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12. Analogies and Models in the Study of the Early Hominins
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437 12 Analogies and Models in the Study of the Early Hominins Clifford J. Jolly Paleontologists, including those specializing in the fossil evidence for human evolution, have little prospect of eventually being able to observe a whole, let alone a living, representative of a species represented only by fossil fragments.Especially in vertebrate paleontology, therefore, the task of reconstructing the behavior, ecology, and physiology of “new” forms from fragmentary and indirect evidence is routine and essential , and draws upon advances in neontological biology concerned with function and behavior. Elton (2006) has recently provided a thorough and thoughtful historical review of works in which anthropologists have attempted to fill the gaps in our knowledge of the behavioral and ecological aspects of human evolution by comparing fossil hominins with living anthropoid primates. As Elton notes, the favored nonhuman primates for comparison have been the great apes, especially the chimpanzees, and the cercopithecoid monkeys. Her account documents the alternating predominance of advocates of great apes and cercopithecoids , respectively, as the most illuminating comparison , or referent, against which early hominins are to be matched and interpreted. The argument to be developed here is that although both the chimp-based and monkey-based comparisons are often regarded as exercises in analogy, and the referents are labeled analogs , they actually represent two quite distinct modes of operation. Most (though not all) studies that draw upon information from chimpanzees to illuminate DOI: 10.5876/9781607322252:c12 clifford j. jolly 438 the unobservable aspects of early hominin biology are quite different in logic from those that use cercopithecoid monkeys (or other organisms, primate and nonprimate). It is suggested that while both approaches are vital and complementary sources of insight, only the latter involve analogies in the strict sense. In these terms, most studies that have invoked chimpanzees as a referent have used them not as analogs but as “best extant models” (BEM). AnAlogies According to the OED (Oxford English Dictionary 1933), one of the earliest (mid-sixteenth century) usages of the term analogy is mathematical, referring to the likeness of proportion between two sets of numbers, as in “3 is to 6 as 2 is to 4.” From the first, therefore, a likeness of relations was a fundamental part of the concept. Only a small step is required from this usage to a slightly more general one, which apparently appeared at almost the same time, and extends the basic idea beyond mathematics. Analogies in this strict sense survived most familiarly in psychological tests, where they are stated in the form: A is to B as C is to (X/Y/Z), as in Foot is to Shoe as Head is to (Hair/Glove/Hat). It is the likeness of relationship (foot in shoe, head in hat) that is important in true analogy, not the resemblance of a member of pair 1 to a member of pair 2.That feet and gloves both have digits, for example, and come in pairs, is irrelevant. This essential concept is retained, even when the analogy is not spelled out as fully, as is illustrated by two nineteenth-century quotations chosen by the OED (both, by curious coincidence, were written by close friends of Charles Darwin: John Tyndall and Sir John Lubbock): “The analogy between a river and a glacier moving through a sinuous valley is therefore complete” (Tyndall 1896) [Glac. II. 10. 285]. “There seem to be three principal types [of ants] offering a curious analogy to the three great phases: the hunting, pastoral, and agricultural stages, in the history of human development” (Lubbock 1879) [Sci. Lect. iv. 137] (OED 1933, 304). Analogies of this kind are here called true analogies.They can easily be stated in a way that formalizes the “likeness of relations.”Tyndall’s could be stated as: “moving glaciers are to static masses of ice as rivers are to static masses of fresh water.” But it is also obvious that flowing glaciers do not have all the attributes of rivers , even of rivers-as-contrasted-to-lakes. Thus another feature of analogies is that they always include, often implicitly, a phrase that delimits the comparison. In presenting his analogy,Tyndall implies an introductory phrase such as “with [44.202.198.173] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 14:29 GMT) analogies and models in the study of the early hominins 439 respect to the way that they follow the course of the rocky beds in which they lie.” Apparently he did not think it necessary to point out that...