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Chargement... The Scars of Evolutionpar Elaine Morgan
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Inscrivez-vous à LibraryThing pour découvrir si vous aimerez ce livre Actuellement, il n'y a pas de discussions au sujet de ce livre. If I were to judge this book solely on the writing and the interesting substance, it would get many more stars. Alas, I cannot do that, for this is a non-fiction book and must also be judged on its merits as non-fiction. The author, not a scientist, proposes a hypothesis that sounds fascinating and believable from the evidence she presents. Unfortunately, much of her evidence is simply not factual. The author misrepresents, miscontextualizes, and in some places just plain makes up facts to fit her preferred thesis, known in the scientific world as the Aquatic Ape Hypothesis. She accuses other scientists of ignoring her important new approach, which can be, but is not always, a mark of pseudoscience. In this case, the anthropologists and evolutionists both agree that she is simply wrong. Read it for curiosity, because I think it's fascinating - and important - to know about the ways in which people get science wrong. But keep your mind open to the fact that scientists may actually know the science, and fact check the book thoroughly. Don't be so open minded your brains fall out. aucune critique | ajouter une critique
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In this lively and controversial book Elaine Morgan presents a challenging interpretation to the question of human evolution. With brilliant logic she argues that our hominid ancestors began to evolve in response to an aquatic environment. Millions of years ago something happened that caused our ancestors to walk on two legs, to lose their fur, to develop larger brains and learn how to speak. Elaine Morgan discovers what this event was by studying the many incongruous flaws in the physiological make-up of humans. The human body is liable to suffer from obesity, lower back pain and acne. In support of her aquatic ape hypothesis she points out the flaws in our physiological make-up: the difficulties of erect bipedalism, our hairlessness and fat-layers, our preference for face to face sex and the way we breathe. Are these flaws a record of the history of the species, the 'scars' of evolution that are clues to earlier stages of evolution? Morgan establishes the origins of the evolutionary path that separated humans from other animals and questions the theories currently accepted by science. Did our ancestors adapt to an aquatic environment that subsequently dried out? Elaine Morgan has made the Aquatic Ape Hypothesis a plausible alternative to conventional theories of evolution and in The Scars of Evolution she brings a real understanding of who humans are and where they came from. Aucune description trouvée dans une bibliothèque |
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Google Books — Chargement... GenresClassification décimale de Melvil (CDD)573.2Natural sciences and mathematics Life Sciences, Biology Physiological systems in animals Origin of manClassification de la Bibliothèque du CongrèsÉvaluationMoyenne:
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The book shows no sign of the quirky style of the author's first and most famous ('The Descent of Woman') but instead is written in a very 'straight', bordering on academic style, perhaps chosen because she wanted to be taken seriously. The author develops some information from a previous work, regarding isolation of a particular area of Africa cut off by water ingress for millions of years which would have led to adaptations by species trapped there. This, she argues, led to various humanoid characteristics developing which led eventually to our own species which inherited them.
The author had abandoned her speculations about large brains and an aquatic origin by the time she wrote this, probably because evidence from the 'Lucy' skeleton revealed that bipedalism (walking on two legs) predated the development of a large brain or tool use by millions of years. But her speculations about loss of hair, development of particular types of fat deposit, retention of child features (neoteny) and other factors pertaining to humans and humanoid ancestors are interesting. As she says, attributing these to a move to the savannah doesn't convince when primates such as baboons did not develop them. So I remain open minded about this book until more compelling evidence is presented from the other viewpoint. Hence a middle of the road 3 star rating. ( )