"New eye discovery further demolishes Dawkins"

theropod · **#221** by **theropod** » Jun 13, 2014 1:26 pm

Notre Dame?

RS

Jayjay4547 · **#222** by **Jayjay4547** » Jun 13, 2014 1:57 pm

Oldskeptic wrote:
Jayjay4547 wrote:
Oldskeptic wrote:

JayJay, why do you think that australopithecines used sticks and stones as weapons when there is no evidence for it at all?

There are several lines of evidence. One is that unlike Ardipithecus, Australopithecines did not have fangs- eyeteeth that extended beyond other teeth. So they were unable to effectively bite predators like hyena. Then, Australopithecine feet were not adapted to grasping branches- unlike the “quadrumana” as Darwin called the apes. . According to CK Brain’s “The Hunter or the Hunted?”, Australopithecus africanus shared their environment with 4 species of hyena as well as leopard and a sabretooth. Leopard are adept at climbing trees. Neither were they adapted to sprinting as alternative prey species were. Their descendants certainly did use sticks and stones as weapons- we have direct evidence of that from the time they started to distinctively mark stones by napping (Oldowan culture).

That Ardipithecus had "fangs" and Australopithecines didn't not is a fact, but it is not evidence for use of sticks and stones as defensive weapons. The difference in teeth is more evidence for differing diets than use as weapons.

The lack of fangs in Australopithecus eliminates one possibility about how that genus avoided predation. It’s pertinent because the primates generally are great biters. Their bites are made particularly dangerous because primates often have gripping hands and powerful arms that can rip a bite into a gash.

Here’s a report from Percy Fitzpatrick’s (1907)”Jock of the Bushveld about a captured baboon that was used by its cruel owner as a dog killer:

"Its tactics in a fight were quite simple and most effective: with its front feet it caught the dog by the ears or neck, holding the head so that there was no risk of being bitten, and then gripping the body lower down with the hind feet, it tore lumps out of the throat, breast and stomach-pushing with all four feet and tearing with the terrible teeth. The poor dogs were hopelessly outmatched."

This report by Watts et al (2006) records severe wounds that chimps (amongst Darwin’s “four handed” quadrumana) caused to other chimps, often involving biting. See Table 2.
http://sitemaker.umich.edu/mitani/files/watts_et_al_2006.pdf

Oldskeptic wrote: To make your hypothesis work you have to make many assumptions, the first being what I mentioned just above.

I did state the assumptions I applied: that Australopithecus feet could not grasp branches so they couldn’t climb trees beyond the reach of leopard, could not sprint at the pace of alternative prey. Far from my making too many assumptions, you need to identify some additional plausible predator avoidance method I had missed. or you could argue that an Australopithecus could outclimb a leopard or could sprint as well as alternative prey that do run away. Or you could argue that the springbok-sized Australopithecus was somehow exempt from habituated predation, that it was not enmeshed in the local ecology; that it was only actor, not acted upon.

Oldskeptic wrote: Another is that Australopithecines are descended from Ardipithecus. This is not clear at all. They could have been on separate branches living at the same time, Ardipithecus living before Australopithecines, or Australopithecines living before Ardipithecus.

Though its useful to put a time stamp on when our ancestors abandoned defensive biting in favour of using foreign objects, my argument doesn’t depend on that. I’m only trying to realistically describe the ecology of the ape-brained, small eye-tooth bipedal Australopiths. If it turns out that Sahelanthropus had feet that could not grasp a branch then I’d be prepared to also identify it as specifically adapted to use foreign objects defensively.

Oldskeptic wrote: Another assumption you have to make is that Australopithecines even though somewhat bipedal couldn't or didn't climb trees. There are different thoughts on this. Australopithecines could have been fully bipedal, or knuckle walkers that could walk upright when there was the need. Australopithecines could have been fully ground dwelling, mostly ground dwelling, or tree dwelling and only went to ground when there was a need. There is currently no way to know.

Hang even I can climb a tree. What one can claim is that Australopithecus feet were not adapted for predator avoidance by climbing trees. In the clip below, see how excellent a leopard is at climbing, how a baboon failed to save itself even by clinging to small twigs as an Australopith would seem unlikely to be able to do.

I can't seem to get that lovely link to work. [Fixed after advice from Theropod. Many thanks]

Oldskeptic wrote: Another assumption you have to make is that Australopithecines were ancestors of the tool makers at Oldowan, there is no direct evidence for this. And your direct evidence that Oldowan culture used sticks and stones as weapons simply does not exist. None of the stone tools found has been described as a weapon.

The Wiki entry on Australopithecus gives its dates as 3.9-1.7 mya, and for Oldowan culture 2.6-1.7 mya. And it cites Australopithecus garhi as a probable maker of these tools. So at any rate Australopithecines were not ancestors of the tool makers at Oldowan. It’s true that Wiki doesn’t describe any Oldowan stone tools as a weapon. The entry on Hand Axe puts its Oldowan date at 2.6mya If hand axes s were used at all as defensive weapons they could have been smashed down on a predators skull, after it had been halted and distracted by a “stopper” stick held in the left hand. Or maybe stones weren’t used at all.
This “stopper” function, useful only for defense is the one innovation I want to add, based on my experience as a land surveyor. In many encounters I found that hostile dogs could be distracted by a rod presented to them. If I had such a stick in my left hand, a kierie in my right and no regard for my clients I could have left a trail of dead dogs. That is Surveyor’s Theory.

Oldskeptic wrote:
So to say there is ”no evidence” the australopithecines used hand weapons defensively is like saying there is no evidence T. Rex ate meat, because no brontosaurus bones have been found stuck between their teeth.

No, It's not like that at all. You may like the idea that australopithecines used sticks and stones as weapons, but that does not make it true or even likely. I say there is no evidence because there is no evidence. And for you to base your whole convoluted "hypothesis" on so many assumptions is absurd.

It’s not rightly a hypothesis, I’m simply trying to model Australopithecine ecology; how energy flowed though the savannah, specifically through the australopithecines. Assuming they were adapted to minimise their forfeiture to predators, at minimum energy cost to themselves, while maximising their ability to forage in optimal troop density. Always bearing in mind extreme circumstances; a troop marginally small, in a drought, alternative prey scarce and predators particularly cunning. It’s a model.

It’s more an insolent claim than a convoluted one. I’m claiming that, nearly 90 years after the discovery of Australopithecus, no-one understands the first thing about them. They understand the second and third things, but not the supremely significant thing that distinguished Australopithecus from other African animals, which was their weird but portentous defensive use of foreign objects. That is to claim also that no one understands the first thing about human evolution either. The study of human evolution has instead been used as a canvas for exploring and depicting the atheist vision where humanity is the actor as if on a stage, the rest of the world is merely his cornucopia, he is not embedded and not created by something greater than himself. That is the opposite of the truth.

[quote="Oldskeptic";p="2023365"]By the way T-Rex didn't eat brontosaurs. I have very good evidence for this. They didn't live at the same time.[/ quote]
Thanks for that, much obliged. The sense of my point remains as you courteously left space for by your “by the way”

Thomas Eshuis · **#223** by **Thomas Eshuis** » Jun 13, 2014 2:06 pm

Stacking more circular assumptions onto previous one doesn't strenghten your case Jayjay, quite the opposite.

theropod · **#224** by **theropod** » Jun 13, 2014 4:05 pm

Leave the s off the https

Click quote to see the difference.

RS

ElDiablo · **#225** by **ElDiablo** » Jun 13, 2014 6:55 pm

Jayjay4547 wrote:That is to claim also that no one understands the first thing about human evolution either. The study of human evolution has instead been used as a canvas for exploring and depicting the atheist vision where humanity is the actor as if on a stage, the rest of the world is merely his cornucopia, he is not embedded and not created by something greater than himself. That is the opposite of the truth.

When science fails to confirm our particular vision let's create a story of our own that is romantic in spirit and say it is so.

Calilasseia · **#226** by **Calilasseia** » Jun 13, 2014 8:10 pm

On no, the tired and worn out record is being played again ...

Jayjay4547 wrote:The study of human evolution has instead been used as a canvas for exploring and depicting the atheist vision

Bollocks. What part of "taking account of the data isn't a 'vision' of any sort" do you not understand? At least, not in the specious doctrinal terms creationists love to erect?

The data says we don't need an imaginary magic man to understand our biological ancestry, therefore introducing one is superfluous to requirements and irrelevant.

Jayjay4547 wrote:where humanity is the actor as if on a stage, the rest of the world is merely his cornucopia, he is not embedded

Again, this is more bollocks, and another fabrication on your part. The whole point of evolutionary theory is to unify the biosphere, us included. What part of this elementary concept did you miss in basic science classes?

Jayjay4547 wrote:and not created by something greater than himself.

Well this assertion has zero evidence to support it, therefore it's discarded.

Jayjay4547 wrote:That is the opposite of the truth.

See above.

Jayjay4547 · **#227** by **Jayjay4547** » Jun 14, 2014 8:01 am

Thomas Eshuis wrote:Stacking more circular assumptions onto previous one doesn't strenghten your case Jayjay, quite the opposite.

Be sure to point out my circular assumptions Thomas, I'll be sure to look into into them.

Thomas Eshuis · **#228** by **Thomas Eshuis** » Jun 14, 2014 8:34 am

Jayjay4547 wrote:
The Wiki entry on Australopithecus gives its dates as 3.9-1.7 mya, and for Oldowan culture 2.6-1.7 mya. And it cites Australopithecus garhi as a probable maker of these tools.

Actually it cites early species of Homo such as H. habilis and H. ergaster as those attributed with the flourishing of Oldowan culture.

Jayjay4547 wrote: So at any rate Australopithecines were not ancestors of the tool makers at Oldowan. It’s true that Wiki doesn’t describe any Oldowan stone tools as a weapon. The entry on Hand Axe puts its Oldowan date at 2.6mya If hand axes s were used at all as defensive weapons they could have been smashed down on a predators skull, after it had been halted and distracted by a “stopper” stick held in the left hand. Or maybe stones weren’t used at all.

And here you go into assumption territory again. There's no evidence that Australopithecus used any weapons of any kind.

Jayjay4547 wrote:This “stopper” function, useful only for defense is the one innovation I want to add, based on my experience as a land surveyor. In many encounters I found that hostile dogs could be distracted by a rod presented to them. If I had such a stick in my left hand, a kierie in my right and no regard for my clients I could have left a trail of dead dogs. That is Surveyor’s Theory.

No that's blind assumption stacking.

Jayjay4547 wrote:
Oldskeptic wrote:
So to say there is ”no evidence” the australopithecines used hand weapons defensively is like saying there is no evidence T. Rex ate meat, because no brontosaurus bones have been found stuck between their teeth.

No, It's not like that at all. You may like the idea that australopithecines used sticks and stones as weapons, but that does not make it true or even likely. I say there is no evidence because there is no evidence. And for you to base your whole convoluted "hypothesis" on so many assumptions is absurd.

It’s not rightly a hypothesis, I’m simply trying to model Australopithecine ecology

Modeling is not done with superfluous assumptions.

Jayjay4547 wrote:how energy flowed though the savannah

What energy?

Jayjay4547 wrote:specifically through the australopithecines. Assuming they were adapted to minimise their forfeiture to predators

Createas are not adapted by any concious force. They adapt through a process of natural selection and random mutation.

Jayjay4547 wrote:at minimum energy cost to themselves, while maximising their ability to forage in optimal troop density.

Again, evolution isn't a guided process. It has no concious goal and it doesn't work optimally to achieve the best outcome.

Jayjay4547 wrote:Always bearing in mind extreme circumstances; a troop marginally small, in a drought, alternative prey scarce and predators particularly cunning. It’s a model.

Nope, still a stack of assumptions.

Jayjay4547 wrote:It’s more an insolent claim than a convoluted one. I’m claiming that, nearly 90 years after the discovery of Australopithecus, no-one understands the first thing about them.

And yet at the same time you make a string of unevidenced claims about them. :nono:

Jayjay4547 wrote:They understand the second and third things, but not the supremely significant thing that distinguished Australopithecus from other African animals, which was their weird but portentous defensive use of foreign objects.

Citations?
How is this anything but a blind assertion on your part?

Jayjay4547 wrote: That is to claim also that no one understands the first thing about human evolution either.

Complete non-sequitur.

Jayjay4547 wrote: The study of human evolution has instead been used as a canvas for exploring and depicting the atheist vision

Jayjay, this discussion will go nowhere if you keep regurgitating the same apologist rethoric.
There is no such thing as an atheist vision, ideology, whatever.
All atheism is, is the absence of belief in gods.

Jayjay4547 wrote: where humanity is the actor as if on a stage, the rest of the world is merely his cornucopia, he is not embedded and not created by something greater than himself. That is the opposite of the truth.

Yet another blind assertion.

Jayjay4547 wrote:
Oldskeptic wrote:By the way T-Rex didn't eat brontosaurs. I have very good evidence for this. They didn't live at the same time.[/ quote]
Thanks for that, much obliged. The sense of my point remains as you courteously left space for by your “by the way”

What's this gibberish supposed to mean?

kennyc · **#229** by **kennyc** » Jun 14, 2014 5:01 pm

Jayjay4547 wrote:
Thomas Eshuis wrote:Stacking more circular assumptions onto previous one doesn't strenghten your case Jayjay, quite the opposite.

Be sure to point out my circular assumptions Thomas, I'll be sure to look into into them.

patient zero · **#230** by **patient zero** » Jun 14, 2014 10:22 pm

Jayjay4547 wrote:Be sure to point out my circular assumptions Thomas, I'll be sure to look into into them.

Yeah, suuuuure you will. :roll:

laklak · **#231** by **laklak** » Jun 14, 2014 10:25 pm

Just start at your first post and start reading, when you get back to the first post, stop.

Jayjay4547 · **#232** by **Jayjay4547** » Jun 16, 2014 11:43 am

Thomas Eshuis wrote:
Jayjay4547 wrote:
The Wiki entry on Australopithecus gives its dates as 3.9-1.7 mya, and for Oldowan culture 2.6-1.7 mya. And it cites Australopithecus garhi as a probable maker of these tools.

Actually it cites early species of Homo such as H. habilis and H. ergaster as those attributed with the flourishing of Oldowan culture.

The relevant passage in the Wikipedia entry on Oldowan culture says this:
“It is not known for sure which hominin species actually created and used Oldowan tools. Its emergence is often associated with the species Australopithecus garhi, and its flourishing with early species of Homo such as H. habilis and H. ergaster. Early Homo erectus appears to inherit Oldowan technology and refines it into the Acheulean industry beginning 1.7 million years ago.“

So what you claim to be “actually” the case by no means contradicts what I said. I'm not interested in when the Oldowan culture "flourished", but in whether there is concrete positive evidence that the australopiths used tools.

Thomas Eshuis wrote:
Jayjay4547 wrote: So at any rate Australopithecines were not ancestors of the tool makers at Oldowan. It’s true that Wiki doesn’t describe any Oldowan stone tools as a weapon. The entry on Hand Axe puts its Oldowan date at 2.6mya If hand axes s were used at all as defensive weapons they could have been smashed down on a predators skull, after it had been halted and distracted by a “stopper” stick held in the left hand. Or maybe stones weren’t used at all.

And here you go into assumption territory again. There's no evidence that Australopithecus used any weapons of any kind.

It’s speculation on my part how Australopiths might have used hand axes against predators but the case that they used foreign objects to defend against predators is strong, based their conspicuous lack of adaptation to alternative methods and the known methods used by their similarly equiped/unequipped descendants.

Thomas Eshuis wrote:
Jayjay4547 wrote:This “stopper” function, useful only for defense is the one innovation I want to add, based on my experience as a land surveyor. In many encounters I found that hostile dogs could be distracted by a rod presented to them. If I had such a stick in my left hand, a kierie in my right and no regard for my clients I could have left a trail of dead dogs. That is Surveyor’s Theory.

No that's blind assumption stacking.

It’s my observation, not assumption, that aggressive dogs can be stopped by a rod presented to them and made vulnerable by that. It’s also difficult for such a dog to turn the flank of a person holding such a ‘stopper”.

Thomas Eshuis wrote:
Jayjay4547 wrote:
Oldskeptic wrote:
So to say there is ”no evidence” the australopithecines used hand weapons defensively is like saying there is no evidence T. Rex ate meat, because no brontosaurus bones have been found stuck between their teeth.

No, It's not like that at all. You may like the idea that australopithecines used sticks and stones as weapons, but that does not make it true or even likely. I say there is no evidence because there is no evidence. And for you to base your whole convoluted "hypothesis" on so many assumptions is absurd.

It’s not rightly a hypothesis, I’m simply trying to model Australopithecine ecology

Modeling is not done with superfluous assumptions.

Please point out my superfluous assumptions.

Thomas Eshuis wrote:
Jayjay4547 wrote:how energy flowed though the savannah

What energy?

The energy falling on the savannah from the sun, converted into carbon-based molecules by plants and then travelling through various trophic levels in the savannah biome.

Thomas Eshuis wrote:
Jayjay4547 wrote:specifically through the australopithecines. Assuming they were adapted to minimise their forfeiture to predators

Createas are not adapted by any concious force. They adapt through a process of natural selection and random mutation.

I didn’t claim they were. I claim that the australopiths were distinctively adapted to defend against predation. I’m quite happy that happened through natural selection.

Where God comes in, vide your “conscious force” is that I claim the weird inability to recognise the australopiths, equivalent to not recognising T. Rex as a predator, is culturally rooted in the role of atheist ideology on origin narratives involving natural selection. I admit that’s a more difficult argument to put, but just as interesting as the natural history.

Thomas Eshuis wrote:
Jayjay4547 wrote:at minimum energy cost to themselves, while maximising their ability to forage in optimal troop density.

Again, evolution isn't a guided process. It has no concious goal and it doesn't work optimally to achieve the best outcome.

I’m not clear what you mean. An australopith troop some of whose members were more adept at defending themselves against predators than another troop, would have more flexibility about where they could forage, in what spacing between members, in what troop numbers, what times of day, how far from safe refuge, in company with what other species. And so on. Consequently it would have better food security and the more adept members would successfully produce more offspring. On average. That’s in addition to losing less biomass to the pesky predators.

Thomas Eshuis wrote:
Jayjay4547 wrote:Always bearing in mind extreme circumstances; a troop marginally small, in a drought, alternative prey scarce and predators particularly cunning. It’s a model.

Nope, still a stack of assumptions.

You can’t go on and on about “stack of assumptions” - at least, not usefully. But I apologise for that strange ending. “It’s a model”. Can I put it this way: Predation is admittedly an event that happens seldom, we only get eaten once at most. But its impact on our breeding is severe. It is also associated with high stress; at the threat of predation the whole body goes into overdrive and small differences between capacities might well have breeding outcomes. Like in the bear joke “I only have to outrun you”. In that passage I was trying to extend that point, to emphasise that selection happens more under extreme situations. So a visualisation or model where a troop encounters a predator, where the troop is a hundred strong, in close array, on open ground – that isn’t realistic.

Thomas Eshuis wrote:
Jayjay4547 wrote:It’s more an insolent claim than a convoluted one. I’m claiming that, nearly 90 years after the discovery of Australopithecus, no-one understands the first thing about them.

And yet at the same time you make a string of unevidenced claims about them.

To be useful, show that the australopiths were in fact adapted for some other antipredation method than aggressive use of foreign objects. Or argue that they were basically immune to predation for some reason.

Thomas Eshuis wrote:
Jayjay4547 wrote:They understand the second and third things, but not the supremely significant thing that distinguished Australopithecus from other African animals, which was their weird but portentous defensive use of foreign objects.

Citations?
How is this anything but a blind assertion on your part?

Citations? How can there be citations, if bizarrely, no-one has recognised the australopiths for what they were? After looking straight at them for 90 years?

But it might be useful to mention that this putative pre-Oldowan use of foreign objects I’ve been talking about, is well-known as Dart’s Osteodontokeratic culture, with a well-trodden path through the hunting hypothesis, Robert Ardrey, the killer ape, “the predatory transition from ape to man” and “Man the hunted”. As I see it, Dart started off on the right track and then immediately derailed. Often I picture him as a young man, examining the Taung child, free from the presuppositions of his early English demolishers Sir Arthus Keith FRS , Prof. G. Elliot Smith, FRS, Sir Arthur Smith Woodward, FRS and Dr. W I H Duckworth. They all went back to their Eoanthropus. Here is a Wiki pic :

Wiki Caption: “Group portrait by John Cooke, 1915. Back row (from left): F O Barlow, G Elliot Smith, Charles Dawson, Arthur Smith Woodward. Front row: A S Underwood, Arthur Keith, W P Pycraft, and Sir Ray Lankester”

Where Dart derailed I think, was in immediately associating the violence implicit in his fossil, with our ancestor's actions on their environment, rather than adaptive response to the environment acting on the hominin.

Thomas Eshuis wrote:
Jayjay4547 wrote: That is to claim also that no one understands the first thing about human evolution either.

Complete non-sequitur.

It’s accepted that the Homo evolved at some stage from Australopthecus, a widespread and long-existing genus. The older set the stage for its progeny. If Australopithecus were better recognised, that for example should send researchers rushing to find connections between the brain pathways involved in rapid and precise control of foreign objects, and those involved in human language. And social scientists should look at the evolutionary role that “defense” has played in sparking violence between groups.

Thomas Eshuis wrote:
Jayjay4547 wrote: The study of human evolution has instead been used as a canvas for exploring and depicting the atheist vision

Jayjay, this discussion will go nowhere if you keep regurgitating the same apologist rethoric.
There is no such thing as an atheist vision, ideology, whatever.
All atheism is, is the absence of belief in gods.

I must have heard that repeated here a hundred times, with various levels of exasperation. But it’s not true; atheism is at least an influential “school of thought” whose impact on the way evolution is understood and presented can be a fascinating study.

Thomas Eshuis wrote:
Jayjay4547 wrote: where humanity is the actor as if on a stage, the rest of the world is merely his cornucopia, he is not embedded and not created by something greater than himself. That is the opposite of the truth.

Yet another blind assertion.

Not a blind one.

Thomas Eshuis wrote:
Jayjay4547 wrote:
Oldskeptic wrote:By the way T-Rex didn't eat brontosaurs. I have very good evidence for this. They didn't live at the same time.[/ quote]
Thanks for that, much obliged. The sense of my point remains as you courteously left space for by your “by the way”

What's this gibberish supposed to mean?

Well you see, I made a mistake by implying that T. Rex and brontosaurus were contemporary . Oldskeptic responded by dealing with my point and then added as “By the way” that my example was faulty. Compare that response with Calli’s when I stupidly swopped the first name of Dawkins for that of Payley:

“Actually, it's William Paley. That you can't even present an elementary fact such as this correctly, speaks volumes about the effects of religious apologetics upon discoursive ability.”

I just wanted to recognise and honour Oldskeptic’s approach – that by the way has deep roots in science and rationalism.

Thomas Eshuis · **#233** by **Thomas Eshuis** » Jun 16, 2014 12:09 pm

Jayjay4547 wrote:
Thomas Eshuis wrote:
Jayjay4547 wrote:
The Wiki entry on Australopithecus gives its dates as 3.9-1.7 mya, and for Oldowan culture 2.6-1.7 mya. And it cites Australopithecus garhi as a probable maker of these tools.

Actually it cites early species of Homo such as H. habilis and H. ergaster as those attributed with the flourishing of Oldowan culture.

The relevant passage in the Wikipedia entry on Oldowan culture says this:

Indeed it does and note the very first sentence:

“It is not known for sure which hominin species actually created and used Oldowan tools. Its emergence is often associated with the species Australopithecus garhi, and its flourishing with early species of Homo such as H. habilis and H. ergaster. Early Homo erectus appears to inherit Oldowan technology and refines it into the Acheulean industry beginning 1.7 million years ago.“

So what you claim to be “actually” the case by no means contradicts what I said.

Actually it does. You try to claim that A. ghari invented tools and used them widely, while the article clearly states there is no evidence for this and it is only an assumption that A. ghari were the first to use them.

Jayjay4547 wrote:I'm not interested in when the Oldowan culture "flourished", but in whether there is concrete positive evidence that the australopiths used tools.

And as is clear from the wiki article, as well as the wiki article on Australopithecus, there is none.
It's merely an assumption.
There is certainly no evidence they used weapons.

Jayjay4547 wrote:
Thomas Eshuis wrote:
Jayjay4547 wrote: So at any rate Australopithecines were not ancestors of the tool makers at Oldowan. It’s true that Wiki doesn’t describe any Oldowan stone tools as a weapon. The entry on Hand Axe puts its Oldowan date at 2.6mya If hand axes s were used at all as defensive weapons they could have been smashed down on a predators skull, after it had been halted and distracted by a “stopper” stick held in the left hand. Or maybe stones weren’t used at all.

And here you go into assumption territory again. There's no evidence that Australopithecus used any weapons of any kind.

It’s speculation on my part how Australopiths might have used hand axes against predators but

There is no but. There is no evidence, zero, zilch nada. It's an assumption nothing more.

Jayjay4547 wrote:the case that they used foreign objects to defend against predators is strong

It isn't. It's completely made up by you. You have presented no evidence whatsoever for this, only assertions and assumptions.

Jayjay4547 wrote:based their conspicuous lack of adaptation to alternative methods and the known methods used by their similarly equiped/unequipped descendants.

Another blind assertion offered without evidence.

Jayjay4547 wrote:
Thomas Eshuis wrote:
Jayjay4547 wrote:This “stopper” function, useful only for defense is the one innovation I want to add, based on my experience as a land surveyor. In many encounters I found that hostile dogs could be distracted by a rod presented to them. If I had such a stick in my left hand, a kierie in my right and no regard for my clients I could have left a trail of dead dogs. That is Surveyor’s Theory.

No that's blind assumption stacking.

It’s my observation

Where have you observed this? Nowhere, because there's no evidence for this.
Making assumptions about something is not the same as observing it.

Jayjay4547 wrote:not assumption, that aggressive dogs can be stopped by a rod presented to them and made vulnerable by that.

You have evidence that A. ghari used tools in this specific manner, ergo it's an assumption not an observation.

Jayjay4547 wrote:It’s also difficult for such a dog to turn the flank of a person holding such a ‘stopper”.

Irrelevant, no evidence offered whatsoever that this was how A. ghari used sticks or any other tools.

Jayjay4547 wrote:
Thomas Eshuis wrote:
Jayjay4547 wrote:
Oldskeptic wrote:

No, It's not like that at all. You may like the idea that australopithecines used sticks and stones as weapons, but that does not make it true or even likely. I say there is no evidence because there is no evidence. And for you to base your whole convoluted "hypothesis" on so many assumptions is absurd.

It’s not rightly a hypothesis, I’m simply trying to model Australopithecine ecology

Modeling is not done with superfluous assumptions.

Please point out my superfluous assumptions.

I already did in my previous post and again in this one.
You have not demonstrated that A. ghari needed to have developped weapons to survived.

Jayjay4547 wrote:
Thomas Eshuis wrote:
Jayjay4547 wrote:how energy flowed though the savannah

What energy?

The energy falling on the savannah from the sun, converted into carbon-based molecules by plants and then travelling through various trophic levels in the savannah biome.

Which Savannah biome? The current one? Because you certainly cannot have observed the prehistoric one.
Where's your data Jayjay?

Jayjay4547 wrote:
Thomas Eshuis wrote:
Jayjay4547 wrote:specifically through the australopithecines. Assuming they were adapted to minimise their forfeiture to predators

Createas are not adapted by any concious force. They adapt through a process of natural selection and random mutation.

I didn’t claim they were.

You did with the way you phrased the sentence I quoted.

Jayjay4547 wrote:I claim that the australopiths were distinctively adapted to defend against predation.

You're doing it again in this sentence. They were not adapted. They adapted.

Jayjay4547 wrote:I’m quite happy that happened through natural selection.

Which means it's grammatically incorrect to use a form of to be in conjunction with adapting.
Our ancestors adapted fulls stop.

Jayjay4547 wrote:Where God comes in,

You'd first have to establish his existence.

Jayjay4547 wrote:vide your “conscious force” is that I claim the weird inability to recognise the australopiths, equivalent to not recognising T. Rex as a predator

Care to rephrase that in intelligble English? I have no idea what you're trying to say here.

Jayjay4547 wrote: is culturally rooted in the role of atheist ideology on origin narratives

FFS. Jayajay get this if nothing else from our discussion. There's no such thing as atheist ideology. Atheism is the absence of belief in gods, nothing more. It has no creeds, dogma or beliefs.

Jayjay4547 wrote:involving natural selection. I admit that’s a more difficult argument to put, but just as interesting as the natural history.

What've you've expressed here abour austrolopiths and T. Rex is complete gibberish. Until you rephrase it I cannot make heads or tails from it and therefore not adress is either.

Jayjay4547 wrote:
Thomas Eshuis wrote:
Jayjay4547 wrote:at minimum energy cost to themselves, while maximising their ability to forage in optimal troop density.

Again, evolution isn't a guided process. It has no concious goal and it doesn't work optimally to achieve the best outcome.

I’m not clear what you mean.

The way you keep phrasing things, by using a form of 'to be' in conjunction with 'adapting' spells out that creatures are adapted by an outside concious force.
Which is incorrect.

Jayjay4547 wrote:
Thomas Eshuis wrote:
Jayjay4547 wrote:Always bearing in mind extreme circumstances; a troop marginally small, in a drought, alternative prey scarce and predators particularly cunning. It’s a model.

Nope, still a stack of assumptions.

You can’t go on and on about “stack of assumptions”

I can, since that's all you're offering in defense of your claims.

Jayjay4547 wrote:at least, not usefully. But I apologise for that strange ending. “It’s a model”. Can I put it this way: Predation is admittedly an event that happens seldom, we only get eaten once at most. But its impact on our breeding is severe. It is also associated with high stress; at the threat of predation the whole body goes into overdrive and small differences between capacities might well have breeding outcomes. Like in the bear joke “I only have to outrun you”. In that passage I was trying to extend that point, to emphasise that selection happens more under extreme situations. So a visualisation or model where a troop encounters a predator, where the troop is a hundred strong, in close array, on open ground – that isn’t realistic.

This entire paragraph is completely immaterial to anything I've said or to any of the criticism I've raised.

Jayjay4547 wrote:
Thomas Eshuis wrote:
Jayjay4547 wrote:It’s more an insolent claim than a convoluted one. I’m claiming that, nearly 90 years after the discovery of Australopithecus, no-one understands the first thing about them.

And yet at the same time you make a string of unevidenced claims about them.

To be useful, show that the australopiths were in fact adapted for some other antipredation method than aggressive use of foreign objects. Or argue that they were basically immune to predation for some reason.

I don't have to. You are making the claims that A. ghari had to develop weapons to be able to survive, therefore you carry the burden of proof to defend that claim.

Jayjay4547 wrote:
Thomas Eshuis wrote:
Jayjay4547 wrote:They understand the second and third things, but not the supremely significant thing that distinguished Australopithecus from other African animals, which was their weird but portentous defensive use of foreign objects.

Citations?
How is this anything but a blind assertion on your part?

Citations? How can there be citations, if bizarrely, no-one has recognised the australopiths for what they were? After looking straight at them for 90 years?

Wtf are you talking about?

Jayjay4547 wrote:But it might be useful to mention that this putative pre-Oldowan use of foreign objects I’ve been talking about, is well-known as Dart’s Osteodontokeratic culture, with a well-trodden path through the hunting hypothesis, Robert Ardrey, the killer ape, “the predatory transition from ape to man” and “Man the hunted”. As I see it, Dart started off on the right track and then immediately derailed. Often I picture him as a young man, examining the Taung child, free from the presuppositions of his early English demolishers Sir Arthus Keith FRS , Prof. G. Elliot Smith, FRS, Sir Arthur Smith Woodward, FRS and Dr. W I H Duckworth. They all went back to their Eoanthropus. Here is a Wiki pic :

Wiki Caption: “Group portrait by John Cooke, 1915. Back row (from left): F O Barlow, G Elliot Smith, Charles Dawson, Arthur Smith Woodward. Front row: A S Underwood, Arthur Keith, W P Pycraft, and Sir Ray Lankester”

Where Dart derailed I think, was in immediately associating the violence implicit in his fossil, with our ancestor's actions on their environment, rather than adaptive response to the environment acting on the hominin.

Besides this being a hypothesis and not a theory, this does nothing to prove that A. ghari used weapons.
I'd also appreciate it if you could start presentin actual scientific articles for your claims instead of wiki links.

Jayjay4547 wrote:
Thomas Eshuis wrote:
Jayjay4547 wrote: That is to claim also that no one understands the first thing about human evolution either.

Complete non-sequitur.

It’s accepted that the Homo evolved at some stage from Australopthecus, a widespread and long-existing genus. The older set the stage for its progeny. If Australopithecus were better recognised, that for example should send researchers rushing to find connections between the brain pathways involved in rapid and precise control of foreign objects, and those involved in human language. And social scientists should look at the evolutionary role that “defense” has played in sparking violence between groups.

Again, who is not recognising Australopethecus?
And why should these things be researched?

Jayjay4547 wrote:
Thomas Eshuis wrote:
Jayjay4547 wrote: The study of human evolution has instead been used as a canvas for exploring and depicting the atheist vision

Jayjay, this discussion will go nowhere if you keep regurgitating the same apologist rethoric.
There is no such thing as an atheist vision, ideology, whatever.
All atheism is, is the absence of belief in gods.

I must have heard that repeated here a hundred times, with various levels of exasperation.

Then why keep repeating the same nonsense?

Jayjay4547 wrote:But it’s not true

Counterfactual assertion.
The only thing all atheists have in common is the absence of belief in gods.

Jayjay4547 wrote:atheism is at least an influential “school of thought” whose impact on the way evolution is understood and presented can be a fascinating study.

Care to present some tenets from this suppsoed school of thought?
Or is this yet anothe blind assertion. Must be because you're simply wrong.

Jayjay4547 wrote:
Thomas Eshuis wrote:
Jayjay4547 wrote: where humanity is the actor as if on a stage, the rest of the world is merely his cornucopia, he is not embedded and not created by something greater than himself. That is the opposite of the truth.

Yet another blind assertion.

Not a blind one.

Blind counterfactual assertion.
No evidence presented at all.

theropod · **#234** by **theropod** » Jun 16, 2014 12:55 pm

Oh, Tyrannosaurus rex was a pure predator was it? I'd love to see the data on that! Can you, Jayjay4547, be sure the the huge theropod didn't scavenge when the opportunity presented itself? Having studied the beast, and its environment, over several decades I'm calling bullshit on this one. I wouldn't use examples that can't be supported, and I'm betting you can't support this.

Edmontosaurus annectens have been on my mind lately (mainly 'cause this is the time of year to start field ops in the northern plains). I personally know of 4 mass mortality sites where thousands of these duck billed herbivores are entombed, and have worked at two of them. In both cases it appears as if the dinosaurs were piled up like flotsam during a local flood, and buried later in an ashfall, and another flood, from volcanoes hundreds of miles to the west. During the time before their bodies rotted there was a treasure trove of meat just waiting for the hungry/brooding theropods, crocodiles, Komodo dragon-sized lizards and pterosaurs at the edge of a river. Those hadrosaur bones nearest the top of the depositional layer also had bite marks, and lost teeth from all the above, including the big guy, T. rex. Coolest of all the lost teeth, for me, was the tiny little teeth from Troodon formosus. Those teeth alone could have been the basis for a paper on the presence of the tiny theropod in the latest Cretaceous. There was so much meat lying about the little guys could get in there and gnash without turning into turds themselves. Obvious scavenging was a practice that nearly all the predatory population took part in.

From Wiki:
Troodon formosus shed teeth

So, my challenge is this. Is the any evidence that T. rex was a pure predator? I can access peer reviewed material from other workers to confirm my field observations if I need to. Do I?

RS

DavidMcC · **#235** by **DavidMcC** » Jun 17, 2014 5:23 pm

GenesForLife wrote:...
What is also quite fascinating is you can induce ectopic functional eyes just by expressing Pax6 in cells elsewhere - the whole thing is genetically regulated (and genes going on and off is part of basic chemistry and physics) and can actually produce vision without direct connections to the brain http://now.tufts.edu/news-releases/ecto ... ction-brai

No requirement for intricate wiring patterns to process visual data at all.

Sure, but these ectopic eyes obviously don't see images. The evidence suggests that they are only used to see light levels, for fleeing or seeking light, or maybe for circadian rhythm entrainment, but not for identifying objects.

EDIT: By "see", I mean send visual signals to the brain.

Jayjay4547 · **#236** by **Jayjay4547** » Jun 17, 2014 5:45 pm

theropod wrote:Oh, Tyrannosaurus rex was a pure predator was it? I'd love to see the data on that! Can you, Jayjay4547, be sure the the huge theropod didn't scavenge when the opportunity presented itself? Having studied the beast, and its environment, over several decades I'm calling bullshit on this one. I wouldn't use examples that can't be supported, and I'm betting you can't support this.

Edmontosaurus annectens have been on my mind lately (mainly 'cause this is the time of year to start field ops in the northern plains). I personally know of 4 mass mortality sites where thousands of these duck billed herbivores are entombed, and have worked at two of them. In both cases it appears as if the dinosaurs were piled up like flotsam during a local flood, and buried later in an ashfall, and another flood, from volcanoes hundreds of miles to the west. During the time before their bodies rotted there was a treasure trove of meat just waiting for the hungry/brooding theropods, crocodiles, Komodo dragon-sized lizards and pterosaurs at the edge of a river. Those hadrosaur bones nearest the top of the depositional layer also had bite marks, and lost teeth from all the above, including the big guy, T. rex. Coolest of all the lost teeth, for me, was the tiny little teeth from Troodon formosus. Those teeth alone could have been the basis for a paper on the presence of the tiny theropod in the latest Cretaceous. There was so much meat lying about the little guys could get in there and gnash without turning into turds themselves. Obvious scavenging was a practice that nearly all the predatory population took part in.

From Wiki:
Troodon formosus shed teeth

So, my challenge is this. Is the any evidence that T. rex was a pure predator? I can access peer reviewed material from other workers to confirm my field observations if I need to. Do I?

Fascinating stuff. I never knew American coins were so gigantic. . Not just big cars hey. I learned something.

Seriously , it looks to me you are putting up a straw man as an excuse for saying something interesting about the past. Got me thinking, if all the 11000 articles that evolutionary biologists wrote in a year (I seem to recall that figure from Cali) – if they were all somehow macerated and used to make egg boxes, the world would still stagger around. But if a year’s findings of palaeontology were somehow destroyed, we would all be definitely the poorer. The smallest new fact dug up from the past feeds us. And if the dead hand of ideology is ever removed from the theory of evolution it will evolve towards a discipline like history and towards its core palaeontology.

Anyway on your challenge, I never claimed that T. rex was a “pure predator” that never scavenged. It’s common for predators to scavenge opportunistically. My point was really simple, that it’s obvious ‘from a skeleton, that T rex (thanks for correction on lower case) ate meat. You don’t need “evidence” of prey bones stuck in its teeth to see that. Goodness, imagine the uphill I’d get if I claimed here that Tyrannosaurus didn’t eat meat. As some of my friends do, for the laudable purpose of showing the finger to bullying know it-alls.

So I was trying to say that it’s just as obvious that Australopithecus avoided predation by fighting using hand-held foreign objects. To not see that would be like not seeing that Tyrannosaurus ate meat. Part of the evidence is in the shape of the teeth. Tyrannosaurus had teeth for biting flesh. The australopiths didn’t. And they didn’t have any other obvious means to avoid predation. Two factors have blinded us. One is that whereas we can recognise T rex’s adaptation from many other examples of toothy predators, the only examples of animals that are adapted into using foreign objects kinetically to defend themselves are the tiny sample of primates from our own line. It’s very particular. Secondly it so happens that the investigating authority in this case, is in the same line of descent as the australopiths and his mind is completely sizzled with ideological requirements for his origin story- and these don’t include that human ancestors reacted defensively to their environment- that they were formed by exterior agents.

Would it be unreasonable to call that ideological dinning pathological? Take Piltdown Man I was citing above. Those great scientists in the oil painting were terrible palaeontologists. I watched a clip on BBC the other day, about the Piltdown “cricket bat”. An expert opined, this might have been a plant to tell the actual hoaxer “we are onto you”. But the fact is, these men weren’t onto it: they went on to trash actual paleontological evidence offered by a colonial.

Thomas Eshuis · **#237** by **Thomas Eshuis** » Jun 17, 2014 6:01 pm

Jayjay4547 wrote:
Seriously , it looks to me you are putting up a straw man as an excuse for saying something interesting about the past. Got me thinking, if all the 11000 articles that evolutionary biologists wrote in a year (I seem to recall that figure from Cali) – if they were all somehow macerated and used to make egg boxes, the world would still stagger around. But if a year’s findings of palaeontology were somehow destroyed, we would all be definitely the poorer. The smallest new fact dug up from the past feeds us. And if the dead hand of ideology is ever removed from the theory of evolution it will evolve towards a discipline like history and towards its core palaeontology.

The theory of evolution has no ideological basis other than rational skepticism.
It has nothing to do with atheism nor does atheism have anything to do with ToE.

Jayjay4547 wrote:
So I was trying to say that it’s just as obvious that Australopithecus avoided predation by fighting using hand-held foreign objects.

Except that there's nothing obvious about as you have not offered a shred of evidence for that claim.
Only blind assertions and assumptions.

Jayjay4547 wrote:To not see that would be like not seeing that Tyrannosaurus ate meat.

Bollocks of the highest order.
We have evidence of T-Rex having carnivore teeth and eating meat.
We have 0 evidence of A. ghari using any tools, let alone weapons.

Jayjay4547 wrote: Part of the evidence is in the shape of the teeth.

And the fossolised excrements of T-Rex.

Jayjay4547 wrote:The australopiths didn’t.

Neither did their ancestors. That doesn't prove they used weapons anymore than austrolopiths did.

Jayjay4547 wrote:And they didn’t have any other obvious means to avoid predation.

How do you know this? FFS, again, neither did their ancestors. Nor did many bird species, other mammals etc.

Jayjay4547 wrote:Also Two factors have blinded us. One is that whereas we can recognise T rex’s adaptation from many other examples of toothy predators

The evidence for T-Rex being predators and carnivores is their teeth and their fossilised excrements.
That similar evidence can be found in other carnivores is irrelevant to whether T-Rex were predators and carnivores.

Jayjay4547 wrote:the only examples of animals that are adapted into using foreign objects kinetically to defend themselves are the tiny sample of primates from our own line. It’s very particular. Secondly it so happens that the investigating authority in this case, is in the same line of descent as the australopiths and his mind is completely sizzled with ideological requirements for his origin story- and these don’t include that human ancestors reacted defensively to their environment- that they were formed by exterior agents.

Mindlessly rergugitating this ideology canard only demonstrates your inability to defend your claim.
You've failed to demonstrate what ideology, if any, negatively influences biologists, paleontologists et al and how.

Jayjay4547 wrote:Would it be unreasonable to call that ideological dinning pathological?

Yes, because you haven't even established this ideological influence in the first place.

Jayjay4547 wrote:Take Piltdown Man I was citing above.

A common creationist canard. That you think this might support your case in any way only goes to show your ignorance on this topic.
Seriously Jayjay, if all you have to offer is mindless creationist canards you might as well quit now.
We've seen and thouroughly debunked it many times before on this board.

theropod · **#238** by **theropod** » Jun 17, 2014 6:23 pm

Jayjay4547 wrote:Not just big cars hey. I learned something.

Seriously , it looks to me you are putting up a straw man as an excuse for saying something interesting about the past.

If my statements are strawmen then what the hell are yours? Seriously. Do you even consider what you post?

Got me thinking, if all the 11000 articles that evolutionary biologists wrote in a year (I seem to recall that figure from Cali) – if they were all somehow macerated and used to make egg boxes, the world would still stagger around. But if a year’s findings of palaeontology were somehow destroyed, we would all be definitely the poorer. The smallest new fact dug up from the past feeds us. And if the dead hand of ideology is ever removed from the theory of evolution it will evolve towards a discipline like history and towards its core palaeontology.

Sorry to break it to you, but the core of current evolutionary theory resides firmly in the hands of geneticists.

Anyway on your challenge, I never claimed that T. rex was a “pure predator” that never scavenged.

You're right. You didn't do that. You said they ate meat. My bad.

You tried to connect It’s common for predators to scavenge opportunistically.

No, I didn't "try" I showed, and can show, that T. rex was an opportunistic predator.

My point was really simple, that it’s obvious ‘from a skeleton, that T rex (thanks for correction on lower case) ate meat. You don’t need “evidence” of prey bones stuck in its teeth to see that.

The why the hell did you post that silliness when there is empirical evidence that T. rex did eat meat?

Goodness, imagine the uphill I’d get if I claimed here that Tyrannosaurus didn’t eat meat. As some of my friends do, for the laudable purpose of showing the finger to bullying know it-alls.

That's exactly what I thought you were doing.

So I was trying to say that it’s just as obvious that Australopithecus avoided predation by fighting using hand-held foreign objects.

Yeah but I can show you the bones of dinosaurs that lived at the same time as T. rex that have bite marks. That's empirical evidence. Do you have any at all that your assertion about Australopithecus?

To not see that would be like not seeing that Tyrannosaurus ate meat.

Nope, see above.

Part of the evidence is in the shape of the teeth. Tyrannosaurus had teeth for biting flesh. The australopiths didn’t.

Are you saying hey lived on a vegetarian diet, as that is one huge assertion.

And they didn’t have any other obvious means to avoid predation.

Oh, like a social structure, and numbers.

Two factors have blinded us. One is that whereas we can recognise T rex’s adaptation from many other examples of toothy predators, the only examples of animals that are adapted into using foreign objects kinetically to defend themselves are the tiny sample of primates from our own line. It’s very particular. Secondly it so happens that the investigating authority in this case, is in the same line of descent as the australopiths and his mind is completely sizzled with ideological requirements for his origin story- and these don’t include that human ancestors reacted defensively to their environment- that they were formed by exterior agents.

Examples of fossils tell us much more, but don't let that stop you now.

Would it be unreasonable to call that ideological dinning pathological? Take Piltdown Man I was citing above. Those great scientists in the oil painting were terrible palaeontologists. I watched a clip on BBC the other day, about the Piltdown “cricket bat”. An expert opined, this might have been a plant to tell the actual hoaxer “we are onto you”. But the fact is, these men weren’t onto it: they went on to trash actual paleontological evidence offered by a colonial.

And exactly what the hell as this to do with anything? Remind me, was it a fundamentalists working from doctrine that discovered the hoax, or was it a scientists working from the evidence?

RS

Jayjay4547 · **#239** by **Jayjay4547** » Jun 18, 2014 9:30 am

theropod wrote:
So I was trying to say that it’s just as obvious that Australopithecus avoided predation by fighting using hand-held foreign objects.

Yeah but I can show you the bones of dinosaurs that lived at the same time as T. rex that have bite marks. That's empirical evidence. Do you have any at all that your assertion about Australopithecus?

Was there ever any doubt that T. Rex ate meat, even before those bite marks were found? Did palaeontologists stand around scratching their heads? Gosh maybe this was an aquatic reptile. No could it have been a wood borer? Let’s hypothesise that it ate meat, Let’s call that the T.Rex Hunting hypothesis till we get “evidence”.

theropod wrote:
Part of the evidence is in the shape of the teeth. Tyrannosaurus had teeth for biting flesh. The australopiths didn’t.

Are you saying they lived on a vegetarian diet, as that is one huge assertion.

Australopiths had teeth that were good for biting dead things. T.Rex’s teeth were good for biting things that it intended would soon be dead.

theropod wrote:
And they didn’t have any other obvious means to avoid predation.

Oh, like a social structure, and numbers.

If social structure and numbers were good for avoiding predation then termites would have nothing to worry about. But they have social structure, numbers and soldiers. Put your hand in a termite nest and one of those can give you a bite to remember. So injected poison can be an antipredation method but for an African mammal, if it can’t sprint or climb a tree better than a leopard or hide in obscurity, then it comes down to applying either blunt or sharp trauma to the predator. Not that different from your Nebraska dinosaurs.

Where social structure and numbers come in is the troop needs to organise so the minimum number of members apply the maximum trauma with minimum effort.

theropod wrote:
Would it be unreasonable to call that ideological dinning pathological? Take Piltdown Man I was citing above. Those great scientists in the oil painting were terrible palaeontologists. I watched a clip on BBC the other day, about the Piltdown “cricket bat”. An expert opined, this might have been a plant to tell the actual hoaxer “we are onto you”. But the fact is, these men weren’t onto it: they went on to trash actual paleontological evidence offered by a colonial.

And exactly what the hell as this to do with anything? Remind me, was it a fundamentalists working from doctrine that discovered the hoax, or was it a scientists working from the evidence?

What the 40-years that the Piltdown forgery went undetected shows is that paleoanthropologists like everyone else, are blinded by what they want to see. And what they want to see is culturally determined. That was well put in a review by Brian Switek of Donna Hart and Robert W Sussman's “Man the Hunted” :

“If there is any science that is influenced by our cultural background, expectations, and desires it is anthropology, and we must take care to make sure that what we want to be true doesn’t obscure our vision.”
http://scienceblogs.com/laelaps/2009/06/14/book-review-man-the-hunted/

Yes it was a scientist who uncovered the Piltdown forgery; a 38 year old son of Lithuanian Jewish immigrants to Johannesburg, at that time reader at Oxford. Not fundamentalists. On the other hand it is a creationist who is pointing out a pathological blindness in modern science’s view of human ancestors.

Thomas Eshuis · **#240** by **Thomas Eshuis** » Jun 18, 2014 11:01 am

Jayjay4547 wrote:
theropod wrote:
So I was trying to say that it’s just as obvious that Australopithecus avoided predation by fighting using hand-held foreign objects.

Yeah but I can show you the bones of dinosaurs that lived at the same time as T. rex that have bite marks. That's empirical evidence. Do you have any at all that your assertion about Australopithecus?

Was there ever any doubt that T. Rex ate meat, even before those bite marks were found?

Irrelevant. What matters is the evidence.

Jayjay4547 wrote:Did palaeontologists stand around scratching their heads? Gosh maybe this was an aquatic reptile. No could it have been a wood borer? Let’s hypothesise that it ate meat, Let’s call that the T.Rex Hunting hypothesis till we get “evidence”.

Evidence, no scare quotes required.
There's none for your assumption.

Jayjay4547 wrote:
theropod wrote:
Part of the evidence is in the shape of the teeth. Tyrannosaurus had teeth for biting flesh. The australopiths didn’t.

Are you saying they lived on a vegetarian diet, as that is one huge assertion.

Australopiths had teeth that were good for biting dead things. T.Rex’s teeth were good for biting things that it intended would soon be dead.

Still doesn't support your claim that they used weapons.

Jayjay4547 wrote:
theropod wrote:
And they didn’t have any other obvious means to avoid predation.

Oh, like a social structure, and numbers.

If social structure and numbers were good for avoiding predation then termites would have nothing to worry about.

They don't, most of the time. They're some the most resistant and persistent creatures in the world.
And many mammals rely on social structure and numbers to avoid predations. Herd animals for example.

Jayjay4547 wrote:
theropod wrote: Would it be unreasonable to call that ideological dinning pathological? Take Piltdown Man I was citing above. Those great scientists in the oil painting were terrible palaeontologists. I watched a clip on BBC the other day, about the Piltdown “cricket bat”. An expert opined, this might have been a plant to tell the actual hoaxer “we are onto you”. But the fact is, these men weren’t onto it: they went on to trash actual paleontological evidence offered by a colonial.

And exactly what the hell as this to do with anything? Remind me, was it a fundamentalists working from doctrine that discovered the hoax, or was it a scientists working from the evidence?

What the 40-years that the Piltdown forgery went undetected shows is that paleoanthropologists like everyone else, are blinded by what they want to see.[/quote]
Bollocks. It shows that people make mistakes and can be tricked.
It shos nothing about ideology.

Jayjay4547 wrote:And what they want to see is culturally determined. That was well put in a review by Brian Switek of Donna Hart and Robert W Sussman's “Man the Hunted” :

“If there is any science that is influenced by our cultural background, expectations, and desires it is anthropology, and we must take care to make sure that what we want to be true doesn’t obscure our vision.”
http://scienceblogs.com/laelaps/2009/06/14/book-review-man-the-hunted/

Antropology =/= paleaontology nor biology.
Your analogy is fatally flawed.

Jayjay4547 wrote:Yes it was a scientist who uncovered the Piltdown forgery; a 38 year old son of Lithuanian Jewish immigrants to Johannesburg, at that time reader at Oxford. Not fundamentalists. On the other hand it is a creationist who is pointing out a pathological blindness erecting disengenuous straw-men in about modern science’s view of human ancestors.

FIFY. Stuff the ideological bullshit canard. It won't fly around here, you won't fool anyone.
Start presenting evidence.

"New eye discovery further demolishes Dawkins"

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