aquatic ape - moore or less

Part 2.

Critics of Jim Moore’s website routinely refer to his addictive dependency on the logical fallacy of Ad Hominem.  As even a cursory reading of the offending website shows, the accusation is well justified. To my mind, however, the terms ‘logical fallacy’ and ‘Ad Hominem’ do not adequately describe the nature of Mr. Moore’s remarks. They suggest that the faults being described are mere technicalities; no more serious than errors of grammar or syntax.  But if we look to plainspoken English to replace such uncommon terms, those that come to my mind are denigrate and belittle. Consider these extracts from Moore’s review of Morgan’s last book ‘The Naked Darwinist’:

She immediately goofs – she doesn’t seem to understand – very confused – science deniers – are a rant – not being entirely accurate – a sort of unctuous, attempt at flattering and cozying up to people, or a pose as a somewhat imperious ”voice of  authority” – doesn’t understand it – doesn’t understand or deliberately confuses – railing against – extended rant – her methods are very similar to those of fundamentalist creationists – a tactic to mislead the reader – she simply doesn’t understand it – gloss over the fact – a massive ego – didn’t do even this tiny bit of research –reality gets thrown overboard – ludicrous to hold Morgan’s idea – cultlike view of  “Darwinism” – used by a host of creationist sources in exactly the dishonest way Morgan does -  it’s truly disturbing to see Morgan adopt their tactics so often – rail against it – without (again) seeming to understand – Morgan here (like a lot of people do) gets confused – her longest running and most ridiculous errors – she gets kind of mad…….

In what purports to be a scientific review of the Aquatic Ape Hypothesis, why does Jim Moore feel the need repeatedly to denigrate Elaine Morgan?  If his concern is solely with the hypothesis, it is pertinent to ask why he is bothering himself to review The Naked Darwinist. As he admits:

So, book read, it turns out not to have anything new, to be simply a regurgitation of  her previous works in shortened form, with even less substance and more whining (whinging for you Brits)….

So if, book read, it contains nothing new, what is there to review?  Why trouble to regurgitate arguments already to be found elsewhere in his website? Not only does he prepare this seemingly redundant critique but extends it to great lengths. Moore admits:

You can see it [Morgan’s many errors and misunderstandings of theory] reflected in the length of this critique, which is somewhat over half the length of Morgan’s book.  I know I can be longwinded ……

The purpose of this longwinded review is, I contend, simply and solely to enable Jim Moore to continue his denigration of Elaine Morgan. The fact that he bothers to review her last book at longwinded length is, I suggest, not simply evidence but proof positive that his target is not the AAT; his real target is Morgan.

A few extracts from the newsgroup ‘sci.anthropology.paleo’ will establish the tone of the relationship between Moore and Morgan. Let a third party, Bryce Harrington by name, act as prologue in this complaint he addressed to Jim Moore:

With the vicious personal attacks you’ve made on Elaine lately, I am not surprised she’s thinking of ignoring you.  She’s shown an amazing amount of patience and resilience and has rarely descended to your level of flames and ad hominem attacks

The exchange Mr. Harrington referred to begins with Elaine Morgan’s request to Jim Moore :This makes it very tempting to let everything with your name on top of it go unread as hate mail. That would be a pity, because on this occasion you were right, the case does need amending, and if I had not read your contribution I would not have realised it. But I do wish you would sound a bit less like the Witchfinder General.

Jim Moore replies: Whether you “let everything with (my) name on top of it go unread” is not a concern of mine.  If you wish to consider anything that isn’t fawningly uncritical adoration as being “hate mail”, you are certainly free to do so.  

This exchange is further proof, if further proof were needed, of Moore’s real motive.   Rather than continue to discuss ‘the case that does need amending’, that is to say to continue discussing the AAT, Moore chooses instead to continue his ‘vicious personal attacks’.  It surely cannot be disputed here, that to Jim Moore, the insults are far more important than the hypothesis.  

Jim Moore does not even attempt to criticise the Aquatic hypothesis.  Nowhere in his long ‘scientific’ critique does he show, or even try to show, that the evolutionary history of humankind could not possibly include a semi-aquatic episode. No matter how many false facts he claims to find in the arguments of Morgan, the hypothesis itself contains no false facts because the hypothesis contains no facts whatsoever.  It maintains simply that many characteristics unique to humankind as a terrestrial mammal can ( ‘can’ not ‘must’) be explained by positing a semi-aquatic episode in its pre-human (hominin) past.  

 As long as an hypothesis does not offend any established scientific fact, it can claim some validity - whether or no the scientific establishment gives it recognition. Like all other current attempts to chart the evolution of our species, the Aquatic Ape Hypothesis is a speculation; a scenario; a just-so-story. So even if Moore’s readers can stretch their credibility to somewhere beyond the limits of the known universe and so able to accept all of his criticisms; to be convinced that Morgan’s army of argumentative men are made of straw; that each and every one of her facts are proven false; that she is totally ignorant of evolutionary theory, the her every quotation is a misquotation, even then Moore has established no more than Morgan’s inadequacies as a proponent of the AAT.  The hypothesis itself remains unscathed.

  The individual proponents of an hypothesis each put forward their particular arguments; but in order to counter the hypothesis, its opponents must do more than merely criticise these arguments.  The opponent must attempt to bring forward proof that the hypothesis ‘must’, not ‘might’, be wrong.  It is generally believed impossible to prove a negative; which means that it is not possible to prove that something did not happen. So it is impossible for Jim Moore to establish that our hominin forebears were never semi-aquatic. From the start he is backing a loser. In order to demonstrate his contention that no such aquatic creature has ever existed, he should produce, if not proof positive, at least a preponderance of evidence of an alternative and superior explanation.  Elaine Morgan once advised Jim Moore to invest his talents into devising an hypothesis that would ‘knock Alistair Hardy’s into a cocked hat’. It was sound advice. If this is beyond his capability, he could instead make a detailed comparison between Nancy Tanner’s more fact-oriented hypothesis and what he considers to be Elaine Morgan’s poorly researched compendium of ridiculous ideas.

On page 20 of ‘The Naked Darwinist’ Morgan writes:

I expected some scholarly figure to be invited into a studio where he would say “The points the author fails to take into consideration are (a) and (b) and (c).  These facts alone render her idea unacceptable.”

Because, at least in his own estimation, Jim Moore is conversant with every facet of evolutionary theory and from his vast knowledge is able to correct all Elaine Morgan’s “false” facts, he should easily be able to provide facts (a) and (b) and (c) and so put paid ,once and for all, to the pesky hypothesis. He does not even attempt this simple, parsimonious method of refutation. He does not try to assemble the few facts necessary to prove the hypothesis untenable. Instead, Jim Moore goes through Elaine Morgan’s books with the finest of fine tooth combs searching for any and every statement that he can criticise, then taking the opportunity of levelling a broadside or two of derogatory remarks at the author. But why?  For what purpose? To what end?

Jim Moore seems to believe that in criticising the works of Mrs. Morgan he is protecting the scientific community from contamination by a theory full of false facts. He invokes a quotation from Darwin to his aide: “False facts are highly injurious to the progress of science, for they often endure long…”

Darwin’s remark makes sense only if the false facts are accepted as true by science; only then can they be injurious to its progress. There is an infinity of false facts; two plus two equals five, or six, or seven and so on to infinity; potatoes grow on banana trees; a tripod has four legs; false facts would fill the Library of Babel twice over.  But none of these are injurious to the progress of science because science does not accept any of them.  Nor, as Moore is ever ready to remind his readers, does it accept the Aquatic Ape Hypothesis. Since none of its facts, false or otherwise, are of the slightest interest to science, none can cause the slightest injury to its progress.

So, if Moore is not able to prove the impossibility of an aquatic ape; if he is not valiantly defending the integrity of science against the strawmen hordes of Morgan’s 'false' facts; then what is he up to?  What he is up to, I suggest, is the defamation of Elaine Morgan. Although his website takes the form of a critique of the AAT, its primary purpose, I believe, is to provide a convenient platform from which to lob incessant insults at Elaine Morgan - with an occasional sideswipe at anyone who has the temerity to give an approving nod towards the AAT. Moore’s website ‘Aquatic Ape – Sink or Swim’ would be more accurately entitled ‘Elaine Morgan – Dishonest or Deluded’.

     

In her final book ‘The Naked Darwinist’, Elaine Morgan has written:-

“That book, The Descent of Woman, became a best seller, and in the United States it was a Book of the Month selection.  I became a minor celebrity, ferried around America coast-to-coast for a couple of weeks, appearing on the top chat shows.”

Moore’s method in reviewing the writings of Morgan is to scrutinise them painstakingly, word by word, criticising wherever he can. It is notable that his reading of the passage above recording Mrs. Morgan’s ‘minor celebrity’ in America does not raise his hackles; his critical comb picks up nothing worthy of disparaging comment. Surprisingly, he does not jump at the opportunity of pointing disdainfully at Morgan’s conceit in thinking the whole of the USA was rushing from the local bookstore clutching its treasured copy of her ‘Book of the Month’ so as to be home in time to see her next riveting interview on TV. Perhaps the book's popularity and its author’s celebrity remain a sore point to Jim.

Because of the publicity, it is presumed that ‘The Descent of Woman’ came to the notice of Professor Nancy Makepeace Tanner and her helpmeet, Jim Moore. Were they impressed by its feminist agenda or were they irritated by the remarkable success of a book dealing with the very matter - the role of the female in human evolution -  which was to be the subject of Nancy Tanner’s intended scientific research?

Jim Moore does not give the book ‘The Descent of Woman’ his usual microscopic inspection.  His comment is limited to a few uncharacteristically short-winded words: Elaine Morgan, at the time an Oxford grad in English and a TV scriptwriter, entered the scene in 1972 with the book ‘Descent of Women’ (sic), the idea for which she got from Desmond Morris’s book.  This was a pop book, with a pretty chatty style which seems dated now but was popular then, and it sold quite well. Looking back at it, I wouldn’t call it particularly female-oriented (compare Morgan’s notion of early female hominid behaviour being the result of continual rape to more fact-oriented ideas like Tanner and Zihlman’s idea of the selective power of sexual choice by females in hominid evolution), but Morgan presented it as “the” alternative to what she then called “The Mighty Hunter” theory.

Perhaps Moore tip-toes warily around the book because to give it his usual detailed review might expose the origin and nature of his animosity towards Morgan.     

The professor’s book ‘On Becoming Human’, published some nine years after ‘The Descent of Woman’, has much in common with Morgan’s book. On page three of the book, Tanner writes:

“The English language in which man can refer to humans in general as well as be used in its more restricted sense to refer to the male gender per se, reflects and reinforces the Western cultural tendency to focus on males”.

This observation is paralleled on page nine of Morgan’s book:

 - the fact that ‘man’ is an ambiguous term.  It means the species; it also means the male of the species. …..I believe the deeply rooted semantic confusion between ‘man’ as a male and ‘man’ as a species has been fed back into and vitiated a great deal of the speculation that goes on about the origins, development, and nature of the human race.

Both stress the primacy of woman the gatherer over man the hunter as the developer of tool use:

Morgan (page. 27):  One idle afternoon after a good deal of trial and error she picked up a pebble – this required no luck at all because the beach was covered with thousands of pebbles – and hit one of the shells with it, and the shell cracked.

Tanner (page 268): By gathering with tools, early mothers could obtain enough food for themselves and to share with their young, even on the savanna.  It is therefore, highly probable that it was women with offspring who developed the new gathering technology and that this was the innovation critical to the ape-human divergence.

Tanner (page 259): It would be those mothers who invented and used stone tools as dental substitutes.

Amongst other similarities is that both dismiss the baboon as a suitable model for early hominin society and both were written for the same general readership.  Although the author of ‘On Becoming Human’ is a professional anthropologist and the book full of the references and acknowledgements required of a scientific work, it is also replete with a variety of line drawings including Victorian ladies, Thai dancers, chimpanzees aplenty and even a member of the rock group ‘Kiss’.  On page 11, the professor writes:

“This chapter is, necessarily, rather technical, and some readers may prefer to skim or skip parts of it on their first time through the book.”  

The ‘some readers’ referred to are, presumably, those without a scientific background and so, like ‘The Descent of Woman’, the book is intended to popularise the  view that  women and, particularly, mothers, played a critical role in the evolution of humankind. It is the dissimilarities, however, that are the more significant.  It is to be expected that, because Elaine Morgan was a professional writer, her book is written in a more attractive and engaging manner – or as Moore describes it a ‘pop book, with a pretty chatty style’ – so much so that after forty years and many reprints , it is still readily available. More importantly, whereas Nancy Tanner sets her hypothesis in the scientifically respectable ‘mosaic’ – which as a non-scientist I take to mean any part of the African continent excepting the densely forested areas -  the radical Elaine Morgan dunks her hypothetical hominins first in then out of the water.

My speculation is that Nancy Tanner returned home from her years spent studying a gatherer- hunter tribe in Sumatra, her feminist mind musing on the male dominion over current evolutionary theory and, in her own words “seeking to correct what has been both a ludicrous and a tragic omission in evolutionary reconstructions” only to find that another feminist had already made a well received attempt at the correction,   An obscure foreign TV playwright, Elaine Morgan (Elaine who?) had, literally, flown in out of the blue, trespassed on the intellectual preserve of anthropology and become a minor celebrity on the basis of her ‘Book of the Month’. It was as though someone had crossed the finishing line before Nancy had even chosen her running shoes. The title Morgan had chosen for her book - ‘The Descent of Woman’ - might also have been somewhat galling. On page 167 of her book, Tanner comments:

He [Darwin] was prevented from harvesting all the fruits of his fertile imagination because he did not follow through with the logic of his own argument – to discover how female choice influenced the origin of the hominids; that is, to show how sexual selection was important at the very onset of human evolution.  Because of an unfortunate blind spot engendered by his own cultural background, Darwin was unable to explicate the necessary interrelationship and carry his work to its more logical conclusion.

It is clearly evident that Professor Tanner considered her book to be developing Darwin’s work along the logical path that, had his imagination not been fettered by the constraints of Victorian England, he himself would have explored.  So what better title for such a work than the feminisation of Darwin’s ‘The Descent of Man’?  Unfortunately, due to the unexpected, unwelcome and untrained amateur contender, E. Morgan, that prize title, ‘The Descent of Woman’ had been won for the Principality of Wales.

I am supposing then that Jim Moore was irritated by Morgan’s successful ‘pop’ book; and that the cause of his negative response was not the Aquatic Ape hypothesis.  It was the feminism that caused the suggested resentment felt by Jim and that this resentment motivates his ‘Aquatic Ape- sink or swim’ website. Although the website takes the form of a critique of the AAT, its primary purpose is to provide a convenient means of expressing his animus towards Elaine Morgan.

Before examining Moore’s critical techniques it will be helpful to consider his general intellectual stance.  In this review, in all his reviews of Morgan’s books, in his contributions to the newsgroup ‘sci.anthropology.paleo’ Moore assumes the role of omniscient polymath. Whatever the subject, Moore is an authority able to instruct others of a lesser intellectual breed.  Consider the following illuminating exchange:

Brian Doyle asks: “If a species forces another species into extinction, i.e. Humans hunting animals, either by pollution or other conventional means, into extinction, is this considered Natural Selection?

Greggory Senechal replies: “I’m going to go out on a limb and say no. I look at Natural Selection in a more positive light.  Characteristics are selected in, not selected out.  If some animals tunnel underground, protecting themselves from human hunters, the “tunnelers” might be selected in.  Does that make sense?

Whereupon our Jim, bristling with absolute certainty, storms into the fray:” No” he thunders. “It’s “Natural Selection” all right, no matter how “unnatural” we might think of it.  It’s no different really than, say, a hurricane or two wiping out a small, nearly extinct population.  And I would also think of natural selection with different words than you use (the “in” or “out”, or ”selection for” [a similar phrasing]. Natural selection works only by basically wiping out organisms; it “selects” by not “allowing” effective raising of young (at any stage of that process) (and my quote marks are proliferating because of the inherent problems and baggage associated with words like *allow” and “select”).  In that sense, natural selection only selects “against”, never “for”.  It only happens when something “doesn’t” work, and the fact that things that ‘do’ work are left (and sometimes get” better”) is an artefact.  Sexual selection, OTOH , is an active selection “for” traits.

In this enlightening exchange, the tentatively questioning Greggory, doggedly hanging on to his limb, reveals his true understanding of natural selection – his tunnelers would of a certainty be more likely to survive the hunt and so able, by procreation, to pass on their tunnelling characteristics to the next generation; whereas the all-knowing Jim shows that when it comes to natural selection he is completely out of his depth; drowning in a high tide of quotation marks.  Natural selection is nothing like a hurricane that wipes out a small population; nor even like the meteorite that supposedly put paid to the whole caboodle of dinosaurs. Such catastrophes are evolutionary tragedies; histories of genocide written in the rocks by old father deep-time; but nothing whatsoever to do with natural selection - except to provide opportunities for it to exploit. The baggage of which Moore complains is not attached to the offending words but cluttering his confused misunderstanding like abandoned luggage. He needs to enclose so many words within quotation marks because he understands none of them in a Darwinian context.  And as for ‘artefact’ - things that ‘do’ work are left (and sometimes get” better”) is an artefact.  Artefact?  Being no scholar I assumed my understanding of the word might be in error so I sought reassurance in Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary:

Artefact, artifact, n. a thing made by human workmanship.

So here we have it; according to Moore,( a sort of Pope Jim the Infallible handing down his papal bulls), after natural selection has wiped out the organisms that didn’t appeal to its taste, everything thereafter that works can, according to Jim, be made by any smart gal with a half  decent workshop.  I really think it’s time to move quickly on before Jim manages to struggle free of those two large, kindly gentlemen in white coats trying to coax him back into his straitjacket. 

Jim Moore’s belief that natural selection is a negative process, that it always selects ‘against’, never ‘for’, must have occasioned certain tensions when he was assisting Professor Tanner with her book ‘On Becoming Human’. Their harmony must have hit repeated discords when she wrote:

….(page 271) selection for decreasing sexual  dimorphism also continued during early human evolution ….. (page 222 ) Selection was for increasingly efficient, time-saving, energy-saving ways of getting food ….. (page 209) Selection for early intelligence is one basis for expanding brain size and more sophisticated mental capacities. (page 161)  For gathering females, natural selection for bipedalism and tool use in the food quest was intense. (162)…. must have been strongly selected for….

(My underlining)

And how can ‘wiping out’ be the defining characteristic of natural selection when all organisms, without exception, are wiped out?  Darwinism is concerned not with the wiping out but with the happenings before the wiping out occurs.  Then out of the confusion, as welcome as it is unexpected, emerges a glimmering of truth. Jim turns momentarily away from his doom mongering and announces: it “selects” by not “allowing” effective raising of young.  Had our sunny Jim defined natural selection simply as a concern for the effective raising of the young, the Darwinian ranks of Tuscany could have scarce forborne cheering themselves silly. Pity ‘tis that this little ray of light should be obscured, scarcely discernible behind her thick veil, as she follows the mourners at the mass funerals of those wiped out by the serial murderer ‘Natural Selection’.

In his eagerness to contradict Morgan’s every statement Moore often succeeds only in contradicting himself. In his website Jim Moore makes many references to Morgan’s strawman version of the savannah:

….a favourite technique of hers, constructing a savannah strawman….Morgan constructs her strawman….she gets out her strawman kit again……

Moore claims that for the last hundred years the savannah has been defined as a type of woodland characterized by a very open spacing between its trees and by intervening areas of grassland.

In ‘On Becoming Human’ Nancy Tanner gives a more comprehensive description:

About half the surface of Africa is covered by dry savanna and grass steppe or by open woodland and mixed savanna.  These areas are a mosaic landscape that includes open grasslands, scattered tree clumps, riverine forests, gallery forests and marshy areas.     

Whatever the savanna is, it most certainly is not, according to Moore, hot and dry.  Such a description is Morgan’s strawman version.  Then in his review of ‘The Naked Darwinist’ the unwary Jim, not looking where he is putting his feet, turns his attention to Professor Peter Wheeler of the Faculty of Science at Liverpool John Moores University.

Peter Wheeler's "radiator hypothesis" -- briefly, very briefly, Wheeler has done a series of papers describing his studies of how shorter body hair arranged as human body hair is arranged, along with human style sweating, is an immense aid in cooling in a hot, dry, relatively open area, allowing the use of that environment at times when other animals find it difficult, or even effectively impossible, to utilize it. So Wheeler, using accurate descriptions of our body hair and sweating abilities, was able to show how our hair and sweat characteristics would be an advantage in dry hot areas, and observations from cultural anthropologists show how this was indeed effective, for instance in persistence hunting -- also very briefly, "chasing antelope or other game in the midday heat, often for hours,

(My emphases.)

By acknowledging that, regardless of current understanding, science once accepted that the habitat in which Homo sapiens evolved was hot and dry, Jim Moore here admits that Elaine Morgan was correct in her claim and that his silly strawman jibe needs, belatedly, to be thrown out of the window. But having put one foot in it, our Jim insists on putting in the other.  This hypothesis, with the mighty hunter chasing after antelopes, often for hours in the midday heat, is surely an exemplar of those ‘reconstructions’ which incurred Nancy Tanner’s disapproval. It is typical of the exclusively male accounts of human evolution which Tanner describes as ludicrous and which, by failing to give attention to the evolutionary role of the female as mother, she regards as a tragic omission in evolutionary reconstructions. So it seems that his own argument having required him to heave his ‘strawman’ absurdity out of the window, it now requires Jim to defenestrate Nancy Makepeace Tanner together with her misguided matrilineal hypothesis.

Jim has left the window wide open and had his phylogeny equipped him as a triped, is now preparing to put his third foot in it.  Having confidently commended Peter Wheelers account of hair loss and sweating prowess, he announces with his usual unchallengeable authority:

She’s (Morgan’s) long been solidly against even any invocation of sexual selection, probably because many of the features she seeks to explain via natural selection – hair, sweat, fat – are classic cases of sexual selection.

 So much for Peter Wheeler’s explanation of hair loss by natural selection. The Liverpool Professor would have better spent his time in the Cavern listening to the Beatles instead of sweating it out in the heat of Africa concocting daft hypotheses. So out of the window goes Peter’s sweaty hunter landing atop Morgan’s strawmen and Tanner’s female gatherers.

It is conceivable that Jim Moore could gather together these apparent contradictions and construct from them a cohesive scenario. But he has no such a positive ambition.  His sole aim is to belittle Elaine Morgan.  So when she proposes that our reduced  hairiness is due to a watery environment, he wheels out Wheeler to contradict her.  And when she seemingly ignores sexual selection, Moore dumps the now useless Wheeler and his strawman savanna so that he can continue his contradictions.

To me the great conundrum is why such eminent intellects as P. Z. Myers; John Hawks and Greg Laden should find Moore’s website so compelling.  According to P. Z. Myers it is ‘definitive’; that is to say it is the final word. Thanks to Jim Moore, P.Z. tells his readers, the Aquatic Ape Hypothesis has been destroyed beyond reconstruction.  Jim Moore has given it the last rites. 

To me this trinity of eminent academics add justification to the remark of the philosopher Daniel Dennet:

During the last few years, when I have found myself in the company of distinguished biologists, evolutionary theorists, paleoanthropologists and other experts, I have often asked them just to tell me, please, exactly why Elaine Morgan must be wrong about the aquatic theory.  I haven’t yet had a reply worth mentioning, aside from those who admit, with a twinkle in their eyes, that they have also wondered the same thing.

The three scientists, seemingly unable between them to provide any convincing scientific rebuttal of the aquatic theory, would better remain of the twinkle-eyed persuasion rather than put their reputations at risk by an alliance with Mister Jim Moore.      

The Aquatic Ape - Moore or Less

The Aquatic Ape: Moore or Less.

The main purpose of this blog is not to promote the Aquatic Ape Hypothesis. Its particular aim is to examine the writings of Mr. Jim Moore.   He is the author of a website entitled ‘Aquatic Ape Theory: Sink or Swim?’  Mr. Moore’s subject is the Aquatic Ape Hypothesis; especially as presented by Elaine Morgan in her books:  ‘The Descent of Woman’; ‘The Scars of Evolution’ and ‘The Aquatic Ape Hypothesis’.  The only purpose of the website is to establish that the hypothesis has no scientific substance, is ignorant of evolutionary principles, and is grounded on ‘false facts’. Although Jim Moore readily admits that he is no scientist, his website nonetheless describes itself as a ‘scientific critique’.  

It is axiomatic that the worldwide web contains a wealth of useful information and much illuminating rational discourse; it also contains great quantities of useless nonsense. Into which of those categories ‘Sink or Swim’ should be included is a decision for each individual reader. But what makes this particular website worthy of examination is that it is referred to with approval by at least three scientists, John Hawks, Greg Laden and P.Z. Myers.

As for myself, my name is Stan New and like Mr. Moore and indeed like Elaine Morgan, the foremost champion of the Aquatic Ape hypothesis, I am no scientist.  My knowledge is derived from no university but solely from reading popular books on the subject of evolution; but whether or no I understand my readings has never been assessed.  My ignorance may be extensive and my misunderstandings profound.

The blog will be a random collection of my reactions to various extracts from Mr. Moore’s website, with some references to an exchange of emails between us, and more general comments on the theory of evolution.

Let me begin with what I assume to be Mr. Moore’s latest contribution to his scientific critique:

‘Review/Critique of Elaine Morgan’s 2008 book ‘The Naked Darwinist’’:

Mr. Moore begins his review by criticising Morgan’s use of the term “hairlessness” and her claim that we humans have ‘lost our body hair’:

(For greater differentiation, Mr. Moore’s writings will be reproduced in Verdana typeface.)

Yikes, the very first section, entitled "Don't ask", launches right into "lost our body hair" and "hairlessness". GIGO.

“I hate to belabour this, but if you are asking how we (or any other organism) came to have the characteristics it does you had better get the description of those characteristics correct or you have GIGO (garbage in, garbage out).  If you’re just having a barroom conversation I wouldn’t object overly to this being called hairlessness, even though that’s very inaccurate (although you’d better watch out for barroom wags making a bet with you when they spot easy money.:) However, Morgan isn’t having a barroom conversation; she’s trying to do science, and when you do science you’d better get your descriptions right or you haven’t got a hope of getting a correct answer.   

So, since Mrs. Morgan is supposedly not engaged in a barroom conversation, she had better get her descriptions right or, as Jim Moore sternly chides her, she hasn’t got a hope of getting a correct answer.  Fortunately for Mrs. Morgan’s reputation, less so for Mr. Moore’s, in this supposed misuse of the term ‘hairless’ she finds herself in eminently respectable company.

In his book ‘The Ancestor’s tale’ Professor Richard Dawkins writes: “… we can’t rule out the possibility that Ergasts had already lost their body hair by a million years ago.  They could have been as hairless as we are.” 

And again:   “Let’s add a third, perhaps less important characteristically human feature: our loss of body hair.  Why did we become the Naked Ape?”

Perhaps Mr. Moore should immediately contact the renowned evolutionary theorist, and remind him that since he is trying to do science and is not engaged in a barroom conversation he had better get his descriptions right or he hasn’t got a hope of getting a correct answer.  Why should anyone take seriously the arguments proposed in ‘The Selfish Gene’ or ‘The Extended Phenotype’ when the poor ignorant author cannot get his descriptions right? GIGO, Dawkins, GIGO.

So much for Moore’s claim that the terms ‘hairless’ and ‘loss of body hair’ are unfit for scientific discourse.

If I properly understand his argument, and I here freely admit that I find much of his writing obtuse, Mr. Moore seems to be suggesting that no explanation of human hairlessness is required because humans are not hairless.  Having implied this, Mr. Moore then supplies a contradiction: “….the difference between humans and chimpanzees is not so much number of body hairs but length and thickness, a difference caused by relatively minor genetic change …….”

So Mr. Moore agrees that, whatever words are used to describe it, there is, in the matter of hair,  a ‘difference’ between mankind and the chimpanzee; a difference caused by a ‘relatively  minor genetic change’.   Like all other genetic changes, this particular minor one would be subject to natural selection.  And because our hair is now shorter and less thick than the chimpanzee’s, we can safely assume that natural selection found the minor change advantageous.  But why?  Dawkins, following Darwin, suggests it was a result not of natural but of sexual selection – the males of the species choosing to mate with the least hairy females (or, the feminist within suggests, vice versa – the females did the choosing). Pagel and Bodmer (cited by Dawkins) proposed that it was to reduce ectoparasites such as lice; Wheeler argues that it was to do with the regulation of our bodily temperature and Morgan proffers an aquatic alternative.  So it seems that Elaine Morgan is in the scientific mainstream of seeking an explanation for our loss of body hair; our hairlessness.

Having dismissed as thoroughly unscientific the use of ‘hairless’ by Mrs. Morgan, Professor Dawkins and, doubtless, many other ignorant scientists, Jim Moore then turns his scientific attention to page 5 of ‘The Naked Darwinist’:

Uh-oh, page 5 and we’re back to another Morgan classic: why aren’t we like camels? Yes, AAT/H proponents constantly ask, why are we so much like our primate relatives? Why, oh why?

I do not know which edition of ‘The Naked Darwinist’ our Jim is reading; for certain it is not the same one that lies before me now open at page 5. Mrs. Morgan, as AAT/H proponent par excellence, does not ask on page 5, or indeed on any other page of this or any other of her books, “why we are so much like our primate relatives?”  It is evident from her writings that she knows  Homo sapiens is a primate; that she would agree with Richard Dawkins that we are African apes and that our genome is well over 90% identical with that of the chimpanzee. So given that phylogenetic relatedness, what arouses Mrs. Morgan’s curiosity is not why are we so much like our primate relatives; but on the contrary, why are we so different?  It is that very difference which the Aquatic Ape, as do other, savannah based, hypotheses, seeks to answer.

So whether Mr. Moore’s copy of the book has been savaged by one of his pit bull terriers; or whether he has mislaid his bifocals; or whether he is deliberately distorting the book’s argument is a matter best left as one of life’s less important mysteries.

In truth, on page 5, Elaine poses the question: “Why only us?”  In ‘The Ancestor’s Tale’, Richard Dawkins make a similar observation. After describing one particular non-locomotion theory of Bipedalism, he writes:

‘As with so many of theses theories, we are left wondering why it would apply to our lineage and not to other apes or monkeys.’

 The current scientific consensus is that we humans are different to our closest animal cousins because their ancestors stayed mainly in the trees and ours came down permanently to the ground.  But so did many other primates argues Morgan.   But, faced with the same environmental and climatic pressures neither the baboons, the geladas, the vervets, the patas monkeys, the Barbary apes nor the Hanuman langurs give the slightest indication of shedding their hair or becoming habitual bipeds.  Morgan then enquires if we became the world’s sweatiest animal in order to remain cool why did the camel, in order to remain cool  in extremely arid conditions, retain its woolly coat and reduce its sweating to a minimum?  Mr. Moore’s answer to the problem is similar to his reaction to human hairlessness, ‘Problem? What problem?’ Mr. Moore seems to regard the question ‘why only us?’ as impertinent and so does not deign a reply.  Instead he takes his readers (I use the plural because I assume there are at least two of us) on a meandering ramble.    

. 

Morgan then asks “Why did our ancestors so often respond to exactly the same problems that confronted other animals

by adopting diametrically different strategies?”

With disarming honesty young Jim answers: Oh I don’t know; but I suspect that little Jim is not here being overcome by a rare touch of modesty (he normally assumes an encyclopaedic knowledge of matters biological) but is being skittishly ironical.  He then proceeds to take us on a zoological tour pointing out in rapid succession, like a guide in a nature reserve, that lions are more gregarious than leopards; and that skunks, porcupines and pangolins have all developed different responses to their defensive requirements. However, in these references, Moore overlooks the significant word ‘diametrically’ in his quotation from Morgan.  The true comparison would be a species of skunk that in its defence gave off the sweet odour of lavender; or a peculiar porcupine whose spines pointed inwards rather than outwards or a perverse pangolin whose armour was made of wool.  These strategies would indeed be ‘diametrically different’ from the norm.          

  Given his talent for research I have little doubt that Moore could unearth learned treatises on why lions are more sociable than leopards; why skunks evolved extremely pungent scent glands and porcupines instead grew quills and pangolins evolved body armour.  But according to Mrs. Morgan, no matter how lengthy and diligent his researches he will find nothing in the scientific literature to answer her question: “Why only us?”   Perhaps Jim Moore one day will apply his mind and his talent for research to the question and essay an answer.  Or perhaps he thinks one has already been provided:

Morgan, page 6: “A recent weblog on pseudoscience posed the pertinent question: “If the Aquatic Ape explains so much, why do the majority of anthropologists not subscribe to it?”  

Asked –- and answered – by John Hawks.

Like some intellectual matador in his suit of scientific lights, Professor Hawks has supposedly twirled his anthropological muleta, raised his sword of truth and delivered the lethal estocada.  The defunct hypothesis is dragged ignominiously from the academic bullring to long overdue obscurity and the tumultuous cheers from the aficionados bussed in from the savannah.  However, if Mr. Moore thinks the Aquatic Ape Hypothesis is dead, he must accept, mayhap through gritted teeth that, in the words of the old song, ‘It’s dead but it won’t lie down’.

The professor points out that after adapting to an aquatic environment, the hominid must then emerge from the water and re-adapt to a terrestrial lifestyle.  Two adaptations; whereas the alternative savannah hypothesis requires only the one.  Ergo: the savannah scenario is the more parsimonious.  So what follows? So, as far as I can determine, nothing follows.  The professor has established, at least to his own and Mr, Moore’s satisfaction, no more than that the AAH is not parsimonious.  But does anthropology regard William of Occam’s razor as the best means of scientifically shaving the false from the true? If the matter is ever resolved it will, of a certainty, be by the empirical method; likely by facts on, or under, the ground or, perhaps, information gleaned from the relevant genomes or by some as yet undiscovered method.  The mediaeval schoolman, Old Bill from way down in Ockham, will, I feel confident in asserting, have no say whatsoever in the matter.

Moore’s own views of parsimony seem to possess what he might describe as ‘zingability. Here the suggestion is that he agrees with John Hawks that the reason anthropologists rightly reject the aquatic ape is because it is not parsimonious.  This runs counter to Moore’s own view of Occam’s razor as expressed in his website:

If you have two theories which both explain the observed facts then you should use the simplest until more evidence comes along.  This doesn’t mean it’s correct or even likely to be correct….

 It follows then that if, as Hawks has argued, the scientifically respectable terrestrial hypothesis is the more parsimonious then it is not, according to Moore, ‘even likely to be correct.’  Perhaps Jim should have a quiet word with his anthropological patron or vice versa.    

 

Likewise with another of Mr. Moore’s admirers, Master of Archaeology and Biological Anthropology, Greg Laden.  On his blog he writes: As PZ [Myers] points out, an excellent resource on this idea is Moore’s site on the topic.  He then observes that AAH is a Theory of Everything (TOE) and promoted by ‘a Welsh non-academic female and that she was being aggressive about it’.  Greg Laden, apparently, sees no irony in his recommending the site of an American non-academic male whose admitted aggressiveness towards the Welsh non-academic female is tiresomely excessive.  Master Laden then points out that this TOE does not explain all human characteristics and so is not a TOE.  Unwary students are then warned to keep well clear of the toeless AAH because it is a zombie theory and will consume their brains tablespoon by tablespoon – or, I imagine, more slowly teaspoon by teaspoon if their resources don’t run to tablespoons. “Quickly Mother!  Hide all the spoons!  Mr Laden’s zombie is on his way!  Pardon?  The forks? Yes, you’d better hide those too.  Can’t be too careful!” So don’t say you sillies haven’t been warned. 

Unfortunately Master Laden does not inform us innocents that if the AAH is not a TOE then could it be a TON- a Theory of Nothing?  Or would he consider dismembering the brainivore zombie?  I must confess I’ve never met a zombie – we don’t get them here in Somerset, but I believe, that being a bit on the mouldy side, they can be pulled apart quite easily.  Would he label the ‘Wading Hypothesis’ a zombie theory?  Professor Dawkins seemingly does not.  In his ‘Ancestors Tale’ (page 96) the ultra-Darwinian writes:

‘Other hypotheses of bipedal evolution invoke the benefits of height, perhaps standing upright to look over the long grass; or to keep the head above water while wading.  This last is the imaginative ‘aquatic ape’ theory of Alister Hardy, ably championed by Elaine Morgan.’

The last in the trinity of Mr. Moore’s admirers is the biologist PZ Myer, Associate Professor at the University of Minnesota.  He limits his views of the AAH to the terse comment: ‘Jim Moore’s Aquatic Ape page is the definitive web resource for dissecting this fringe theory.’  PZ wisely refuses to venture into the treacherous realms of philosophy. Perhaps he agrees with Stephen Jay Gould who observes wryly: ‘Scientists tend to ignore academic philosophy as an empty pursuit’.

Mention of the great philosophy denier leads us seamlessly to Moore’s examination of the terms “Darwinism, “Darwinist”, and “Darwinian”:

…they’re fairly commonly used among scientists in the UK but in North America they tend to be used just by creationists, who do so as a tactic, an attempt to claim evolutionary studies are a religion-like cult of Darwin.

I am currently rereading ‘Ever Since Darwin’, a collection of essays by S. J. Gould. Not altogether surprisingly, it makes repeated references to Charles Darwin. On page 39 the author claims: “…... I, although I wear the Darwinian label with some pride, am not among the most ardent defenders of natural selection.”

Dr. Gould’s pride in being labelled a Darwinian makes perplexing Moore’s claim that since such a term tends to be used by creationists for an ulterior purpose, scientists are reluctant to employ it.  However more relevant to my purpose is Gould’s admission that he is not an ardent defender of natural selection.  Moore too seems to have reservations about natural selection.  Consider his own definition:

….the apparent (in hindsight) promotion of traits through natural selection is actually natural selection just not killing them off (either directly or through ‘genetic death’, i.e. the lineage dying out).  Natural selection doesn’t cause a search for better or more optimal ways of doing things, it just lops off those that really don’t work well at a given time, even if those changes could be useful at some future time.  Natural selection, in essence, only works “against” the organism; everything “for” it is accidental, although the end result, in hindsight, looks like there was a direction.

As evidenced by his website, Mr. Moore seems, at least on casual reading, to be well versed in matters scientific.  Whatever the reader might think of his conclusions, it cannot be gainsaid that his research is, if nothing else, voluminous.  He also directs his readers to Darwin’s ‘The Origin of Species’, the seminal work which he has presumably studied with profit.  This makes all the more surprising his own strange definition of natural selection.  In the attempt to resolve my puzzlement, a series of  

Emails was exchanged:

To: anthrosciguy@shaw.ca

Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2007 7:44 AM

Subject: Natural Selection

Assuming an earlier email of mine to be still wandering lost in cyberspace, let me point out that your definition of Natural Selection is at variance with that of Charles Darwin. You claim that 'Natural selection doesn't cause a search for better or more optimal ways of doing things'; whereas Darwin states….. ‘natural selection would thus have free scope for the work of improvement.'  In order to restore your scientific credibility perhaps you should either state the source of your information or, preferably, carefully reread 'The Origin of Species' and, after due reflection, recast your own definition.  Regards - Stan New

Moore replies:

Assuming you sent it after 7/23/2005 it must be lost.  You're being confused by wording as well as a bit of confusion on Darwin's part which is well known.  He was still holding on, just a bit, to the old words, if not the underlying idea, of the "chain of being".  This led him astray in several ways, although none affecting his central argument (his idea of pangenesis was related to this, and probably primarily because the concept of genes was not a robust idea, largely unknown, during his lifetime).  It's also an example of the problem of wording in evolutionary descriptions -- we tend to use words which have baggage, such as improvement, or phrases like "adapted for", just as Darwin did, and this can either confuse readers, or can provide an opportunity for unethical readers to exploit the ambiguity that always exists in word use.  This last is, of course, very dishonest, and is a common tactic of people such as creationists.  It's probably something you should not do, unless you're comfortable using the tactics of creationists.

Well, I'm glad to see you're still captivated by my site, and hope you will continue to be for a long time to come.  I also thank you for your kind acknowledgment that I have scientific credibility -- I would have thought, from your previous correspondence, that you didn't think I had any (but how could I restore it if that were so...) so thank you for clearing up your view on that subject. 

Regards,

Jim Moore

Far from clarifying his view of natural selection, Moore’s reply only increases the perplexity.  He helpfully explains that I am confused by wording.  He is right; but my confusion is with Moore’s not Darwin’s wording.  I think I know what Charles Darwin was arguing; but I haven’t the foggiest notion of what Jim Moore is trying to say.   According to Jim, Darwin’s confusion and his being led astray in several (unspecified) ways is well known.  Well known by whom? Referring back to his assertion that North Americans are somewhat reluctant to describe themselves as ‘Darwinians’, Moore might be reporting that Darwin’s confusion is well known in the USA;  hence the reluctance there to be closely associated with his name. This makes more sense than Moore’s suggestion that the reluctance is due to the unethical behaviour of Creationists.  As I understand the position, creationists demand that Intelligent Design should be taught in science classes as a viable alternative to evolution.  I did not realise that they were, by insisting that Darwinism was a religion, also implicitly accepting that the Good Book of Darwinism – ‘The Origin of Species’ – should be included alongside the Bible and the Koran in religious studies.

Darwin’s confusion did not, it seems, extend to his ‘central argument’. Not unusually Moore does not define the ‘central argument.  Could the central argument be that Darwin described a process which explained how the natural world came to be furnished with flora and fauna which, though giving every appearance of having been the work of a supreme designer is, in truth, produced by a blind, clumsy, wasteful amoral process to which he gave the name ‘Natural Selection’?  Assuming Moore’s agreement of the ‘central argument’, his only disagreement then is with the words, the baggage laden words, used by Darwin to describe the central argument. 

The confusion with wording of which Moore speaks is certainly not Darwin’s, hopefully not mine, but assuredly his own.  Perhaps he thinks the word ‘improved’  is used in the sense of : “Man is an improved version of the chimpanzee”; or “Homo habilis is an improvement on the Australopithecines”. Not so. Jim my dear; the word is used by Darwinians in the sense of:  “Since I am shortsighted, my eyesight is improved when I put on my spectacles.”  In the evolutionist’s dictionary ‘improved’ can be defined as : ‘better able to fulfill a specific purpose’.  But Moore’s concern about words being hampered by excessive baggage is a distraction. Darwin supplies an alternative word to replace the troublesome ‘improve’.  In the Darwinist Good Book he uses the phrase: ‘descent with modification’.  So would Moore accept a revision of the phrase; ‘natural selection would thus have free scope for the work of improvement.'  by replacing the word ‘improvement’ with the baggage free term  ‘modification’?  Would Moore find acceptable the phrase: ‘natural selection would thus have free scope for the work of modification’?  Most unlikely, because Moore’s definition of natural selection is purely negative; its only function is to remove harmful characteristics. 

The argument continued in my next email:-

If Darwin's own definition of natural selection leaves you unimpressed, perhaps the views of Stephen Jay Gould might enlighten you. Quotations are taken from his essay 'Darwin's Untimely Burial':-

“Natural selection has a place in all anti-Darwinian theories that I know. It is cast in a negative role as an executioner, a headsman for the unfit.... The essence of Darwinism lies in its claim that natural selection creates the fit...... It preserves favorable variants and builds fitness gradually.... Darwin's independent criterion of fitness is, indeed “improved design,” but not “improved” in the cosmic sense that contemporary Britain favored. To Darwin, improved meant only “better designed for an immediate, local environment.”

So, by regarding natural selection as an 'executioner', a 'headsman for the unfit' or to use your term, a 'lopper off of those that really don't work well', and by totally misunderstanding the concept of 'improvement' in the Darwinian sense, you are, according to Gould, an anti-Darwinian and as such a fellow traveller with the Creationists. They, of course, deliberately distort the process of natural selection in order to debunk it; but it is difficult to understand why you should join them.

As to your scientific credibility; I do not doubt that when you were engaged in the preparation of Tanner's intriguing hypothesis, you did your research with admirable objectivity; had you not done so you might have got a clip round the ear. It was, I presume, up to Nancy to evaluate the evidence and do the composition. But when you came to consider the Aquatic Ape hypothesis and decided to try your own hand at the writing business, you abandoned any pretence of objectivity and decided your polemical purpose would be better served by writing a diatribe. Replacing your nonsensical definition of natural selection with something approaching the truth, might begin the long road back.

Jim Moore responds:-

You seem to be getting more, not less, confused by the problem (admittedly not always clear) of words having more than one meaning, along with them having connotations and baggage.  What one sees as improvements (or progress) is something seen in hindsight, not beforehand.  The process of creating (another word with problematic use in evolution) evolutionary changes is accidental, and natural selection is blind and not purposeful, yet lops off the changes that don't work and create the "purpose" and "improvement" one sees in hindsight.  But using those words is always problematic because of language and the baggage it has -- those words strongly suggest a desire or inherent direction to change, so they confuse people.

Please don't accuse me of saying that Darwin used creationist tactics; not only is it a lie, it's not nice, and one should always play nice, right?

Regards,

Jim Moore

Once again Jim Moore demonstrates his utter confusion concerning natural selection.

Although the word ‘nature’ is no more than an abstract noun, it is the convention to regard it as an active agent.  Nature, in this guise, can select; hence ‘natural selection’ as distinct from ‘selective breeding’ as practiced by plant and animal breeders.  In this selective role, Nature is, as Moore agrees, blind and purposeless; it has neither hindsight nor foresight. It is concerned with neither the past nor the future.  Nature’s only concern is with the present; the here and now.  Yesterday is history; tomorrow will take care if itself. So when Moore repeatedly introduces into a discussion of natural selection the concept of ‘hindsight’ and words like ‘beforehand’ it simply emphasises his confusion.  Surprisingly for someone who writes a scientific critique, Moore seemingly cannot distinguish between natural selection and evolution.

With our present knowledge of, let us say, the modern horse we can assemble a collection of fossils and demonstrate how over time they came more and more to resemble the modern horse.  Given a sufficient number of fossils, palaeontologists could even show, small step by small step, how the whale developed from a terrestrial quadruped into the mighty leviathan.  And those changes could be demonstrated, explanatory diagrams drawn, reconstructions made and animated and all without the slightest knowledge of natural selection.   Indeed, a Lamarckian (someone who believes in the inheritance of acquired characteristics - the sons of the blacksmith will inherit the mighty muscles their father acquired during his lifetime’s labour) would arrange the fossils in the same sequence and draw identical diagrams. To such considerations, the words ‘hindsight’ and ‘beforehand’ might be relevant.

Natural selection, in clear contrast,  is the theory that within a breeding group (natural selection takes place within, and only within, a breeding group) the characteristics of the members that are the most prolific, that produce most viable offspring, will come, indeed must come,  to dominate the group.   This dizzyingly simple idea can be used to explain the manifold complexities of nature and why it has the appearance of intelligent design. Because Moore is unwilling, or unable perhaps, to appreciate the difference between evolution as the record of historical change and natural selection as the mechanism of that change, suggests, in this matter at least, he is a scientific illiterate.

Moore’s preoccupation seems to be with neither the historical record of evolution nor with the mechanics of natural selection; but simply with the imprecision of words.  Of course, words have connotations; they are encumbered with ‘baggage’.   Take the word ‘accidental’ with which Moore chooses to define natural selection -.  Natural selection, in essence, only works “against” the organism; everything “for” it is accidental, although the end result, in hindsight, looks like there was a direction.

‘Accidental’ certainly staggers along heavy laden with baggage.  It implies something unpleasant; a misfortune.  So is Moore implying in his definition that “everything for” an organism is unfortunate?  Any sensible person realises that by ‘accidental’ Moore does not mean ‘misfortunate’; he means, at least I presume him to mean, ‘unplanned; occurring by chance’.  The baggage is carried not by the word but resides in the confused mind of the reader.  To readers with some knowledge of natural selection the word ‘improvement’ has no ambiguity.  Moore finds the word problematic precisely because he has no understanding of natural selection.  But I find the word ‘accidental’ confusing because whatever its meaning, whether ‘unplanned’, ‘by chance’, ‘at random’ or whatever other synonym, it flatly contradicts Darwin’s authoritative, indeed absolute, definition of natural selection.  

 In response to Jim Moore’s justifiable complaint about my frugal use of paragraphs, the following email of mine has been chopped up into hopefully digestible chunks.

       

        From: STANLEY NEW

        To: Jim Moore

        Sent: Friday, March 23, 2007 6:18 AM

        Subject: Natural selection

         

If I was mistaken in accusing you of saying that Darwin used creationist tactics, I am only too ready to apologise. The charge arose from an apparent misunderstanding of your argument. As you say, I am getting more rather than less confused. Since I have little difficulty in following the arguments of Charles Darwin, Stephen Jay Gould, Richard Dawkins, Steven Pinker, Steve Jones or any other writer of popular science, the reason for my confusion may lie with you, the writer, rather than with me, the reader.

However, the reasoning behind my 'lie', as you call it, was as follows::- Darwin, you maintain, used words like 'improvement' and phrases like “adapted for” which can, in your words 'either confuse readers, or provide an opportunity for unethical readers to exploit the ambiguity that always exists in word use.' You then proceed to argue: This last is, of course, very dishonest, and is a common tactic of people such as creationists.' I take that to mean that the exploitation of the ambiguity that always exists in words is an unethical tactic and one used by creationists. You then conclude that it is something I should not do unless I am comfortable using the tactics of creationists. But all that I am doing is to use the same 'confusing' and 'ambiguous' words employed by Darwin, by Stephen Jay Gould and by the other writers mentioned above. So, if by persisting in their use, I am using the same tactics as creationists, then the same charge must apply to Darwin, Stephen Jay Gould and, indeed, to all who use those  same words. But if you maintain that I am lying in accusing you of “saying that Darwin used creationist tactics” then you are likewise lying when you accuse me of “being comfortable using the tactics of creationists”

But what I find more than confusing, baffling indeed, is the serious attention you give to creationists. Does it matter what tactics they use? Do you regard their arguments as so powerful that I, as a Darwinian, must pussyfoot around watching my P's and Q's, fearful of using any word, any phrase that might be capable of exploitation? If creationists and their tactics are unethical then surely both can be dismissed as unworthy of any consideration. Just before his untimely death, Gould was in correspondence with Dawkins about issuing a statement to the effect that they were no longer prepared to share the same platform with creationists, because by so doing they were according them a credibility they did not deserve. So why do you take them so seriously that we must appease them by denying ourselves language that all Darwinians commonly use.

I am, happily and finally, becoming less confused. I began by taking it as read that you were a Darwinian.  Your ‘magnum opus’ commends him to your readers; you agree with his sexual selective explanation of human nakedness; in the present correspondence you seemingly accept his 'central argument'. But then your serious doubts filter through these approvals. Darwin was holding on to the words, if not the idea, of the 'chain of being'; he was thereby 'led astray'; he proposed 'pangenesis' which proved untenable; he used words with 'baggage' that can confuse and give 'unethical' readers the opportunity to exploit the ambiguity inherent in such words. And then you provide your own readers with a definition of natural selection that is not simply expressed in different 'baggage-free' language, but is the direct opposite of Darwin's own definition: Moore asserts: 'Natural selection doesn't cause a search for better or more optimal ways of doing things'. In contradiction Darwin argues: ‘...natural selection would thus have scope for the work of improvement'. So, it is becoming more and more likely that you are not a true 'Darwinian'. Possibly your views derive from reading the works of those authorities who use the term 'ultra-Darwinist' as a criticism. What, however, is crystal clear is that listed prominently amongst those people confused by words such as ''improvement,' is the name Jim Moore. Perhaps in a future email, I will attempt to explain what I think is the origin of such confusion.

       Natural selectionSaturday, 24 March, 2007 18:43

      From: "JM" <anthrosciguy@shaw.To: "STANLEY NEW"

      stan.new@btinternet.com

May I gently suggest that your confusion might be lessened -- certainly the confusion of others -- if you used paragraphs.  I usually make a point of not mentioning formatting (or typos, misspellings etc, because I do them like anybody else) but your below is a good example.  A couple points: people who take any form of the term "Darwinist" as a criticism do so because in North America (and sometimes other places, but particularly NA) the term "Darwinist" runs rampant throughout the works of creationists and their supporters, and virtually always betrays a lack of

understanding about evolution, about the fact that somewhat more than a century have passed since Darwin lived and worked, and people actually figured out a few more things in that time.  Surprise!

   

As for "ultra-Darwinist", the Eldredge term, I would agree with Larry Moran's explanation I see from Talk origins newsgroup.  The link is here;

I'll post his comment below.

             

Certainly a catastrophe can, and has, eliminated some populations (the wider-ranging a species is, the less likely they are to fall victim to this unluckiest of chances). 

      

I use words with baggage at times although I also think one should avoid it if possible.  Everybody does; this does not mean that it's a good thing to do if you can avoid it.  While neither Dawkins or Gould (or many others, including me) think it's a great idea for a scientist to enter one of the "debates" (actually rigged pop speaking contests) that creationists try to get them to do, I do think that taking seriously people who are trying to subvert science in schools to advance a repressive social agenda

is a good thing, and that written debates -- actual debates -- are a wonderful way to counter creationists (and IDers).  You will notice that they generally avoid those written debates like the plague, because their time-tested tactics in verbal "debate" don't work in written debate.

     

We see the evolutionary worth or purpose of things in hindsight, by looking at them now and seeing that they did indeed work and allow the species to have offspring for whatever length of time their species managed to do so.  When we look around at what we see now, we are looking at now and the past; we do not see the future.   I'd say that "lopped off" would be pretty much the same as "rejected" in Darwin's work.  The creature itself can live on and on, even die of ripe old age, but if that  creature doesn't have offspring any features unique to that individual will be "lopped off" the evolutionary tree, "rejected" if you will.  Your bit about that almost had the appearance of a straw man -- perhaps because it was a crude straw man.  In fact, your studied confusion about all this gives the appearance of a manufactured outrage against a straw man -- I suspect you know quite well what I said and what the words mean, however poorly they may have been chosen by me.

      

      Regards,

      Jim Moore

      

      ***Larry Moran's comment on ultra-Darwinism***

    

According to Eldredge ultra-Darwinians are "... the articulators of the gene-centered and essentially reductionist approach to evolutionary explanation".

Ultra-Darwinians tend to be geneticists, according to Eldredge, but "At the very heart of matter lies natural selection. Ultra-Darwinians have adopted the stance that natural selection is the central evolutionary process." He goes on to explain that the important difference between Ultra-Darwinians and his "Naturalist" position is the emphasis on positive vs. negative selection. Eldredge views natural selection as mainly a filter that removes the unfit whereas the Ultra-Darwinians see natural selection as an active force.

"[Ultra-Darwinians] seek to transform natural selection from a simple form of record keeping, a filter that biases the distribution of genes between generations, to a more dynamic, active force that molds and shapes organic form as time goes by.

             

But there is more. An ultra-Darwinian sees such active selection, such competition for reproductive success, as the underpinning of absolutely all biological phenomena. Every- thing flows from competition among genes, or at least among organisms, to leave more copies of genetic information to the next generation."

In practice, what this means is that ultra-Darwinians tend to favor adaptionist explanations for most evolutionary problems. For example, the ultra-Darwinian will propose adaptionist explanations for large breasts, menopause, and human behaviour (i.e. homosexuality). These features must have arisen by positive selection "for" something according to the ultra-Darwinian position.

Here's another example; when discussing human evolution the ultra- Darwinian wonders whether we have stopped evolving because we are no longer selecting in favor of those with better genes. The question arises because the ultra-Darwinian tends to see natural selection as a positive force that determines evolution. The naturalist, on the other hand, tends to adopt a different perspective. According to the naturalist explanation, the removal of selection against, say, diabetes is going to cause evolution because the filter of negative selection has been removed.

The easiest way to spot an ultra-Darwinist is to read their postings

carefully. They tend to equate "evolution" and "natural selection" and they have a tendency to make statements about the importance of the environment in shaping evolution. There are many of them on talk. origins and they are often the ones who post a great deal. When challenged, they will deny that they are ultra Darwinians and proclaim that they understand other mechanisms of evolution and the fallacy of adaptionism. But keep watching, within a few days they will revert to a simplistic view of defining evolution as natural selection. And they won't go more than a week without creating another adaptionist just-so story.

John Wilkins is a classic ultra-Darwinian...       

There are others - does this explanation help you Matt?

      Larry Moran ‘’

      *****

  

A little glimmer is beginning to filter through Mister Moore’s misty muddle.    The definition of natural selection offered in his website is Moore’s attempt to describe, not ‘natural selection’, but the ‘naturalist’ version of evolution.  If that had been made clear in the first place we would have avoided much weary circumlocution.  No  trudging wearily around creationist tactics; no pausing to watch poor old befuddled  Darwin, the racist, sexist Victorian Imperialist,  being led astray;  no standing awestruck before the Great Chain of Being reaching to Him Up There; no stepping delicately around the gemmules of pangenesis; no getting enmeshed in the tangled ambiguity of naughty words like ‘improvement’.  

On page 56 of ‘Reinventing Darwin’ Professor Niles Eldredge writes:

“But no rational evolutionary biologist feels that most change is not adaptive, or that adaptive change is not caused by natural selection.”

In other words, removing the double negatives: All rational

evolutionary biologists feel that most change is adaptive, and that adaptive change is caused by natural selection.

‘Adaptive change’ is, presumably, what Jim Moore means by ‘everything for’ and, according to the good Naturalist Professor, ‘everything for’ is caused by natural selection and that aint accidental.   So clearly, on this most basic tenet of evolution, on the meaning of natural selection, even as defined by a Naturalist, Mr Jim Moore is fundamentally wrong.  He is misleading his readers with, to employ his own favoured phrase, a ‘false fact’. And in evolutionary terms, it is a, perhaps the most, fundamental fact that he is falsifying.

However, having endorsed the primacy of natural selection, Nils Eldredge then brings confusion to the issue.  He informs his readers, and possibly confuses our Mr. Moore, by asserting:

’. …the genetics of populations, where frequencies of different forms of genes (alleles) change from generation to generation through essentially chance factors (so-called genetic drift-a concept first developed by American geneticist Sewall Wright in the 1930s) and through natural selection.

Here the primacy for evolution becomes ‘essentially chance factors’, with natural selection seemingly tacked on as a minor contributor.  It is possible that Moore grossly misunderstands the naturalist concept of evolution.  Whereas they argue that ‘genetic drift’ is a factor in addition to natural selection; Moore perhaps thinks, mistakenly, that they mean ‘genetic drift’ replaces natural selection as the major creative force in evolution.  Hence he claims: All adaptive change (everything for) is caused by genetic drift (is accidental).

Genetic drift is concerned only with traits which neither help nor hinder the organism’s ability to procreate.   So whether or no the genes producing these neutral traits spread, or ‘drift’ through the breeding population is indeed a matter of chance.  Genetic drift cannot, by definition, be responsible for beneficial traits or, to use Moore’s term, anything ‘for’ an organism.  Whatever lesser or greater part genetic drift plays in evolution, it is natural selection alone, by a gradual accretion of positive  improvements, that can account for the appearance of ‘design’ in nature.   

It is also the inclusion of the metaphor of the ‘passive filter’ which possible persuades Moore and his ilk to regard natural selection as an happenstance that ‘just lops off those that really don’t work well at a given time,’ or as a purely passive phenomenon which results in ‘just not killing them off (either directly or through ‘genetic death’).  But to my Darwinian way of thinking a filter can certainly be described negatively as a means of removing impurities; but conversely it can also be presented as a positive means of producing the desired product free from unwanted ingredients.

Consider, dear Jim, an apple orchard.  The apples are picked and taken to the sorting shed.  There they are deposited on one of two conveyor belts.  At the first belt the sorters are instructed to pick out the good apples and pack them into boxes, allowing the bad fruit to reach the end where they are thrown into baskets ready for disposal. At the other belt the sorters are told to take out the bad apples, throw them into baskets allowing the good apples to reach the end of the line where they are packed into boxes ready for despatch.  At the end of the working day, when the sorters have gone home to have their teas of fish and chips (salt and vinegar mandatory, mushy peas optional), they leave alongside each belt, crates of good apples and baskets of rejects. So even if the one belt can be described as a positive process – selecting the wanted; and the second belt as a negative process – eliminating the unwanted; both processes produce identical results.

 

  Likewise with Moore’s: ….the apparent (in hindsight) promotion of traits through natural selection is actually natural selection just not killing them off….If this is to have any meaning, natural selection (in its metaphorical guise as an active selector) must distinguish between the ‘traits’ presented for its assessment.  In the same way as the ‘negative’ apple sorters decide which fruit to reject and  thereby allow the other apples to proceed; so Moore’s ‘natural’ selector  must choose which traits to ‘kill off’ thereby ‘promoting’ all remaining traits. And it is of course, those remaining traits, the metaphorical good apples – not the rejects – that positively steer the course of evolution.

Moore’s definition of Darwinism is, to me, an example of the glass being half empty rather than half full. The metaphorical glass contains an agreed measure of liquid so the manner in which it is described says nothing about the contents of the glass but everything about the observer.  It is manifest throughout Moore’s writing that he regards Darwin as outmoded; as being left stranded by modern research;  constrained by the  dogmas and prejudices of his age; he is yesterday’s man; he is the half empty glass.

Further evidence, if more were needed, of Moore’s utter confusion about natural selection is given in this brief ‘authoritative’ observation:

Morgan may be thinking here, as many people mistakenly do, that evolution searches for optimal solutions to any given problem. It doesn't. Evolution tends to provide "good enough" solutions, some of them quite elegant, but not optimal.

I think it unlikely that Morgan, a Darwinian, is numbered amongst the many people who are accused by Moore of thinking, mistakenly, that evolution searches for solutions of any kind.  She would, I feel sure, realise that evolution refers to a slow change as contrasted with revolution - a rapid change. In biological terms it refers to the imperceptible changes undergone by organisms through deep geologic time. Evolution is simply a record of the changes; nothing more, nothing less.  It is likely, given Moore’s repeated inability to distinguish between them, that he is referring not to evolution but to ‘natural selection’.  But if he is, natural selection likewise is neither a searcher nor a provider. Once again Moore reveals his crypto-creationist mind set. To search or provide betokens an intelligence controlling the process; an intelligent designer who decides between ‘optimal’ and ‘quite elegant good enough’ solutions’.  An omniscient intelligent designer who can detect a creature’s problems then search for, not the best but, good enough solutions to resolve them.

And then our young Jimmy, bless his little cotton socks, brings the concept of needs into the discussion:

What you're seeing in that fact is that, due to selection pressure during evolution, the more your species needs to think, the higher their EQ. Larger brains are not necessarily better, because the larger the brain, the more energy it takes to develop it and feed it. So animals seem to develop the size brain they need and that's about it.

This stress on ‘needs’ prompted me to send Moore the following email:

Dear Professor,

As an elder in the Intelligent Design fraternity, I am writing to you on a most urgent matter.  It has been brought to our attention that a most noxious piece of misinformation is at this very moment being displayed on this worldwide web-footed newfangled internetted thing.  The address, so my younger son, Hiram. T. the second, tells me is http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/0_0_0/evo_32.  (I am informed that no postage stamp is required to reach this address) The pernicious information reads: -

‘This is why “need”, “try”, and “want” are not very accurate words when it comes to explaining evolution.  The population or individual does not “want” or “try” to evolve, and natural selection cannot try to supply what an organism “needs.”’

I repeat, doubtless as much to your disbelief as to mine:-

Natural selection cannot try to supply what an organism “needs.”

We ask you, Professor Moore, as one of our most prestigious supporters to use your considerable authority in the scientific community to get this blatant lie, this false fact, removed, before it perverts the minds of our innocent youth and upsets the delicate mental balance of our fine womenfolk.  As you demonstrated convincingly in your brilliant, scintillating prose, natural selection does fulfil needs.  That is why, as you proved beyond doubt, that natural selection “needs” an Intelligent Designer.

It is my belief that this Berkeley dot edu place is a communistic front organisation for the AAT.  Those initials mean, so Hiram T. the second, tells me, Arise Antichrist Today.

Devil Darwin has been dead for a long time.  It’s time he was buried.

The Ultra (for and on behalf of Elder Hiram T. the first.)

The argument between Moore the presumed naturalist and myself the ultra-Darwinian continued across cyberspace for a while until he decided, still holding on to his original views, that the matter of natural selection was closed.

 One must admire the unyielding determination with which Mr. Moore hangs on to his misunderstanding of natural selection. A man of lesser resolution would have been easily persuaded by the arguments of Dr. Gould and Professor Eldredge to a clear appreciation of the process.  Jim Moore even disdains the views of the scientist with whose work he is most closely associated. 

In her book ‘On Becoming Human’, as well as thanking him for his encouragement and advice,   Professor Nancy Makepeace Tanner lists Jim Moore amongst those who ‘read all or part of the manuscript at various stages’. On page 161 of the book the professor defines natural selection:

‘The measure of natural selection is reproductive success (Dobzhansky 1970). The crux of the matter is how many offspring survive for any given female or male, rather than the number of copulations or number of infants born per se.

On page 162 Tanner observes:

‘…..it should be pointed out that the human potential for at least limited altruism – in the sense of mothers consistently sharing food with young – must have been strongly selected for during this period of transition to humanity.

In both extracts Tanner describes natural selection in positive terms.  The ‘crux’ of the matter, according to Tanner, is reproduction – giving birth to healthy young is perhaps the most positive of all life’s characteristics.  The crux of natural selection is not, as Moore would have you believe ’lopping off those that really don’t work well’. For Tanner natural selection is about giving life; for Moore it is about causing death. And according to Larry Moran’s definition of ultra-Darwinism - features must have arisen by positive selection "for" something according to the ultra-Darwinian position – in using the phrase ‘strongly selected for’ Tanner shows herself to be an ultra-Darwinian.

   But undeterred by the views of all these eminent scientists, our unwavering Jim meanders on.  He knows that he is right; like the proud mother who whilst watching her cadet son marching at the military academy, turns to her neighbour and remarks: ‘Look!  They’re all out of step but my Jim!”

After giving an accurate definition of natural selection in his ‘scientific critique’, Moore could then have briefly described genetic drift, or neutral selection, and concluded with the following extract from Wikipedia:

The effect of genetic drift is larger in small populations, and smaller in large populations. Vigorous debates wage among scientists over the relative importance of natural selection versus neutral processes, including genetic drift. Ronald Fisher held the view that genetic drift plays at the most a minor role in evolution, and this remained the dominant view for several decades. In 1968 Motoo Kimura rekindled the debate with his neutral theory of molecular evolution, which claims that most instances where a genetic change spreads across a population (although not necessarily changes in phenotypes) are caused by genetic drift.

Undaunted Jimbo marches on, eyes to the front, ready to tangle with the fearsome crocodiles, or ‘crocs’ as he prefers to call them.  Research indicates that swimmers can increase their speed through the water by shaving off their body hair. The increase is minimal, Moore assures his readers, and will be of no significance when compared to the speed of the hungry predatory crocodile. ‘At any rate,’ Moore concludes ‘the speed isn’t nearly enough; sharks and crocs would literally have an Olympic swimmer for lunch in a contest for swimming speed.’

In response, Algis Kuliukas, helpful as ever, pointed out to Moore that in evolutionary terms the contestants in this speed swimming event would not be the croc versus the aquatic ape; but between the apes swimming for dear life to avoid becoming luncheon meat for the crocodile.  In this race for life the faster swimming apes, no matter how small their superiority would be the ones most likely to survive.  Jim Moore is not impressed by this kindly advice; he pontificates authoritatively:

There are several problems with this assumption. One is that what he describes is seen only in animals which form extremely large herds or schools (unlike any ape/hominid groups) and/or which are not incredibly slow compared to their potential predators (unlike us versus crocs or sharks). Another is that, as my section on aquatic predators explains in detail, these aquatic predators are rarely seen until they have already struck -- in the vast majority of cases, fleeing never comes into the picture.

The sceptical reader will note that Mr. Moore provides no evidence whatsoever for his

assertion that ‘what he describes is seen only in animals which form extremely large herds or schools (unlike any ape/hominid groups) and/or which are not incredibly  slow compared to their potential predators. It may be that Moore thinks no evidence is required because such a statement is self evident.  To me what is self evident is that our Jim, certainly not for the first time and likely not for the last, is talking a load of pristine codswallop.

In order to maintain its coherence and avoid a chaotic breakdown with animals being trampled under-hoof, when a large herd moves at speed the individual members must travel at a uniform rate.  Any slight variation in speed between its constituent members is nullified by the speed of the adjacent animals.  The faster animals, being hemmed in by the herd, can move no faster than the slower animals ahead.  In this situation the animals most vulnerable to predation are those that become detached from the herd. 

In a BBC documentary a herd of wildebeest was filmed crossing a river. The commentary pointed out that the waiting predatory crocodiles were more likely to attack an isolated wildebeest than to venture into the maelstrom of threshing hooves presented by the packed swimming herd.  So contrary to Moore’s unfounded assertion, what Kuliukas describes is very much relevant to small bands of animals such as ‘ape/hominid groups’.  Yet again carpetbagger Jim is peddling false facts.  Since Algis cannot convince the intransigent Moore; let Dawkins, the ultra-Darwinian, do his best;

On page 383 of ‘The Greatest Show on Earth’ Richard Dawkins writes:

‘Second – and this is a point that Darwin himself knew well – the equipment for running fast is used to outrun rivals of the same species who are fleeing from the same predator …..When a cheetah chases a herd of gazelles, it may be more important for an individual gazelle to outrun the slowest member of the herd than to outrun the cheetah.’

Dawkins then quotes the joke about the running shoes and the bear:

Two hikers are pursued by a bear. One hiker runs away, the other stops to put on his running shoes. ‘Are you mad? Even with those running shoes, you can’t outrun a grizzly.’ ‘No, but I can outrun you.’

Moore is unwilling, or perhaps unable, to appreciate that a race in real time between one ape and a pursuing crocodile (in which speed trial the ape would certainly end up not on the winner’s podium but in the croc’s stomach) is different from a race in evolutionary time when a number of apes are racing against each other to escape from a faster predator.  In the latter case, so Darwinians argue, the faster crocodiles would catch the slower apes.  Such a process, repeated over many generations (the slowest in both groups being at a disadvantage) would, so the argument continues, result in both predator and prey increasing their average speeds.   This concept is often described as an ‘arms race’.

If I may borrow Moore’s literary style for a moment, crocs seem to be one of his faves. It may be that his maternal grandma saw a man with crocodile skin shoes doing something nasty in the woodshed.  Whatever the reason, I get the impression that he regards the fearsome crocodile as leaving the AAT dead in the water.  Any hominid foolish enough to adopt a semi aquatic lifestyle would of a certainty, Jim Moore seems to assure his readers, be gobbled up in very short order. Crocs administer the coup de grace,   So let Elaine Morgan get back to her TV plays and allow Jim Moore and his fellow (and fellowette, if that is the correct feminine version of fellow – we must be careful not to offend our Jim; he is something of a feminist) his fellow and fellowette scientists to get back to their Bunsen burners and other scientific things.

In one of his postings, J.D. Moore makes the following claim:

Now, as I have pointed out many many times in the past, it is
certain that some early hominids would be killed by land predators,
just as some chimpanzees are. But we see that chimpanzees survive nevertheless, and so prove that survival in a land environment can be done. This provides us with a model for how early hominids could have done so. We see *no remotely appropriate model* in an aquatic environment -- nothing with remotely similar attributes to early hominids. Nothing.

Nothing? Nasalis larvatus must be looking down his impressive nose with a certain disdain at being dismissed as ‘nothing’.

Surfing the web reveals the following information:-
The Proboscis monkey's lifestyle is both arboreal and amphibious, with its mangrove swamp and riverine environment containing forest, dry land, shallow water allowing wading, and deep water requiring swimming. Like other similar monkeys, the Proboscis monkey climbs well. It is also a proficient swimmer, often swimming from island to island, and has been picked up by fishing boats in open ocean a mile from shore. While wading, the monkey uses an upright posture, with the females carrying infants on their hip. Troops have been filmed continuing to walk upright, in single file, along forest trails when they emerge on land, the only non-human mammal, with the exception of gibbons and giant pangolinsm known to use this form of locomotion for any length of time,

The false gavial (a very large crocodilian, consistently reaching 5 to 6 meters (16 -20ft) in length), is a major predator of proboscis monkeys and has been seen taking adult males and immature individuals from low branches over water (Galdikas 1985; Yeager 1989b; 1991). Another predator is the clouded leopard (Neofelis nebulosa) which has also been seen attacking the monkeys, especially immature individuals (Kern 1964; Matsuda et al. 2008a). In mid-1992, a clouded leopard with a freshly killed adult male proboscis monkey was seen and photographed (J. C. Prudente pers comm. cited in Boonratana 1993). Monitor lizards and pythons are potential predators, as well as estuarine crocodiles (Crocodylus porosus), and crested serpent eagles (Spilornis cheela) all of which can potentially take infants and young juveniles (Yeager 1989b; 1991; Sebastian 2000). When crossing rivers, the species will do so at narrows or areas where the crossing can be completed arboreally, possibly to avoid predation (Yeager 1991; Matsuda et al. 2008b).

Until recently very little has been known about the diet or behavior of the false gharial within the wild, but thanks to some research on the part of biologists details are slowly being revealed. It has come to the attention of biologists that the false gharial's diet is much more varied than they had originally thought. Until now the false gharial was thought to have a diet similar to its relative the true gharial, i.e. only fish and very small vertebrates, but new evidence and occurrences have proven that the false gharial's broader snout has enabled larger individuals to prey on larger vertebrates including Proboscis monkeys, long-tailed macaques, deer and fruit bats.  At the end of 2008, a ±4 m female false gharial attacked and swallowed a fisherman in central Kalimantan whose remains were found in the gharial's stomach.

So why little Jim, despite these predators, coming at it from land sea and air, is old shnozzle Larvatus still with us?  

Let us imagine Dai Jones, proud Welshman, amateur scrum-half and TV playwright.  Having acquired an interest in matters evolutionary, he writes a book entitled ‘The Savannah Chimp Theory’.  In it he argues that the chimpanzee, a purely arboreal creature living exclusively in the jungle, had a terrestrial episode early in its evolution.  There, according to the SCT, having to forage over longer distances for its scarcer foods, it learned to walk bipedally and use tools. Then it returned to the trees and readapted to its former lifestyle, retaining only the scars of its terrestrially acquired adaptations.  Now if, when discussing the SCT/H on the internet, he was asked how these little primates would have fared against the fearsome carnivorous predators prevalent on the plains, he had replied that the little primate would simply pick up a stick and wave it at the big hungry cat causing the scared predator to turn tail and run away, it is likely that Dai Jones, his little stick-waving chimp and his SCT/H would have been regarded as some light-years beyond the stretch of credibility.  The discussion would then have turned to deciding the best way to get Dai transferred to a secure institution where he could do no harm to himself or others.

The lesson is, little Jim, that speculation should be entered into with some trepidation and well tempered with a large measure of humility.  It is a foolish speculator who claims that a creature about which next to nothing is known could not evolve a strategy to deal with any particular problem.  Moore will remember reading in Tanner’s work:

‘The more intelligent transitional female (remember, it is her offspring who will be most likely to survive) could use her intelligence to select males for copulation.

Presumably the transitional female, intelligent enough to choose the right transitional bloke for a bit of nookie, will stupidly stand around in the water holding her nipper waiting patiently for it to be eaten alive by the first passing crocodilian.   

 

Argumentum ad hominem ad nauseum   

Intrigued by the idea of an aquatic ape, the curious web surfer drawn to Mr. Moore’s website might be surprised to find that this ‘scientific critique’ is as much concerned with attacking its proponents as it is with criticising the hypothesis.  This type of argument has long been recognised as inadmissible and is often described by its Latin tag ‘argumentum ad hominem’.

The following definition is taken from the website: www.c2.com/cgi/wiki?AdHominem

An argumentum ad hominem is any kind of argument that criticizes an idea by pointing something out about the people who hold the idea rather than directly addressing the merits of the idea. ''Ad hominem'' is Latin for "directed toward the man (as opposed to the issue at hand)". An alternative expression is "playing the man and not the ball".
Ad hominem attacks are ultimately self-defeating. They are equivalent to admitting that you have lost the argument.

Jim Moore wastes little time before setting out on this ultimately self defeating course. On its first page in the section entitled ‘Examining the facts: A necessary process of science’ the reader of his website is informed: 

Elaine Morgan was posting regularly in the sci.anthropology.paleo newsgroup, and claimed to be willing to supply references for her written AAT/H claims, but she proved to be reluctant to provide these references to people who have a past history of actually reading the source and reporting back what it really says. Others -- who didn't engage in this sort of "anti-social" behavior -- reported they have no problem getting references from Morgan.

Even if this allegation is true – Moore supplies no supporting evidence - the matter of Elaine Morgan’s reluctance to supply her references to him is, when considering the aquatic ape hypothesis, a complete distraction.  It is also surprising in a section entitled ‘Examining the facts’, that no facts, no quotations from her regular postings, are supplied to substantiate the allegation.  The unsubstantiated accusation being totally irrelevant means that it is no more than an attempted slur on the character of Mrs. Morgan.  But perhaps the most breathtaking example of Moore’s debilitating addiction to ad hominem is the following extract from ‘A brief critique of Morgan’s 1997 book ‘The Aquatic Ape Hypothesis’:

This first happened during the olden (mid 1990) sci.anthropology.paleo days, when Elaine showed up and people tried to point out to her the many areas where her work fell short of, well, accuracy. When folks in the newsgroup also pointed out that her ideas were more properly called a hypothesis, she took it as a massive insult and an ad hominem attack (she called it a "new anti-AAT ploy"), and railed against the people who pointed out the difference between "theory" and "hypothesis". It seems she figured, like most lay people, that "hypothesis" means something like "crummy theory". It doesn't (for the differences, click here).

In truth what Elaine Morgan wrote in sci.anthropology.paleo is:

"I've noted two new anti-AAT ploys.  One is to rename it AAH or AAS.  No hassle.  A rose by any other name.  Personally I'll stick to AAT because I'm used to it, but the other terms are equally accurate.  Like any other attempt to explain the difference between apes and humans, it is of course a hypothesis.  It is of course speculative."

The reasonable reader will, I think, allow a certain discrepancy between Elaine Morgan’s actual comment: ‘it is of course a hypothesis’ and Jim Moore’s paraphrase: ‘...she took it as a massive insult and railed against the people who pointed out the difference between “theory” and “hypothesis”.  It is worth noting how Elaine Morgan is here relegated to the ignorant laity, whilst our Jim, with his endearing lack of modesty, seemingly elevates himself to the scientific elite.

It is also worth pointing out how Moore reveals yet again his ignorance of the ad hominem fallacy.  Morgan called it a ‘new anti-AAT ploy’; meaning that in her opinion it was a new stratagem against the AAT and not a ‘massive’ personal insult.  Had she regarded it as an ad hominem attack she would have described it as a ‘new anti-Morgan ploy.’

In his website Moore refutes the allegation that he indulges in the ad hominen fallacy:

I've also noticed a criticism that I simply engage in ad hominem attacks on AAT/H proponents, in particular Elaine Morgan. This is a peculiarly funny sort of criticism, since it is in itself a variation of an ad hominem attack, that is, instead of attacking the accuracy of what I'm saying, it attacks how I say it. This is a classic logical fallacy, one of several that AAT/H proponents often engage in -- there's a link to a site on logical fallacies on my links page. The thing is, I go after the accuracy of what these people say, and, yes, I have an aggressive style.  But pointing out that someone made an error, or altered a quote, or said that a scientist said one thing when they actually said the opposite, is not an ad hominem attack. Frankly, it's doing them an enormous favor, as Carl Sagan stated in that quote. (This does, of course, assume they're trying to do a good, accurate job at what they're saying.) It may not sit well with everyone, but quite frankly, I find it really annoying when good science is taken to task for not accepting a theory which is so full of holes and mistruths, and which is argued for so dishonestly. And, by the way, not only are honest scientists harder on each other than I am on Morgan, Verhaegen et al., any honest scientist is harder on their own work than I am on Morgan, Verhaegen et al.

To Moore’s already established ignorance of natural selection, his inability to distinguish the record of evolution from the mechanism proposed by Charles Darwin and his confusion over the relative speed of crocodiles and swimming apes in evolutionary terms, can now be added a complete misunderstanding of the meaning of ‘argumentum ad hominem’. 

When Moore claims ‘pointing out that someone made an error, or altered a quote, or said that a scientist said one thing when they actually said the opposite, is not an ad hominem attack’, he is, of course, quite correct. Such comments are quite legitimate and if Moore limited himself to such observations he would not be accused of the ad hominem fallacy.  But he does not so restrain himself. For example, in being reluctant to provide him with her references, what error has Morgan committed?  What quote has she altered? Which scientist has she misquoted? And when he claims - The thing is, I go after the accuracy of what these people say – he neglects to add that he also goes after the character of ‘these people’

‘These people’ include more than the proponents of AAH. The following comments are derived from Moore’s ‘Notes on BBC Radio 4 program’.

Of Philip Tobias (Professor Emeritus at the University of the Witwatersrand and, according to Wikipedia, one of the world's leading authorities on the evolution of humankind) Mr. Moore writes:

- This may sound odd, but anthropology is very fragmented and Tobias, as a “bones and stones guy”, doesn’t necessarily keep up with the rest of anthro theory.  He should before spouting off on it, of course, but not everyone wants to do that work on top on (sic) their own speciality – it isn’t easy after all.

But Moore hasn’t finished with the appalling ignorance of Professor Tobias:

-it demonstrates that Tobias incorrectly thinks that paleoanthropological theories were environmentally deterministic and it shows that he just wasn't familiar with the work done in that area for some 25 years. Of course it wasn't his specialty -- but you'd think he'd have paid a little attention to it.

It is easy to forget, at least Moore finds it easy to forget, that this onslaught against lazy ignorance is directed at a bones and stones guy who has been awarded the Balzan Prize for Physical Anthropology (1987) and the Charles R. Darwin Lifetime Achievement Award of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists (1997). 

Perhaps Mr. Moore should write an aggressive letter to the American Association of Physical Anthropologists demanding they retrieve their  1997 Lifetime Achievement Award  from this idle South African paleoanthropologist who  had not bothered to familiarise himself with the scientific work that had been “done in that area for 25 years”.

Having put the ignorant Tobias firmly in his place, Moore then turns to the ignorant Attenborough:

….here Attenborough is using a rhetorical trick, either because he’s ignorant or he’s deliberately trying to make a connection in people’s minds to make Wegener’s opponents seem, well, irrational…..

It seems the much respected Sir David is not alone in being either ignorant or deliberately trying to make Wegener’s opponents seem irrational.  Stephen Jay Gould is equally guilty.  In “Ever Since Darwin” (pages 160 – 167) he writes:

During the period of nearly universal rejection, direct evidence for continental drift - that is, the data gathered from rocks exposed on our continents – was every bit as good as it is today…Since drift seemed absurd in the absence of a mechanism, orthodox geologists set out to render the impressive evidence for it as a series of unconnected coincidences …. In 1932, the famous American geologist Bailey Willis invoked “isthmian links” – narrow land bridges flung with daring abandon across 3,000 miles of ocean….The only common property shared by all these land bridges was their utterly hypothetical status; not an iota of direct evidence supported any one of them.  Yet, lest the saga of isthmian links be read as a warped fairy tale invented by dogmatists to support an untenable orthodoxy, I point out that to Willis, Schuchert, and any right-thinking geologist of the 1930s, one thing legitimately seemed ten times as absurd as imaginary land bridges thousands of miles long – continental drift itself.

It seems very clear that in the opinion of Stephen Gould as well as in that of David Attenborough the opponents of Wegener seem, well, irrational.  That is the whole point of Gould’s article:

‘Facts do not “speak for themselves”; they are read in the light of theory. Creative thought, in science as much as in the arts, is the motor of changing opinion.  Science is a quintessentially human activity, not a mechanized, robotlike accumulation of objective information, leading by laws of logic to inescapable interpretation.’

If I understand Moore’s argument, and it is a big IF, he is at pains to uncouple all connections between the AAH and continental drift. Although the scientific establishment, despite the impressive evidence in its favour, dismissed as pure fantasy the whole idea that continents could move, Moore correctly points out that Wegener was eventually proven correct in his belief that the continents were once united.  Wegener was demonstrably wrong, however, in the mechanism he suggested for the break up of that great land mass.  Wegener’s contemporaries, however, did not make that distinction. The established geologic community did not accept the impressive evidence that the continents of the new world and the old were once conjoined and reject only Wegener’s proposed mechanism.  They dismissed as absurd the whole notion, lock, stock and irrational barrel, that continents could move.

The problem with the AAT/H is not the what happened part; both the AAT/H and the rest of paleoanthropology agree that hominids evolved from a hominoid ancestor. The AAT/H is not offering a new idea there. The new idea the AAT/H offers is in the mechanism for this evolution, and it's in the mechanism that the AAT/H, like just Wegener's theory, falls flat.
the theoretical difference isn't in what happened (hominids evolving from an hominoid ancestor), but in the mechanism for it. The mechanism (an aquatic past) is the different special thing the AAT/H brings to the table.

In a thought process that can best be described as overstrained, Moore classifies ‘an aquatic past’ as a mechanism.   To my Darwinian way of thinking, the only process in evolution deserving to be described as a ‘mechanism’ is natural selection. (On page one of ‘On Becoming human’ Nancy Makepeace Tanner writes: ‘Darwin suggested a mechanism – natural selection – to explain evolutionary change.) It is a statement of the obvious that hominids evolved from hominoid ancestors – they could hardly do otherwise; but, more pertinently, AAT and the rest of paleoanthropology agree that hominids evolved from a pre-hominoid ancestor they shared with the chimpanzee…..but…

…at this point it becomes clear that we, Moore’s naïve readers, are being hustled aboard his train of thought.  It is, as trains of thought go, the slow stopping line to ‘Much Verbiage’ for ‘Little Purpose’. It is time for us to pull the emergency cord, pay the fine and leave the pointless railway.

There is nothing to be gained from comparing AAT with Continental Drift.  The latter is relevant only as an example of how the scientific establishment, perhaps the most rational of communities, can reject out of hand the same evidence that decades later it accepts as irrefutable. They not only threw the baby out with the bathwater; they dismantled the bath and threw that out as well. It is the hope of the AAT proponents that the day will likewise come when their arguments will no longer be classified, to quote PZ Myers, as a fringe theory (which, it not currently being in the scientific mainstream, is a fair description); but, like continental drift, will become the new orthodoxy. Time will tell.        

Returning to Moore’s review of Morgan’s ‘The Naked Darwinist’, the difficulty in writing a commentary on this, as of all his writing, is that it is full of confused contradictions.  Consider:

….human body hair is arranged, along with human style sweating, is an immense aid in cooling in a hot, dry, relatively open area, allowing the use of that environment at times when other animals find it difficult, or even effectively impossible, to utilize it. So Wheeler, using accurate descriptions of our body hair and sweating abilities, was able to show how our hair and sweat characteristics would be an advantage in dry hot areas, and observations from cultural anthropologists show how this was indeed effective, for instance in persistence hunting -- also very briefly, "chasing antelope or other game in the midday heat, often for hours, until the animals overheat and collapse" (quote from Natural History magazine);

In this remarkable passage, Moore seems to accept Professor Wheeler’s argument that human evolution occurred in ‘a hot, dry, relatively open area’.  Furthermore that our ‘hair and sweat characteristics’ were determined by those environmental conditions; an example of what Moore would describe as an environmentally deterministic theory.

But yet in his analysis of Professor Tobias’ ignorance he states:

-it demonstrates that Tobias incorrectly thinks that paleoanthropological theories were environmentally deterministic and it shows that he just wasn't familiar with the work done in that area for some 25 years. Of course it wasn't his specialty -- but you'd think he'd have paid a little attention to it.

And again, the hot, dry, relatively open area, in which our hair and sweating characteristics evolved and on which Wheeler’s theory depends, seemingly also meets with Moore’s approval.  This environment, conveniently described as the savannah, in which, according to Wheeler, we evolved is, with Moore’s agreement, defined as ‘hot and dry and relatively open’. This approval is in sharp contrast to Moore’s reaction when Elaine Morgan uses a similar definition.  Moore writes in his review of ‘The Aquatic Ape Hypothesis’:

In chapter one Morgan sets right to work on a favorite technique of hers, constructing a savannah strawman

Although savannahs by definition are woodlands, and can be either dry or wet, Morgan's "savannah" is always an arid, treeless plain.   

One of the ways Morgan constructs her strawman is seen on pg. 16 where, referring to the fossil "Lucy", she says: "She did not die in a savannah habitat, but in a wooded and well watered area", contrasting "savannah" and "wooded and well watered", which is an incorrect contrast. This isn't a new technique for her; it's a staple in her work, for example, in her 1995 book, The Descent of the Child, she refers on pg. 158 to the "scorching heat of the open plains, the meagre vegetation, and the scarcity of water." Many other examples can be found in her books, articles, and online posts.

There ensues a turgid paragraph of outraged denunciation of which the following is an example:

Her continuing with this wrong view, therefore, seems dishonest, although one can't be entirely sure it isn't just incredibly bad research on her part. But either way -- whether dishonest or incredibly poor research -- it doesn't make sense to insist that people accept an implausible theory based on it. It's also rather mean-spirited to take advantage of lay people's unfamiliarity with the subject by feeding them "false facts".

So far from being a mean-spirited ‘false fact’, Elaine Morgan’s assertion that the savannah was once defined by science as being hot and dry is neither dishonest nor the consequence of incredibly poor research but, on the contrary, is here endorsed by Professor Peter Wheeler and clearly, if no doubt unintentionally, by Jim Moore himself.

In his review of Morgan’s ‘The naked Darwinist’, Moore comments in reference to her claim that the scientific concept of ‘savannah’ changed in the 1990’s:

Or is it as if in recognition of the generally accepted meaning of "savanna" in science for well over a century (since 1872), as mentioned on my page on "Definition of savannah".

If as he claims, and has been claiming for decades with tiresome repetitiveness, that the savannah is the sort of place advertised in Holiday Brochures – idyllic temperate grasslands with shady copses of luxuriant trees and streams of sparkling crystal waters, an ideal family camping site – why is he not dismissing Professor Wheelers hypothesis as bulls- -t based upon a straw man version of the savannah? If Moore is right, then Wheeler’s hypothesis was bulls--t when he concocted it.  Why then did the scientific community so readily accept this badly researched straw man nonsense from someone who obviously had not kept up with the work done in that area since 1872?

As further evidence of Moore’s utter confusion consider the following contradiction. Having endorsed Wheeler’s contention that both the disposition of our hair and our sweat characteristic were determined by a hot, dry environment (that is they were produced by natural selection), our Jim then explains in order to contradict Morgan:

many of the features she seeks to explain via natural selection -- hair, sweat, fat -- are classic cases of sexual selection.

I rest my case.

               
The accusation that the ‘hot, dry savannah’ is a contrivance, a straw man argument invented by that devious writer, Elaine Morgan, for the sole purpose of knocking it down, has a long history.  The controversy was played out in the sci.anthropology.paleo during the 1990’s.  Here is Elaine Morgan’s response:

The other [ploy] is the charge that AAT constructs a "straw man" in the shape
of the late savannah theory and attacks it because it is easier to
demolish than the more solid and unassailable scenario which has
replaced it. Rubbish.
AAT's case against the savannah theory as presented in the 50's and
60's was not that it did not accurately represent the ecological
condition in Africa at the time of the split. We now know that it was
in fact inaccurate but neither side knew it then. The argument was that
even if it was accurate, it failed to explain the main physiological
differences between apes and humans i.e. it cannot be predicted that an
ape moving to the grasslands would become naked and bipedal.
Now look at the new improved model. Nobody questions it is solider and
more unassailable as a true picture of the then environment. The
question is whether it is less or more successful at explaining our
physiology. The "straw man" gibe implies it is so much more successful
that AAT cringes from the prospect of challenging it and scuttles back
to the easier practice of attacking the late lamented savannah theory.
That is the reverse of the truth. Savannah Mosaic is not more but less
successful at explaining anything. The old ST claimed the hominids
became different because they moved to a radically and dramatically
different environment. It turned out not to be true, but at least it
sounded highly plausible.
Now the theory is that hominids diverged through living in an
environment that was only marginally different from other anthropoids.
They were still arboreal for part of, or most of, the time. No reason
has been suggested why they would not have continued to interbreed with
other arboreal offspring of the last common ancestor.
There has been no overt recognition that any of the explanations
offered by the old savannah theory have been weakened or need to be
abandoned or replaced. Wheeler's noonday ape theory continues to be
trotted out for lack of anything newer or better, as an explanation of
bipedalism although its raison d'etre has been fatally undermined. The
new scenario, even as presented by Wheeler himself, assumes the first
hominids not merely might have, but actually, did retire to the shade
for a mid-day siesta.
The supposedly unassailable new model theory offers exactly the same
explanations as the old one - nothing new at all - but it attributes
them to the necessity of occasionally crossing the open spaces between
one patch of forest and the next. It apparently assumes that one
subsection of the l.c.a. made a habit of crossing the open glades
while the others stayed at home; and that they remained from the
beginning genetically isolated from the tree-dwellers they left behind
and the other tree-dwellers they encountered in the next patch of
forest. It assumes that these excursions turned them into naked bipeds.
If it was hard to believe that a life of obligatorily scavenging a
meagre living on the savannah on a full-time basis would do that,
it is very much harder to believe that life in savannah mosaic would do
it. AAT has no need to attack obsolete straw men when the latest
version is even more insubstantial, in terms of its explanatory power,
than its predecessor.
Elaine

Here, in her typically lucid manner, Morgan knocks out cold Moore’s ‘straw man’ accusation. But, in his typically obdurate manner, Moore, lacking any more effective argument, continues to use it and will doubtless carry on using it until the proverbial cows come home.

Returning to the ‘Naked Darwinist’:-  

Morgan, on page 9, starts to make a good point about the effect of specialization on studies of human evolution, but she immediately goofs there too, because she doesn't seem to understand that one big problem with looking at things that don't fossilize, which historically is most or all of what the AAT/H has been built on, you need to be able to test and investigate your hypotheses if you want them to be more than idle speculation... you know, like barroom conversations.

We are back in the barroom, ladies and gentlemen.  It’s been a hard day’s night so a pint of Newcastle Brown and a packet of salt and vinegar crisps for everyone.  This round’s on Jim. You’re a gentleman Jim! Cheers! And there’s Old Mad Mother Morgan, with her port and lemon and a plateful of Welsh rarebit, sitting at her corner table scribbling her nonsense; muttering to herself as she dots the t’s and crosses the i’s :  “There’s another little darling false fact, just to annoy that miserable Yankee bugger”.

As a self-elected member of the scientific elite Jim Moore seems to look down again on Elaine Morgan as an uppity member of the uneducated laity.  She has goofed once more it seems; but I, as another goof stricken uppity layman, am puzzled by ‘the one big problem she doesn’t seem to understand’.

By making a distinction between hypotheses which are based on physical objects, in this case fossils, and those which, according to Jim Moore, have no such foundation, he appears to be pointing out the difference between the empirical and the rational way of thinking. Empiricism is the philosophy proposed by three great Britons: the Englishman John Locke (who, according to Bertrand Russell, invented common sense); the Irishman George Berkeley (who assured his students that the tree growing in the University quadrangle existed only when it was being observed; and that though there are abstract words there are no abstract ideas); and finally the Scotsman David Hume (the greatest intellect in Europe, who took the philosophy to its logical bleak conclusion of solipsism).  Empiricists believe that all knowledge derives initially from sensory experience, things that can be seen, heard, touched, smelled or tasted.  Mr. Moore seemingly contrasts this way of thought with ‘Rationality’.  This depends not upon experience, but is a process contained entirely within the mind, starting with an idea, a statement, or a proposition. Perhaps the most famous of all philosophical statements is Descartes’ ‘cogito ergo sum’ – ‘I think therefore I am’.  Upon this base, without needing to leave the comfort of his armchair, Descartes proceeded to construct the meaning of the universe. (As an empiricist I would challenge the Cartesian dictum. ‘I think therefore I am’ claiming it means no more than that there are ‘thoughts’.  My thinking these thoughts is just one of those thoughts.  ‘I think therefore I think that I am thinking’).   

But all science, as Jim Moore should know, is empirical. All science is based upon experience of the physical world, and the physical world contains much else besides fossils, so it is difficult to understand the differentiation suggested by Mr. Moore.   Are palaeontologists not required to investigate and test their hypotheses?  It is arguable that because Palaeontologists, or ‘stones and bones guys and dolls’ as Jim, in jocular mood, likes to describe them, have only ossified and often partial skeletal remains to study; whereas most other evolutionary speculations, including the AAT and Tanner’s hypothesis, are based upon detailed observations of living creatures - their behaviour, their flesh and blood and fur and feather and now their DNA,- it would seem that, contrary to Moore’s assertion, it is the fossil gatherers who, their ideas being based up on so little,  have as great, if not greater need, to investigate and test their ideas.

As to Mrs. Morgan’s work being idle speculation, she has readily admitted that the AAT is speculative.  Recollect that in her sci.anthropology.paleo posting, she remarked: “Like any other attempt to explain the difference between apes and humans, it is of course a hypothesis.  It is of course speculative."  But, rather than being of the ‘idle’ variety, Elaine Morgan’s speculations - having been argued in a series of books and discussed in numerous radio and television interviews, as well as on the internet - surely deserve to be described as  ‘industrious’.   

Mr. Moore also seems here to be suggesting that Mrs. Morgan has made no attempt to investigate her hypothesis, so making it fit only for barroom conversation; but surely the sole purpose of his website is to refute her investigations; to claim that they are flawed, unscientific and predicated on false facts.  If this is not the purpose of his writing, it is difficult to determine why it is so voluminous.

Incidentally do educated citizens never venture into Master Moore’s barrooms?  Is the conversation there always scientifically illiterate? In the barrooms frequented by Jim Moore, is there a warning sign announcing: ‘Only dimwits and numskulls welcome here!’?

M.I.T

 In the preamble to his writings, Jim Moore lists his qualifications for the undertaking of a scientific critique. However, as the proof of a pudding is in the eating, rather than in the qualifications of the cook; so the quality of Mr. Moore’s arguments is in the reading of his critique.  He requires no qualifications to criticise Elaine Morgan’s writings, any more than I need qualifications to criticise his.

His qualifications being irrelevant, the real function of Moore’s introduction is, I suggest, to reassure the reader as to his integrity.  A quotation from Darwin provides his subtitle as though the great scientist is giving him a posthumous nod of approval.  Carl Sagan is likewise resurrected to give Moore an encouraging pat on the back.  It is as though Mr. Moore wishes to construct in his reader’s mind the image of an alternative M.I.T.  Not the renowned Massachusetts Institute of Technology; but the equally prestigious Moore Institute of Truthfulness. By this image or, perhaps more accurately, mirage, J. D. Moore hopes to persuade his readers to allow their critical faculties to take a siesta; to give their scepticism a soothing sedative.  In this soporific state, whatever Jim Moore asserts, his readers are expected to accept without question because Professor ‘Gentleman Jim’ Moore, Chancellor of the M.I.T. is, like Brutus, an honourable man.

Consider Moore’s account of his first encounter with the AAT:

Quite frankly, when I first read the work done on the AAT/H, I saw some big holes in the reasoning, but I did think that the evidence which was (sometimes) given was probably accurately and fully reported. When I started looking these things up, however, I found that I was wrong on that count -- the AAT/H has proven to be a hotbed of those "false facts" Darwin referred to.

On this site I try to provide references for my statements, and appropriate, unaltered quotes from relevant sources to back up my facts.

Here Jim Moore attempts to establish himself as a man of quick and incisive intellect.  The docile readers are expected to smile admiringly. “You’ve got to give it to Jimbo Moore; it’s not easy to slip a dodgy idea past him!  He can spot a wrong ‘un a mile away!”  But let the readers give their critical faculties a gentle nudge; let their scepticism half open one eye and they might be inclined to ask:  ‘In what publication, quite frankly, did Moore first read the work done on the AAT?  On what page did he see what big holes in what line of reasoning?  These are the unaltered quotes from relevant sources required to back up my facts which Moore ‘tries’ to provide on his site.  One can only conclude that he does not try very hard.

Creationism and the AAT  

In one of his posting Moore adds the following post script:

p.s. Interesting the parallels between the techniques used by
AATers and those of creationists:
From:
1986 *Science and Creation: Geological, Theological and
Educational Perspectives*, edited by Robert W. Hanson.
Issues in Science and Technology Series, American Association for
the Advancement of Science, Macmillan Publishing Company: New
York, Collier Macmillan Publishers: London.
Chapter 7: "A Two-Model Creation versus Evolution Course",
by William M. Thwaites
pg. 95:
"They preferred to intimate that there is something fundamentally
wrong with evolutionary theory and that creationism is the logical
alternative."
Chapter 10: "Skepticism: Another Alternative to Science or
Belief", by Stephen G. Brush
pg. 161:
"...creationists assume that there are only two alternatives,
creation and evolution, so destroying the credibility of evolution
would necessarily enhance that of creationism. Such a strategy
might seem illogical to anyone familiar with the recent
development of scientific theories and with the wide variety of
creationist and evolutionist theories that have been or might be
proposed. It is not possible to establish one theory merely by
criticizing another one."

Along with accusations of misquotations; of false facts; of crocs and straw men, the techniques of creationists seem to play a role in the melodrama of Moore’s antiAAT/H arguments.  When she is not busily brewing a concoction of false facts, raising up an army of straw men, cackling over her wealth ill-gotten from the pockets of the credulous and pretending not to notice the crocodiles eating their way through her tattered hypothesis, Elaine Morgan, the Welsh Witch of Mountain Ash, is then denounced by the Hanging Judge James Moore, the Witchfinder General, as a dabbler in the dark and devious spells of creationists.
One of the techniques of creationist proponents is simple. It is to define natural selection as ‘accidental’.

Page upon page of creationist tracts detail the engineering skills of nature.
 From the booklet ‘Was Life Created?’ published in 2009 by Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Britain:-

Using a brain the size of the tip of a ball point pen, the monarch butterfly migrates up to 3,000 kilometers from Canada to a small patch of forest in Mexico.  This butterfly relies on the sun to help it navigate, and it has the ability to compensate for the movement of the sun across the sky.

The booklet remarks that for DNA to work it has to be copied, read and proofread by a swarm of complex molecular machines called enzymes, which must work together with precision and split-second timing.  It details the strength of the silk of orb-weaving spiders; the 30,000 lenses in the eye of a dragonfly, and so on and so forth until it concludes with the question:   

 Does it seem logical to you to believe that the brilliant engineering evident in nature came about by accident?

By ‘accident, they mean, of course, natural selection. It is a rhetorical question to which the only rational answer is a resounding “No!!”  Creationists and scientists alike, believers and atheists, radicals and traditionalists all agree that ‘accident’ cannot explain the manifest and manifold marvels of nature. The people of faith give the credit to their benevolent, loving God.  Scientists claim that the blind, clumsy, wasteful and cruel engineer is called Natural Selection.

But our scientific critic, our Jim Moore, excludes himself from not only the biblical but also the scientific consensus.  Scientistic though he claims to be, he seemingly puts a comforting arm around the shoulders of the god-fearing and assures them that natural selection is indeed accidental and so is no explanation for the brilliant engineering evident in nature. Remember his definition of natural selection is that Natural selection, in essence, only works “against” the organism; everything “for” it is accidental. The faithful and the faithless both would combine in pointing out the astronomical odds of even one cell of Moore’s body being the result of chance encounters, never mind the three billion odd (very odd) that make up his phenotype.

It is most strange that someone who gives aid and comfort to the creationist camp should accuse others of using creationist tactics.

Another strand of creationist strategy, as Moore’s quotations suggest, is maintaining that there is something fundamentally wrong with evolutionary theory and that creationism is the one and only alternative.  They do not argue for creationism and its strengths so much as against Darwinism and its perceived weaknesses. It is probably this technique that Moore suggests has parallels in the writings of Elaine Morgan. 
It is true that Morgan criticises the orthodox accounts of human evolution. But such criticism is not the main currency, merely the small change, of Morgan’s argument. In her writings she attempts to persuade her readers that the Aquatic Ape Hypothesis is scientifically credible and has great explanatory powers. It is these arguments that Moore, at inordinate length and with tiresome repetitiveness and meagre success, seeks to refute.  After failing in these attempts he now switches direction and implies that she, like creationists, makes no positive claims and is concerned only to attack the received scientific opinion.  If that were the case Moore would have devoted his wasted energies to defending the Mosaic Hypothesis against Morgan’s unrelenting attacks. Here, it must be said in his favour, Moore elevates fatuousness to a fine art.

I

t is Moore’s website that can be described, without too much exaggeration, as an essay in pure negativity.  He does not deny it; he revels in it.  Elaine Morgan makes the point in one of her comments:

  
Only one thing never changes. Jim supplies a million reasons why what I think is wrong. He never has and never will stick his neck out to tell us how he would explain a blind thing about human evolution. With a quarter of the time and work he has put in he could surely have come up with a theory that would knock Hardy's into a cocked hat. What a waste of years and intelligence.

Jim Moore replies:

There are many people writing about human evolution, providing a lot of fascinating and accurate theory-building. I am simply taking one theory, and pointing out its abundance of errors. I can certainly understand why you would prefer I didn't, but my correcting the errors introduced by the theory's authors hardly seems a waste -- indeed, this is an essential part of science. It's the keystone on which science builds. Spending 30 plus years spouting the same disproven false "facts", on the other hand, does seem a waste, but only if one thinks the theorizer was capable of more than that.

p.s. I would have thought a million reasons was enough to sink in. Seems not.

It is a measure of Mrs. Morgan’s charitable nature that she endows Mr. Moore with ‘intelligence’.  Having struggled determinedly through some of his turgid, indigestible, and repetitive writing, I have found little evidence of his ‘intelligence’. Boorishness aplenty; conceit well represented; much to support the old adage: ‘a little knowledge is a dangerous thing’; but if there is any element of intelligence in Moore’s work it is extremely well concealed.

Is a man who holds on to a fallacious definition of ‘natural selection’ even when it has been repeatedly demonstrated to be contradicted by Charles Darwin, Dr. Stephen J. Gould, Professor Nils Eldridge, Professor Nancy Tanner and Professor Richard Dawkins, an intelligent man?

Is a man who, whilst refusing even to reconsider his bizarre misunderstanding of natural selection, then puts himself forward as an authority entitled to instruct others on any and every aspect of evolutionary theory,  an intelligent man?

Is a man who seems to pursue Mrs. Morgan’s every word like some obsessive stalker, an intelligent man? If she converses on BBC radio? Guess who is listening. If she appears on American TV? Yes you can bet he is watching like a hawk. On British TV?  Likewise. If she posts on the internet? You’ve guessed it. If she writes another book, he is round to the library in a flash –

“You here again, Mr. Moore? You’ll be wanting the latest Elaine Morgan of course. We would appreciate if you could avoid frothing at the mouth when you read this one.  The last one came back rather damp.” It is certain that if Mrs. Morgan published her recipe for Welsh cakes, Mr. Moore would be chasing after a copy, complaining that it contained too many false facts and not enough currants.

Is it an intelligent man who assures his readers that Morgan’s statement concerning AAH - ‘it is of course a hypothesis’ – clearly indicates  that Morgan ‘took it as a massive insult and railed against the people who pointed out the difference between “theory” and “hypothesis”?

Mr. Jim Moore may be a highly intelligent man; but if he is, he is a master of disguise.

 DARWIN FOR DUMMIES . 

Knowing, from your previous dissertations, that your fundamental difficulty is in grasping the concept of natural selection, I am, as an aid to your understanding in this matter, sending you herewith, at absolutely no charge, a copy of the first part of my soon to be unpublished work: ‘Darwin for Dummies’. (Unavailable in paperback at Amazon and all failing booksellers).

=============================================================

In trying to understand ‘natural selection’ it is the very term itself which can beguile us into misapprehension. ‘Natural selection’ implies that which we call 'nature' is capable of selecting. To some readers, the implication is that ‘nature’ is an active power; a force that can intervene and effect change. ‘Natural selection’ suggests a discriminator; something able to choose between alternatives; that nature is a perceptive agent capable of favouring some and neglecting others; or, using a common analogy, that it is some kind of sieve, sifting the fit from the unfit.

But nature does none of those things. It doesn't select; it doesn’t sort; it doesn't alter things; it doesn't discriminate, it neither favours nor neglects.  It is not a force, or a power or a colander.  Whatever natural selection is, it is not selection by ‘nature’.

In the first part of 'The Origin of Species' Darwin discusses 'variation under domestication'. In particular he explains how, starting with the rock pigeon,  fanciers have bred, by accumulative selection, an enormous number of diverse varieties – the English carrier, the short-faced tumbler, the runt, the barb, the pouter, the turbit, the Jacobin and many more. Only then does Darwin begin discussion of his real subject:  'variation under nature'.  What follows is one long argument in demonstration of his thesis that the same ‘enormous number of diverse variations’ will be produced by the same  ‘accumulative selection’ without any human control or direction.  So the ‘natural’ in ‘natural selection’ means no more than ‘without human intervention’; and the ‘selection’ refers, as in artificial or domestic breeding, to diminishing, enhancing or modifying particular characteristics.    

If it is not a power, a force or a sieve, what then is nature? When we look about us, discounting any human artifacts, we describe all that we see as 'nature'….(As a digression, it is notable that although we include within the natural world the constructions of all other creatures –the beaver’s dam, the bird’s nest and so forth; we specifically exclude our own works.   The towering mound built by termites is counted as natural; the skyscraper built by humans is not.)

…Be that as it may.  What then is nature? We cannot see nature itself; we cannot touch it, neither smell it nor hear it.  We can, for example, see that to which we apply the word ''tree”; we can touch its bark, smell its blossom, taste its fruit and hear its leaves rustle. We can label all that we can see or hear or touch or taste or smell. We have a name, a label, for them all. But where do we affix the label bearing the legend 'nature'?  Nature is a tag with no available hook. It is just a label. Nature, in a word, is a word and no more than a word. If there were no language, there would still exist those things we call trees and birds and clouds and all else that we apprehend with our senses. We could still point them out to our neighbours and see them even in our mind’s eye. But without the word; without the label; ‘nature’ itself would not exist.

But not only do we persuade ourselves to see this mere word as an active force, we then insist on giving it personality. Bountiful Mother Nature who, in benign mood, supplies our needs, makes the sun shine and the birds sing and shakes the darling buds of may; but then turns nasty and sends us malignant hurricanes and droughts and floods and the invisible worm that flies in the night. Or we see nature as the Earth Goddess, a supernatural superstar having dominion over all the flora and fauna. Or even a Blind Watchmaker, who, though slow and clumsy and exceedingly inefficient and though he may sleep through equilibriums of deep time, with only occasional wakeful punctuations, is still a matchless artificer.

So, when we are advised, in accounts of evolution, that Mother Nature has no goal, that she has no end in view, doesn't know where she is going until she reaches her destination, indeed never gets to a destination because she is always on the move to some place other than where she is; then small wonder that some are confused by words like 'improvement'. By what standard is the improvement judged when nature is always on the move to it doesn’t know where? If this blind watchmaker has no inkling as to what he is making, how can he tell whether what he is working on today is an improvement on his yesterday's labour? How can this blind artificer select anything useful when, as ultra Darwinians insist, he is indifferent as to what he is making?

Let us begin to resolve the confusion by accepting that which we call nature is the consequence of 'natural selection' and is not complicit in its operation. If not nature then what does motivate the process? Those who here shut their eyes, put their palms together and exclaim “god almighty” will be politely, but firmly, shown the door. If they won’t go quietly they will be slung out on their ears; we ultra Darwinians have a mean streak when it comes to mystical myth mongers. But if neither the almighty nor nature is its cause, then what is responsible for that which Darwin called 'natural selection'?

Given certain conditions, natural selection will happen because it must happen. It has occurred here and will continue to do so; it has occurred and will continue to occur in the universe wherever and whenever the necessary conditions exist. But what conditions? The first requirement is a self replicating entity; a something, a transient rather than immortal something, able to make copies of itself. We associate this property with living organisms; but elsewhere there may be inorganic constructs with the same capability. Then these self replicators require something finite outside themselves in order to function. This necessary resource, or resources, will therefore, being finite, impose a limit on the numbers of replicators.  And finally these self replicators, though extremely efficient, are subject to the same occasional errors as seems inherent in all copying processes.

It will be then that the copies made by the occasional imperfect copy will, because the copying process is, in the main, extremely accurate, include that same imperfection.  The imperfection, that is to say, will persist through successive copies. Now because the process must begin with a successful replicator, all imperfections will, more likely than not, result in a less successful replicator. But amongst the imperfect copies, one will emerge, given sufficient time, that makes it, not less, but better able to make copies of itself.

Let us suppose a population of beautiful golden replicators limited, by the availability of resources, to ten in number.  Each of these glorious entities, with movements to enrapture a balletomane, can produce one copy of itself before declining elegantly into glittering gold dust.  There will be a stable Arcadian population of the graceful, gilded ten. Now suppose into one golden generation there comes into being, by a grievous copying error, a smaller, clumsy replicator which is not of glorious gilt but of a muddy green. As well as its dowdy colour, clumsiness and unpleasant smell, this oddity has the unique ability to make two copies of itself before dissolving into a grubby, festering mess. So the generation following the emergence of this dwarf stinking drab, will consist of nine golden individuals and two muddies.  But of the eleven, only ten can survive. If the excess individual is eliminated by a roll of the dice, it is likely, by the rule of probability, to be one of the nine golden creatures rather than one of the two muddies.  But even if a muddy is culled, one will remain to ensure that the same elimination will need to take place in succeeding generations until, sooner rather than later, there will come into being a population consisting of eight graceful  goldies and two lumpen, grubby muddies.  Then of course each muddy would beget two copies, so that there would eventually, by the same inescapable logic, come to exist a generation made up of four clumsy green slobs and eight glittering ballerinas.  Two would be eliminated until, eventually, the population was made up of four greens and six golds, And so on and on, and generation after generation, until, inevitably, the population of ten graceful golds would be replaced entirely by ten green blobs.  The beautiful golden ones would be history.  The future would belong to the unpleasant greens; at least until some other copying error saw them in their turn replaced by a more efficient replicator.  And that process, here expressed in crude allegorical terms, is what Darwin described as ‘natural selection’

It would seem somewhat perverse to argue that the mucky-green blobs, malodorous and with atrocious table manners, were an improvement on the courteous, elegant, and fragrant golden dancers.  Natural selection has effected no improvement here it seems. The beautiful has been eliminated by the ugly. Rather than ‘progress’ it could be claimed that a regression had occurred. A backward rather than a forward step. But the process is no more concerned with improvement than it is with deterioration; no more with progress than regress. It proceeds regardless of our concepts of aesthetics or ethics; neither good nor bad, neither better nor worse, neither admirable nor despicable.  The process, as ultra Darwinians never tire of repeating, is blind, aimless and without purpose. 

So, though the process called natural selection does not produce improvements, it certainly depends upon improvements. What cannot be gainsaid is that compared to the golds, the greens had an ‘improved’ replicative ability; they could produce two copies as compared to the golden one. And it is that improvement in reproductive ability which is the concern of the ultra Darwinian. Whilst it is inappropriate to use the term when comparing one replicator with another, or one generation with the next; the term ‘improvement’, or some other synonym, is necessary when describing an altered characteristic which enables its possessor, either directly or indirectly, the better to reproduce itself.

How this simple process, which can be seen as either magnificent or desolate according to one’s humour, applies to the familiar world of plants and animals will be examined in the eagerly awaited second part of ‘Darwin for Dummies’.

The Ultra.

Because it was never satisfactorily completed, the second part of ‘Darwin for Dummies’ remained unpublished and so was never enjoyed by Jim Moore. However in response to the demands of clamouring aficionados here is a rough draft:-  

DARWIN FOR DUMMIES. (Part 2) 

As argued in part one of ‘Darwin for Dummies’, Natural Selection can be explained simply as the inevitable consequence of a difference in breeding rates.  If one individual within a group produces more offspring than the others then, by Darwin’s argument, the characteristics of that individual will spread through the subsequent generations until all the individuals within the group possess those characteristics.

 In any interbreeding group, and it must be understood that natural selection occurs within, and only within, an interbreeding group, the characteristics of the members that beget more offspring will, of necessity, generation after generation, spread with increasing frequency throughout the group.  Eventually the entire group will inherit those characteristics. If, as previously explained, in  some particular  group certain of its members are, for example, green and others golden; and if the greens are more prolific in reproducing themselves, then, sooner or later  the group will become uniformly green and the gilded ones will be things of remembrance past.

The first question that arises from this definition is what qualities or characteristics enable one member of a group to out produce the others? The obvious means is to be more fruitful; to be more procreative.  Indeed, many organisms produce spores, or seeds or eggs in prodigious quantities.  The greater the number so the greater the likelihood that some will survive and develop until themselves capable of replicating.  But if this characteristic is the only difference between members of the group then it follows that members of the group will remain identical in all other respects.  In our allegory of how the more productive greens must inevitably replace their golden compatriots it must now be noted that the green colour is no more than a convenient identifier; a means of dramatising the inevitable change to the group. But if the colour difference is removed and the more prolific replicators are themselves gilded then, apart from their self-copying ability they will be otherwise indistinguishable within the group.   So in neither appearance nor behaviour will the group alter generation after generation.  The golden creatures will simply become more prolific golden creatures.  So it cannot be that this one difference of itself can produce the great diversity abundant in the natural world.

Perhaps because of our own erratic procreative behaviour, we easily overlook the fact that most species produce young at regular intervals. Every so often, commonly every year, self replication occurs with clockwork regularity.  Time after time, year after year individuals produce young.  So, as a general rule, it follows that the longer an individual survives the more copies it will produce.   Productivity can, therefore, be equated with longevity.  We need no longer ask what characteristic enables one member of the group to produce more offspring than any other; but instead ask what characteristic enables that member to survive longer than its kind.  Survival is the name of the Darwinian game; survival, not as an end in itself, but as an opportunity to increase self-replication. If an individual is the supreme example of its kind, if it outlives all others and wins all the available glittering prizes but produces no copies of itself then it is, as far as evolution is concerned, a total waste of space.

   

So what characteristics, physical or behavioural, enables one member of an interbreeding group to survive longer than the others?  The natural world is a compendium of illustrations. Consider, as an example, the predator and its prey; the rabbit and the fox. It will be evident that, when being chased by a fox, the faster running rabbits will be more likely survive than the slower.  And likewise the faster running fox will eat more frequently than the less swift and so be fitter and better able to procreate.  In each generation the number of slower animals will decline; the rabbits because they are eaten; the foxes because they don’t eat enough.  And so, generation after generation, both animal groups will tend to run faster. This mutual improvement is often referred to by Darwinians as an ‘arms race’.

Consider camouflage - the condition that enables an organism, by colouration or patterning, to become indistinguishable from the environment. The more closely an organism resembles its background, the less likely its detection by predators.  Consider the insect that resembles a twig or a leaf – the better the resemblance so the greater the insect’s chance of survival and so the more numerous its offspring.  It is important to understand that the stick insect is not striving to resemble a twig; there is no ‘natural’ force directing the insect to greater twiggyness.  It is that although offspring have an extremely close resemblance to their parents (we do not ordinarily expect elephants to give birth to parakeets) they will differ in some small particulars. If these slight differences increase, in this case, the likeness to a twig or leaf, the fortunate insect has the greater chance of surviving and the greater chance of producing offspring. If however, these slight differences reduce the likeness to the twig, the insect will be more visible to predators and so less likely to survive as long, and procreate as much, as the more twig-like neighbours.  And so as generation succeeds generation, the stick insects that most resemble their twiggy habitat will produce most viable copies of themselves and that particular group of interbreeding insects, supposing the slight variations to continue, will increase in twiggyness.

The Darwinian looks at every organism, every animal and every plant, and assumes that every characteristic, every bodily feature; every instinct has in one way or another helped its forebears to be successful procreators.  As Professor Dawkins has demonstrated in ‘The Extended Phenotype’, such products as the spider’s web and the beaver’s dam are also subject to natural selection.

As attested to by the great library of books devoted to evolution, Darwin’s simple but profound insight, opens up a fascinating vista of endless complexity.

The very ultra-Darwinian

Ubiquitous Aquatic Features

Mr. Moore lists five features common to all aquatic mammals.  The first two are really small ears and short legs:-

1.  Why don't humans have really small ears (or no external ears) like virtually all aquatic mammals?

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2.  Aquatic mammals have shorter legs, or no legs, relative to land-based animals, including their land-based relatives. Early hominids had legs similar in length to our relatives. According to the AAT/H, there was enormous selection pressures that produced massive changes to our skeletons for an aquatic life, and according to the AAT/H, this was due to convergent evolution. Why were our legs, unlike those of other aquatic animals, exempt from convergent evolution?

As a non-scientist member of the uninformed laity, I would hesitantly suggest that humans don’t have small ears or teeny-weeny legs because humans are not aquatic mammals.  Like the elephant we humans are landlubbers.

It is possible that young Jimbo is having some difficulty with his scientific critique of the AET/H; the Aquatic Elephant Theory/Hypothesis.  Unless my varifocal spectacles are in urgent need of replacement, the last elephant I saw had whopping great floppy ears and legs like tree trunks.

The AET/H is being investigated, not by a feisty Welsh playwright but by scientists at the Universities of Melbourne and Oxford; and contested, not by Jim Moore, but by William Sanders of the University of Michigan's Museum of Paleontology.

(From internet ‘Elephant Evolution’).

 Recent Studies (1999) of african elephant fetus indicates that the elephants may have developed from aquatic animals, and that they are closely related to the Sirenia (dugong and manatees), and that the order Proboscidea ("trunkanimals") and the sea cows (Sirenia) must share a common ancestor. Link: The developing renal, reproductive, and respiratory systems of the African elephant suggest an aquatic ancestry (Gaeth, Short, and Renfree, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria 3052, Australia). This suggest that Elephants are not so closely related to hyraxes as was thought before, but definitely close related to Sirenia.

(Extract from National Geographic News dated Thursday October 28 2010)

Yet Sanders cautioned against assuming an aquatic ancestry for modern elephants or even suggesting that all early proboscideans were aquatic. "[Moeritherium is a] very specialized animal that may have been off the main line of evolution from that which led to elephants," he said. The creatures also lived long before the first modern elephants appeared about seven million years ago. Thus Sanders noted that if elephants did have an aquatic past, some 20 million years of terrestrial evolution would have left few traces today.

"A popular myth about elephants, for example, is that their trunk evolved as a sort of snorkel in more aquatic settings," he said.

"The truth is that early proboscideans lacked a projecting proboscis, and that the development of trunks has more to do with the hypertrophy [enlargement] of the tusks and feeding adaptations on land."

Oxford's Liu hopes to tackle such questions by testing the teeth of even more primitive elephants to discover more about when their lifestyle shifts occurred and when the sirenians may have split from their relatives.

He's also intrigued by the possibility that proboscideans will provide the first evidence of terrestrial mammals becoming aquatic and then returning to land.

"The first mammals were terrestrial," he explained.

"For a mammal group to have been terrestrial and then to have moved into an aquatic habitat, as [Moeritherium] seems to have done—and then at some point reverted back from being aquatic, as our data suggest happened—that's a very intriguing possibility."

 A very intriguing possibility indeed.

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