A non sequitur is a conclusion that does not follow from the data considered. PaleoBabble research is riddled with them. One of the more frequent flaws in thinking that produce non sequiturs is the confusion of correlation and causation: just because two things “relate” doesn’t mean one is the cause of the other, or produced the other, or even “leads to” the other.
Here’s a fun illustration of this flawed thinking process, ubiquitous in PaleoBabble pablum, written up by biblical scholar Pete Enns. It’s about how baseball proves evolution. Enjoy!
> It’s about how baseball proves evolution.
That is not what the original article is saying. It merely notes that one modern skill (ball throwing) is a result of anatomical changes that allowed for the development of an ancient skill (spear throwing). Everyone would agree spear throwing would likely be a very useful survival skill. No one in the article — or anywhere else — is saying throwing a baseball was a skill specifically selected by nature in determining whose lineage succeeded or perished.
I will allow that the writer of the “Archeology” article does not seem concerned (or able) to describe carefully the necessary order of behavioural changes and anatomical changes. I believe the point of the research is that the anatomical changes that allowed humans to throw spears evolved after bipedalism — they could not have happened while we still relied heavily on our arms for locomotion.