Salt glands

You are mistaken. I clearly state that in humans the organ that regulates the salt to water balance
is the kidneys, just as it is in all mammals. This is the closest thing to a "salt gland" that
humans have, unlike marine and desert birds and reptiles. That is what I state on my site, as I also
have in close to a decade of newsgroup posting. It is various AAT proponents who inaccurately claim
that humans have a "salt gland" other than the kidneys. Please do not say I said something on my
site when I actually said the exact opposite.

J Moore (www.aquaticape.org)

Mario Petrinovich <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Hi folks! Me again. Sorry for wasting your time, but I had problems finding reliable info.
Last time we were talking about Aquatic Ape Theory. Well, I have problems with those salt
glands. Can somebody tell me - do we or don't we have salt glands; and if we do, is some
terrestrial mamma (primate?)

having

Quoted message said:

something similar? Why am I asking this? Because some guy (Jim Moore) who is

attacking

Quoted message said:

AAT very much, wrote on his site that we have them.

Thanks in advance Mario

J Moore :

Quoted message said:

You are mistaken. I clearly state that in humans the organ that regulates the salt to water
balance is the kidneys, just as it is in all mammals. This is the closest thing to a "salt gland"
that humans have, unlike marine and desert birds and reptiles.

Technically, yes. But, tried to prove that our tear glands aren't salt glands by comparing
them with "salt glands" of terrestrial birds and reptils. You've said that our tear glands
cannot be salt glands because they are doing what salt glands are doing in terrestrial
birds and reptils. Well, if you ask me, by that you actaually said that we have salt
glands, and not
v.v.. Then, at the end of article, you've said that glands of terrestrial birds and reptiles evolved
in amphibians. A reader could presume that you don't know of any other way of evolution of salt
glands (and, definitely you didn't mention it). So, we didn't inherit our glands from reptiles,
and the only way of evolving the glands which are doing what salt glands are doing in
terrestrial birds and reptils, that you know of, is at the water edge. I concluded (from your
words only), we have glands like those of terrestrial birds and reptils, which evolved at water
edge. So, you stated facts, and said that those facts present the proves that these aren't salt
glands, when they actually prove that they are. The only thing, in the whole text, that "proves"
that these aren't salt glands, is your renaming them into "tear glands". And so, I am poor with
knowlage, I actually am happy that I could read your article, which states a lot of facts, and
this article is my main source of infromation. And this article is saying tha we have salt
glands. So, I came here to clear this confusion. It has to be something that tells that they
aren't salt glands (since you are so sure about it), but all I could read from your article (my
main source of information), is that they are salt glands. And, yes. Marine iguana has salt
glands that extract potassium. A seaweed that it eats is reach with potassium. Which is classic
AAT scenario.

Why I am so interested in those salt glands, to come here to bother you with this, now?
Because, we at AAT community, just introduced new things that can strenghted our theory. We
found out that we have the adaptations of plunge-divers: covered nostrils and straight
posture. So, with added salt glands this would be it. And if you add SC fat to this, this
could be IT, lol. Discussion about this you can find in sci.anthropology.paleo newsgroup, as
well as in Yahoo! group AAT. -- Mario

Thank you for giving some further details of your reading of my site; I see now where you made your
mistake. Although I think my page on tears is pretty clear, you've made a fundamental error in
assuming something that I did say means something else. However, since I now can see where you made
your mistake, I'll explain further here.

First, I didn't try "to prove that our tear glands aren't salt glands by comparing them with "salt
glands" of terrestrial birds and reptils. (sic)" I showed that they aren't because they are
incapable of doing what a regulatory organ like a salt gland must be capable of -- accurately
regulate the level of that mineral to water balance. In humans, as in all mammals, this can only
be done by the kidneys, which I am at pains to say in several places on my site. This is true of
all mammals -- every single mammal -- and humans are no exception to this, despite the AAT claim
to the contrary.

You said: "So, we didn't inherit our glands from reptiles, and the only way of evolving the glands
which are doing what salt glands are doing in terrestrial birds and reptils, that you know of, is at
the water edge. I concluded (from your words only), we have glands like those of terrestrial birds
and reptils, which evolved at water edge."

This is wrong, and I didn't say that the potasium-secreting glands of terrestrial birds and reptiles
"evolved at water edge (sic.)"; I said they evolved in very dry desert conditions. The salt-
excreting glands of marine birds and reptiles evolved in sea or shoreline dwelling birds and
reptiles. These are pretty darned different conditions, and frankly, that should be pretty darned
obvious. They do share one feature, that of a lack of fresh water, which is why these animals have
had to develop these organs to conserve water while they expel salt (in the case of marine birds and
reptiles) or potassium (in the case of desert birds and reptiles).

There are, in birds and reptiles, glands which can regulate mineral to water balances in the body.
They are the same sort of gland, that is an active excretion gland, but differ dramatically between
marine birds and reptiles, where they excrete salt, and terrestrial (specifically desert-dwelling)
birds and reptiles, whose glands excrete potassium. Because of this difference, you could check the
glands of these animals and tell what sort of environment they evolved in. If they evolved in a
marine environment, their glands can hypertonically excrete salt. If they evolved in a very dry
terrestrial environment, their glands can hypertonically excrete potassium. As I said on my site
(and this is where you went astray) if the excretions of human tear ducts (which can hypertonically
excrete potassium but not salt) indicate anything about our environmental background, it indicates a
dry terrestrial rather than an aquatic marine background. If our tears' mineral composition arose as
a result of environment, it would take only that initial change to be from a terrestrial enviroment;
but if it were as a result of an aquatic marine environment it would take two dramatic changes, the
second change leaving no trace whatever.

However, the composition of our tears may not have arisen as a direct result of environment, and
even if they did, they still are not a regulatory gland as are the glands in birds and reptiles. Let
me explain that again a bit further:

Salt glands, or the potassium-secreting glands of terrestrial (desert-dwelling) birds and reptiles,
always have the characterisitc that they can secrete a solution of water and salts that is
hypertonic, more salty than body plasma. They must be able to do this to be a "salt" gland. There is
no way they can be a salt gland unless they can do this, and that's a long-established basic
physiological fact. Human tears and sweat cannot produce a hypertonic salt solution; they can't even
approach a hypertonic solution. So humans do not have a salt gland; the regulation of our bodies'
water to mineral balance is handled by the kidneys, just as it is in every single mammal. Human
tears can produce a hypertonic potassium solution, which strongly suggests that this function was
possibly an adaptation to dry terrestrial environments, but definitely not an adaptation to a marine
or aquatic environment. However, even this doesn't make them a salt gland in the sense that the potassium-
excreting glands of desert birds and reptiles are often referred to as "salt glands". This is
because the tear ducts are not capable of regulating this potassium discharge, as the glands of
desert birds and reptiles are. In humans, only the kidneys are capable of this, just as in all
mammals, bar none. They are the equivalent (but actually a massive improvement on) the reptile and
bird system of salt glands.

I hope this has cleared up your misunderstanding.

J Moore

"J Moore" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

www.aquaticape.org

This website is completely outdated, prejudiced and irrelevant: it is mostly about Elaine Morgan's
ideas on AAT, but it does not discuss AAT as most of its proponents see it today. For a serious
discussion of AAT come to our discussion group onelist.comAATOpen ↗ . We still need
biologists who know a lot of comparative anatomy, physiology & DNA.

Marc Verhaegen

allserv.rug.ac.beVerhaegen.htmlOpen ↗

Quoted message said:

Well, I have>problems with those salt glands. Can somebody tell me - do we or

don't we>have salt glands; and if we do, is some terrestrial mamma (primate?) having

Quoted message said:

something similar?

My thinking is that many are confused about human sweat being "salty". It occures to me that I never
thought to taste any horse sweat to see if it was also. Since other primates don't sweat they have
no "salt glands". Of course neither do humans per se... But humans do lose salt in persperation...

TWINBLUE

Sweat does have elements present in plasma, and salt is a part of that. But losing salt through
sweat isn't a good way of managing the necessary task of balancing our salt to water balance,
because sweat is never hypertonic to body plasma and because it isn't a regulated way to get rid of
salt (in fact, researchers find that sweat glands in humans are set up more to conserve salt than to
get rid of it). If we sweat enough to lose much salt, we lose much more water and have to replace
it. If we replace the water, we run the risk -- a very real risk -- of upsetting our salt to water
balance. This is called water intoxication, and causes cramps and nausea which can be quite violent,
and can even lead to death. Our bodies need, as all animals need, a method of safely maintaining our
salt to water balance (homeostasis) and our sweat glands are not capable of doing this. The kidneys,
on the other hand, can and do accomplish the task of maintaining this balance, and are the method of
doing so in every mammal.

I'll ignore Marc Verhaegen's contention that the basic principles of physiology and homeostasis have
changed in the last several years since I put my site online.

J Moore (www.aquaticape.org)

TWINBLUE <[email hidden]> wrote in message "]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Well, I have>problems with those salt glands. Can somebody tell me - do

we or

Quoted message said:

don't we>have salt glands; and if we do, is some terrestrial mamma

(primate?)

Quoted message said:

having

Quoted message said:

something similar?

My thinking is that many are confused about human sweat being "salty". It occures to me that I
never thought to taste any horse sweat to see if it

was

Quoted message said:

also. Since other primates don't sweat they have no "salt glands". Of course neither do humans per
se... But humans do lose salt in persperation...

TWINBLUE

On Sun, 11 Jan 2004 20:40:44 +0000 (UTC), [email hidden] (TWINBLUE)

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Well, I have>problems with those salt glands. Can somebody tell me - do we or

don't we>have salt glands; and if we do, is some terrestrial mamma (primate?) having

Quoted message said:

something similar?

My thinking is that many are confused about human sweat being "salty". It occures to me that I
never thought to taste any horse sweat to see if it was also. Since other primates don't sweat they
have no "salt glands". Of course neither do humans per se... But humans do lose salt in
persperation...

This has already been answered.

Every human secretion is salty because human body fluids are salty. Horse sweat is also necessarily
salty, as is every secretion of every animal.

In order to be considered a "salt gland", a gland must be involved in regulating the salt content
and salt/water balance (osmotic pressure) of the body fluids. That is, the secretion must be
noticeably different from the body fluids in composition and osmotic pressure, and in sufficient
quantity to inflence whole body salt content and osmotic pressure. Further, the secretions of the
gland must clearly and primarily be related to imbalances in salt content or osmotic pressure of the
body fluids.

The secretion of tears and sweat fail to qualify as examples of salt glands regardless of the fact
that humans lose salt by tearing and sweating.

J Moore :

Thanks Jim (and TWINBLUE) very much. I do have further questions, but I should clear them
myself by trying to research the matter. Unfortunatelly (or actually, fortunatelly) I don't
have much time right now because, as I said, we at AAT are now considering new things
regarding our straight posture, so, I will leave this for later. Regarding this 'straight
posture' thing, I would like to further explain this to this list, and get your opinion.
Forgive me if I don't use all the terms correctly, I am still not quite familiar with most
of them. Straight posture would be posture in axial direction (if I am right here), straight
as a cigar. And we are also bipedal, as are the other straight animal (penguins). How you
become like that. Bipedal animals (which are bipedal in rest) are all adapted to forces that
are comming from that direction. These are hopping animals. When they are hopping they sort
of propel their body with hind legs. I would presume that direction of that force goes
through centar of gravity. But, when they are landing, they are also using their hind legs
as a spring, for that. Here again, this legs are adapted to cushion forces comming through
center of gravity of the body (I presume). Since they become so adapted to acquire forces
from that direction (and weight also is a force), it becomes more natural (easy) for them to
hold their body in this position. All muscles become excellently adapted for this stance.
So, were we a leapers? Well, there are also other animals which are straight as cigar. One
of them are fish and aquatic mammals, reptiles, whoever is traveling through water. They
have to be like that because of streamlining. When you are traveling through the water, you
better be straight like cigar. There are some other animals, too. A plunge-diving birds are
like this when they are in water. They need to be like this because they are (very fastly)
traveling through water. When you are plunging into water, first you need to overcome a
thing called 'surface tension' of water. This can be done with pointig object, a bill in
birds' case. To cushion the inpact of bill, those birds use their neck as a spring (I
presume, just like hopping animals are using their legs). So, here we have spring after the
bill. To cushion the impact of the body, they are using air sacs. So, in their case forces
are comming from the direction of bill, through center of gravity of the body. They have
another problem. Because of high impact speed, there is a problem of water rushing through
their nostrils. So they have covered nostrils. So, we are also straight like cigar. Are we
hopping animal, or plunge divers. Well, we do have covered nostrils, which prevents water to
rush through them. To explain of what forces we are talking about, I will demonstrate a jump
from 10 m hight into water. In that situation human experience forces of 20-24 G. Completly
is submerged within 128-140 milliseconds after impact, by which time there has been a 53%
loss of velocity. I think that we are talking about considerable forces, here, comming
through axial direction. If we did plunge diving often, we could adapt our body to those
forces. We could break 'surface tension' with our hands. And look at that, our hands are
also straight (not bended). To cushion inpact of our head, we could break water with our
noses. Paranasal sinuses (all around nose) also can have function here. How I came to this
idea. I've read an article about the weight we can carry on our head. Here is the link for
it : www.positivehealth.com/permit/Articles/Regular/joel78.htm A few excerptions : "The
weight involved can be equally impressive. For example, 66 pounds is considered the standard
weight for the Sherpas of Nepal, but some, for economic reasons, can manage up to 198 pounds
- a risky business, as it is difficult to be surefooted on steep mountain tracks with such a
weight hanging from your forehead. In Africa, the women of the Kikuyu and Luo tribes in
Kenya can carry on their heads loads that weigh as much as 70% of their body weight."
"According to Giovanni Cavagna, studying the mechanics of walking at the University of
Milan, it has to do with the way people walk when they have something on the top of their
head. Cavagna compares walking to the swinging of a pendulum. A pendulum transforms kinetic
energy into potential energy and back again. If it were not for the small amount of energy
lost due to friction at its point of attachment and from movement through the air, the
conversion of potential energy into kinetic energy in an ideal pendulum would be 100%. A
push will transfer sufficient energy into the body of the pendulum to cause it to swing
freely for a very long time. During walking, the body behaves like an upside-down pendulum,
albeit an imperfect one. Heglund says that we act as only 65% of a perfect pendulum, which
means that, for each step we take, 35% of the energy has to be obtained from the calories we
burn. Carrying a load on the head seems to trigger an energy-saving mechanism in the gait.
For example, when the Luo and Kikuyu women carry 20% of their body weight, they act as more
economic pendulums, achieving an average of about 80% efficiency. In other words, with this
weight on their head they use no more energy in walking than is expended without such an
encumbrance. The change in their gait is so subtle that it is not visible to the human eye
and, unfortunately, the exact mechanism is not yet fully understood." Another link :
www.positivehealth.com/permit/Articles/Regular/joel79.htm It became obvious that we are
adapted to carry forces in this direction. I would like to hear what are you biologist
thinking of all this. If this is true (and I don't see why it wouldn't be), this could have
great impact on the way we are looking at human past. AAT could gain recognition. And we
would prove that our view is more credible than previously thought. Those things are now
disscused in Yahoo! group AAT, so anybody interested is welcome. As Marc said, we need
biologists there. AAT is fundamental biology stuff. After all Hardy (founder) was a marine
biologist. -- Mario

"J Moore" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Thank you for giving some further details of your reading of my site

J Moore, you have to adapt your website, or else to withdraw it. It's outdated & irrelevant to AAT
scenarios.

The most recent paper on AAT is probably this:

M.Verhaegen, P-F.Puech & S.Munro 2002 "Aquarboreal ancestors?"

Trends in Ecology & Evolution 17:212-7 7_05 "Aquarboreal ancestors?"

Marc Verhaegen, Pierre-François Puech, Stephen Munro

New evidence confirms the idea that human ancestors were not savannah-dwellers at all, but instead
became bipedal in swampy forests, and evolved during the Ice Ages into coastal omnivores along the
Indian Ocean.

According to biomolecular data, the great apes split into Asian pongids (orangutans) and African
hominids (gorillas, chimpanzees and humans) 18-12 million years ago and hominids split into gorillas
and humans-chimpanzees 10-6 Mya. Fossils with pongid features appear in Eurasia after about 15 Mya,
and fossils with hominid features appear in Africa after about 10 Mya. Instead of the traditional
savannah-dwelling hypothesis, we argue that a combination of fossil (including the newly discovered
Orrorin, Ardipithecus and Kenyanthropus hominids) and comparative data now provides evidence showing
that (1) the earliest hominids waded and climbed in swampy or coastal forests in Africa-Arabia and
partly fed on hard-shelled fruits and molluscs; (2) their australopith descendants in Africa had a
comparable locomotion but generally preferred a diet including wetland plants; (3) the [censored]
descendants migrated to or remained near the Indian Ocean coasts, lost most climbing abilities, and
exploited waterside resources.

Marc Verhaegen onelist.comAATOpen ↗
allserv.rug.ac.beVerhaegen.htmlOpen ↗

"J Moore" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

I'll ignore Marc Verhaegen's contention that the basic principles of

physiology and homeostasis have changed in the last several years since I put my site online.

A nice illustration of your ignorance & your biased & outdated ideas on AAT.

Whatever the possible or past functions of sweating, the most-sweating mammals besides humans are
sea-lions at the shore AFAWK: "sweat glands on the flippers of otariids aid in heat transfer. On hot
days sealions & furseals can often be seen fanning their flippers & increasing evaporative heat loss
at these sites" p.87-88 in AR Hoelzel ed.2002 "Marine mammal biology" Blackwell.

Trying to explain human sweat glands by ancestors running over the hot African plains, as some
traditional paleo-anthropologists still do, is clearly ridiculous: salt & water are scarse there,
and typical savanna mammals use totally different ways of cooling. OTOH, salt & water are abundant
at the shores where sealions & early [censored] lived: early [censored] c 1.8 Ma is found from Algeria to Java
(amid barnacles & shells in a former river delta at Mojokerto). No doubt they spread over the warmer
parts of the Old World at the beginning of the Pleistocene along the coasts. It is here that we have
to situate Hardy's more-aquatic past (AC Hardy 1960 "Was Man more aquatic in the past?" New
Scientist 7:642-5). J.Moore has no counter-argument to this. He can only ignore... Very wise, Jim,
very wise...
:-D

BTW, in our discussion group onelist.comAATOpen ↗ , we still need biologists who
know a lot about comparative anatomy & physiology of diverse mammals.

Marc Verhaegen allserv.rug.ac.beVerhaegen.htmlOpen ↗

I haven't wanted to get into a protracted discussion of the AAT online for some years now, because
in my experience the proponents of the theory simply repeat old info and ideas no matter how many
times it's been discussed and shown to have errors. It just takes far too much time and effort to go
over these things again and again. (We see this in Marc Verhaegen's insistence that the laws of
physiology and homeostasis have changed in the past few years, rendering the information obsolete.
Coupled with a link to one of his articles which does not support this contention, that, from what
I've seen online, is the essense of his method.) I posted here because you made some errors
specifically regarding my web site, and I wanted to correct your mistakes. However, I'll try to
point you toward the direction where you can see where you';re making mistakes, if indeed you really
want to try and correct them.

There are several problems with the ideas you're describing here. One is talking about penguins
being bipedal -- they are bipedal because they are birds. All birds are bipedal. Really, I don't
mean to be mean, but this should really be awfully obvious, and I mean obvious to anyone with any
experience of the world, not just scientists.. The fact that it wasn't obvious to you suggests
you're not thinking as critically as you should when confronted with these ideas from AAT
proponents.

I know that AAT proponents like to point out that penguins are bipedal, and that they talk about
diving birds and other animals as being "straight" or similar terms. They tend to avoid the fact
that all primates use bipedality as part of their locomotive repertoire, and that some, such as
gibbons, use it whenever they are on the ground (several other primates, such as spider monkeys,
also usually are bipedal on the ground). This isn't so strange when you realise that all primates
tend to use a lot of upright posture, not only during their periods of bipedalism but during
sitting. We are, as primates, pre-adapted to use bipedalism; we just use it a lot more than other
primates and that has helped shape our physique. There is no consensus on whether the last common
ancestor was a brachiator such as gibbons, a leaper/climber such as some lemurs, or a knuckwalker
like our closest relatives the chimps, bonobos, and gorillas (this last is still argued as a
possibility). In fact, it's quite possible, since whenever we get an earlier hominid fossil they are
bipedal, that the last common ancestor was bipedal and it's our closest relatives who've changed
most in that regard. That's an interesting thing that will probably not get resolved until we get a
good line of fossils stretching back to 10 million years ago and maybe before that. It is an example
of many things which the AAT, in various versions, says would be due to one cause at one period but
which are either known to be or strongly suspected to have arisen at wildly different periods.

We don't seem well-adapted to diving -- we can do it if we practice a great deal (although many
people have severe physical problems with any sort of diving, which you really wouldn't expect to
see in an animal supposedly strongly adapted to such behavior). But there are many things we CAN do
which we aren't really ADAPTED to do (some more thoughts on that below). The example of the nostrils
is often given, and many people also use the example of proboscis monkeys along with that as
evidence. But of course when proboscis monkeys dive into the water, they actually jump feet first,
which if anything would drive water up the nose -- if this really were a huge problem. (If it
weren't a problem there would be no selection pressure for it.) But in fact when you jump in the
water feet first, you don't get lots of water up your nose if you don't breath in. Ths is because it
just won't fit, because that space is full of air -- basics physics saves us there, unless we breath
in, which is a problem for untrained swimmers (again, you wouldn't expect to find such a problem in
an animal supposedly long adapted to such a lifestyle).

I wouldn't say we are adapted to carrying great weights at all; sure we can do it if we practice
hard, just as we can leap and swim if we practice (although we do all those things rather poorly
compared to a great many animals -- even the fastest Olympic swimmers are pitifully slow compared to
most aqauatic animals). When you look at humans at their "core", really, you see a mammal that's
adapted toward walking a fair amount and sitting around most of the time, much like our ape
relatives. Not all that dramatic, and maybe not what we want to put on our resumes, but that's the
truth of it. 🙂

J Moore

Mario Petrinovich <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

J Moore :

Thanks Jim (and TWINBLUE) very much. I do have further questions, but I should clear them
myself by trying to research the matter. Unfortunatelly (or actually, fortunatelly) I
don't have much time right

now

Quoted message said:

because, as I said, we at AAT are now considering new things regarding our straight posture, so, I
will leave this for later. Regarding this 'straight posture' thing, I would like to further
explain this to this list, and get your opinion. Forgive me if I don't use all the terms
correctly, I am still not quite familiar with most of them. Straight posture would be posture in
axial direction (if I am

right

Quoted message said:

here), straight as a cigar. And we are also bipedal, as are the other straight animal (penguins).
How you become like that. Bipedal animals

(which

Quoted message said:

are bipedal in rest) are all adapted to forces that are comming from that direction. These are
hopping animals. When they are hopping they sort of propel their body with hind legs. I would
presume that direction of that force goes through centar of gravity. But, when they are landing,
they are also using their hind legs as a spring, for that. Here again, this legs

are

Quoted message said:

adapted to cushion forces comming through center of gravity of the body (I presume). Since they
become so adapted to acquire forces from that

direction

Quoted message said:

(and weight also is a force), it becomes more natural (easy) for them to hold their body in this
position. All muscles become excellently adapted

for

Quoted message said:

this stance. So, were we a leapers? Well, there are also other animals which are straight
as cigar.

One

Quoted message said:

of them are fish and aquatic mammals, reptiles, whoever is traveling

through

Quoted message said:

water. They have to be like that because of streamlining. When you are traveling through the
water, you better be straight like cigar. There are some other animals, too. A plunge-diving birds
are like this when they are in water. They need to be like this because they are (very fastly)

traveling

Quoted message said:

through water. When you are plunging into water, first you need to

overcome

Quoted message said:

a thing called 'surface tension' of water. This can be done with pointig object, a bill in birds'
case. To cushion the inpact of bill, those birds use their neck as a spring (I presume, just like
hopping animals are using their legs). So, here we have spring after the bill. To cushion the
impact of the body, they are using air sacs. So, in their case forces are comming from the
direction of bill, through center of gravity of the body. They

have

Quoted message said:

another problem. Because of high impact speed, there is a problem of water rushing through their
nostrils. So they have covered nostrils. So, we are also straight like cigar. Are we hopping
animal, or plunge divers. Well, we do have covered nostrils, which prevents water to rush through
them. To explain of what forces we are talking about, I will demonstrate a jump from 10 m hight
into water. In that situation human experience forces of 20-24 G. Completly is submerged within
128-140 milliseconds after impact, by which time there has been a 53% loss of velocity. I think
that we are talking about considerable forces, here, comming through axial direction. If we did
plunge diving often, we could adapt our body to those forces. We could break 'surface tension'
with our hands. And look at that, our hands are also straight (not bended). To cushion inpact of
our head, we could break water with our noses. Paranasal sinuses (all around nose) also can have
function here. How I came to this idea. I've read an article about the weight we can carry on our
head. Here is the link for it : www.positivehealth.com/permit/Articles/Regular/joel78.htm A few
excerptions : "The weight involved can be equally impressive. For example, 66 pounds is considered
the standard weight for the Sherpas of Nepal, but

some,

Quoted message said:

for economic reasons, can manage up to 198 pounds - a risky business, as

it

Quoted message said:

is difficult to be surefooted on steep mountain tracks with such a weight hanging from your
forehead. In Africa, the women of the Kikuyu and Luo tribes in Kenya can carry on their heads
loads that weigh as much as 70%

of

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their body weight." "According to Giovanni Cavagna, studying the mechanics of walking

at

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the University of Milan, it has to do with the way people walk when they have something on the top
of their head. Cavagna compares walking to the swinging of a pendulum. A pendulum transforms
kinetic energy into

potential

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energy and back again. If it were not for the small amount of energy lost due to friction at its
point of attachment and from movement through the air, the conversion of potential energy into
kinetic energy in an ideal pendulum would be 100%. A push will transfer sufficient energy into the

body

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of the pendulum to cause it to swing freely for a very long time. During walking, the body behaves
like an upside-down pendulum, albeit an

imperfect

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one. Heglund says that we act as only 65% of a perfect pendulum, which

means

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that, for each step we take, 35% of the energy has to be obtained from the calories we burn.
Carrying a load on the head seems to trigger an energy-saving mechanism in the gait. For example,
when the Luo and Kikuyu women carry 20% of their body weight, they act as more economic pendulums,
achieving an average of about 80% efficiency. In other words, with this weight on their head they
use no more energy in walking than is expended without such an encumbrance. The change in their
gait is so subtle that it is not visible to the human eye and, unfortunately, the exact mechanism
is not yet fully understood." Another link :
www.positivehealth.com/permit/Articles/Regular/joel79.htm It became obvious that we are adapted to
carry forces in this direction. I would like to hear what are you biologist thinking of all this.

If

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this is true (and I don't see why it wouldn't be), this could have great impact on the way we are
looking at human past. AAT could gain

recognition.

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And we would prove that our view is more credible than previously thought. Those things are now
disscused in Yahoo! group AAT, so anybody interested

is

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welcome. As Marc said, we need biologists there. AAT is fundamental

biology

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stuff. After all Hardy (founder) was a marine biologist. -- Mario

Ok. Thanks, Jim. I have few remarks.

J Moore :

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There are several problems with the ideas you're describing here. One is talking about penguins
being bipedal -- they are bipedal because they are birds. All birds are bipedal. Really, I don't
mean to be mean, but this should really be awfully obvious, and I mean obvious to anyone with any
experience of the world, not just scientists.. The fact that it wasn't obvious to you suggests
you're not thinking as critically as you should when confronted with these ideas from AAT
proponents.

When I was talking about bipedal animals, I was talking predominantly about hopping animals
(because of connection between their bipedality - holding forces in axial direction - and
ours.). I mentioned only penguins of all birds because they are bipedal as well as straight
(vertical). Their legs are below their bodies. This is just like us, and not like all the
other birds. Is this called comparative evidence? They aren't like other birds. They are
SIMILAR to us. So, you could say that they aren't like all the other birds, and they are
similar to us because they accomodate similar conditions. As I saw from pictures (I don't
have info), plunge-diving birds also tend to be more vertical in posture. And for them you
could also say that they aren't completly vertical because they are birds.

Quoted message said:

I know that AAT proponents like to point out that penguins are bipedal, and that they talk about
diving birds and other animals as being "straight" or similar terms. They tend to avoid the fact
that all primates use bipedality as part of their locomotive repertoire, and that some, such as
gibbons, use it whenever they are on the ground (several other primates, such as spider monkeys,
also usually are bipedal on the ground). This isn't so strange when you realise that all primates
tend to use a lot of upright posture, not only during their periods of bipedalism but during
sitting. We are, as primates, pre-adapted to use bipedalism; we just use it a lot more than other
primates and that has helped shape our physique. There is no consensus on whether the last common
ancestor was a brachiator such as gibbons, a leaper/climber such as some lemurs, or a knuckwalker
like our closest relatives the chimps, bonobos, and gorillas (this last is still argued as a
possibility). In fact, it's quite possible, since whenever we get an earlier hominid fossil they
are bipedal, that the last common ancestor was bipedal and it's our closest relatives who've
changed most in that regard. That's an interesting thing that will probably not get resolved until
we get a good line of fossils stretching back to 10 million years ago and maybe before that. It is
an example of many things which the AAT, in various versions, says would be due to one cause at
one period but which are either known to be or strongly suspected to have arisen at wildly
different periods.

When we get fossil we will know for sure. We don't need scientiests for this. A little child
will figure this out when it sees the evidence. But, we still don't have evidence, and this
is because we searched on wrong places. Maybe rift valey has a good climate, and Leaky
family doesn't want to move from there for centuries but, if we don't start to think before
we dig, it would need another 10 million years for us to gain that knowlage, lol.

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We don't seem well-adapted to diving -- we can do it if we practice a great deal (although many
people have severe physical problems with any sort of diving, which you really wouldn't expect to
see in an animal supposedly strongly adapted to such behavior). But there are many things we CAN
do which we aren't really ADAPTED to do (some more thoughts on that below). The example of the
nostrils is often given, and many people also use the example of proboscis monkeys along with that
as evidence. But of course when proboscis monkeys dive into the water, they actually jump feet
first, which if anything would drive water up the nose -- if this really were a huge problem. (If
it weren't a problem there would be no selection pressure for it.) But in fact when you jump in
the water feet first, you don't get lots of water up your nose if you don't breath in. Ths is
because it just won't fit, because that space is full of air -- basics physics saves us there,
unless we breath in, which is a problem for untrained swimmers (again, you wouldn't expect to find
such a problem in an animal supposedly long adapted to such a lifestyle).

And we can jump legs first, no problem. But, if we jump head first, we are safe. Why would
we jump head first? In my scenario we were rocky coast dwellers. We would jump head first to
gain distance (just like swimmers are jumping on competition). We need distance if we run
from predator. Another bipedal animal, a kangaroo, when it flees from dingos, run into water
whenever it can. There it drowns dingos. We need distance so that we as apes (who are
bipedal in water) can come to water depth where predator cannot anchor itself at the bottom,
anymore. In this situation we are advantageous, and I bet, although on land we are much
weaker, in water we could drown a leopard. Even if it bites us, we could still keep it in
water until it loses air and dies, and we could keep our head out of water. We would be
wounded, but leopard would be dead. This is the basic idea of my scenario. We also need
distance if we feed on shellfish (the only meat we can eat uncooked). It is advantageous if
you can reach further shellfish with least effort. A proboscis monkey's nose? It is
definitely sure that we have similar noses. Our noses can serve two aquatic purposes. The
other one is a diving bell. Try to dive upside-down, and air will leak out of your nose. A
diving bell saves air in nose. Proboscis monkey, as far as I know, doesn't have cartilage. A
cartilage is good for braking water. And plunge diver birds have covered nostrils, and they
dive head first.

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I wouldn't say we are adapted to carrying great weights at all; sure we can do it if we practice
hard, just as we can leap and swim if we practice (although we do all those things rather poorly
compared to a great many animals -- even the fastest Olympic swimmers are pitifully slow compared
to most aqauatic animals).

No, this is the point. Please read the links I've provided in previous post. We can carry a
lot of load without much practice. And more, we are efficient in walking carrying load, than
not carrying load. It was mentioned in one of those two articles I provided. Bottom divers
doesn't have to be adapted for speed. Speed in water is only needed if you are chasing fish.

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When you look at humans at their "core", really, you see a mammal that's adapted toward walking a
fair amount and sitting around most of the time, much like our ape relatives. Not all that
dramatic, and maybe not what we want to put on our resumes, but that's the truth of it. 🙂 JMoore

Our speed is less than that of other, non-terrestrial apes. Our speed is comparative to
land speed of aquatic mammals, which is just enough to be able to jump into water when it
notices predator. This being mentioned, it is probably that we lived closer to our
sanctuary (water in this case) than they lived to theirs (trees). Or that predatos were
more easy noticable in our case (or, possibly, less frequent). All in all, I think that
this scenario has enough elements (I believe much more elements than any other) to become
accepted as legitimate. -- Mario

"J Moore" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

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We see this in Marc Verhaegen's insistence that the laws of physiology and

homeostasis have changed in the past few years, rendering the information obsolete.

?? Lying & misrepresenting what we said is apparently the only "argument" of people like you. I
never said such a thing. Try to read. And be honest before you "discuss" something. Bah! Disgusting.

The essence is this: you are incapable of explaining why humans & chimps differ. A coastal past in
our history (probably end-Plio-, begin-Pleistocene, for some time) nicely explains a lot of these
differences. Alister Hardy in his paper "Was Man more aquatic in the past?" (NS 1960) described how
a sea-side life - beach-combing, wading, swimming, collecting coconuts, fruits, shellfish, turtles &
turtle eggs, bird eggs, crabs, seaweeds etc. - explains many human traits (absent in our nearest
relatives the chimps) a lot better than dry savanna scenarios do: very large brain (but reduced
olfactory bulb - totally unexpected in the savanna), excellent breath-hold control (up to minutes),
greater diving skills, well-developed vocality, extreme handiness & tool use, reduction of climbing
skills, reduction of fur, more subcutaneous fat, very long legs, more linear body build, high needs
of iodine, sodium & poly-unsaturated fatty acids etc. We now know Hardy was wrong in thinking his
seaside phase happened ~10 Ma (not his fault, but due to the general opinion of paleo-
anthropologists at the time). More likely the waterside phase (we don't know how long this (or
these) lasted) happened during the Ice Ages: early Pleistocene [censored] fossils or tools have been found
in Israel, Algeria, Iran, Kenya, Georgia, Java, always near large bodies of water. When sea levels
dropped, H.ergaster apparently followed the Mediterranean (>antecessor>neandertals) & Indian Ocean
coasts (>erectus). Pleistocene coasts during the glacial periods were some 120 m below the present
sea level, so many fossil & archeological finds show the inland [censored] populations that entered the
continents along the rivers & wetlands. In spite of this, [censored] remains (but not australopithecine)
have frequently been found amid shells, corals, barnacles etc., throughout the Pleistocene, in
coasts all over the Old World (eg, Mojokerto, Terra Amata, Table Bay, Eritrea), even on islands that
could only be reached by sea (Flores 0.8 Ma allserv.rug.ac.beoutthere.htmOpen ↗ ).

Marc Verhaegen onelist.comAATOpen ↗
allserv.rug.ac.beVerhaegen.htmlOpen ↗

"Marc Verhaegen" <[email hidden]> wrote in
:"]news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

"J Moore" <[email hidden]> wrote in message "]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

We see this in Marc Verhaegen's insistence that the laws of physiology and

homeostasis have changed in the past few years, rendering the information obsolete.

(snip Marc's accusation)

Quoted message said:

The essence is this: you are incapable of explaining why humans & chimps differ. A coastal past in
our history (probably end-Plio-, begin-Pleistocene, for some time) nicely explains a lot of these
differences. Alister Hardy in his paper "Was Man more aquatic in the past?" (NS 1960) described
how a sea-side life - beach-combing, wading, swimming, collecting coconuts, fruits, shellfish,
turtles & turtle eggs, bird eggs, crabs, seaweeds etc. - explains many human traits (absent in our
nearest relatives the chimps) a lot better than dry savanna scenarios do: very large brain (but
reduced olfactory bulb
- totally unexpected in the savanna), excellent breath-hold control (up to minutes), greater
diving skills, well-developed vocality, extreme handiness & tool use, reduction of climbing
skills, reduction of fur, more subcutaneous fat, very long legs, more linear body build, high
needs of iodine, sodium & poly-unsaturated fatty acids etc.

One of the basic problems, as J. Moore pointed out, is that we are not in fact particularly well
adapted to a fully aquatic existence. Diving from a height of 10 meters for humans is absurd (have
you ever stood on a 10 meter board and looked down?) Repeated diving in humans from even a low board
leads to sinus problems (as I have learned from experience). Our subcutaneous fat is nowhere near
enough to allow us to spend any significant time in cold water (and water below the thermocline is
always cold). Even in warm water our skin rapidly swells and becomes easily subject to abrasion and
puncture. We are so poorly adapted to truly deep diving that the well-developed vocality is unlikely
to be due to the development of conscious breathing control, as it may be in birds and truly aquatic
mammals. It is more likely that the breath-hold control is a byproduct of speech.

We

Quoted message said:

now know Hardy was wrong in thinking his seaside phase happened ~10 Ma (not his fault, but due to
the general opinion of paleo-anthropologists at the time). More likely the waterside phase (we
don't know how long this (or these) lasted) happened during the Ice Ages: early Pleistocene [censored]
fossils or tools have been found in Israel, Algeria, Iran, Kenya, Georgia, Java, always near large
bodies of water. When sea levels dropped, H.ergaster apparently followed the Mediterranean
(>antecessor>neandertals) & Indian Ocean coasts (>erectus). Pleistocene coasts during the glacial
periods were some 120 m below the present sea level, so many fossil & archeological finds show the
inland [censored] populations that entered the continents along the rivers & wetlands. In spite of this,
[censored] remains (but not australopithecine) have frequently been found amid shells, corals, barnacles
etc., throughout the Pleistocene, in coasts all over the Old World (eg, Mojokerto, Terra Amata,
Table Bay, Eritrea), even on islands that could only be reached by sea (Flores 0.8 Ma
allserv.rug.ac.beoutthere.htmOpen ↗ ).

Having said the above, a quick look at real estate prices for waterfront property makes a convincing
case without any other evidence that we are adapted to life _near_ the water. Given our relatively
high behavioral plasticity, even a relatively recent (0.8 ma would qualify as recent in my book)
period of development primarily in a coastal setting might well make sense in explaining our love
for water. However this will not account for bipedalism, hairlessness (have you looked at otters and
seals?), brain size, control, long legs, vocality, or tool use. As for climbing ability, AFAIK we
are more adept at climbing than we are at swimming - but that isn't saying much. On the whole I
agree with Mr. Moore - what we are well adapted for is walking and talking. And long walks along the
beach - well what could be more romantic than that?

Yours,

Bill Morse

Quoted message said:

When I was talking about bipedal animals, I was talking predominantly about hopping animals
(because of connection between their bipedality - holding forces in axial direction - and
ours.). I mentioned only penguins of all birds because they are bipedal as well as straight
(vertical). Their legs are below their bodies. This is just like us, and

not

Quoted message said:

like all the other birds. Is this called comparative evidence? They aren't like other birds. They
are SIMILAR to us. So, you could say that they

aren't

Quoted message said:

like all the other birds, and they are similar to us because they

accomodate

Quoted message said:

similar conditions. As I saw from pictures (I don't have info), plunge-diving birds also tend to
be more vertical in posture. And for them you could also say that they aren't completly vertical
because they are birds.

No, penguins are NOT similar to us, and I'm not talking about the many ways they are dissimilar
other than their walking posture and their pelvis. They do not hold their legs in a very straight
line directly under them as they walk, but rather more like most quadrupedal mammals do when they
walk bipedally (like monkeys for instance). From their hips, their upper leg is generally held
forward and bent a lot at the knee; so the lower part of their legs are vertical -- to see this you
have to look at a skeleton. When you do, you also see that their pelvis is also extremely unlike
ours; for one thing, like most swimming animals, it's very narrow, while ours and that of our
hominid ancestors is rather wide. (In fact, the pelvis of a penguin isn't all that different from
that of a pigeon, although other parts -- esp. the breastbone and wing/flippers are quite different
due to the different needs of flying and swimming creatures.) OTOH, we have near relatives we do
hold their legs in the manner you think penguins do (gibbons and siamangs, and to an extent, orangs
and spider monkeys). I'm not saying that we necessarily had ancestors who behaved just like those
apes and monkeys, but doesn't that seem far more likely than us being like penguins, especially when
you consider that in reality, as opposed to the musings of AAT proponents, penguins's pelvises and
walking posture are very different from ours?

You're making the mistake of taking what AAT proponents say as if it were true, when frankly, you
just can't rely on their research. I have to write up a post now regarding Marc Verhaegen's "sweat
and sea lions" claim, which is phoney even though he claims to have researched it. Relying on people
like that for your information will leave you awash in "false facts" and the poorer for it.

Quoted message said:

advantageous, and I bet, although on land we are much weaker, in water we could drown a leopard.
Even if it bites us, we could still keep it in

water

Quoted message said:

until it loses air and dies, and we could keep our head out of water. We would be wounded, but
leopard would be dead. This is the basic idea of my scenario. We also need distance if we feed on
shellfish (the only meat we can eat uncooked).

Another wrong statement. Humans actually do eat various types of meat raw, especially various
internal organs, although as a rule, we eat most meats cooked.

And don't try that with a leopard, really -- it's not a good plan, to say the least. In fact, it's
common for some predators, large cats among them, to drive their prey into the water where the cat,
because of the way it can leap, has a big advantage. As a hominid, one would probably be far better
doing almost anything other than running into water to escape a terrestrial predator.

Quoted message said:

A proboscis monkey's nose? It is definitely sure that we have
similar noses. Our noses can serve two aquatic purposes. The other one is

a

Quoted message said:

diving bell. Try to dive upside-down, and air will leak out of your nose.

A

Quoted message said:

diving bell saves air in nose.

No, proboscis monkey's nose are not the same as humans, although they have a superficial
resemblance. I know this has been pointed out in newsgroups you frequent, so really you have no
excuse for repeating this inaccurate statement. And the proboscis monkey's nose does not act as a
"diving bell", no matter how many times AAT proponents repeat that inaccurate statement -- you need
to learn for yourself, or you will continue to be taken in by people repeating these "false facts".
The nose of the proboscis monkey is

probocis monkeys dive and swim, you'll see that the position their noses are in as a rule would
drive water up their noses, if that actually were a problem. However, as I mentioned before, simply
holding one's breath keeps water out of primates' noses, no matter which way it's oriented. The
orientation of the nostrils is similar in all Old World monkeys, btw -- that's how they got their
scientific name, in fact.

Quoted message said:

Bottom divers doesn't have to be adapted for speed. Speed in water is only needed if you
are chasing fish.

Or escaping aquatic predators, which even the fastest Olympic swimmers (in the fastest events) would
be utterly incapable of, even if they spotted them before they attacked, which one usually doesn't.

Quoted message said:

Our speed is less than that of other, non-terrestrial apes.

You know, it bothers me when I continually see statements like this from AAT proponents with
absolutely no evidence to back it up. Is it true? It certainly would not be true of all but possibly
chimpanzees and bonobos, but even there -- do you have any evidence for this statement whatever?

--

For a scientific critque of the aquatic ape theory, go to www.aquatic.org

Quoted message said:

Whatever the possible or past functions of sweating, the most-sweating mammals besides humans are
sea-lions at the shore AFAWK: "sweat glands on the flippers of otariids aid in heat transfer. On
hot days sealions & furseals can often be seen fanning their flippers & increasing evaporative
heat loss at these sites" p.87-88 in AR Hoelzel ed.2002 "Marine mammal biology" Blackwell.

Quoted message said:

Trying to explain human sweat glands by ancestors running over the hot African plains, as some
traditional paleo-anthropologists still do, is clearly ridiculous: salt & water are scarse there,
and typical savanna mammals use totally different ways of cooling. OTOH, salt & water are abundant
at the shores where sealions & early [censored] lived: early [censored] c 1.8

Actually, other primates sweat quite a lot, and in much the same way as humans. Phil Nicholls has
just recently reposted a lot of info on this (1 Jan 2004 in sci.anthropology.paleo) so I won't
clutter the space here with it. Other mammals, such as horses, are also rather well-known for
sweating a lot, although unlike primates, they don't sweat via eccrine glands. Sea lions do indeed
sweat, but not all that much or all that effectively. I dug out that info by looking at the
reference Marc gave here, and by, unlike Marc, actually doing the work behind reading a couple of
sentences in a general reference. (Would-be paradigm smashers please note: you have to look at
primary references; grabbing a quote from the first book you see just doesn't cut the mustard, it
will lead you into error even if you;re not inclined that way to start with.)

So here's the thing: first, the statement that Terrie Williams and Graham Worthy (the authors of
Chapter 3 in the book Marc references above) make about seals flapping their flippers is "supported"
by what can only be an error, since the article they refer to makes no such claim and is in fact
only about how newborn harp seals manage to keep from freezing since they're born on ice floes in
the wintertime (short story on that: they shiver a lot). But I know from actual sources that seals
do in fact wave their flippers when they get hot. Sweating? Partly; they also have some really nifty
blood vessels that shift warm blood out to the flippers when their bodies are hot, where the
flippers act as raditators. That has nothing to do with sweating, except that it starts up for the
same reason. Next it seems Marc has pulled one of those "Duane Gish moments" (who famously said,
"After all, you have to stop quoting somewhere."😉 It seems the very next section is very apropos to
Marc's thesis, but he doesn't mention it. Are you wondering why? It turns out that it directly
contradicts his claim that seals are among the premier sweaters of the mammalian kingdom. Allow me:
"Evaporative cooling resulting from both sweating and respiratory losses accounts for less than 20%
of heat production in California sea lions studied under experimental conditions (Masuura & Whittow
1974; South et al.
1976)." This is exactly the sort of thing one needs to look at, especially when it contradicts what
you're claiming -- Marc. The two studies are slightly different in their goals; the South et
al. study was aimed at finding out much of the heat that sea lions did lose was due to
evaporative cooling (not just sweating but panting, and other techniques I'll mention later)
and how much due to simple radiantion and conduction-convection. The Matsuura and Whittow study
was aimed at finding out how much of the heat the animals needed to lose actually could be lost
through evaporative cooling.

I'll start with the South et al. article: Sea lions, like other otariid seals (eared seals) just
can't get rid of the heat they produce and absorb even through panting and sweating COMBINED --
under fairly typical conditions of 15-20 degrees C (about 60-70 deg F) those two methods COMBINED
can only lose about 20% of what they do lose and in fact in really hot conditions they do a sort of
ersatz "sweating" by drooling all over themselves and urinating on themselves (hey, it's not easy
for other animals to stay cool) and even with that to help out they can't do the job with
evaporative cooling (it can nudge them up toward 50% of the total they lose but only under pretty
hot conditions -- 28 degrees C, or about 80 deg F). Even with all that -- panting, sweating, AND
drooling and urinating on themselves -- the test animals just can't lose enough heat (more on that
in the next article) and so had a "precipitous rise in body temperature" which resulted in stopping
the experiment. The seals were lying prone and panting heavily -- they didn't want to kill them. By
contrast, we see that non-human primates, and horses (and certainly humans) certainly manage much
hotter conditions than that without taking to the water, which is ultimately how sea lions and other
seals ordinarily handle a high heat load -- they hit the water before they hit the temperatures used
in that test.

The other article referred to in the quote Marc gave also measured sea lion evaporative cooling, in
this case to see how much was due to panting and how much to sweating and how much of the total they
needed to lose could actually be lost through this combined method. They measured the sea lions at
temperatures between 13 and 30 deg C (about 55-85 deg F) and found that the heat loss due to
evaporation (both panting and sweating) was a bit under 20% of the heat produced by metabolism,
which they note was "relatively ineffective" (The harbor seal they tested did even worse) The South
et al. article emphasized that this amount was at least SOMETHING, even if it wasn't nearly enough.
The Matsuura and Whittow study showed that about 16% was due to sweating and about 2.5% due to
panting. The conclusion has several statements that are directly appropos to Marc's claim, which
makes it a pity he didn't look at either of these primary sources which would've showed him his
error. Let me quote:

"The total evaporative water loss from the sea lions in a warm environment could account for the
dissipation of less than 20 per cent of the heat that the animals were producing. In contrast, many
terrestrial mammals and birds are able to lose heat equivalent to their entire heat production by
evaporation of moisture (Dawson & Hudson 1970; Hart 1971; Dawson 1973). If the minor sweating
responses of pinnipeds are the legacy of their carnivory ancestry (see above), then the
ineffectiveness of evaporative cooling mechanisms largely represents the absence of panting or of
saliva spreading, in pinnipeds as opposed to terrestrial carnivores." (pp.18-19)

and: "The absence of effective evaporative cooling mechanisms in sea lions has been discussed
elsewhere (Whittow et al. 1972; Whittow 1973). Teologically, sea lions may attempt to conserve water
rather than to maintain a constant body temperature. In the course of their adaptation to the sea,
dehydration may have had a role in supressing the evaporative cooling mechanisms that ancestral
pinnipeds may have possessed." (pg. 19)

As for further arguments, I've already outlined in this thread the info regarding the fact that in
humans neither sweat glands or tear ducts can have evolved to maintain homeostasis, and that this
necessary job is handled in humans by the kidneys, just as it is in every other mammal on earth. Let
me point out that in all marine mammals, such as the sea lions which Marc refers to here, have very
large and/or heavily lobulated kidneys to deal with the salt load in that environment. Humans, of
course, do not, which is further evidence that they did not evolve in such an environment.

Refs: "Evaporative heat loss in the California sea lion and harbor seal", D.T. Matsuura and G.C.
Whittow, Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology 1974, vol. 48A, pp. 9-20

"Air temperature and direct partitional calorimetry of the California sea lion (Zalophus
californianus)", Frank E. South, R.H. Luecke, M.L. Zatzman and M.D. Shanklin, Comparative
Biochemistry and Physiology, vol. 54A, pp. 27-30

"Some aspects of temperature regulation in newborn harp seal pups", Arnoldus Schytte Blix, Hans J.
Grav, and Keith Ronald, American Journal of Physiology 1979, vol. 236B (Jan-Jun) pp. R188-R197 (not
apropos to this discussion as it's about baby seals staying warm rather than anything about cooling)

Chapter 3: "Anatomy and Physiology: the Challenge of Aquatic Living", Terrie
M. Williams and Graham A.J. Worthy, (relevant pages, cited by Marc, pp.87-88, In Marine Mammal
Biology, A. Rus Hoelzel, ed., 2002 Blackwell Publishing

J Moore
--

For a scientific critque of the aquatic ape theory, go to www.aquatic.org

"William Morse" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

The essence is this: you are incapable of explaining why humans & chimps

differ. A coastal past in our history (probably end-Plio-, begin-Pleistocene, for some time) nicely
explains a lot of these differences. Alister Hardy in his paper "Was Man more aquatic in the past?"
(NS 1960) described how a sea-side life - beach-combing, wading, swimming, collecting coconuts,
fruits, shellfish, turtles & turtle eggs, bird eggs, crabs, seaweeds etc. - explains many human
traits (absent in our nearest relatives the chimps) a lot better than dry savanna scenarios do: very
large brain (but reduced olfactory bulb - totally unexpected in the savanna), excellent breath-hold
control (up to minutes), greater diving skills, well-developed vocality, extreme handiness & tool
use, reduction of climbing skills, reduction of fur, more subcutaneous fat, very long legs, more
linear body build, high needs of iodine, sodium & poly-unsaturated fatty acids etc.

Quoted message said:

One of the basic problems, as J. Moore pointed out, is that we are not in

fact particularly well adapted to a fully aquatic existence.

Who speaks about fully aquatic?? Seaside. Hardy: "more aquatic."

Quoted message said:

Diving from a height of 10 meters for humans is absurd (have you ever

stood on a 10 meter board and looked down?)

Possible. So?

Quoted message said:

Repeated diving in humans from even a low board leads to sinus problems

(as I have learned from experience).

If so, so what? It's irrelevant to our scenario, see above.

Quoted message said:

Our subcutaneous fat is nowhere near enough to allow us to spend any

significant time in cold water (and water below the thermocline is always cold).

Whatever the function of SC fat, humans can stay all day in water of tropical seas c 27°C without
problems of onver- or underheating.

Quoted message said:

Even in warm water our skin rapidly swells and becomes easily subject to

abrasion and puncture.

People in some tribes in Indonesia stay all day in the water.

Quoted message said:

We are so poorly adapted to truly deep diving that the well-developed

vocality is unlikely to be due to the development of conscious breathing control

1) I didn't say that, see the scenario above. There's no doubt IMO vocality as in gibbons played an
important role in the development of human vocality. Otters (waterside) are more vocalic that
weasels. Arboreal mammals are usu. more vocalic than related species in more open milieus.
Savanna mammals generally have less variation in vocality.

Quoted message said:

, as it may be in birds and truly aquatic mammals. It is more likely that

the breath-hold control is a byproduct of speech.

Then you can't explain speech. You can't explain why human can speak & why chimps couldn't evolve
this skill.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

We now know Hardy was wrong in thinking his seaside phase happened ~10

Ma (not his fault, but due to the general opinion of paleo-anthropologists at the time). More likely
the waterside phase (we don't know how long this (or these) lasted) happened during the Ice Ages:
early Pleistocene [censored] fossils or tools have been found in Israel, Algeria, Iran, Kenya, Georgia,
Java, always near large bodies of water. When sea levels dropped, H.ergaster apparently followed the
Mediterranean (>antecessor>neandertals) & Indian Ocean coasts (>erectus). Pleistocene coasts during
the glacial periods were some 120 m below the present sea level, so many fossil & archeological
finds show the inland [censored] populations that entered the continents along the rivers & wetlands. In
spite of this, [censored] remains (but not australopithecine) have frequently been found amid shells,
corals, barnacles etc., throughout the Pleistocene, in coasts all over the Old World (eg, Mojokerto,
Terra Amata, Table Bay, Eritrea), even on islands that could only be reached by sea (Flores 0.8 Ma
allserv.rug.ac.beoutthere.htmOpen ↗ ).

Quoted message said:

Having said the above, a quick look at real estate prices for waterfront

property makes a convincing case without any other evidence that we are adapted to life _near_ the
water. Given our relatively high behavioral plasticity, even a relatively recent (0.8 ma would
qualify as recent in my book) period of development primarily in a coastal setting might well make
sense in explaining our love for water. However this will not account for bipedalism

Evolved gradually: first (hominoid) wading-climbing in swamp forests (short legged bent-knees-bent-hips-
bipedality, still partial suspensory), later (seaside early [censored]) loss of climbing & evolution of
straight body (for streamlining, regular swimming), still later (sapiens LCA) exclusively walking.

Quoted message said:

, hairlessness (have you looked at otters and seals?

These species are not tropical. The very large male elephant seals & Steller sealions & walruses are
furless in cold environments, but other pinnipeds & also sea otters are too small to be hairless. A
tropical middle-sized semi-aquatic is the baburusa: furless.

Quoted message said:

), brain size, control, long legs, vocality, or tool use.

All not unexpected at the seaside (cf. tool using sea otters, long legs for wading, etc.)

Quoted message said:

As for climbing ability, AFAIK we are more adept at climbing than we are

at swimming - but that isn't saying much. On the whole I agree with
Mr.Moore - what we are well adapted for is walking and talking. And long walks along the beach -
well what could be more romantic than that? Yours, Bill Morse

Yes: another indication of a seaside past.

What book have you written, Bill?

Marc Verhaegen onelist.comAATOpen ↗
allserv.rug.ac.beVerhaegen.htmlOpen ↗

William Morse :

Quoted message said:

One of the basic problems, as J. Moore pointed out, is that we are not in fact particularly well
adapted to a fully aquatic existence. Diving from a height of 10 meters for humans is absurd (have
you ever stood on a 10 meter board and looked down?)

Whenever I am on some higher place, I am getting unexplainable wish to jump down. I thought
that something is wrong with me, until I heard that other people have this, too. I would be
very interested to know if other animals can jump from that hight without consequences.

Quoted message said:

Repeated diving in humans from even a low board leads to sinus problems (as I have learned from
experience).

It is from infected water.

Quoted message said:

Our subcutaneous fat is nowhere near enough to allow us to spend any significant time in cold
water (and water below the thermocline is always cold).

Please take a look at people in Patagonia. There are two types. Coastal ones and inland. The
coastal ones feed on shelfish, and are naked. I am talking about Patagonia. Inland ones need
to be clothed. And they are living one next to the other.

Quoted message said:

Even in warm water our skin rapidly swells and becomes easily subject to abrasion and puncture. We
are so poorly adapted to truly deep diving that the well-developed vocality is unlikely to be due
to the development of conscious breathing control, as it may be in birds and truly aquatic
mammals. It is more likely that the breath-hold control is a byproduct of speech.

Speach is communication. Communication is exchange of information. On land you exchange
information by the mean of smell, sound, and visualy. Smell - you cannot do this living
coastal life. Sound - the sound of sea is covering all suptile noises. BTW, did you see a
human/chimp gene comparation data. There are four major differences : smell, hearing,
digesting, disease. I explained smell and hearing. Digesting and disease can be explained
(IMO) with separated environment containing different food (which you can say that it is
newer). Visualy - this is information transfered by looking someone's posture. We are bad at
this, we are looking at faces, not body talk that much (AFAIK). Further, on land, when you
see a predator, you can scream in panic and run. There is not much time to talk. In water
predator, although seen at same distance, need to swim towards you. You have plenty of time
to exchange informations.

Quoted message said:

Having said the above, a quick look at real estate prices for waterfront property makes a
convincing case without any other evidence that we are adapted to life _near_ the water. Given our
relatively high behavioral plasticity, even a relatively recent (0.8 ma would qualify as recent in
my book) period of development primarily in a coastal setting might well make sense in explaining
our love for water. However this will not account for bipedalism, hairlessness (have you looked at
otters and seals?), brain size, control, long legs, vocality, or tool use. As for climbing
ability, AFAIK we are more adept at climbing than we are at swimming - but that isn't saying much.
On the whole I agree with Mr. Moore - what we are well adapted for is walking and talking. And
long walks along the beach - well what could be more romantic than that? Bill Morse

We are walking, not running. We are slowest of them all. The more animal is terrestrial the
fastest it must be. Ostrich is bipedal, is heavier than humans, and still is one of the
fastest. OTOH, coast doesn't need speed. On coast even animals with retarded limbs can live.
This is our speed. I've read somewhere that in some place where seals are living, people are
warned not to come close to them. Because even if they look retarded in that regard, they
can still be as fast as us. No way that we could escape on land from anybody. -- Mario

"J Moore" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

I have to write up a post now regarding Marc Verhaegen's "sweat and sea

lions" claim, which is phoney even though he claims to have researched it.

You are sick, Moore! Where did I claim that?? Liar!

The most-themoregulatorily-sweating mammals besides humans are sea-lions at the shore AFAWK: "sweat
glands on the flippers of otariids aid in heat transfer. On hot days sealions & furseals can often
be seen fanning their flippers & increasing evaporative heat loss at these sites" p.87-88 in AR
Hoelzel ed.2002 "Marine mammal biology" Blackwell.

Trying to explain human sweat glands by ancestors running over the hot African plains, as some
traditional paleo-anthropologists still do, is clearly ridiculous: salt & water are scarse there,
and typical savanna mammals use totally different ways of cooling. OTOH, salt & water are abundant
at the shores where sealions & early [censored] lived: early [censored] c 1.8 Ma is found from Algeria to Java
(amid barnacles & shells in a former river delta at Mojokerto). No doubt they spread over the warmer
parts of the Old World at the beginning of the Pleistocene along the coasts. It is here that we have
to situate Hardy's more-aquatic past (AC Hardy 1960 "Was Man more aquatic in the past?" New
Scientist 7:642-5).

Moore has no counter-argument whatsoever to this.

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