Op zaterdag 11 maart 2023 om 03:33:10 UTC+1 schreef Peter Nyikos:
> On Thursday, March 9, 2023 at 6:32:56 PM UTC-5, JTEM wrote:
> > Peter Nyikos wrote:

> > > And let's not forget: nobody here disputes the thesis that Homo is descended from
> > > African apes.

No, no: African apes = Gorilla + Pan.
We do NOT descend from them!

Most likely (refs in my book p.299-300),
- late-Miocene HPG LCA lived in the (then incipient) Red Sea swamp forests: aquarboreal,
- Gorilla 8-7 Ma followed the incipient northern Rift (HP/Gorilla split) -> Afar apiths,
- probably the Red Sea opened into the Gulf 5.33 Ma (Francesca Mansfield: Zanclean mega-flood):
-- Pan went right -> E.Afr.coastal forests -> entered southern Rift -> Transvaal apiths,
-- Pliocene Homo went left -> S.Asian coasts -> early-Pleist.Java H.erectus..

> > Oh, I do. It's not at all established. It's an assumption.

> I see I overlooked you. But note, what I wrote is compatible with us ALSO having descended
> from Asian apes or European apes. Given that hominids include orangutans, and hominoids
> include gibbons [I don't know why siamangs are not included in most lists of gibbons], some
> Asian ancestry seems highly probable. And there are European possibilities, including
> close relatives of Dryopithecus and Oreopithecus.

??
Most likely (refs in my book p.299-300),
- Miocene Hominoidea became bipedal=aquarboreal in coastal forests of N-India (approaching S-Eurasia),
- India under Eurasia split hylobatids (East) & other hominoids (West) c 20 Ma along S-Tethys Ocean coasts,
- the Mesopotamian Seaway closure c 15 Ma split pongids-sivapiths (E) & hominids-dryopiths (W -> Medit.Sea),
- Medit.hominids (incl.Dryop.-Oreop.etc.) died out (flood? drought? ...?) except in the incipient Red Sea: HPG,
- 8-7 Ma incipient northern Rift: Gorilla: Afar: Sahelanthr., afarensis->boisei etc.,
- 5.33 Ma(?) Red Sea opened into Gulf, see above.

> However, if one takes either the short view (Sahelanthropus and closely related genera
> of Hominini), or the long Hominoidea view you see here...
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ape

Never trust Wiki, certainly not here: afro+anthropocentrical prejudices.

> ... then the existence of African ancestors can hardly be doubted. There you see Proconsul, and a bunch
> of other Africans in the phylogenetic tree there.

Hominids = Pan + Homo + Gorilla + (lots of) dead ends.
Apparently, only Red Sea hominids survived: HPG.
I couldn't well follow what follows (I'm also in my 70s, Peter)...

______

> > There's data, what you call "Evidence,"

> including that summarized above...

> > and then there's models that explain HOW that data came to be:

> > A hypothesis.
> >
> > There is more than one hypothesis to explain the data,
> >
> > Secondly, there is a genuine issue with the data itself. Yes, never mind the
> > interpretation, I'm speaking of the collecting.
> >
> > IF, for example, IF you were doing a study on the sex life of the average woman,
> > and your study subjects are all patients at the nearest VD clinic, your "Data" is
> > invalid. It really can't show what you claim it to show.
> Your IF is counterfactual.
>
> >
> > Understand?
>
> I understand that you were belaboring the obvious, and would have understood that
> back in my teen years. [I'm in my seventies.]
> > There is a sample bias, a selection bias. There's even a preservation bias!
> >
> > Well, I know; "There's nothing we can do about a preservation bias! That's
> > nature for you, and try as we might nature is going to do what it wants and
> > not what makes things simple for us."
> >
> > Correct... if you pardon the straw man. But efforts can be made. Perhaps more
> > so in theory than in reality, given costs and hardship but, how many billions of
> > dollars -- billions of Euros -- was spent on the search for the Higgs Boson
> > particle?
> >
> > How many, many billions was spent on that search?
> >
> > Don't you think the search for human origins, where we came from, how we
> > evolved is worth AT LEAST as much?
> No. The Higgs boson helps us understand a hell of a lot of what makes
> our universe what it is. And then, too, throwing hundreds of millions of Euros
> at hominoid/hominid/hominini research is ill-advised unless there are
> promising sources of fossils that could change the picture significantly
> from what we have.
> > > [1] Would Harshman prefer "Homo is an African ape"? that would
> > > probably follow from his penchant for saying things like "Birds are dinosaurs"
> > > and "Humans are fish."
>
> > https://jtem.tumblr.com/post/962773160
> Thanks for filling in the main intermediates between the two things
> I said about Harshman. I wonder why he hasn't re-entered this thread yet.
> Peter Nyikos
> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
> Univ. of South Carolina at Columbia
> http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

marc verhaegen wrote:

> > > Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > > And let's not forget: nobody here disputes the thesis that Homo is descended from
> > > > African apes.

> No, no: African apes = Gorilla + Pan.
> We do NOT descend from them!

The exact genus/species is irrelevant, as if these distinctions
aren't invented by the minds of men, it's how we are related
that counts. And everywhere we look, bipedalism is older than
is any supposed LCA shared with Chimps, and probably older
than gorillas as well.

Hard to gauge when people only ever look for fossils were it's
easy to look, and anything they find can't contradict their
beloved narrative...

I tend to move things MORE recent than is convention.
This is because "Molecular Dating" has a habit of greatly
exaggerating age.

-- --

https://jtem.tumblr.com/post/713719423361531904/i-wanted-to-but-i-could-not-talk-to-roomie-into

Op woensdag 5 april 2023 om 06:30:02 UTC+2 schreef JTEM:
> marc verhaegen wrote:

Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > > > And let's not forget: nobody here disputes the thesis that Homo is descended from
> > > > > African apes.

No, we do NOT descend from chimps or gorillas!
The late-Miocene Homo-Pan LCA most likely lved in swamp forests of the Red Sea,
they were not chimp-like: no very long arms, no knuckle-walking, no large canine teeth...:
they were bipedal wading-climbing, google "aquarboreal".

> > No, no: African apes = Gorilla + Pan.
> > We do NOT descend from them!

> The exact genus/species is irrelevant, as if these distinctions
> aren't invented by the minds of men, it's how we are related
> that counts. And everywhere we look, bipedalism is older than
> is any supposed LCA shared with Chimps, and probably older
> than gorillas as well.

Hylobatids (gibbons+siamangs) as well as humans are (still?again) BP,
and bonobos, chimps, lowland gorillas & orangs are always BP when they wade in forest swamp for sedges, waterlilies...,
google e.g. "bonobo wading", "gorilla wading"...
IMO, early-Miocene & probably already late-Oligocene Hominoidea were "bipedal":
vertical waders-climbers (arms overhead in the branches above the water) in swamp (mangrove?) forests,
likely in the islands & peninsulas that were formed when the Indian subcontinent approached S-Eurasia then:
these islands/peninsulas were full of coastal forests:
Catarrhini that reached these swamp forests (30?25 Ma) became Hominoidea:
very broad sternum+thorax & pelvis, tail loss, much larger size, centrally-placed spine, less lumbar vertebrae, rel.longer arms, lateral movements of legs & arms, vertical body: "bipedal" waders-climbers, google "aquarboreal".
Also elsewhere (Med.Sea? Africa?), other (mostly Miocene?) Catarrhini might have become more aquarboreal (developing ape-like features), in parallel with Hominoidea.

> Hard to gauge when people only ever look for fossils were it's
> easy to look, and anything they find can't contradict their
> beloved narrative...
> I tend to move things MORE recent than is convention.
> This is because "Molecular Dating" has a habit of greatly
> exaggerating age.