Evolution Gap - Where's the Fur? Redux (page 3)

shadow

The facts are that a paper pointed to by cofty to answer this topic is full of holes as pointed out by other evolutionists.

The fact is that humans are different than animals and this is just one way that we are.

shadow

The arch example does not prove that God did not do it. It may just prove that someone else did it without eliminating the possibility that God did it.

Now let's say that we believe the arch got there all by itself and then commence to study all of the ways it could have happened and do our best to silence anyone who says that it was built by intelligence.

cofty

The facts are that a paper pointed to by cofty to answer this topic is full of holes as pointed out by other evolutionists

There are no holes in the paper. Not one. It was peer-reviewed and published by the National Academy of Sciences.

There are alternative interpretations of the same data. All of them exclude superstitions. Every one of them is predicated on the fact - that is certain beyond all reasonable doubt - that we descended from hairy ancestors who walked on all fours.

cofty

let's say that we believe the arch got there all by itself

That would make us superstitious fools.

Any naturalistic answer that works excludes supernatural answers. You have posted at least 12 naturalistic answers to your objection. Thermal regulation fits the data very well.

shadow

yes it would

shadow

So this is not putting any holes in the argument presented by the paper under discussion?

The cooling device hypothesis
Perhaps the most commonly held explanation for the evolution of the nakedness in humans is that it evolved as a cooling device (e.g. Morris, 1967; Leakey & Lewin, 1977; Mount, 1979; Ebling, 1985). It has commonly been thought that by abandoning the shady forest, the hunting ape exposed himself to much higher temperatures than those to which he had previously adapted. Thus, it has been assumed that the hunting ape took off his hairy coat to avoid becoming overheated in the hot savannah (Morris, 1967).
Unfortunately, this hypothesis does not bear closer scrutiny. When we compare the thermal budgets of haired and naked hominids (Wheeler, 1992b), we can easily see that a naked skin is a disadvantage with regard to the circadian integral over both day time (it receives more solar energy, requiring dissipation) and night-time (it requires more endogenous heat production) (Amaral, 1996). Exposure of the naked skin to the air certainly increases the chances of heat loss, but at the same time it also increases heat gain and risks damage from the sun’s rays. Thus, it increases perspiration, leading to dehydration; this in turn may be detrimental in a dry savannah environment. A haired hominid in an open hot environment should actually increase its insulation rather than decrease it. This is precisely the trend followed by savannah monkeys, which have a dense hair-coat and are better insulated than forest primates (Mahoney, 1980).

cofty

No it doesn't. The paper addresses those objections in detail.

shadow

There are no American tanks in Baghdad! There will never be American tanks in Baghdad!

cofty, I have a hard time understanding you.

Real life is calling. Have a good whatever it is in your time zone

cofty

It is difficult to imagine a more trivial objection to evolution.

Even if every scientist on earth was scratching their bald heads and muttering that they don't have a clue why humans lost their body hair it would not impact the fact of evolution one iota. This whole conversation is just bizarre!

cofty

let's say that we believe the arch got there all by itself - Shadow

That would make us superstitious fools - Cofty

yes it would - Shadow

Now you are bailing out the conversation rather than deal with the facts.

Evolution Gap - Where's the Fur? Redux

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