Jim Moore's "AAT Sink or Swim?" Web Site AAT Claims and Facts: Body Temperature and the AAT: Does the human condition indicate an aquatic past? http://www.aquaticape.org/bodytemp.html |
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On this page Moore also reveals his true thinking of the AAH a couple of times. The first claim was written like this: "The body temperature of normal, healthy humans doesn't fluctuate, while that of terrestrial mammals does", implying that Moore thinks the AAH is arguing that humans were not even terrestrial. On this page, in nearly 1,800 words, Moore makes two (again unattributed) claims about the AAH on the subject of body temperature. Both exaggerate the claim by a single AAH proponent (Marc Verhaegen) to an absurd and unsupportable level.
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Body Temperature and the AAT: Does the human
condition indicate an aquatic past?
No citation in sight, again but it is noticeable here that Moore seems to have let his gross misunderstanding of the hypothesis slip out for all to see. Did you notice, in the
first point: "while that of terrestrial mammals"? It appears, doesn't it,
that Moore is assuming the AAH is proposing that humans were not
terrestrial. He's not pointed to any citation where a proponent of the AAH
has gone that far, but Moore has taken that step himself on their behalf.
Moore then goes on to tell us that although humans exhibit a lower range in body temperature than some terrestrial animals, this is because they tend to have special adaptations (heat exchange mechanisms like the 'carotid rete') to allow it. Moore again demonstrates his ignorance when he adds "AAT proponents consider these facts to be evidence that we did not evolve on land." At the risk of sounding like a cracked record, this is not what AAT proponents consider. The AAH, remember, proposes that man was more aquatic in the past, not that our ancestors were ever aquatic in any real sense. Moore then goes on to answer what he calls "the AAT question regarding our thermoregulation." It turns out to be a rather simple question that he has selected (possibly out of many) from his conversations on internet newsgroups. He does not attribute the question to anyone nor does he attempt to answer other, more difficult ones one might think of on this subject like, for example, why do humans throw away water more than apes as a means of keeping cool through evaporative sweat cooling? In what evolutionary setting is that most likely to have evolved? Instead, he deals with this one: If we were on the savanna for the millions of years as you say, and did not have an intervening period of "aquatic-ness", instead evolving with the other savanna creatures, why then did we not end up evolving the same way?" Easy. And he answers it pretty well too, basically, arguing that we are primates and so evolved mechanisms that were essentially different from savanna ungulates. |
Why do
people harbor the incorrect idea that human body temperature doesn't
fluctuate? Moore quotes from Smith (1985) which spells out that human body temperature varies in lots of ways by as much as 1.5 degrees. He then finishes the page by comparing human body temperature to that of primates, whales and bats. As bats, apparently, have the same body temperature as humans he ends the page by suggesting that maybe some people might think that in the past we used to be able to fly. It's meant to be funny, I think. Moore's
counter-arguments to the claims would appear to be straightforward, then. But who exactly made
these claims? Hardy made no mention of this in his original article and it is not a major topic heading in any of Morgan's books, so it was necessary to search through the index looking for anything vaguely related. I couldn't
find any reference to human body temperature in relation to an argument
favouring a more aquatic past in her first book 'The Descent of Woman'
(Morgan 1972) nor 'The Aquatic Ape Theory' (Morgan 1982). |
wrote his
page, but like a headline in a tabloid newspaper, Moore does
Verhaegen a grave injustice.
References: Morgan, Elaine (1972). The Descent of Woman. Souvenir Press (London) Morgan, Elaine (1982). The Aquatic Ape Theory. Souvenir Press (London) Morgan, Elaine (1990). The Scars of Evolution. Oxford University Press (Oxford) Morgan, Elaine (1994). The Descent of the Child. Penguin Books (London) Morgan, Elaine (1997). The Aquatic Ape Hypothesis. Souvenir Press (London) Smith, Anthony (1985) The Body, Routledge Verhaegen, Marc (1991). Human Regulation of Body Temperature and Water Balance. In: Roede, Machteld; Wind, Jan; Patrick, John; Reynolds, Vernon (eds.), (1991). Aquatic Ape: Fact of Fiction: Proceedings from the Valkenburg Conference. Souvenir Press (London) |
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