In yesterday's paper there was an article about the timeline for the earliest fossils of Homo sapiens having been pushed back thousands of years. The oldest fossils now have been dated to 195,000 years ago, give or take 5,000 years according to the article. Omo I and Omo II are the fossilized fragments, primiarly partial skull fragments, and are so-named because of their area of location near the Omo River in Ethiopia in the 1967 find. New ways of dating have led to the realization that the fossils are much older than once believed. The dating of a volcanic rock layer below the location of the 1967 find is now believed to be the approximate time of the 'fossil-bearing sediment' (AP).

Yeah, I saw that, too. Just think how much of our history we don't know about, and probably never will know about.

If you happen to be a creationist, you wouldn't think of this as your history anyway, Jackie - the implication being that there's nothing there to know.

Interesting though, isn't it?

I've been reading an article on the process of fossilization, and a point that is made repeatedly is the slim chance of things becoming fossilized. By far much more works against that process, such as detritivores, than for it. The fact that we do come across significant fossil records is a rare, wonderful gift from nature, no matter how much we might at times take those gifts for granted. Jackie's absolutely right. There is much we will never know through fossil records because so much wasn't ever fossilized. Taphonomy. It's a very interesting subject to read about.

Actually, reading this thread made me remember a question that someone came up with, possibly here, quite some time ago. The question was:

"Why did so much evolution occur in East Africa? Or did it?"

Which is two questions, I know, but you can see where this was going. The assumption seems to be that since so many fossils of so many different types of hominids have been found there, that that is where the evolution must have occurred. But is that a good assumption?

The question is rhetorical, obviously, since we only have evidence of these hominids from this one area. But it makes me wonder ...

You bring up an excellent point, Cap', because there are definite conditions that favor taphonomic processes, from what I've been reading, and many of these conditions rely heavily upon geography.

Well, how very interesting: the PM I just read ended by asking me "What would Jesus do?", and the first post I looked at today wonders if I happen to be a creationist. For the record: no, I am not. I belong to the Methodist church, yes; but not only do I not consider myself a "model Methodist", it doesn't follow that I am a wild-eyed Bible thumper, either. There is very little (in fact, I can't think of ANYthing) in the world that I embrace and accept completely, from Christianity (and esp. its more fanatical representatives) to friends to books to medical information. I figure there is at least room for doubt, or fault, in just about everyone and everything. People: even those whom I love most dearly have traits that I can't go along with. Do I accept as correct everything they do and believe without question everything they say? No. Do I love them any less because of these traits? No. It is part of who they are, and I choose to accept dealing with these in order to continue my relationship with them. Books: in fiction, it goes without saying that not all of it will be true. In non-fiction, I wonder such things as how thoroughly the author did his research, and how much his own bias might have affected what he wrote. Medical info.: ha! My mother was a nurse, and I learned as a child that doctors don't always know everything (sorry, all you MD's here). Please note that assuming that things are not necessarily the complete truth is not the same as assuming that everything is deceptive.

Which, actually, CK, sounds like your wondering about the origin of our species. I was taught that it was in the fertile crescent, too. And it seems likely--based on the information that we have. But we know that we have only a tiny portion of what the whole picture was back then; and it is usually risky to extrapolate a whole view based on small fragments.

[train of thought e] In my opening para., I started to put that I am a Methodist by profession--meaning that I profess to being a Methodist--then realized it would sound as though I were a minister or something. That made me wonder about the difference(s) between PROfess and CONfess, since pro and con are so often opposites. Maybe I should have said that I confess to being a Methodist! [/train of thought]

Sorry Jackie, I inadvertently left the "ed" off "happen" in my original post in this thread. I wasn't really trying to suggest that you are a creationist, merely that if you were one you wouldn't believe that these fossils had anything to do with your origins.

Perhaps I should have used the subjunctive, but I find that people see that as an affectation these days ...

Well, I did think you knew me better than that; all is forgiven! [hug] I was quite put off at the time by the PM I'd just read, which seemed to imply that because I go to church I therefore ought to know how Jesus would have acted, and act accordingly myself. Insulting, really.

>"What would Jesus do?"

Dunno, but there are some of his "followers" around here who would fix the fossil problem with a bigger hammer. If the eyesocket offend thee pluck it out.

If they are right about the date now, why were they wrong in 1967?
* It would be interesting to know what new dating method of the volcano deposit or what new interpretation of dating of the skulls themselves had led to the press release today.
But on the assumption that they did good science, several musements came to my mind...

The Skull People
* 200,000 years ago when the two skulls were buried in the volcanic ash , their species were 15,000 years into the penultimate Ice Age that gripped the Earth at the time and they had about 85,000 years of extreme conditions to endure before the Earth warmed back up again.

Very likely the People of the Skulls lived in isolated packs like dogs, and in gangs like gorillas, with an operative language of a about a hundred words or so that allowed them a functional transfer of information and smoothed interaction with other human packs that they would often encounter. A hundred words is not much verbal ammunition with which to chit-chat but they probably didn’t have that much to say as they were ignorant about far reaching things. They apparently didn’t know how to make a fire, and they likely couldn’t properly chip a flint.
But even in equatorial Ethiopia life is hard during an Ice Age; glaciers cover the high mountains and rainfall is greatly diminished and at night it gets bitter cold in the winter.
And the People of the Skulls’ gave a “ Hobson’s choice” answer to the harsh Age of Ice.
And that answer was to huddle around the Equator like the animals they were and wait it out.

Recent Ice Ages
* Recently, one billion years ago, the Earth was frozen completely. Almost. The seas were frozen solid to a depth over a mile and all lands were glaciated over by thousands of feet of ice and snow.
We don’t know how this came about, and worse, we don’t know how Earth warmed up, but we do have a name for this, we call it “Snowball Earth”. Snowball Earth was discovered by deep-time geologists only ten years ago. One day one of the rock chipping boys woke up and said “Hey ! All these rocks from one billion years ago to the beginning of the Cambrian Period have been glaciated. This, duh, means that the entire Earth was an ice ball for 400 million years!”
“Ha!” said his colleagues, “ Well then, Mister Smarty Pants, where did all the teaming billions of strange plants and animals come ? Where were they hiding during the time of ice?”

No one knew. Known as the “Cambrian Explosion”suddenly, 600 million years ago, without preamble, complex creatures suddenly appeared by the millions in the warm Cambrian seas and today we wonder from whence they came.
( I know, but that’s another story,)

After the Cambrian Event the world continued to get hotter. There were a few temperature regressions during the Ordovician indicating that the Ice caps were growing and sea level was falling but world temperatures quickly flopped back and sea levels rose and the Earth continued getting warmer and warmer. In the Devonian Period bugs and men followed the plants onto the dry continents and explored the land and munched on the plants and each other. Most of the bugs looked somewhat like the bugs we see today but the men back the didn’t much look like men they looked like lizards.
And the world kept getting warmer.

The Carboniferous period saw sea levels rise and fall often but with little evidence of cold weather to interrupt or advance the ever-so-slow march of evolution.
And except for a little episode at the end of Paleozoic called the “Big Kill” where 75% of all Families of plants and animals on the land and in the sea were dropped from the social register of the extant and the uncaring World just kept on getting hotter and hotter.
Until the end of the Cretaceous - the day the dinosaurs died; after theif unpleasant funeral the Earth has since gotten colder and colder with occasional interruptions interupting, continues this Earth destroying cooling trend to this very day.

Recent Ice Ages
* Yeah, I know I already said “Recent Ice Ages” but this time I mean it.
About 2 million yeas ago, some 500,000 yeas after the closing of the isthmus of Panama by the thoughtless actions of plate tectonics , the modern series of Ice Ages began. The first Glacial/Interglacial sequence was divided evenly in time; about 50/50 between periods of hot and periods of cold. Afterwards the cold periods sneakedly extended until about one million years ago a ten-to-one ratio had been reached between cold and hot, and this has become the pattern that we all live under now.

Humanoids
Sometime less than 5 million years ago, animals that can rightly be called “humanoids” (as opposed to apes) made a slight appearance in the fossil record. One of these humanoids begot us, we don’t know which. Well, to the devil with those distant relatives of ours who didn’t have the right stuff to make it through the trials and tribulations of the Ice ages... instead let’s talk about you and me.

Islands of Warmth within Vast Icy Seas and Physical Evolution and Social Evolution
* Two million ago years five varieties of humanoids set out from the first Interglacial to reach today. The hard road took its toll and soon (a million and a half years later ) there were only two groups left to try to complete the arduous journey - the cro-magnons and the neanderthals.
Of course these were not the same groups that started out - they were changlings.- creatures who had evolved beyond what they had been when they first set out. (Hey wait a minute...five groups started out and four groups died out and two are left...that makes six. Damn, that makes the Cro-magnons and the Neanderthals brothers. What a strange World.) The point here is that the pressures of the glacial periods force biological and cultural changes to evolve at faster rate than in the Garden of Eden state of the Interglacials . Interglacials are for manifesting that which the harshness of the Glacials imposed on social a

It would be interesting to know what new dating method

"We used a dating technique called 40AR/39AR, which is a variant of potassium-argon dating."

Here’s a link to a National Geographic article that discusses Omo I and Omo II, from which the above quote was taken:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/02/0216_050216_omo.html



Hmmmm…. "What would Jesus do?"

Nope, I had better not.

But I want to. I really, really, want to, but I won’t.

Get thee behind me, Temptation!

Thanks, Dgeigh, for the link. The article was by far much more informative than the article that appeared in our local paper through AP.

"subjunctive"

I like the subjunctive, and think its disuse is a loss in English.

its disuse is a loss in English

Indeed… it’s so tiresome not being able to effectively discriminate between thou sattest and thou sat. ;)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjunctive

W. Somerset Maugham said that "The subjunctive mood is in its death throes, and the best thing to do is to put it out of its misery as soon as possible."

But how then would Tevye sing:

"If I were a rich man
Daidle deedle daidle
Daidle daidle deedle daidle dum" ?

"We used a dating technique called 40AR/39AR, which is a variant of potassium-argon dating."

Wasn't aware that you could date potassium-argon. Is she good looking and does she have a website?

I read an article in the past year about those instances in which it is undesirable to use "if I were." There was an explanation that the subjunctive would be used in cases in which the speaker is speaking of improbability, but in other cases in which the action was probable or complete, the subjunctive should not be used. Interesting. Apparently I had over-learned the principle because I always favored 'if I were'; now my choice is filled with doubt and trepidation. Not really, but I do choose with care.

"If I was, in fact, in error, I wouldn't be standing here at this instant."

"If I were a millipede, my shoe bill would be through the roof."

But there are so many other applications of the subjective that go far beyond the 'if I were' construction.

Humble apologies. I never intended to trigger off a discussion about linguistics ...

Now what was I doing...oh yeah, I was setting up an elaborate analogy to craftily nuance the differences between the cultural evolution of the Cro-magnons and the physical evolution of the Neanderthals when I got cut off.
Sorry about that; it was late and I was singing and writing and drinking, and only God knows what method of madness I used to cut myself off.

Too bad, it was what you all most needed to know about the implications of the event, but it'll be in the news one day soon and you'll know then.

Anyway we'll skip that part and go straight to the conclusion...

130,000 years...200,000 years, so what?

Time, that,s what. The additional 70,000 years allows the Ethiopian skull caps to fit into a theoretical scheme with a time framework that makes good sense.
Now an African genesis for mankind can be strongly stated. And even better, one of the central problems of the African Exodus theory of mankind's spread about the globe is that the fossil record doesn't allow enough time for mankind divergence into today's three racial groups.
But the new dates from Ethiopia agree with a latter day Diaspora for the human race and this, when proved conclusively, will change our thinking about ourselves forever.

And now, by simple logic, I can proudly say that I can fix the time of the African dispersal within a few thousand years. Can you?

(If you had been listening you could.)

You're just trying to boron. Obviously youve been lead astray, probably by a copper, but someone will use his or her helium powers to help you before you're too fargon.

Would that be element Re, my dear Watson?

Ha!You didn't understand enough of what I wrote to get the answer, did you, Dieter-boy?
Maybe next time you should ask the jerks
who pull your strings.

No pun intended.

Could we go back to discussing the topics this board was created for, Milo? I understand you've been kicked off at least one monitored board for too many insults and politically-charged posts. This board has no monitor, as we know. So could you please monitor yourself? (and yes, I still want to meet you when we go to B'ham, surely you can't be this awful in person). Oh, and

>Ha!You didn't understand enough of what I wrote to get the answer, did you, Dieter-boy?
Maybe next time you should ask the jerks
who pull your strings.


themilum:

The post quoted above was sent to me and was in response to a post I had made. I wonder if you meant it for someone else. If so, I suggest that you edit the message to show for whom it was intended.

TEd Remington

No, Annastrophic, I will not be interested in meeting you when you come to Birmingham, and hence forth, I will promise not to post on any thread that you originate.
And in return I would like to solicit a courtesy with a faint hope that you will reciprocate...

Please don't interrupt any thread of mine!

Ted Remington.

Your suggestions are like your puns... slightly amusing.

Wanna know who Dieter is? Go anagram his name and you'll then know who he ire.
What a silly joke.

Good Lord are you people mad?

What gives you ownership rights over any thread on this board, Milo? This thread in any case was started by someone else, continued on a variety of topics (some even about language by mischance!) by a variety of posters... your contribution was very interesting, at least to some people here, but could equally be seen as monopolising the conversation by others.

The only checks and balances we have on this board to make our mix of civilised, humorous and variously eccentric conversations possible is the self-restraint we also all contribute.

I'll do you the courtesy of assuming there's something going on in your life that has set you in this strange mood, but can you please withdraw from the personalised and aggressive posts illustrated above?

What gives you ownership rights over any thread on this board, Milo?



Maverick? Strange...have your emotions overtaken your usual exceptional ability to understand English?

I nowhere claimed propreitorship over any thread.
I simply said that I promised not to post on any
thread that Annastrophic originated, and hoped that
she would do the same.
You know...like two people who can't get along so
they simply nod when they pass each other in the
street.

...but could equally be seen as monopolising the conversation by others.

"could be seen" Ha! I could be seen as a twinkled toed fairy but but that doesn't change the fact that I look like Cary Grant.

Maverick, your words
puzzle me. We do not have "conversations" here we have posts; scroll down, and a bad post is gone, click your mouse and the thread is gone too. conversations are governed by good manners...and too many posts here lately are governed by abject hate. Jeez!

Who's next!

> any thread of mine [e.a.]

Possessive, Milo.

> and too many posts here lately are governed by abject hate. Jeez!

I completely agree. So if you didn't find TEd's string of punies funny, all you had to do was mouse on down a bit.

You're right of course, this is a different medium to speech - to me, it's like a hybrid between speech and the written word. Perhaps to you it's more like writing, I don't know. But personal insults tend to linger in the ether, even more so than in ftf conversations.

And I thankee for the compliment, however backhanded :)

So, let me get this straight.

I'm responding to someone else's humorous posts about a person known as potassium-argon, and you step forward and tell me:

I am too stupid to understand what you wrote about ice ages.
and

I should go for guidance to the jerks who pull my strings.

And then you have the gall to call me ire Ted or Ted ire or retied or dieter and then imply that I am mad. No, I ain't mad, themilum, but I am sure as hell angry.

Then to compound the injury, you say: too many posts here lately are governed by abject hate.

Perhaps you need to take a good long look at your posts in this thread and elsewhere and try to assess where the hate is.

It certainly did not come from me. All I did was string together a few puns (not even addressed to you) and you called me too stupid to understand what you had posted previously, implied that I might be a sock-puppet, and tried to tar me with some anagram that may be Ted ire (or something else, but not sure what.)

themilum, you can be very interesting, witty, and informative, but let me be the first to tell you that if you engage in a battle of wits with me you will not be fighting an unarmed person. I don't like the bitterness, acrimony, front and back stabbing, and downright meanness that this entire board has become in the last few months.

Plutarch has said that he desires to turn over a new leaf, which is something I think you need to consider as a course of action for yourself.

One last point, whether you initiate a thread here, contribute to it, nurture it, undermine it, or seek to co-opt it, the thread is not yours. This is an open forum for the exchange of information, education of ourselves and others, and, at times, a place to impart into other people our individual joy of life and to become part of a larger congregation of rational thinking FRIENDS! It is not a place for you to vent your spleen.

Please stop with the vituperation. I admit that I have in the past said some not nice things to you and I regret that. I'm going to try harder to be nice all the time, but that does not mean that I will curb my sense of humor for you or for any other person who frequents this board.

TEd Remington

Possessive, Milo.

Yeah, yeah, Maverick, possessive; like in "this world of mine".

(sigh) The first two or three times Mister Ted demonstrated his gross lack of class I responded with admirable restraint. But when Mister Ted, under the signature name "Dieter" which in anagram is "ire Ted" (get it?) attacked Plutarch childishly, all past bets are off' and I am better prepared for the gang bang that will follow my actions because I remember well what happen to Keiva. May God forgive the souls of those who were involved in his lynching.

well what is it that you think happened to keiva?

Yes, he was banned.

and yes, there are several 'sides' to the story.

i know what i think happened. what do you think happened?

and have you considered posting on his word board?

you'll have to take care if you do. For although keiva advocated no one should ever be restricted (especially not himself!), or banned, he has restricted posters, and he has banned posters.

it seems what was good for this board, turns out not be good for his board. (and since this board has banned one person (Keiva) and he has banned several posters, well judge for yourself which is the more open board, the more tolerant board!)

it might be "Keiva world" is a better place,--obviously, it is for some.

lease go, try it for yourself, and see how it works for you..(there are members here, who regularly post (with the same on line name) there.. no reason you can't.. i don't care where you post!

i have even posted a word or two on keiva's board, and its evident, that he and his wife, either regularly, or intermittantly read what is posted here.. (and they are welcome to read--ewein even posted, in the not too distant past, and has sent PM's to people here.--well send a PM to a person, (me) for sure!) but Keiva is not to post here.

Yes, there has been backstabbing here (of late) .. and yes there has been venom. (and yes, i too have contributed--but i have been open, and not secretive about my feelings--not really that it make them better--but at least with me, you know what you are getting!)

and Yes, Plutarch is currently a target for some of the venom, BUT--he has made venomous remarks (repeatedly under that nome de cyber, and under others names). so he is now reaping what he has sown.

Yes, i know, if i were a better person, i would turn the other cheek.. been there, tried that. eventually i tired of turn the other cheek--i was getting whip lash from turn my head to and fro!

now, mostly i try to ignore Plutarch, and everything he posts.

maybe, if he has really changed, i will change my behavior. maybe. but i will never trust him. EVER. but that's me,(Dr bill admonishes all the time that i am too hard hearted.. and maybe i am)

But you've decided, the wound we thought healed, is not. that its just crusted over, and we have an infectious rot, and you want to bring Keiva (and what happend 4 years ago (it was 4 years ago--right? )) back up. --you want to do some exploritory surgery, to re-open the wound. OK
can you explain why? please.

Milo,

You have proof positive who Deiter is? We all have access to Anu's Anagram Server, as we all have access to this thread and these forums. I've been entertaining the thought that Deiter is someone else's s.p. Why, it could be Wordwind or Jackie or Capfka (all heavy partipants in this thread) or myself or... or yourself... or even plutarch himself (some precedents there).

I said to Jackie she should have just deleted Deiter's post, rather than responding as she did. And she should delete this thread now. But she takes Anu's admonishment, stemming from the previous shoutout, seriously; not to actually utilize whatever moderator power she has. Neither she nor I understand why he didn't just strip her title away.

A moderator who can't moderate is a little like Louis XVI during the French revolution.

Also, we should all desist from bandying about the history of keiva's days here. He still regularly monitors these forums (and recently posted here). You have no idea what he feels about us now, and I mean each of us individually and as a "word" forum.

If you're truly unhappy here and believe we've all gone "mad", there are lots of other forums you could try.

Geez, you-all: will you please cool it? Take it to PM's or anywhere that's not here? Aside from outright anger (justified or unjustified), there are some statements presented as facts that ain't necessarily such.

Please can we go back to the way we were near the beginning? That is, if you feel strongly about something someone has said, let them know via PM? Then the recipient can either delete/edit the offending material, or post something along the lines of: I stand by my opinion, but I apologize for offending, and will try not to do so again.

I know there are some people who positively relish watching other people spat--I have a friend here in town who does--but I am not one of them. In fact, I hate it.


Edit: thanks, tsuwm; your post appeared while I was composing mine. And, I MUST go out NOW...

"Which is two questions, I know, but you can see where this was going. The assumption seems to be that since so many fossils of so many different types of hominids have been found there, that that is where the evolution must have occurred. But is that a good assumption?"

I think it's more the fact that we find a long line of things that sort of lead up to humans in Africa - and we don't find that anywhere else. Fossilization is a rare event, but not to find any humans anywhere else in anything other than finished form gives us reason to think that humanity started where we find the apparent lineage. It's not a logical conclusion without some other assumptions, of course. Also we don't find humans anywhere until long after they have appeared in Africa. It's not an absolutely required conclusion, but it seems like the best conclusion given the data we have.

Whenever one makes a measurement other than counting of small numbers there is an error bar around the measurement. Sometimes the error bars are very big. Also, estimation techniques improve the more time we have to consider them - well, ideally. There's the case of estimating the circumference of the Earth. The estimate of Eratosthenes back in BC was actually far better than later measures until quite recently (about 1600's I think).

k

the content of this post has been edited

a second reason for supposing/proposing life (human life) first evolved in africa is modern day genitic evidence.

--based on two different sets of 'markers' --the Y chromosome, and mitocondrial dna--the modern day evidence makes it clear, africans, (and this is based on many group of people, the 'bush men', pigmies, zulu's, (and many other groups, including the burbers of the mediterranian coast) there exist more genetic diversity in Africa, than on any other continent. and based on genetic markers, the oldest human population are the people now called "bush men"--

given this modern information, (and the fossil evidence--)which is incomplete, (so much of the earth gets recycled every year, with habitates going under the water, (sea levels (or relative sea levels) have changed for reasons besides the ice ages. --it seems likely (how likely? i've read everything from very to extremely likely) humans (as we now know and love them) evolved from prehuman animals living in various parts of africa.

Helen, regardless of your views of me and of the incidents of late spring, 2002, do you really think it wise to cast aspersions on me, aspersions which almost compel me to reply?

Perhaps, in the interest of conflict-avoidance, you might consider deleting portions of your post above. Thank you.

Edit: PS to Faldage, re yours below: In the spirit of converting this to a word-thread, I respond to your thought by saying that I agree with the preantepenultimate paragraph of of-troy's post above.
http://home.mn.rr.com/wwftd/pq.htm#preantepenultimate

How bout let's all just pretend this thread never existed.

Jackie sez: there are some people who positively relish watching other people spat.

Back in the Sixties, there was a popular book written by Dr Eric Berne called Games People Play. Berne was a proponent and popularizer of something called Transactional Analysis which many of us, who were alive in the Sixties, survived somehow.

In the introduction to the book, Berne postulated the following conversation:

First person: Ok, let's play a game.
Second person: But I don't want to play games.
First Person: So that is your game!

One of the chapters (I think) in the little book was dedicated to a game which Dr Berne entitled "Let's you and him fight." It was about how there are some folks who take delight in fomenting discontent and disputation between others. How about that? There are such folks. The subtext in Berne's message was that those who are wise enough to identify the gambit are then able to decline to play.

I never thought much of Dr Berne (nor of Transactional Analysis, for that matter) but I thought he scored a winner with this observation.

How bout let's all just pretend this thread never existed.

That should be cake for this self-righteous crowd, Faldage, last Thursday the peace and pancakes milquetoasts of this board pretended that this sweet love post from good old Vernon Crompton never existed...
__________________________________________________________

Quote:
"Most often he's [milo] being the sort of spoiled brat who thinks causing pain is fun, and grows up to be a serial killer, wondering why nobody else gets his "jokes". That is, of course, assuming that such a person grows up. No sign of that here."
___________________________________________________________

Hehehe, yep, that old Vernon Crompton, what a funny guy!

How many of you sweethearts out there whispered to Vern that he might better oughta tone it down...hmmm?

Can you count to none?

milo, i for one, recieved a PM from Vernon. He left this board. he specifically sited you, and your posts as being hostile, and creating an unpleasent tone here. Vern felt he (personally was being attacked, and he no longer post here. perhaps his last posting was inappropriate. but... why beat a dead horse ?

i don't have to complain about Vern--he stopped making hostile post--and all posts! i suspect he wrote others, (since i wasn't particularly 'close' to Vern, and he wrote to notify me!)

why did he leave? well Vern told me, YOU, were the reason.

Now it could be, he was lying.--but he wasn't lying about not posting here any more.. so it could be he was telling the truth.

I was requested to edit a comment i made, in this thread, (by PM) and last night, i couldn't.(i had connection problems) i off now to do it.
I sometimes am hostile. and sometimes, i am snippy, and my written words sound more hostile than i intend.

some one questioned one of my posts, informed me it sounded more hostile than it did snippy. they suggested, if i had intended to be snippy, i should edit what i wrote.
sometime, (alas, of late, frequently) you sound hostile.
it might be, you too, are being snippy. or perhaps trying to be clever or ironic, or even funny. but often you sound hostile. Is the defect in me(do i fail to understand?) or is the defect in you(do you miss the target (ie, being funny, or being ironic) and appear hostile? i dunno. maybe we are both at fault.

--and i could be wrong(been wrong lots of times) but i don't think it was anything YOU posted that lead anyone to suggest this thread should be locked!--
------------------------------------------------------------
oh and to be persnickity.. i don't mind being one of the guys, but I am not one of the boys!

"we find a long line of things that sort of lead up to humans in Africa"

Let me correct this. I think I know what I mean to say, but it's easy to get the wrong impression. The things we see that "lead up to humans" don't necessarily constitute a direct line. It's more like we can see things that are on branches that may be in the direct line, but are more probably on close side branches.

It's easy to think about evolution as a linear thing - the line from A to B - but that's only how it looks after the fact when we consider only A and B. I think it's a rare case when we can even tell whether A was a direct antecedent.


k