afarensis
Posts: 987
Joined: Dec. 2006
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| Quote | | The authors recognise that the morphology and action they are studying is unusual among cursors, and this leads them to make a design inference. The hypothesis is that there are physiological reasons for the design of the human foot (rather than the structure being a spandrel and a witness to evolutionary tinkering). |
Well, if you compare the above quote with the introduction it is readily apparent that Tyler is being disingenuous. This is from the introduction:
| Quote | | The morphology and action of the human foot with— during walking—a grounded ‘heel’ behind a relatively distal ankle joint loaded early in stance, and ‘toes’ pushing off at the end of stance (i.e. a the heel–sole–toe stance or ‘plantigrade’ foot) is very unusual outside the hominoidea (apes including humans) [1–4]. It is absent in the majority of cursors, whether bipedal (e.g. ostrich, emu, etc.) or quadrupedal. |
So, Tyler is saying that the human foot is different from bipedal cursors like ostriches and quadrupedal cursors like cheetahs, and similar to the plantigrade foot seen in apes, therefore design.
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Church burning ebola boy
FTK: I Didn't answer your questions because it beats the hell out of me.
PaV: I suppose for me to be pried away from what I do to focus long and hard on that particular problem would take, quite honestly, hundreds of thousands of dollars to begin to pique my interest.
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