TED Talk: Elaine Morgan says we evolved from aquatic apes
I'm delighted by Elaine Morgan's hypothesis that humans evolved from aquatic apes.
Elaine Morgan is a tenacious proponent of the aquatic ape hypothesis: the idea that humans evolved from primate ancestors who dwelt in watery habitats. Hear her spirited defense of the idea -- and her theory on why mainstream science doesn't take it seriously.TED Talk: Elaine Morgan says we evolved from aquatic apes
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Remember in Ghostbusters when Egon warns "don't cross the streams?" I wonder if it also applies to crossing popular blogs?
From yesterday:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/08/oh_no_not_the_aquatic_ape_hypo.php
I knew there was a reason I always loved sea monkeys.
That's it. I'm starting a band called "Aquatic Ape Theory". Who's in?
It's a lovely idea — I've admired it ever since I read about it in Morgan's Descent of Woman in the 70s — but it doesn't hold water, alas. For a detailed dissection see Jim Moore's Aquatic Ape site.
I'd like to think that capering about in the water has been a feature of the Homo lineage, but it seems to be a result of exaptation of existing features rather than to have been a source of evolutionary adaptations.
David Attenborough (don't know the date of the video):
http://newpapyrusmagazine.blogspot.com/2009/02/david-attenborough-on-aquatic-ape.html
and just for kicks:
http://objectiveministries.org/creation/aquatic.html
http://www.aquaticape.org/
Bollocks, wot?
When I used to go to conferences on evolutionary linguistics, aquatic ape folks sometimes showed up to explain how language-related features in human anatomy were the product of adapting to an aquatic lifestyle. The other conference-goers were generally polite to them, but there was a certain amount of eye-rolling in private.
buutt.... humans suck in water.
We're very inefficent swimmers, we suffer from hypothermia really easily, we can't process salt water (assuming the aquatic ape lived in the sea) we have no special adaptions to water life like webbed feet, eyes that can see well underwater.
Much more likely idea for our hairlessness is it allows us to sweat efficiently and so keep active in the African sun.
With the best will in the world, i think this theory is an example of someone drawing totally the incorrect conclusions from correct data.
Here is some interesting research involving aquatic linguistics.
I first read about the aquatic ape theory in Desmond Morris' book "The Naked Ape", published in 1967.
P.Z. Meyers weighed in on the aquatic ape theory the other day.
One of the most important differences between Science and Pseudo-Science is that a Scientist must have the courage to abandon beautiful ideas when those ideas aren't supported by evidence. If they can't do that, then they join the ranks of the Pseudo-Scientists and stop contributing to Human knowledge and understanding.
-Sean
To argue the idea that humans are streamlined she shows a picture of someone diving at 10:49 (the babies in the water are terribly cute, but I don't see much streamlined about them), yet the ability to put our hands in a straight line above our heads comes from our ancestry as brachiating primates, not as diving aquatic apes.
It's a cute idea, but hardly a new one. Also, hardly a coherent one. It works best in a pop-sci environment where you can deal with it in a few pages of your popular-science book or 5-10 minutes of a popular-science lecture, and then escape before anyone notices the lack of detail and evidence.
So Kevin Costner's character in Waterworld is just bringing evolution full circle?
Elaine Morgan is not a scientist. Fossil evidence is overwhelmingly in support of the African Savannah hypothesis.
Aquatic apes, no; swamp apes, yes. There are reasons to believe that our ancestors evolve upright walking by wading through swamps. That's right, we like to play in the mud. :)
#17, shawnhcorey
I guess that explains the GOP!
Dear Flying Spaghetti Monster... aquatic apes. Just plain dumb. Can't believe so much intellectual effort has been expended on such an idiotic and unscientific concept.
I prefer Terence McKenna's Stoned Ape hypothesis to this one. It's just a tad more loopy.
@17: Aw great, now we're gonna get an earful from all the Swamp Ape fans over at Cryptomundo.
Every human evolved from spending time in the water.
The last I checked, each of us spends roughly 39 to 40 weeks of our lives -- contiguously -- surrounded by water.
We're just not adapted to living independently in the water.
Morgan's thesis was initially greeted with enthusiasm and good humor by people who actually knew better. She was one of the more "trippy" of the New Age writers because she at least worked from plausible evidence within a scientific paradigm. My more militant feminista friends were especially delighted, although more entertained than convinced. And you've got to admit, as other commenters have pointed out, it's a hell of a cute idea. But so, too, is reincarnation.
Pseudoscience at TED? Why not spend the time with one of the many human evolutionists who work hard at studying the evidence at face value rather than trying to cram it into a silly, debunked hypothesis? There are plenty of charismatic yet intellectually honest scientists to choose from.
I'd have just one thing to say to her: "Show me the fossils!" No fossil record, no aquatic ape.
Wait, so parrots are diving birds? cormorants and penguins can talk?
and @shawnhcorey 17:
Isn't a swamp an aquatic environment?
Humans are spectacular endurance runners-- over extremely long distances, we can outpace horses, big cats, antelopes, wolves, and so on. There are people in Africa who still hunt by following antelope at a fast jog until the animal overheats and looses the ability to run. Given that the reason we're able to do this is that we're hairless bipeds, it seems odd that someone would claim that these traits evolved to support something at which we're relatively terrible.
And we wouldn't have left our nice quiet pond if the nasssty Bagginses hadn't STOLEN it from us, would we have, preciousss?
"I'm delighted by Elaine Morgan's hypothesis that humans evolved from aquatic apes."
It's not Elaine Morgan's hypothesis. She's just espousing it.
Sometimes I'm enamored with an idea while simultaneously thinking it's bunk. Hollow earth, sunken continents, martians.
I was surprised she left out the bit about the diving response in humans:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8018553
The diving response in human beings is characterized by breath-holding, slowing of the heart rate (diving bradycardia), reduction of limb blood flow and a gradual rise in the mean arterial blood pressure. The bradycardia results from increased parasympathetic stimulus to the cardiac pacemaker. The reduction in limb blood flow is due to vasoconstriction resulting from increased activity of the sympathetic nerves supplying arteries in the arms and legs. Essentially the response is produced by the combination of water touching the face and either voluntary or involuntary (reflex) arrest of breathing. The nervous inputs and outputs for the response are coordinated in the brain stem by the respiratory, vasomotor and cardioinhibitory "centers." The diving response in human beings can be modified by many factors but the most important are water temperature, oxygen tension in the arterial blood and emotional factors.
30 comments and no one has said "Bathing Ape" yet. Wow, decaf.
Manifestly cuckoo.
Too busy with work today to watch the clip but personally I've always thought her ideas made far more sense than the me-big-mighty-hunter Naked Ape theories. She certainly raised a lot of legitimate points in The Descent of Woman regarding the massive logical holes that the currently held theories leave (e.g., why lose the outer hair but acquire a subcutaneous fat layer? Yes, there is eyerolling and dismissiveness but, then again, there was (and still is among the moronic) plenty of eyerolling about evolution and even more recently, the whole concept of tectonic plate movement.
Holy Crap, Anonymous#3! Somebody beat you to it:
http://www.garageband.com/artist/aquatic_ape_theory
Based on the other comments so far, maybe we should call ourselves Thundering Mad Sea Monkeys and call it a day.
Too bad apes can't swim.
So now we're supposed to believe we came from giant Sea-Monkeys? We're made in the image of the Lord.
Chondrodite asserts: "We're made in the image of the Lord."
I'm afraid you'll have to be more specific there, friend. Lord Buddha? Lord Krishna? Lord Mayor of London Ian Luder?
Apropos of nothing, does anyone know if it is possible to go back and edit a comment on FLICKR after it's been posted. I only ask because of this. Look at the comment from Torley. Look at the date it was posted.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/48105445@N00/1927847605/
"'m frd y'll hv t b mr spcfc thr, frnd. Lrd Bddh? Lrd Krshn? Lrd Myr f Lndn n Ldr?"
Y cn jk rnd bt f y dn't ccpt Jss nt yr hrt yr gng t b sng yr qtc p ftrs n lk f fr
Great Scott, Mojave! You've discovered a time traveler!
If you really want to kick the mad-theory dial up to 11, I highly recommend the "Initial Bipedalism" hypothesis. It's like this, but waaay more so!
Summary: All mammals, all vertebrates, in fact, started out from aquatic, vaguely homunculus-like ancestors. It's pretty wild, man.
Yes, Mojave, you can edit your own comments on Flickr.
Wow, there's all kinds of unbelievable stuff on here these days.
While searching for something completely unrelated, I just came across (in a non-literal sense) a pair of interesting aquatic apes!
http://scienceblogs.com/zooillogix/2009/08/are_animals_mixing_up_the_ocea.php#more
Yeah, I just checked, I have an "edit" button next to all the comments I've posted on Flickr, even very old ones.
And I've always hated the aquatic ape theory, mainly on the basis that I'm personally nowhere near hairless. In fact, the whole "naked ape" or "humans are hairless" idea seems to only hold up if you limit your experience of naked humans to certain ethnic subgroups and/or individual hygiene regimens.
Either that or I'm part Yeti. I'm increasingly attracted to the Yeti hypothesis, personally. It lets me distance myself from the goings-on of the crazy-assed humans.
Assert away, my silicate friend.
So is "Aqua Ape" supposed to be the ancestor of Mermaids & Mermen, maybe? ;-)
On the other hand, "Aqua Ape" sounds like a pretty cool superhero or super-villain name, too...maybe a heretofore unknown arch-nemesis of Aqua Man?
I'm actually a bit shocked that so many BB'ers are so anxious to burn this woman at the stake as a heretic. Her ideas are a bit unorthodox, but they are well presented and worthy of respectful debate. I think her ideas are as plausible as any I've heard from the rest of the Paleontology crowd. The evidence cited to discredit the theory seems to have plenty of holes in it as well.
The Aquatic Ape theory has been well and thoroughly debunked. Among other things, the waters of sub-Saharan Africa are lousy with things that like to snack on long pig, such as nile crocodiles, bull sharks, and at the time humans evolved, saltwater crocodiles. That ignores the wide variety of aquatic parasites and animals such as hippos that make the water a very dangerous place for humans in the area where we evolved.
In short, Elaine Morgan is full of shit.
@#49, except for the fact that the specific holes in the theory (see that aquaticape.org someone linked to early on) have been known, and expounded on, for a very long time.
Of course, I have no problem with her personally! And really, it's quite a fun theory. I just like to have my list of crazy theories neatly noted as such.
D y rlly blv n p gv brth t hmn bby?
I can't help thinking that the creationists are partly to blame for the chill that's fallen over evolutionary debate. In America, intelligent design frequently passes for evolutionary debate. I understand why scientists tend to circle the wagons and strive for a united, homogenous front.
Chondrodite asks: "Do you really believe an ape gave birth to a human baby?"
Since humans are apes, I would have to say yes. It happens all the time.
#51 Chondrodite:
"Do you really believe an ape gave birth to a human baby?"
I believe a human woman gave birth to a jackass.
Shifting scientific paradigms is difficult for a reason. It's to keep unsupported claims like this from being passed off as actually having supporting evidence or research.
I think she has a rather false understanding about how science works. Peer review does not discriminate, but it does deservedly destroy any unsupported hypotheses. Scientists want to discover theories that shake everything up, they want to take down paradigms. That's the only sure fire way to become famous as a scientist. That's probably why this theory exists in the first place.
This theory isn't rejected because "science doesn't want to change" as if it were some sort of religious dogma. This theory is rejected because it's incorrect. Despite the lack of fossil evidence, everything they have claimed is a feature of aquatic heritage has been shown not to be.
Yes, it's a wonderful sounding hypothesis that makes some nice yet flawed observations, but when you put it through the ringer it doesn't have any bipedal legs left to stand on.
@#49 That's exactly the problem my friend. You have a superficial understanding of both sides of the argument so they both sound equally plausible, but people who actually dig around in fossil beds have long ago shown that this line of thinking wasn't supported and was in fact directly contradicted by hard evidence. If Elaine Morgan was any kind of real scientist she would chalk it up to a disproven hypothesis and go back to the drawing board. Instead she continues to publish new agey books that are light on facts but attract converts because its a neat idea that they like the sound of. Its the same hokum that pervades any conspiratorial pseudo science, be it birthers, creationists, 9/11 truthers, vaccine-autism linkers or Holocaust deniers. "Look at my neat idea! Doesn't it feel right to you? If I misconstrue these facts over here it totally supports my idea! Plus this one wildly altered 'fact' makes all other scenarios impossible! I'd show you more, but 'THEY' don't want the truth revealed."
Good Lord. I thought he was joking until I got to the lake of fire.
#58 Lake of Fire? Bring it! We aquatic apes ain't afraid of no lakes!
A friend of mine sent me this video the other day...I plan on using it in my Anthropology class as a discussion starter. Should be interesting to see what a bunch of 17 and 18 year-olds think.
Actually, Antinous, I thought Chondrodite's comeback (like angusm's comment above) was not without wit: 'aquatic ape features', 'lake'. Ba dum chhh!!!
As for the suggestion that we 5 billion or so human beings who are not Christians face eternal torment, I take very little umbrage at such an empty threat. Can't speak for all of us, naturally.
Do as you think best, but count this as a vote for re-emvowelling the comment.
@ Xenu Teh Wunderkat:
"Thundering Mad Sea Monkeys"? Hell yeah! Let's do this! :)
The aquatic ape theory is such a wonderful fantasy... I wish it was true and have enjoyed falling into the daydream of Elaine's books, but as someone else pointed out above, much of these traits are better and more plausibly explained by our equally remarkable talent for endurance running.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistence_hunting
And sort of see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_versus_Horse_Marathon
Chondrodyte, perhaps you should take a moment to examine why any sane, thinking human would care to waste time fantasizing about a subterranean red-skinned man-goat with a pitchfork.
@ Chondrodyte #64:
If you're referring to the question "did an ape give birth to a human baby" then I don't find it discomforting so much as annoying. The reason for that is that it's a rare creationist who embraces rational evidence-based debate, so such questions usually signal the end of thoughtful discussion.
To answer the question: as Hokano noted humans are apes, so yes. But if you mean "did modern humans diverge from other apes in a single generation" then clearly not.
Seems we have both a 'Chondrodite' and a 'Chondrodyte' present. The latter appears to speak for the former.
The sock puppet troll has been relegated to eternal damnation.
I've been a supporter of the theory since I read Richard Ellis's book Aquagenesis: The Origin and Evolution of Life in the Sea. It explains a lot of the things Elaine Morgan was talking about in great detail and also covers a multitude of other animals going so far as to make predictions about where he thinks evolution may go in the future. It's educational, but also easy to read for someone who doesn't have much background in the subject. You can find it on Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/Aquagenesis-Origin-Evolution-Life-Sea/dp/0142001562/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249515478&sr=1-1
"The sock puppet troll has been relegated to eternal damnation."
Ah, well. At least Chondrod[i|y]te's brief sojourn occasioned a lookup of just what the hell chondrodite is. As it turns out, it's found in hydrothermal deposits.
That's right, it comes from fiery hot lakes.
@ Hokano #69:
I gotta admit that was a pretty clever handle.
It's also a member of the Discworld pantheon:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discworld_gods
"Chondrodite - Troll god of love. Causes trolls to fall in love by hitting them on the head with a rock."
I don't think this theory is that far out there, although I would think it would be much better described as 'amphibious ape' or some other word meaning 'mostly on the land but occasionally in the water'.
I don't think it is too unreasonable to consider that the widely-accepted ancestral home of humans, the Great Rift Valley, may have had fresh or brackish water in antiquity, and humans evolved to become adept at feeding on both land and aquatic life for food. I remember reading about how humans needed the calcium found in coastal shellfish/ mollusks / crustaceans in order to promote proper bone growth to support upright posture. I couldn't really speculate on whether the water that filled the rift valley was fresh or brackish, however.
The use of the word aquatic makes one think of deep-sea humans, when in fact it is more like 'river-dwelling' and 'beach-going' humans. I don't find the theory that unbelievable because it isn't really that radical.
Am I being unreasonable by adapting the theory to fit some possible but unknown conditions? This is the result of a few moments of deep thought while answering nature's call, and I don't have any formal post-secondary training in biology, chemistry, or logic.
hello friends. This is not a troll, just a genuine request for a helpful link / explanation.
I think what is interesting about Chondrodyte's question is, why don't we see a full spectrum of differences between species? In other words, why don't we see more 'missing' links? With some genus (genuses?) it seems like there are many subtle differences between species (like corals or dolphins or ivy or whatever.) But with humans, it seems like there are pretty significant differences between homo sapiens and current apes.
When I asked my evolutionary biologist friend about this, he talked about New Guinea and islands and species getting separated by geography, and then taking different evolutionary paths. This makes sense for the most part, but does that happen for every species right now?
He also talked about time. Lots and lots and lots of time. So, the split b/w humans and current apes happened a long long time ago and probably a couple of different ways, but all of the other different ways have managed to die off?
Any such mouse at 73
"why don't we see more 'missing' links?"
Depends on what "missing link" means to you. For creationists it just means a chance to weasel in their propaganda.
"it seems like there are many subtle differences between species ... But with humans, it seems like there are pretty significant differences"
Not really. Seems to me the differences between us and other primates are pretty subtle. But if one is outraged at the very idea then any comparison probably seems to much.
#73 - Darwin travelled in his lifetime - he saw things that made him realise that large changes can accumulate from numerous small changes occurring over long periods of time
e.g. at the coast, he found limpets clinging to rocks, and erosion in the rocks caused by the sea water washing round the limpet's shell. He looked inland from the shore, and found the same marks on rocks that are now far from the coast - but which were formed by the same mechanism - everything is plastic over a long enough timescale.
Evolution is happening for every species, right now, but in our lifetimes the changes are typically too small to notice - if we could compare notes with our 10,000th generation grandfathers, or 10,000th generation grandchildren, there would be significant changes.
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Does she mean surfers?
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Shades of Drexciya, the semi-anonymous Detroit hiphop/electro band of the 1990s. They recorded a few albums and a number of 12" singles. The basis for their music was a mythical civilization under the Atlantic Ocean populated by the descendants of unborn babies of pregnant women thrown overboard by slavers. The babies never lost their gills and they learned to breathe underwater.
It's a shame that most of the comments so far appear to have been written by people who have never checked Elaine Morgan's website http://www.elainemorgan.me.uk/ or read any of her books.
Almost nobody seems to have read even The Origin of Species, http://darwin-online.org.uk/EditorialIntroductions/Freeman_OntheOriginofSpecies.html. Charles Darwin pointed out 150 years ago how few fossils there are compared to the vast numbers of individual animals and - even more so - plants and other organisms that have died leaving no trace except - if they have any - in their descendents. In this case absence of fossil evidence is not evidence of absence. The evidence is in our characteristics, such as fat being below the skin, and control of breathing, which Elaine Morgan spoke about.
Charles Darwin himself faced similar problems persuading people about natural selection, because it takes creative, imaginative intelligence to 'get' natural selection from what we see now, such as the distribution of species. We can never go back in time and see what happened, and the evidence will always be extremely partial.
As for the scientific consensus - David Attenborough presented a very interesting programme on BBC's Radio 4 back in 2005 which compared the hoo-ha over the aquatic ape theory with the time it took earth scientists to accept tectonic plate theory:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/scarsofevolution.shtml
I'm a biology graduate, and I trust most scientists most of the time to be honest and to go with evidence and logic, rather than sticking with faulty paradigms. But I do understand that scientists are humans, and that human beings find it hard to say sorry, I got something wrong, I missed something - because that's a lot of hard work.
In the case of aquatic ape theory, it may take longer than it took the earth scientists to accept tectonic plate theory, because the palaeontologists are probably so pissed off that it was a marine biologist, Alister Hardy, who suggested the idea, and an English graduate and - shock horror in the 70s! - a woman, Elaine Morgan, who developed it. Just because Elaine Morgan isn't a science graduate it doesn't mean that she can't have the intelligence to understand biology.
I'll be interested to see what comments come from people who've actually done some reading on the subject!
never mind actual facts and evidence
http://www.aquaticape.org/
yes, this woman is wrong and will always be wrong.
@78 Rowan:
The idea that mitochondria developed from symbiotic bacteria is generally accepted now, but it was a dramatic change in our understanding. And it was promoted mainly by Lynn Margulis, a woman, to the point where some have forgotten she wasn't the first to come up with it.
Saying there's resistance to Morgan on account of her gender or position is just making excuses. Enough has been given here to show that even if it were to be proven correct, the resistance was purely because of the idea.