Do you believe in the aquatic ape hypothesis?

[Dory]

I proposed the Avian Ape Hypothesis but it never really got off the ground

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Whether you believe it or not, categorizing it as "crazy" seems unscientific.

[mistermack]

The aquatic ape hypothesis is complete hogwash, but Elaine Morgan is a nice woman with good writing skills. It's a shame she got fixated on something that just doesn't stand up to scrutiny.
If you read her book, and believe what she writes, she is convincing. It's just that much of it is pure invention, or downright untrue, or totally irrelevant stuff written up as if it's incredibly relevant.
By all means read her stuff, it's entertaining, but remember that lots of the so-called evidence is untrue, or incredibly bent to fit the hypothesis, and the mountains of evidence against are totally ignored.

There are also those nowadays who try to "soften" the argument. Instead of aquatic apes, they argue for lesser degrees of water-interaction. As all creatures interact with water, this is naturally impossible to prove or disprove.
But in the end, the hypothesis becomes so diluted, it's meaningless.
.

[amused]

But in the end, the hypothesis becomes so diluted, it's meaningless.

No, no. The more diluted it gets the more meaningful it becomes.

[Clinton Huxley]

I've got her book somewhere but have never read it. Might take it on hol with me

[Geoff]

I proposed the Avian Ape Hypothesis but it never really got off the ground

Just plane silly, IMO.

[Clinton Huxley]

I proposed the Avian Ape Hypothesis but it never really got off the ground

Just plane silly, IMO.

Oh, I'm sure. I just sometimes like reading things I know will make me cross

[mistermack]

But in the end, the hypothesis becomes so diluted, it's meaningless.

No, no. The more diluted it gets the more meaningful it becomes.

Don't talk wet!!

[Pappa]

When I first read about it, the idea did seem very interesting and plausible. Since then, I have read some stuff debunking it and it does indeed seem that a lot of the more convincing aspects are really down to her writing style and the way she presents ideas. Notably though, Attenborough did a piece alluding to it in one of the Life episodes (gorillas in a swamp, anyone remember it?).

[Dory]

When I first read about it, the idea did seem very interesting and plausible. Since then, I have read some stuff debunking it and it does indeed seem that a lot of the more convincing aspects are really down to her writing style and the way she presents ideas. Notably though, Attenborough did a piece alluding to it in one of the Life episodes (gorillas in a swamp, anyone remember it?).

If she's been truly debunked, she's certainly a persistent old primate!

[Pappa]

When I first read about it, the idea did seem very interesting and plausible. Since then, I have read some stuff debunking it and it does indeed seem that a lot of the more convincing aspects are really down to her writing style and the way she presents ideas. Notably though, Attenborough did a piece alluding to it in one of the Life episodes (gorillas in a swamp, anyone remember it?).

If she's been truly debunked, she's certainly a persistent old primate!

From memory, I think various specific claims and assumptions have been completely debunked, while the general idea hasn't. Though it would be difficult to debunk the basic idea, with so little evidence to go on about exactly what did happen in our ancestors' evolution.

[Faithfree]

When I first read about it, the idea did seem very interesting and plausible. Since then, I have read some stuff debunking it and it does indeed seem that a lot of the more convincing aspects are really down to her writing style and the way she presents ideas. Notably though, Attenborough did a piece alluding to it in one of the Life episodes (gorillas in a swamp, anyone remember it?).

Same here. I read about it in the early eighties when I was at uni and at the time thought it was a cool and well argued idea. But subsequent reading of evidence-based critiques of the hypothesis (can't remember the exact details) have left me with strong doubts. It's good to have ideas like this out there though, but they need solid evidential backing to go mainstream.

[MrFungus420]

Whether you believe it or not, categorizing it as "crazy" seems unscientific.

Let's look at her points.

Naked skin...the thickest fur in the animal kingdom is found in semi-aquatic mammals. Elephants, dugongs and manatees share a common ancestor. So it is not an independently developed trait for them.
Upright posture: it's a simple mutation:


Obesity like humans is totally impossible in other primates?

[mistermack]

Acres of stuff have been written about what's wrong with the aquatic ape hypothesis, it's NOT taken seriously by the human evolution scientific community. David Attenborough did throw it in to one of his programs, but that's not unusual. It's tv, not scientific research. At the end of the day, he's an entertainer.

Elaine Morgan is a likeable woman, she gets on well with people like Attenborough. And you can de-bunk the hypothesis, but it's the nature of the hypothesis that it's impossible to disprove, just as it would be impossible to disprove the avian ape theory.

The main thrust of the hypothesis originally was that wading caused apes to become upright. Nobody knows why apes became upright, so the subject is wide open for any hypothesis.

The biggest fallacy of the AAH is that walking upright would cause an evolutionary change. People saw some chimps and other apes wading upright and concluded that that would somehow cause change. It's an elementary mistake. Evolution comes from more successful survival and reproduction, not from doing things a certain way.

Secondly, apes and monkeys can wade perfectly well, without any change to their hips, knees or feet. Humans are actually not well set up to wade. We are set up for walking, on solid ground. Our feet are rubbish for wading. The ape foot is actually much better. Having the long toes and gripping big toe is much better. You can get a grip on the slippery surface, and sunken objects. You can spread the weight more, and you can pull your foot out of the mud better, than a human foot, with it's flat rigid area.
Also, the locking knee joints are less needed in water, as you naturally wade with knees slightly bent in rough, slippery conditions, and your weight is partly supported by water.

So it completely fails in it's most important basics. We are designed for walking, not wading, and there was no need for any of the mods that we underwent, just to wade.

And why would an ape compromise it's climbing ability, when it can wade perfectly well already? Much of it's food was in the trees, they slept in trees, and they escaped predators by climbing trees. Why lose all that, when it is already a very good wader?
.

[mistermack]

Working from memory, my other objections to the aquatic ape hypothesis were the treatment of hairlessness.

It has always seemed absolutely obvious to me that human hairlessness is the result of our ability to wear clothes and make a shelter.
Why on earth would anybody assume that we first lost our hair, and then learned to use clothing and shelters because we were feeling the cold? If we were going to feel the cold, we wouldn't have lost our hair.

Hair is there, not for the usual hot day weather of africa, but for the colder times and seasons, especially cold wet nights. On hot dry days, it's a bother, making it harder to keep cool.
Wouldn't it be nice for a chimp or gorilla to be able to take off it's fur coat in hot weather? They never found a way, but we did. Once we had clothing and shelter for cold wet weather, we didn't need fur at all. So the less hairy human ancestors began to have an advantage. Better cooling and less trouble from parasites. So we eventually lost the fur coat.

But an aquatic ape would have exactly the same need for a fur coat as an arboreal one. Cold wet nights would be just as miserable and life-threatening to a naked aquatic ape. So unless they had clothes and shelter, they too would need fur.

The loss of hair also explains perfectly well why we tend to store a little fat under our skin. The fur coat helped to protect the musces and bones from knocks and bumps. Once we lost it, a thin fat deposit would make a good 'knock absorber'.
.

[SevenOfNine]

Elaine Morgan is a great amateur biologist. She is not always wrong. That being said, she has been debunked on this topic and others. Not all her ideas are crazy, and she did debunk some early "schoolboy" howlers by Sir Desmond Morris, who was a professional biologist. [And should have known better]. One thing I recall was his explanation of why funbags help with pair-bonding in humans. Like that is going to work. Suppose you pair-bond with a lady with perfect boobs. After her first child, you will be looking at another young woman's perkier tits in no time.

In any case, the lack of thick hair, the gracile jaw, the large head are clear signs of neoteny, which is the development of sexual maturity in the juvenile form. Which means Hox genes. At some stage, a change in the timing of expression by a mutation in part of a Hox cluster turned out to be a rare [but successful] mutation that selection favoured. A lakeside or seaside life would not produce such changes so quickly, as many genes would have to be selected at once.

The other problem is that many hominid fossils have been found far away from aquatic locations. The is a bias in fossil preservation in marine environments though, so one wonder why humanoids living near seaside caves were not fossilized more often.