I abandoned atheism and took up my adolescent association with Anglicanism. But I don’t currently see a “Christian message” in evolution. It would be sufficient for now to get the atheist monkey off the back of biology.

Cito di Pense wrote:You're just trying to preserve your personal delusion that you're some kind of primatologist-cum-paleontologist.

Balderdash.

Cito di Pense wrote: If you want to do that, you have to consider all the data, not just the parts that suit your old ideology.

Why don’t you offer some data for discussion. What was distinctive about the ecology of Australopithecus, the foundation for our genus, can be roughed out from just a few predators, a few alternative prey species and a rough appreciation of the stage they performed on. Or rather, the closed forcing system they lived inside.

Jayjay4547 wrote:
It’s true I’m not doing this because of religion. It seems to me that the most likely explanation for the obvious significance of Australopithecus having been ignored for nearly a century, is cross-talk from atheist ideology. The key word in the established human origin narrative is “cognition”. That’s what every new discovery is said to force a reconsideration of. And interest in cognition echoes Descartes’ Cogito..and with that, the Western Enlightenmen which was the seed of modern Western atheism. The rationalist prides himself on being a thinker. But the message in Australopithecus is about the body and about our ancestors being carried blindly along a swerving creative path. The message is also about preadaptation for the creation of language; broadband information sharing. We re just a primate that doesn't bite defensively, is fascinated by tools, and talks.

Once I came to appreciate how differently other people who accepted the theory of evolution were thinking about human origins and how wrong they were, and the connection with atheism, that did influence me about religion. I abandoned atheism and took up my adolescent association with Anglicanism. But I don’t currently see a “Christian message” in evolution. It would be sufficient for now to get the atheist monkey off the back of biology.

That's your problem with 'atheist ideology'? That it doesn't honor the creative path? Okay, your analysis there is not explicitly religious (you think you're somehow not allowed to mention deities here), but now shot full of some generalized woo. The problem with 'atheist ideology' (for you) is that woo isn't allowed. But atheism per se is specifically concerned only with the use the generalised woo labeled 'god'.

The scientific account of human evolution doesn't explain for you why everything happened the way it did. But pulling some woo out of your arse to generate a 'creative' narrative is just too fucking easy. If you need a totalizing narrative about how everything happened, and you specifically say that 'atheist ideology' is getting in the way, then behind that is a theistic religious impulse, a search for some way for your god to get the job done. You're still trying to make god necessary (even if implicit), which is why you keep moaning about 'atheist ideology'. If it only pains you that people don't regard human cognition as something magical, you need not mention atheism at all. Superstition alone is suitable. If you were not specifically concerned with excluding god from the narrative, you would not keep banging on about atheism.

Do you know why woo isn't allowed, Jayjay? It's just not very creative (although it may feel that way to you!)

And of course, this persistent pursuit of the weapon-wielding Australopiths fantasy falls flat on its face, courtesy of the large body of DATA we have, demonstrating that the tools in question were tools for the preparation of food. Indeed, food preparation remained the primary use for tools right the way through the Oldowan period, with a side branch for carving wood and bone.

Indeed, scientists have performed experiments to verify the likely use of the tools in question. The experiments operated as follows:

[1] Prepare some stone tools de novo, using Palaeolithic methods.

[2] Examine those freshly prepared tools microscopically, to determine the nature of the tool surfaces.

[3] Use those tools in a range of usages.

[4] Re-examine those tools microscopically, to determine what usage marks are left on the tools by those usages.

[5] Examine actual Palaeolithic stone tools microscopically, to see if the same usage marks appear on those.

Lo and behold, what happened when this was done? Usage marks consistent with food preparation were routinely found. Along with marks indicative of material working usages.

Amongst the authors that have conducted such experiments are Sergei Semenov and Lawrence Keeley, starting with Semenov's 1964 book Prehistoric Technology: An Experimental Study Of The Oldest Tools And Artifacts From Traces Of Manufacture And Wear, and followed by Keeley's paper Technique And Methodology In Microwear Studies: A Critical Review (World Archaeology, 5: 323-336). Other papers of interest covering this topic in depth include:

Mechanisms Of Microcontact Fracture In Brittle Solids by B. R. Lawn & D. B. Marshall, in Lithic Use-Wear Analysis, edited by Brian Hayden, Academic Press, San Francisco [full paper downloadable from here]

Meanwhile, this paper:

Spear Points From The Middle Palaeolithic Of The Levant by John J. Shea, Journal of Field Archaeology, 15(4): 441-450 (1988) [Full paper downloadable from here]

fixes a date for hunting weaponry at no older than 100,000 years before present. Once again, analysis of tool usage wear was pressed into service to determine whether or not the tools in question actually were hunting weapons.

As a corollary, if all the hard empirical data from archaeological and palaeoanthropological studies tells us that tools recognisable as weapons did not put in an appearance until 100,000 years before present, and that virtually all previous tool material found consisted of food preparation tools, we can conclude that JayJay's "weapon wielding Australopiths" fantasy is precisely that - a steaming pile of made up shit he clings to in preference to actual scientific data.

It might be shit to us but it's Ken Ham's bread and butter!

Cito di Pense wrote:That's your problem with 'atheist ideology'? That it doesn't honor the creative path? Okay, your analysis there is not explicitly religious (you think you're somehow not allowed to mention deities here), but now shot full of some generalized woo. The problem with 'atheist ideology' (for you) is that woo isn't allowed. But atheism per se is specifically concerned only with the use the generalised woo labeled 'god'.

The scientific account of human evolution doesn't explain for you why everything happened the way it did. But pulling some woo out of your arse to generate a 'creative' narrative is just too fucking easy. If you need a totalizing narrative about how everything happened, and you specifically say that 'atheist ideology' is getting in the way, then behind that is a theistic religious impulse, a search for some way for your god to get the job done. You're still trying to make god necessary (even if implicit), which is why you keep moaning about 'atheist ideology'. If it only pains you that people don't regard human cognition as something magical, you need not mention atheism at all. Superstition alone is suitable. If you were not specifically concerned with excluding god from the narrative, you would not keep banging on about atheism.

Do you know why woo isn't allowed, Jayjay? It's just not very creative (although it may feel that way to you!)

And, of course, one of the oft-repeated points that jayjay has never come close to addressing adequately even on the very few occasions he simply hasn't run away from it is the fact that there's nothing whatsoever in his 'predator-defensive-tools-first' hypothesis which is in the least incompatible with lack of belief in deities, apart from him trying to shoehorn some half-arsed pseudo-believer's god-as-force-of-nature-type-gods into his presentation of it, which half-arsed pseudo-believers can obviously try to do just as much with any other evolutionary hypothesis.

Indeed, one of his strawman 'self-creation''-obsessed atheist biologists who put humans 'above' nature would find a great deal to please them and nothing likely to put them off in what jayjay proposes - namely that that our ancestors picked up tools, intelligently and with foresight drilled with them in order to be better defenders in future interactions with external threats, and as a result of that they made their canines obsolete.
Assuming, of course, that the strawman biologist was a piss-poor scientist who found weak and simplistic hypotheses attractive.

And besides that, the 'defensive-biting' narrative has Clupeidae Rouge written all the way through it.

tolman wrote:And, of course, one of the oft-repeated points that jayjay has never come close to addressing adequately even on the very few occasions he simply hasn't run away from it is the fact that there's nothing whatsoever in his 'predator-defensive-tools-first' hypothesis which is in the least incompatible with lack of belief in deities

Indeed, he's never honestly addressed the fact that if scientists alighted upon DATA supporting this hypothesis, we'd accept it without any reservations, other than the usual scientific caution that accompanies any new data, prior to the establishment of its robust provenance. The moment said robust provenance was established, we would treat the hypothesis as duly evidentially supported, to a sufficient standard to warrant its treatment as established fact. The moment the requisite work had been done, and indeed, I've pointed to examples of the sort of work required in recent scientific paper citations, we would consider the task more or less done. For that matter, even without my being an expert in the field, I can describe, in advance, the sort of DATA that would place this hypothesis on a robust footing. Namely:

[1] Discovery of unambiguously categorisable weapon-type tools, dating to the same age as an Australopithecus population, and found alongside remains of individuals of that population;

[2] Lithic wear analysis of those tools, demonstrating tool usage marks consistent with the use of those tools in the manner prescribed by the hypothesis;

[3] Discovery of populations of predator fossils of the same vintage, bearing unambiguously recognisable marks upon various bones, consistent with deployment of said tools as weapons against those predators, and consistent furthermore with frequent deployment in this manner.

I suspect an actual palaeontologist could take the above list of data items, and expand considerably thereupon. But, I don't anticipate that above list being rejected by an actual research palaeontologist as constituting a valid list of data items, though it's of course possible that said palaeontologist would comment that finding the above would constitute hitting the jackpot on a grand scale, by the usual standards of palaeontological investigation. Not that this hasn't happened before, of course: see, for example, Tiktaalik as a "jackpot" find of particular note.

But that's the whole point - we're capable of working out what would constitute genuine data in support of a given hypothesis, and because we're able to do this, we have at least some idea of what to look for. Admittedly, actual research palaeontologists have a much better idea of what to look for, and they wouldn't be doing their jobs properly if they didn't, but, the point remains, that we're not completely ignorant in this matter. We're able to apply our neurons to the issue, and determine what it actually takes to convert a hypothesis from the assertion stage to the evidentially supported postulate stage. We're capable of working out what DATA to look for, and we're capable also of seeing some of the pitfalls inherent in unsupported extrapolation from restricted data sets. It's the very reason we like DATA - the more the merrier, just as every empirical scientist rejoices in having bigger, more expansive, more widely distributed data to work with. The larger the data set, both in terms of the number of data points and the acreage of variable space covered by those data points, the better, because those two conditions enhance the robustness of any statistically derived conclusions extracted from that data.

Which, of course, points to the real reason we're rejecting JayJay's assertions, because his hypothesis is nothing more than a large unsupported assertion, bereft of any genuine data supporting it. This is the issue he's never honestly addressed - his assertion remains data-free three years down the line.

Instead of addressing that glaring data deficiency honestly, he's resorted instead to the standard operating procedures from the creationist playbook of apologetic duplicity. He's mendaciously misrepresented our entirely proper suspicion of data-free assertions, trying to cast this not as the entirely proper application of the elementary rules of discourse, but instead as purportedly constituting a species of malice-driven mischief on our part, whilst hoping no one will notice the discoursive mischief he himself engages in, and by doing so, bestows upon his misrepresentation a particularly foetid odour of hypocrisy. He's tried, unsuccessfully as always amongst any informed audience, to caricature our apposite suspicion of unsupported assertions as purportedly constituting an "ideology" that is nothing more than a fiction of his own imagining, whilst, again with the stench of hypocrisy hanging in the air like tear gas after a Korean student riot, hoping no one will notice the blatantly ideological nature of his own assertions. The species of discoursive malfeasance being pursued within his apologetics, is such that many here, myself included, long ago gave up regarding his output as anything other than irredeemably tainted, and I am almost certainly not alone both in regarding his discoursive conduct with disgust, and thinking how much of a source of shame it would have been to have presented this sort of public spectacle during my schooldays, let alone as an adult.

Of course, he'll also resort to that other species of mischief in response to this exposé, namely the erection of synthetic bleating about post style in order to avoid addressing damning content. Another of those sordid precedents set long ago during his murky apologetic voyage into the fog-shrouded realms of fabrication, and which will almost surely manifest itself yet again at the earliest opportunity.

tolman wrote:apart from him trying to shoehorn some half-arsed pseudo-believer's god-as-force-of-nature-type-gods into his presentation of it, which half-arsed pseudo-believers can obviously try to do just as much with any other evolutionary hypothesis.

Except of course, that we know this sort of approach to be one of the more facile outcomes, arising from an inability to understand the capacity of testable natural processes to generate results that mimic, sometimes exquisitely, the products of our own intent, and the concomitant misattribution of direction on the part of a merely asserted sentience, to those testable natural processes. It's a practice our species has been indulging in since the Upper Palaeolithic at least, and almost all of the most florid mythologies humans have devised, have been products of this practice. At bottom, this practice can be summed up as being too stupid to understand how nature can do it, and inventing a magic man to fill the cerebral void. It's such an ingrained part of the heritage of our species, that it's perhaps not surprising that it's proven to be a particularly stubborn source of error and misconduct, from the standpoint of its replacement with something more intellectually respectable and honest, not least because it's practically tailor-made to appeal to indolent and low-capacity mindsets. Actually doing the hard work of finding out what's really happening, as opposed to pretending that whatever erotically tickling tinselly fantasies are cooked up in our heads purportedly dictate how reality behaves, doesn't appeal to this demographic.

tolman wrote:Indeed, one of his strawman 'self-creation''-obsessed atheist biologists who put humans 'above' nature would find a great deal to please them and nothing likely to put them off in what jayjay proposes - namely that that our ancestors picked up tools, intelligently and with foresight drilled with them in order to be better defenders in future interactions with external threats, and as a result of that they made their canines obsolete.

Except of course, that anyone actually entertaining that bizarre notion he's fabricated wouldn't last five seconds in a real biology class. But once again, this is another example of the fulminating duplicity inherent in his apologetics, the deliberate and frankly criminal misrepresentation of our acceptance of DATA, telling us that interactions between the members of a species can shape that species' destiny, as purportedly constituting an even more pernicious brand of ideological assertionism than the one he's practising. Apparently he's either unaware of the elementary fact, that which individuals mate with each other has a direct bearing upon the destiny of the species in question, even before we consider any other interactions, or he's deliberately choosing to misrepresent acceptance of the relevant DATA informing us of this, as purportedly constituting another part of his entirely fictitious "atheist ideology", because he has no substance to offer to address that data, and the manner in which it is fatal to several of his cherished assertions.

tolman wrote:Assuming, of course, that the strawman biologist was a piss-poor scientist who found weak and simplistic hypotheses attractive.

Well I've noted that someone entertaining his bizarre strawman caricature idea for real wouldn't last long in even an elementary biology class. But that's another inconvenient piece of DATA he'll avoid addressing, choosing instead to make up more shit about our purported thinking, without bothering with the tedious business of determining whether his fabrications on the subject bear any relation to the reality. But that's been the creationist modus operandi right from the start - pretend that one's made up shit dictates how reality behaves, regardless of whether or not reality agrees with this. All too often, the creationist posture can be summed up as "if reality and doctrine differ, reality is wrong and doctrine is right".

THWOTH wrote:And besides that, the 'defensive-biting' narrative has Clupeidae Rouge written all the way through it.

I almost needed a herring aide to listen to the message in that one.

Again, I don't exclude god from the mix because it seems (only at the moment) superfluous to the requirements of modeling the problem. My commentary is explicitly atheist because it treats deities (all of them) as the obvious products of ignorant story-telling by dumb-ass goat-roasters who lacked the merest entree into the germ theory of disease or the crudest physical meteorology. The modern metaphysical gods are attempts to do something with the extant leading characters of these stories that doesn't simply sound (to the new story-tellers) like more modern story-telling, so that (for example) the characters become nothing but disembodied voices from just off-stage. That's how it sounds to me, and I've told you (all) why that is.