Whole organism anatomical data are usually examined with specific hypotheses in mind: specifically that they are testing ideas about functional adaptations, convergences and parallels, or about primitivenesses, derivednesses and phylogeny. Presumably, of course, such data actually contain information about all of these factors. In addition, because they describe the end result of genetic mechanisms and developmental processes, they should be reflecting these in some degree. The separations of many such factors is very difficult as long as investigation is confined to individual anatomical observations (often called characters) because they will usually contain mixtures of information of various kinds. In data that are rendered quantitatively, however, it seems possible that statistical treatment might allow a degree of disentangling of these various factors. For studies of humans, the situation is especially complex because, though some investigations emphasises the adaptive uniqueness of humans from all other primates, related generally to their unique adaptations, other studies mirror the genetic closeness of humans to other primates, especially, of course, the African great apes.
This investigation looks at several quantitative studies of whole organism structure that, on the face of it, seem to present easily recognisable functional information. It tries to discover, both through the addition of individual studies into combined investigations, and by examining clusters of variables as well as clusters of animals, the degree to which the information content is really more complex. The various studies include morphometrics of the postcranium, cranium and teeth, but they also extend into the anatomy of the niche (hence nichemetrics) and into the form and proportions of the brain (hence ‘neurometrics’). The end result seems to be that a degree of disentanglement is indeed possible and that developmental phenomena obtained from studies of individual experimental animals are reflected in whole organism data from the adults of a wide diversity of related species. This result also speaks, therefore, about why humans hold paradoxical positions in different studies.
