[Lestat]

Fascinating stuff! I wish I knew what you knew. I still have one nagging question:

Why did our anscestor erectus become instinct? And if he didn't... Would he still be churning out versions of early man? In other words, (and I think this is what Jeff V is asking), why is there no defined demarcation point? If the lemur gave rise to erectus, and erectus gave rise to homosapiens and neanderthals, why aren't they still doing do? Or did you answer this in your previous post. Sorry, I'll have to re-read it. This stuff is new to me.

I do understand your point about giving birth to a large head. It is my understanding that this is why humans are born so pre-mature and animals are basically born ready to go. It's a trade off. An animal can't wait 9 months to learn how to walk. But if the human incubation period were long enough so that we could walk on day one, the female body would not be able to give birth due to our large craniums. Do I have that at least partially right?

But domestic dogs (in time), will not need to be so fully developed if they continue living in domestication. This should allow for the evolution of a larger brain if that somehow became beneficial to the species, no?

I'd also like to understand more about the bipedal niche you talked about. Why is it filled? There are certainly enough quadropeds on the planet. Isn't their room for a few more bipeds if it facilitated the species? Monkeys seem almost in the midst of transition to me. How awkard to be trapped between a biped and a quadroped. They certainly seem to be more biped (to a layman). They don't run on all fours like a lion or deer, or even a bear might. Any idea where I can learn more about this? I used to watch Discovery, but they don't have a lot of science on there any more.