Comprehensive Parsimony

[Jim McGinn]

"deowll" <deowll@bellsouth.net> wrote

<snip>

> > But at least he's said something. And he's been explicit.
> > Can conventional theorists make the same claim?
>
> If you aren't explicit you don't even have a hypothesis. A
> theory is a hypothesis that had been beaten on and stood on.

I agree. Conventional theorists have this vague notion of our
ancestors walking across treeless habitat. This is supposed to
have provided some kind of selective advantage that produced
bipedalism. When closely examined this makes about as much
sense as swimming. The fact is that our ancestors would not
have and could not have left their treed habitat for any thing
but short bursts of time. In conjuction with the experimental
evidence that indicates that the earliest derivations of
bipedalism would have provided no locomotory advantage, it is
clear that conventional theory actually does not explain the
origins of bipedalism. Instead of confronting these problems
and eventually refuting and rejecting it conventional
theorists prefer to pretend not to notice these problems.
(This is why we won't get any of the conventional theorists to
be explicit about their thinking. They know that when it is
closely examined it makes no sense.)

> If you haven't said something that might someday be tested
> you're just thinking out loud. I've shared a few such
> thoughts but I don't expect anybody to give me credit on
> do more than share an opinion about it. All the respect
> should be reserved for the person that proves something is
> or isn't.

What's greatly lacking in all hypotheses except for my own
hypothesis is comprehensive parsimony. What is comprehensive
parsimony? Comprehensive parsimony involves the question as to
when all the pieces of one's greater hypothesis are put
together into a larger whole does the hypothesis, firstly,
explain what is observed and, secondly, does it avoid
refutation on *all* of its pieces. Lot's of hypotheses,
including conventional theory, can claim to avoid refutation
with respect to explaining certain adaptations, such as
bipedalism or manipulative abilities. But when we expect them
to also explain the origins of hominid/human social and
cultural adaptations these conventional notions are worthless.
From the perspective of comprehensive parsimony as the
measuring stick, these conventional notions should have been
rejected a long time ago. But they weren't. Instead
conventional theorists continue to envision our ancestors
trekking across treeless habitat.

Unlike any other hypthesis my hypothesis achieves
comprehensive parsimony. For example, it does not require our
ancestors to suddenly occupy treeless habitat--something our
earliest ancestors would have been extremely unlikely to have
attempted. Moreover, it involves a scenario that indicates the
selective origins of *all* hominid (human) characteristics.
Specifically, unlike conventional theory, it does not ignore
the origins of human social, cultural, and communicative
adaptations/characteristics but instead provides us a clear
and testable thesis on the selective origins of these most
human of all characteristics.

> > As I said previously, it's pretty easy to sit on the
> > sidelines and point out problems with other people's
> > hypotheses. It is very difficult to work out the details
> > of one's own hypothesis.

Over the years conventional theorists have lulled themselves
into thinking that they can ignore the importance of
comprehensive parsimony. They've even gone so far as to
pretend to have formulated a principle that provides them the
license to ignore comprehensive parsimony. This phony
principle goes by the title, mosaic selection. Mosaic
selection provides conventional theorists the rationale to
string together disparate scenarios that supposedly address
the origins of each unique hominid/human adaptation
independently. The reality, however, is that mosaic selection
is itself completely inconsistent with everything we've come
to know about evolution when it is rigorously examined from an
ecological and paleontological perspective (especially in the
context of niche and why niche's exist). As such, conventional
theory amounts to little more than a belief system in which
mosaic selection is assumed and science is ignored.

Jim

[John Roth]

"Jim McGinn" <jimmcginn@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:ac6a5059.0208140808.6a48536a@posting.google.com...
> "deowll" <deowll@bellsouth.net> wrote
>
> <snip>
>
> > > But at least he's said something. And he's been
> > > explicit. Can conventional theorists make the same
> > > claim?
> >
> > If you aren't explicit you don't even have a hypothesis. A
> > theory is
a
> > hypothesis that had been beaten on and stood on.

Not exactly. A theory is a structure for organizing and
thinking about a field. A _useful_ theory is one that has been
beaten on for a while and has stood up to the challenge.

The trouble is that none of this is _scientific_ in the sense
of providing testable hypothesis. We can't take the putative
human ancestor and put it by the seashore, and see what
happens. We can't take the putative human ancestor and put it
in a swamp and see what happens. We don't have that critter,
and we don't have the millions of years of time that the
observation would require.

We can spin nice, pretty theories to our heart's content, but
they will all fall apart (except by sheerest accident) when
the next set of bones is found in an unlikely place.

Take Lucy. A. Afarensis took the notion that bipedalism and
advanced tool using, communications and so forth evolved
together, buried it at the crossroads and drove a stake
through it's heart.

> I agree. Conventional theorists have this vague notion of
> our ancestors walking across treeless habitat. This is
> supposed to have provided some kind of selective advantage
> that produced bipedalism.

"Savanah" isn't treeless. The term refers to a continuum of
habitats that includes a treeless plain as an extreme example.

> When closely examined this makes about as much sense as
> swimming. The fact is that our ancestors would not have and
> could not have left their treed habitat for any thing but
> short bursts of time. In conjuction with the experimental
> evidence that indicates that the earliest derivations of
> bipedalism would have provided no locomotory advantage, it
> is clear that conventional theory actually does not explain
> the origins of bipedalism. Instead of confronting these
> problems and eventually refuting and rejecting it
> conventional theorists prefer to pretend not to notice these
> problems. (This is why we won't get any of the conventional
> theorists to be explicit about their thinking. They know
> that when it is closely examined it makes no sense.)

The Savanah Scenario clearly falls apart when you try to
explain bipedalism with it. Variations on the Aquatic
scenario, such as a treed swamp, are much more successful.
Where the aquatic scenario falls apart is trying to explain
too much in one step.

Using Lucy as our touchstone again, it's much too early in the
sequence to be worrying about breath control. For example, a
couple of days ago, there was an announcement about a gene
that seems to be implicated in throat, mouth and tongue
coordination during speech. The researchers dated it to about
200K years ago, which is about a factor of two from
"Mitochrondral Eve" (450ky ago.) That is, indistinguishable
when you consider the uncertainties of genetic dating.

> > If you haven't said something that might someday be tested
> > you're just thinking out
loud. I've
> > shared a few such thoughts but I don't expect anybody to
> > give me
credit on
> > do more than share an opinion about it. All the respect
> > should be
reserved
> > for the person that proves something is or isn't.
>
> What's greatly lacking in all hypotheses except for my own
> hypothesis is comprehensive parsimony. What is comprehensive
> parsimony? Comprehensive parsimony involves the question as
> to when all the pieces of one's greater hypothesis are put
> together into a larger whole does the hypothesis, firstly,
> explain what is observed and, secondly, does it avoid
> refutation on *all* of its pieces. Lot's of hypotheses,
> including conventional theory, can claim to avoid refutation
> with respect to explaining certain adaptations, such as
> bipedalism or manipulative abilities. But when we expect
> them to also explain the origins of hominid/human social and
> cultural adaptations these conventional notions are
> worthless. From the perspective of comprehensive parsimony
> as the measuring stick, these conventional notions should
> have been rejected a long time ago. But they weren't.
> Instead conventional theorists continue to envision our
> ancestors trekking across treeless habitat.

Trying to ask _any_ evolutionary theory to explain cultural
phenomena at this point in time is, IMNSHO opinion, silly.
There is _no_ agreement on what is innate and what is learned.
There is _essentially no_ genetic evidence for cultural
traits. Again, in the last couple of days, there was an
announcement about a set of experiments that demonstrated the
detection of "social cheaters" is aparently hard wired in the
limbic system. You can just hear lots of theories toppling to
the ground, and lots of axes being sharpened.

You cannot get _professional linguists_ to agree on what parts
of language are innate and which are learned. Dig into Creole
languages if you don't understand this point. One viewpoint is
that the commonalities among Creole languages are direct
pointers to innate mechanisms, but you still have lots of
diffusionists trying to find which African languages those
mechanisms came from.

There are a very small number of genes known that have some
relationship to language, but they don't come close to a
complete picture.

In this environment, any detailed evolutionary theory is, at
best, premature and at worst, silly. The best we can say is
that possibly, h. habilis had some kind of language facility,
based on highly contentious analysis of skull morphology in
the area presently occupied by Broca's area. This is in the
same grey area as saying that h. habilis had scraped hides
(based on microscopic analysis of wear marks on stone tools.)
What was h. habilis social organization? The only clues we
have are the commonalities between ours and the existing apes
and chimpanzees, and that's a very week reed to stand on.

> Unlike any other hypthesis my hypothesis achieves
> comprehensive parsimony. For example, it does not require
> our ancestors to suddenly occupy treeless habitat--something
> our earliest ancestors would have been extremely unlikely to
> have attempted. Moreover, it involves a scenario that
> indicates the selective origins of *all* hominid (human)
> characteristics. Specifically, unlike conventional theory,
> it does not ignore the origins of human social, cultural,
> and communicative adaptations/characteristics but instead
> provides us a clear and testable thesis on the selective
> origins of these most human of all characteristics.

As I just pointed out, Lucy drove a stake through any attempt
to relate bipedalism with culture or language. These are two
different issues, separated in time by 1.5 million or more
years. They do not need to have any common explanation.

> > > As I said previously, it's pretty easy to sit on the
> > > sidelines and point out problems with other people's
> > > hypotheses. It is very difficult to work out the details
> > > of one's own hypothesis.
>
> Over the years conventional theorists have lulled themselves
> into thinking that they can ignore the importance of
> comprehensive parsimony. They've even gone so far as to
> pretend to have formulated a principle that provides them
> the license to ignore comprehensive parsimony. This phony
> principle goes by the title, mosaic selection.

Human beings operate well in a number of environments. In
fact, you could almost call that the defining characteristic
of the species. Explaining that is not possible with any
single environment hypothesis. Single environment hypotheses
provide specialists. Man is a generalist. The origin of the
ability to operate in multiple, disparate environments needs
to be explained.

John Roth

[Jim McGinn]

"John Roth" <johnroth@ameritech.net>

> none of this is _scientific_ in the sense of providing
> testable hypothesis.

You can test it in an implicit manner. It involves a
comprehensive understanding of evolution (and ecology, etc.).

<snip>

<snip>

> The Savanah Scenario clearly falls apart when you try to
> explain bipedalism with it.

It falls apart only to the extent that we have them supposedly
walking around on treeless habitat. As you stated the savanna
does have trees. So there is no reason to go putting them in
treeless habitat (or water). Of course, now we have to figure
out how they evolved bipedalism while still living amongst
trees. My hypothesis achieves this.

Variations on the Aquatic scenario, such as a treed
> swamp, are much more successful.

IMO the supposition that either wading or swimming was
involved in the earliest years of hominid evolution is even
more preposterous than the supposition that they regularly
walked across treeless habitat.

Where the aquatic scenario falls
> apart is trying to explain too much in one step.

I think it falls apart way before this.

<snip>

> Trying to ask _any_ evolutionary theory to explain cultural
> phenomena at this point in time is, IMNSHO opinion, silly.

I think it's silly to assume that it's silly to exclude the
origins of culture from hypotheses on human evolution. It's
especially silly when you consider that culture is the most
distinguishing trait of humans.

> There is _no_ agreement on what is innate and what is
> learned.

Why does this matter? There's nothing mysterious about the
functional nature of culture.

> There is _essentially no_ genetic evidence for
> cultural traits.

I suspect there's no genetic evidence of toenails either, but
we don't need such to know that they exist.

<snip>

> You cannot get _professional linguists_ to agree on what
> parts of language are innate and which are learned.

Why does any of this matter? Some of it's innate, some of
it's learned.

<snip>

> There are a very small number of genes known that have some
> relationship to language, but they don't come close to a
> complete picture.

It's pointless to be so overly concerned about genes, we don't
have any genetic evidence from back then. All we can do is
take into consideration the behavior associated with culture.
This is not difficult to fathom.

>
> In this environment, any detailed evolutionary theory is, at
> best, premature and at worst, silly.

You can't know ahead of time if it is too early to
hypothesize. If a theory works it works. (My hypothesis
works.)

The best we can say is that
> possibly, h. habilis had some kind of language facility,
> based on highly contentious analysis of skull morphology in
> the area presently occupied by Broca's area. This is in the
> same grey area as saying that h. habilis had scraped hides
> (based on microscopic analysis of wear marks on stone
> tools.) What was h. habilis social organization? The only
> clues we have are the commonalities between ours and the
> existing apes and chimpanzees, and that's a very week reed
> to stand on.

By itself its a weak reed. But this doesn't matter. What
matters is comprehensive parsimony. And keep in mind that
absence of evidence does not equate to evidence of absence.

>
> > Unlike any other hypthesis my hypothesis achieves
> > comprehensive parsimony. For example, it does not require
> > our ancestors to suddenly occupy treeless
> > habitat--something our earliest ancestors would have been
> > extremely unlikely to have attempted. Moreover, it
> > involves a scenario that indicates the selective origins
> > of *all* hominid (human) characteristics. Specifically,
> > unlike conventional theory, it does not ignore the origins
> > of human social, cultural, and communicative
> > adaptations/characteristics but instead provides us a
> > clear and testable thesis on the selective origins of
> > these most human of all characteristics.
>
> As I just pointed out, Lucy drove a stake through any
> attempt to relate bipedalism with culture or language.

You didn't point this out. You just made a statement along
these lines. I didn't see any support for this statement.

These are two different
> issues, separated in time by 1.5 million or more years. They
> do not need to have any common explanation.

It seems I'm completely missing your point, and your logic. I
can't for the life of me figure out why you think Lucy "drove
a stake through any attempt to relate bipedalism with culture
or language."

>
> > > > As I said previously, it's pretty easy to sit on the
> > > > sidelines and point out problems with other people's
> > > > hypotheses. It is very difficult to work out the
> > > > details of one's own hypothesis.
> >
> > Over the years conventional theorists have lulled
> > themselves into thinking that they can ignore the
> > importance of comprehensive parsimony. They've even gone
> > so far as to pretend to have formulated a principle that
> > provides them the license to ignore comprehensive
> > parsimony. This phony principle goes by the title, mosaic
> > selection.
>
> Human beings operate well in a number of environments. In
> fact, you could almost call that the defining characteristic
> of the species.

It's the result of our cultural abilities.

> Explaining that is not possible with any single environment
> hypothesis.

No, I think you got it backwards. Our multihabitat tendencies
cannot be explained without culture. So until we know the
origins of culture we will not know the origins of our
multi-habitat tendencies.

> Single environment hypotheses provide specialists.

I agree that usually this is the case. But something atypical
happened with our species. See my post entitled, Ecological
Gatekeeper Hypothesis for my explanation of this atypical form
of selection.

Man is a generalist.
> The origin of the ability to operate in multiple, disparate
> environments needs to be explained.

I agree. And as I stated above I don't think we can get there
except through explaining culture first.

[Mario Petr]

"John Roth" <johnroth@ameritech.net> wrote in message
news:ulne6qmmjije6f@news.supernews.com...
> Human beings operate well in a number of environments. In
> fact, you could almost call that the defining characteristic
> of the species. Explaining that is not possible with any
> single environment hypothesis. Single environment hypotheses
> provide specialists. Man is a generalist. The origin of the
> ability to operate in multiple, disparate environments needs
> to be explained. John Roth

I don't think this is quite true. We have ability to
lock our environment into our homes, and into our
clothes. And there is fire. We cannot live without
fire. This is our specialization. Than what about
predators. We had to deal with all of them. That
implies not brain power, but weapon, IMO. I would put
all this together, notice that every environment is
the same if it is burned, notice that burned
environment actually suits us the best. Please read
this citation about Aborigines : "They learned to
manipulate their environment with a system of "fire
stick farming", which involved burning off sections of
the bush from time to time to clear away the debris
and encourage the plant life to sprout new shoots. The
new growth attracted animals to the area and allowed
people to have various sections of land at different
stages of this new growth. Not only did the burning
protect the people and their land from wildfire, but
it also flushed wild animals from the scrub and made
them easier to hunt while the burning was in
progress." This same technic is used by african tribes
as well. I would also add here that the most primitive
people in Borneo are using fire for hunting (and with
great skill, it was filmed). I would also notice that
bipedal animal has means to manipulate fire. Do you
need brain power for that. Why would you need brain
power to simply burn everything around. Every idiot
can do that. And if you lived beside water, I don't
think you have fear of fire. -- Mario

[Jim McGinn]

> jimmcginn@yahoo.com (Jim McGinn)wrote:

> > As I just pointed out, Lucy drove a stake through any
> > attempt to relate bipedalism with culture or language.
>
> You didn't point this out. You just made a statement along
> these lines. I didn't see any support for this statement.
>
> > These are two different issues, separated in time by 1.5
> > million or more years. They do not need to have any common
> > explanation.
>
> It seems I'm completely missing your point, and your logic.
> I can't for the life of me figure out why you think Lucy
> "drove a stake through any attempt to relate bipedalism with
> culture or language."

Nevermind. I understand your point now. In fact I've
understood it for quite some time now and, in fact, I address
this issue--the temporal discordance between the origins of
the original hominids and the beginnings of brain
growth--explicitly in my greater hypothesis.

And so, I do agree with your assumption that A'piths did not
evolve much in the way of cultural abilities, except possibly
further along. Moreover the scenario in my Ecological
Gatekeeper Hypothesis does not indicate the selection of
cultural abilities. But it's important to understand that my
Ecological Gatekeeper Hypothesis involves only about half of
my greater hypothesis. The other half is contained in what I
have labelled my Ideological Ape Hypothesis. Therein I specify
the selective factors that indicate the origins of hominid
culture, consciousness, and intelligence.

Moreover, and most importantly. Although my A'pith oriented
Ecological Gatekeeper Hypothesis does not, IMO, explain the
origins of hominid culture, consciousness, and intelligence it
does set the stage for the selective factors in my Ideological
Ape Hypothesis in that it shows how our ancestors originally
became communally territorial, situated, cooperative, and
bipedal, all of which is necessary for the operational
assumptions of my Ideological Ape Hypothesis.

For the time being you may have trouble understanding much of
what I stated above. (If this is the case the best advice I
can give you at this point is to read up on my Ecological
Gatekeeper Hypothesis.) Rest assured, however, that I am aware
of the temporal discord between the orgins of bipedalism (and
manipulative abilities) and hominid brain growth, in fact I
address this issue explicitly in the body of my greater
hypothesis.

Regards,

Jim

[John Roth]

"Mario Petrinovic" <mario.petrinovic@zg.tel.hr> wrote in
message news:ajio6j$2min$1@as201.hinet.hr...
> "John Roth" <johnroth@ameritech.net> wrote in message
> news:ulne6qmmjije6f@news.supernews.com...
> > Human beings operate well in a number of environments. In
> > fact, you could almost call that the defining
> > characteristic of the
species.
> > Explaining that is not possible with any single
> > environment
hypothesis.
> > Single environment hypotheses provide specialists.
> > Man is a
generalist.
> > The origin of the ability to operate in multiple,
> > disparate environments needs to be explained. John Roth
>
> I don't think this is quite true. We have ability to
> lock our environment into our homes, and into our
> clothes. And there is fire.
We
> cannot live without fire. This is our specialization.

We need to think about time sequences. We were well on the way
to being generalists before we invented clothing or fire.
That's my understanding of current thinking: we needed a large
brain to support getting food from a variety of different
environments. That presupposes going into a variety of
environments.

A specialist has no need to invent a new temperature control
mechanism. Fur (and hair) is perfectly adequate in a single
climate animal. It's only when an animal operates in multiple
habitats with different climates that fur (or fat) becomes
difficult, and a different solution is needed.

The sequence is what interests me. How did it happen?

> Than what about predators. We had to deal with all
> of them.
That
> implies not brain power, but weapon, IMO.

Only a very stupid (or very hungry) predator goes after
another predator. The cost/benefit ratio is all wrong. The way
our distant ancestors dealt with lions and similar predators
would have been to stay out of their way.

And you do need brain power to organize effectively if a lion
is after you. Stone axes don't get very far with a lion unless
it's backed up by some rather effective battle organization.
Of course, spears would be a lot safer, but I believe spears
are a fairly late adaptation.

> I would put all this together, notice that every
> environment
is the
> same if it is burned, notice that burned environment
> actually suits us
the
> best. Please read this citation about Aborigines : "They
> learned to manipulate their environment with a system of
"fire
> stick farming", which involved burning off sections of the
> bush from
time to
> time to clear away the debris and encourage the plant life
> to sprout
new
> shoots. The new growth attracted animals to the area
> and allowed
people to
> have various sections of land at different stages of this
> new growth.
Not
> only did the burning protect the people and their land from
> wildfire,
but it
> also flushed wild animals from the scrub and made them
> easier to hunt
while
> the burning was in progress." This same technic is used by
> african tribes as well. I would
also
> add here that the most primitive people in Borneo are using
> fire for
hunting
> (and with great skill, it was filmed).

Planned burns would help us quite a bit right now! Just get
the stupid people out of the path of the fires. However, this
requires some amount of planning and social organization.
There's no evidence that anything earlier than modern h.
sapiens had that level of organization.

> I would also notice that bipedal animal has means to
manipulate
> fire. Do you need brain power for that. Why would you need
> brain power to simply burn everything around. Every idiot
> can do that. And if you
lived
> beside water, I don't think you have fear of fire. -- Mario

[Mario Petr]

"John Roth" <johnroth@ameritech.net> wrote in message
news:ulq61v6mk2dg72@news.supernews.com...
>
> "Mario Petrinovic" <mario.petrinovic@zg.tel.hr> wrote in
> message news:ajio6j$2min$1@as201.hinet.hr...
> > "John Roth" <johnroth@ameritech.net> wrote in message
> > news:ulne6qmmjije6f@news.supernews.com...
> > > Human beings operate well in a number of environments.
> > > In fact, you could almost call that the defining
> > > characteristic of the species. Explaining that is not
> > > possible with any single environment hypothesis. Single
> > > environment hypotheses provide specialists. Man is a
> > > generalist. The origin of the ability to operate in
> > > multiple, disparate environments needs to be explained.
> > > John Roth
> >
> > I don't think this is quite true. We have ability
> > to lock our environment into our homes, and into
> > our clothes. And there is fire. We cannot live
> > without fire. This is our specialization.
>
> We need to think about time sequences. We were well on the
> way to being generalists before we invented clothing or
> fire. That's my understanding of current thinking: we needed
> a large brain to support getting food from a variety of
> different environments. That presupposes going into a
> variety of environments.
>
> A specialist has no need to invent a new temperature control
> mechanism. Fur (and hair) is perfectly adequate in a single
> climate animal. It's only when an animal operates in
> multiple habitats with different climates that fur (or fat)
> becomes difficult, and a different solution is needed.
>
> The sequence is what interests me. How did it happen?

Clothes? I don't know. You have indians in Patagonia
that are walking on snow, completly naked (even Drawin
described them). Of course they are living with the
help of fire. Fire? Fire is what made us generalists.
If you look closely (and I wrote here a lot about it)
we are not actually omnivorous. The food we are eating
isn't raw. It is cooked. We are not eating raw. Maybe
you didn't read what I wrote, but I don't see why we
are not eating/liking raw meat. It simply doesn't make
sense. So, I say : Everyrhing we eat raw was what we
ate in our original environment. Than we became
bipedal, started to manipulate fire, and with fire
spread all around. It was, IMO, some 10mya.

> > Than what about predators. We had to deal with all
> > of them. That implies not brain power, but weapon,
> > IMO.
>
> Only a very stupid (or very hungry) predator goes after
> another predator. The cost/benefit ratio is all wrong. The
> way our distant ancestors dealt with lions and similar
> predators would have been to stay out of their way.
>
> And you do need brain power to organize effectively if a
> lion is after you. Stone axes don't get very far with a lion
> unless it's backed up by some rather effective battle
> organization. Of course, spears would be a lot safer, but I
> believe spears are a fairly late adaptation.

The very best way to keep predator away is too burn
high grass. It is done even today. Big cats need high
grass for attack. This is excellent way to deal with
predators in any warm environment.

> > I would put all this together, notice that every
> > environment is the same if it is burned, notice
> > that burned environment actually suits us the
> > best. Please read this citation about Aborigines :
> > "They learned to manipulate their environment with
> > a system of "fire stick farming", which involved
> > burning off sections of the bush from time to time
> > to clear away the debris and encourage the plant
> > life to sprout new shoots. The new growth
> > attracted animals to the area and allowed people
> > to have various sections of land at different
> > stages of this new growth. Not only did the
> > burning protect the people and their land from
> > wildfire, but it also flushed wild animals from
> > the scrub and made them easier to hunt while the
> > burning was in progress." This same technic is
> > used by african tribes as well. I would also add
> > here that the most primitive people in Borneo are
> > using fire for hunting (and with great skill, it
> > was filmed).
>
> Planned burns would help us quite a bit right now! Just get
> the stupid people out of the path of the fires. However,
> this requires some amount of planning and social
> organization. There's no evidence that anything earlier than
> modern h. sapiens had that level of organization.

Burns don't have to be planed to be beneficial for us.
Any burn is beneficial to us. And stupid people can
jump in water.

> > I would also notice that bipedal animal has means
> > to manipulate fire. Do you need brain power for
> > that. Why would you need brain power to simply
> > burn everything around. Every idiot can do that.
> > And if you lived beside water, I don't think you
> > have fear of fire. -- Mario