The Issue of Evolution - Part 3
by A. Robert Malcom
One of the difficulties in accepting the issue of evolution, as it applies to humans, besides the ones already mentioned, is the problem of 'seeing' it over the duration of some magnitude - especially since the records of the earlier parts are so few and far between. Consider even the much shorter span of the cultural evolution of the past 10,000 years. As Charles Murray pointed out in his Human Accomplishments, in taking 400 years as a yardstick [1600, 1200, 800, 400, 0, -400, -800, etc.], each preceeding mark yields almost a geometric inversion of knowledge of that era - such that events prior to -800 are so sparce in detail that only eras can be cited, and over longer periods 2 - 4 times the yardstick. How, then, is one to expect much continual evidence of physical changes over the span of not 10,000 but millions of years. In regards to galactic evolution, one can take lab performances and extrapolate principlewise to similar views seen on the galactic scale [see Lerner, pg. 47]. But what is to be served in the same manner to the evolution of humans?
The answer is to treat it in the same manner as any other areas of evolutionary exploration - to recognise the principle involved is the same everywhere, and to follow the evidence wherever it is found. As said before, I am not seeking to 'prove' the specifics, as that can be detailed in works by Richard Dawkins, Stephan Jay Gould, and others. What is being presented is a survey illustrating the principle of evolution, and applying it now to the origin of humanity. It is of interest to know, because within it lies the seeds which eventually sprout as the arts - and even further, as the two worldviews of ethics.
In her seminal work, The Descent of Women, and in her follow-up works, Elaine Morgan took up Hardy's thesis and enlarged on them. The postulation was that during the ten million or so years of drought which spread across the African terrain during the era now referred to as the Pliocene, our forebears, being less aggressive than their cousins, were forced out of the trees and locales previously known and found refuge by going to the seas and becoming, in the course of time, the aquatic ape. There are many examples given in the book, along with her succeeding ones, so the curious can look there. Suffice for now to say there were compelling examples which gave this view a superiority over the usually given ones - things from the way the vestigal hairs are arranged on the body to the subcutaneous fat to the issue of humans having the beginnings of bradycardia.
One of the most important things she pointed out was that it was the survivability of the young which counts - and by implication, the female adult, not the male adult as is usually proscribed. It is, for example, several months before a primate's baby can be left alone. Almost from birth it has strong grasping claws to hang onto its mother's fur as she makes her way about, free to use her own four limbs. Over the grassy fields, this would be imperative - so much so that the naked baby of a naked ape wouldn't have survived, and the species would have perished. In the sea, however, that was different - the baby would have had very few enemies in those shallows.
Throughout her books, Morgan goes on discussing all manner of differences and human exclusivenesses which are best answered by the aquatic ape viewpoint. The Hardy theory, in other words, provides far and away a simple yet adequate explanation of the long chronological gap between the remains of primates like Proconsul of the Miocene era before the drought, and the hominids like Australopithecus of the Pleistocene, the era which follows the Pliocene. Humans yet, no - but a good primal branching start.
Social behavioral structures of primates also bear looking at, as they have a lot to do with the future development of the evolving acquatic ape into Homo sapiens. According to Chance and Jolly, in Social Groups of Monkeys, Apes and Men, there are two major catagories of primate behavior societies - accentric and centripetal. Accentric societies are considered loosely structured - individualistic. The centripetal societies are the highly structured ones - the alph-male leaderships. The difference between them is how the respective members react to danger. When daring to going out into the open, accentrics always are on the alert, and scatter when danger lurks. Centripetals, however, merely keep checking where they are relative to the alph-male, and crowd around him when danger lurks. The question, though, is that since Homo sapiens descended from apes, not monkeys, how are they classified - for apes do not quite act like either group, socially speaking. The answer - centripetal, but only loosely so.
The reason here is that there are two ways the ability to command attention can be achieved - the agonic mode, and the hedonic mode. An example of the agonic mode is Ardrey's baboons, where dominance is voraciously attained by biting and threat displays. From a developmental standpoint, the brain then remains undistinguished, with no 'heresies' to challenge - ever. Apes, from, as said, we've descended, follow a different path - the hedonic mode.
Apes are more advanced than monkeys because they learned something important - you don't have to bite someone in order to get attention. You can show off, become conspicuous, find something interesting. In other words, dominance is achieved through attracting attention. From a developmental standpoint, this is a gain - the efforts in doing this force much greater usage of the brain in seeking out other different and newer attention attractions. You see this in circus chimps, for instance, which, contrary to PETA liars, actually love performing - they're getting great attention. To the aquatic ape, however, this aspect of showing off ended up having a number of consequences which the other apes didn't have to contend with.
to be continued.....
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