glenn
----------( Forwarded letter 1 follows )----------------------------------------
Date: Monday, 28 August 1995 7:03am CT
To: simons@stat.unc.edu, GRMorton@aol.com
From: Glenn.Morton@TAO1
Subject: Please explain the apparent disc
In-Reply-To: The letter of Monday, 28 August 1995 6:40am CT
I think this is covered in the book. If you remember my collection of first
and second occurences of artifacts, showing a huge time gap between the first
and second occurrence, I collected this for precisely the reason that there
must be a reason that we haven't found h.erectus that far back. This list is
as it is because it is extremely unlikely that we have found the body of the
first H.erectus. Given this, the first fossil example is likely to occur
after the group became more widespread and had a greater probability that one
of their members would be fossilized. Thus what is always found, in any
historical object is that the first example found is separated by quite a time
from the second. Thus when a new "oldest" example of tarsier was found, he
was separated from the old "oldest" by 30 million years--half the Tertiary
period.Statistically I would have a fair shot that someday the oldest
H.erectus will be much older.But the question which needs to be asked is
'statistically what is the likelihood that we have found the very first
example and what is the likely time at which the first example really lived,
given the above factors.
Secondly, if you remember I sent the survivors into Africa. A small
population, living in the tropical rainforest would almost certainly not be
fossilized. Rainforests are terrible places for fossilization because the
biological activity is so high that carcasses rot rapidly or are eaten.Thus,
if man lived in a technologically poor condition in a rain forest, we would be
unlikely to have examples of their dead bodies. Look at "The Tale's end" I
make a prediction in that last chapter that the finding of an old H.erectus in
the tropical rainforests of Africa would be supportive of my views.
I have a question. Given the time distribution of extant H.erectus, what
is the probable time he arose and when is the probable time the last one went
extinct? It is highly unlikely that we have in our museums either end of
that spectrum.
Does this help? Is this reasonable? Frankly, I wish there was an extremely
old H.erectus, but facts are what they are and currently there is none. I
either would have to go to an older form or simply be wrong.
Also, there is no rule in evolution that even if H.erectus arose from
Australopithecus, that Australopithecus must therefore go extinct immediately.
They could have lived together for quite a while. But as noted my whole
argument rests upon the concept that we do not have the carcass of the first
H.erectus. If we do, then I am in trouble.
glenn