The authors don’t seem particularly familiar with the prehistory of Oceania, previous research done on canoes and voyaging, or the context in which Haddon and Hornell gathered their data. For example many of the islands included had ceased long distance voyaging ca.1400AD, and it is widely believed lost canoe making technology, others such as Fiji had recently adopted Micronesian canoe designs.

But whatever. The main problem that I see is the way in which traits are defined and classified as either functional or symbolic. Several of the functional traits appear to be stylistic variations, with probably very little functional import – the outrigger attachment techniques for example. The authors speculate variance in this trait was due to “types of waves encountered” (!) or “constrained by availability of materials”. But speculation is not proof. Haddon and Hornell themselves regarded outrigger variation as stylistic/cultural. With Darwin’s finches it is demonstrable that beak shape is functional and associated with ecological niche. But how can you separate traits into ‘functional’ and ’symbolic’ when you don’t know (much less demonstrate) the source of variation? Ehrlich and Rogers seem to define functional traits using some common sense idea of ‘integral bits of a canoe’ and contrast this with the ‘frilly bits’. If you look at their trait lists this becomes really apparent. The functional traits are elements that determine the basic canoe form, whilst the symbolic traits consist of seemingly arbitrary add-ons – whether a canoe had feathers attached to the bow, or leaves on the mast. I immediately ask: did all canoes have feathers in a given region? Did Haddon and Hornell (or more properly their sources: traders, explorers, missionaries, paintings, toy models) record that kind of thing systematically? Or were they more concerned with basic techniques of canoe construction? (actually, Yes). Is variation more evident in the symbolic traits because these contain a large portion of arbitrariness in both their definition and recording?

What really makes me laugh about this kind of research however is the fact that they once again mine an ancient colonial era book for data. And then they (and Shennan in his commentary) go and complain about how anthropologists and sociologists don’t collect this stuff anymore. But if their findings are to have any wider significance whatsover they could very easily go out and record any similar dataset in their own neighbourhood. Maybe cellphone traits? Or how about Cars? Or Desktop computers? Or are they really arguing this kind of thing can only be detected in small scale societies, living on isolated islands, having diverged from an ancestral population, and abandoned ties with the world?

As it is now all they have done is proved that they can generate data from a book and make it appear patterned.

I realise we are all nervous about providing quotes for the Intelligent Design brigade but perhaps these sorts of parallels may help us explain exactly where their arguments fall down.

Yeah I caught that in the original paper and I think it is flawed to consider it so absolute. Boat making is highly structured and often relies on more than one person. The boat maker is also not always the boat user.

That matter aside, when a boat design fails, sure the sailors perish but knowledge of the failed design doesn’t. People learn remarkably quickly to change up a boats design when members of their group don’t return. That’s what I mean by conscious trial and error.

Kambiz