On Fri, 26 Dec 2008, Chris Doss wrote:
> I see my main point has not really been addressed. If human beings are
> some kind of large-animal-bane, how come there are all these huge
> critters stomping around Africa, where human beings and hominids in
> general are from? It can't be that it's because these beasties are all
> terribly afraid of people, because they're not.
Well, you can say that all you want, but it so happens this is a point on which all paleontologists agree, and they all disagree with you, and they all agree with Somebody Somebody. As recently as the 90s, before we had genetic confirmation, Niles Eldridge was using exactly this point -- that African megafauna was so much more numerous than on any other continent -- as a main support of the "out of Africa" theory (as opposed to its then competition, that proto-homo sapiens had simultaneously evolved in several different places).
And not to be mean, but really Chris, on what do you base your conviction that african megafauna don't avoid the scent of man now or in previous eras? Have you studied them a lot personally? Have you done a lot of hunting? Have you studied a lot of ethology? Or is this based on what you've learned from movies and adventure stories? :)
Michael