Posted: Jun 28, 2016 9:20 am
monkeyboy wrote: Why is it Jayjay seems to treat this need for weapon proficiency to be an urgent developmental task? Did leopards and their ilk just rock up in Australopithecus land one day and start attacking them to the point of extinction within a few weeks if they didn't sort their shit out quickly? No they didn't. Evolution don't happen like that. Changes in species physical attributes takes ages to happen and likewise their behaviour often doesn't change that quickly either.
My argument isn’t that humanity evolved much more quickly than suits an atheist ideology origin narrative (e.g. contra Agrippina) , it’s that humanity evolved much more in response to logical imperatives created by the external world than suits an atheist ideology origin narrative.
I do actually think that evolution enthusiasts see evolution in much more plastic (or gradualist) terms than justified but that’s not the point I’ve been arguing.
monkeyboy wrote: Australopithecus' teeth didn't change dramatically overnight and they didn't become pathetically defenceless prey overnight either.
On your “overnight”, see above. On defencelessness, we can’t have been descended from ancestors that have ever been pathetically defenceless, primates are generally not defenceless on the contrary they are distinctively dangerous to attack. However prey do sometimes find themselves in hopeless situations and it might well have been during those contexts, when the tipping point was reached between biting, and using a stick to keep a predator away. A similar tipping point might have been reached many times amongst giraffe ancestors between butting and kicking, "soon" reflected in the difference between Sivatherium and Giraffa jumae; two distinct body plans and skill sets that made sense in different ways.
monkeyboy wrote: There's always this ridiculous rush to the extremes in his arguments and assumptions.
I Deny that.
monkeyboy wrote: No big toes= can't climb trees.
I never said that, very likely Australopithecus did climb trees under particular levels of threat from non-climbing predators and were better at it than we are. I pointed to the PQ17 style risks to the troop and the time costs in being treed.
monkeyboy wrote: No big teeth=defenceless.
No big teeth,+ no horns+ no talons=defenceless while unarmed.
monkeyboy wrote: Can't outrun a cheetah=definitely going to die if anything chases you.
Yes definitely, also couldn’t avoid being run down by leopard, hunting dogs, hyena or doubtless, sabretooth. That’s what they tell you; don’t run away
monkeyboy wrote: Can't fight off lions and hyenas=can't scavenge.
Can’t habitually scavenge. Make up your mind: did Australopithecus shin up a tree when they came across predators or did they drive primary predators off their kills?
monkeyboy wrote: No weapons=incapable of not being eaten or possibly using any number of the ways other prey animals avoid being the dish du jour.
Primates are generally distinctively bad at a number of ways other prey animals avoid being the dish du jour. Their metabolic rate is about half that expected for a mammal that size. Living in groups, giving warning calls and living in trees where the branches shake as they move around, most primates are highly conspicuous. Foraging by day, most primates are easy to see. When they retreat to refuges, those are well known and repeatedly visited by their predators. Two distinctive plusses: (1) except for hominins, primates are more adept in trees than other mammals their size (2) except for hominins, primates are fearsome biters thanks to the long sharp canines in their males and their hands being able to grip and hold on (e.g. to the back of a hyena) and to tear out a gash.
monkeyboy wrote: If you can't see of the big, dangerous animals, your scavenging privilege is down the order of what's that common fucking phrase again? The "pecking order", that's it. Means you get to have your turn when you can get in to the food without becoming a side order. If you can't force others off the kill, then you wait or go hungry or go eat something else, since your diet isn't just restricted to meat and scavenging isnt the entirety of your food supply.
It always has to be that if Australopithecus wasn't the master of something, they just can't do it at all with Jayjay. Or at least not well enough to survive. It's total bollocks.
It’s not “total bollocks” Monkeyboy, that’s your own extreme rush to extremes, typical of ratskep posters. Mine are obvious issues for any little boy watching the Royal Procession of the established human origin story. And the common fucking phrase you are looking for is “food chain”. Our Australopithecus ancestors were inside that, they weren’t on top or in some magical theoretical space estranged from intimate relations with peer species.