William wrote:
> On Wed, 29 Nov 2006 19:27:15 -0500, Adam Sroka <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>
>> It's good that you are passionate about this stuff. However, having 
>> an opinion and finding ways that the evidence *might* support that 
>> opinion is *not* science. FYI.
>>
>
>
>
> Right on! For instance, the fact of smaller jaws and teeth, weaker jaw 
> muscles, can just just as easily support the idea that man or hominids 
> learned how to work stone, eliminating the need to bite off chunks of 
> meat. A sharp knife will do as well or better than cooking. This is 
> fact, not opinion.
>
> Of course, my name isn't Wrangham, so I don't call my opinions 
> hypotheses.
>
> William
>
IIRC a "hypothesis" is an educated guess supported by the available 
evidence. It is useful so long as it continues to be tested against new 
evidence. For example there is quite a bit of evidence that supports the 
hypothesis that man has been cooking for 100,000 years or so. However, 
there is not enough evidence to come up with a testable theory as to 
when and why cooking began. As an interesting aside, *all* cultures 
cook, and *all* cultures also have traditional dishes that include 
fresh, raw flesh. This just further confounds the issue.

I am sympathetic to your cause, but I have a knee jerk reaction to your 
tactics. Just because you can come up with alternate explanations for 
individual bits of evidence doesn't change the fact that the evidence 
*does* support the hypothesis that was presented. So, to the uneducated 
ear an alternate explanation for burnt bones casts doubt on the whole 
theory of early man's cooking habits, but it is *bad* science. To make 
the science better you would need to come up with a single hypothesis 
which could explain all (or at least a majority) of the available evidence.

The difficulty is that it is tough to prove the negative. It is easy to 
prove that men in all cultures have been cooking for all of recorded 
history. It is very difficult to prove what they did before then. 
Cooking destroys its own evidence. In addition I would offer that your 
own explanation for the burnt bones, destroying food to avert predators, 
is a better explanation for why men wouldn't leave behind evidence of 
their cooking. It is common practice for nomadic people to pack out or 
bury evidence of their passage to avert enemies and wild predators. Join 
the Army and they'll teach you how it's done ;-) Seems more likely to me 
that evidence of cooking would be found with sedentary or semi-sedentary 
peoples. However, this doesn't preclude nomadic people cooking. Just 
makes it hard to prove either way.