Aquatic ape hypothesis

[Moontanman]

https://johnhawks.net/weblog/why-anthropologists-dont-accept-the-aquatic-ape-theory/

 

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Anthropology and archaeology were transformed in the 1970s and 1980s with spectacular fossil discoveries in Ethiopia and Kenya. A new generation of researchers turned away from many 1960s-era ideas. Even so, they found little of value in the aquatic ape theory. The more evidence anthropologists found of early human relatives, the less any speculations about aquatic ancestors seemed to make sense. It wasn't the lakeshore; it was the woodlands where our ancestors took their first bipedal steps.

 

[Ken Fabian]

Many inland peoples (eg African Bushmen, Australian desert Aborigines) who lived for many generations without any access to sea-foods have been healthy with fully working brains; the idea that early hominids couldn't develop large brains without an aquatic lifestyle sounds doubtful to me.

[dimreepr]

On 1/3/2015 at 6:35 AM, ZVBXRPL said:

Wondered what people thought of this hypothesis.

 

I remember years ago I read something somewhere about ancestors of humans living in water and this helped with our evolution.

 

I think of it now and again, but until now didn't know what the theory was called or anything.

 

I did a search and managed to find the name of the hypothesis I was thinking of - Aquatic ape hyopthesis.

 

Seems interesting. If it were true it would mean that water was not only a major factor in evolution of life in general but for human evolution too.

I haven't read this thread, so I apologise to those who have made a similar point.

Of course our ancestors crawled out of the ocean's, to live in a different version of a fluid ocean and so of course we wouldn't evolutionarily discard a fluidic benefit.

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Seems interesting. If it were true it would mean that water was not only a major factor in evolution of life in general but for human evolution too.

Of course it's true, but people swimming is not part of human evolution. 😉

[CEngelbrecht]

On 3/4/2019 at 12:09 AM, IndySage said:

“Anyone defending the viewpoint that it was human thinking in and of itself that generated our bigger brains around 2-3mya is resisting the fact that total iodine-deficiency in a fully thinking pregnant mothers diet still can/will bring about in the worst case scenario a fetal neurodevelopmental condition known as cretinism (to mention the extreme) so iodine (and DHA) in seafood is very much a pivotal subject when it comes to braindevelopment, as Stephen Cunnane aswell as many others has written a great deal about.”

Uhuh. Except that Homo sapiens have lost about 100cc of brain volume over the last 40,000 years.

Doing with less: hominin brain atrophy

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In contrast to hominin encephalization, the final Pleistocene and Holocene reduction in cranial volume [say what...?] has attracted very little attention and remains unexplained. Here it is examined in the light of current neuroscientific and archaeological understanding, and it is shown that the most parsimonious explanation is via the domestication hypothesis of recent humans. Accordingly, rapid atrophy of the brain is partly explained by the culturally based process of sexual selection, first detectable in late robust Homo sapiens perhaps 40,000 years ago. Furthermore it is suggested that this deleterious process of neotenization and brain atrophy was compensated for by the concurrent development of exograms, i.e. means of storing memory outside the brain. Consequently most of human memory and cultural information is now stored external to the brain, which has altered that organ significantly and facilitated a cultural complexity that would be impossible to maintain by biological memory alone. The escalating use of exograms, neotenization and reduction in cranial volume all appear to co-occur with numerous other changes to the human genome.

I am just gonna repeat that: Homo sapiens have lost about 100cc of brain volume over the last 40,000 years. Which does coincide with the earliest true archeological evidence of big game hunting in Eurasia, of mammoths, etc. Suggesting that maybe as late as 40kya is when hominins started to let go of a chiefly aquatic diet rich in brain beneficial nutrients, in favor of a more calorific terrestrial diet lacking is such nutrients. Which is slowly costing us that big brain we're so bloody proud of.

And sapiens 40kya is not even the hominin with the largest brain ever. That was the Neanderthals that they genocided. That's right. That's not being said out loud that often either. Them dumb-as-pig-shit Neanderthals that you have all been taught was subhuman had a bigger average brain than you and your direct ancestors. They were likely smarter than you and your ancestry too.

In the 1990s, Peter Rhys-Evans made the testable suggestion that surfer's ear would be detectable in hominin fossils, if they had really been largely fishing apes. And OH MY!:

Aural exostoses (surfer’s ear) provide vital fossil evidence of an aquatic phase in Man’s early evolution

Neanderthals also got 'surfer's ear,' suggesting they liked to fish

AS SOON AS SOMEONE GOT THEIR HEAD OUT THEIR ARSE AND ACTUALLY STARTED TO LOOK AT THE ALREADY EXISTING FOSSIL ARCHIVE!!!

BUT GO ON ABOUT HOW THERE IS NO FOSSIL EVIDENCE FOR THE AQUATIC APE HYPOTHESIS!!!

On 1/27/2023 at 4:39 PM, Bufofrog said:

Random quotes from random people is not evidence.  The aquatic ape theory doesn't hold water (pun intended).

A journalist once told Albert Einstein about the publication of a book titled, "100 Authors Against Albert Einstein's Theory of Relativity".

His reply was: "Why one hundred? If I were wrong, one would have been enough."

On 1/27/2023 at 5:31 PM, Moontanman said:

https://johnhawks.net/weblog/why-anthropologists-dont-accept-the-aquatic-ape-theory/

it was the woodlands where our ancestors took their first bipedal steps.

 

No sjit.

That is a helluva thing: Every single ape and monkey species becomes vertically bipedal when wading through shallow water. But of course that can't possibly support the heretic notion that that's how hominin habitual bipedalism began in hinterland lakes and streams in Africa.

On 1/29/2023 at 8:34 AM, Ken Fabian said:

Many inland peoples (eg African Bushmen, Australian desert Aborigines) who lived for many generations without any access to sea-foods have been healthy with fully working brains; the idea that early hominids couldn't develop large brains without an aquatic lifestyle sounds doubtful to me.

That's because you don't read up. 'Cause you think you don't have to

[Survival of the fattest: the key to human brain evolution]

These have become banned volumes and Nullius in Verba somehow don't apply.

Edited January 30, 2023 by CEngelbrecht

[CEngelbrecht]

Science is a strange culprit, it stays true whether you believe in it or not.

What you're all feeling right now is the sensation of the cardinals in 1632 in Rome.

Edited January 30, 2023 by CEngelbrecht

[iNow]

9 minutes ago, CEngelbrecht said:

What you're all feeling right now is the sensation of the cardinals in 1632 in Rome.

Boredom? 

[mistermack]

I haven't kept up with this thread, so apologies if i'm repeating earlier comments. 

A guy called Jim Moore set up a website on what's wrong with the AAH many years ago, and it's well worth visiting for refutation of pretty much all of the wrong claims made for aquatic apes. It's called "aquatic ape, sink or swim? " and here's the link :     https://www.aquaticape.org/    

I have no idea if he's still active on the subject, but his analysis of all of the guff still 'holds water' in my opinion.

On the slight reduction in brain size of modern homo sapiens, it's a tiny change, and it could be for any of many possibilities. The trend has been for humans to get more gracile physically, more lightly built, more mobile and less stocky. That might mean that people slimmer of hip would favour a smaller head during childbirth. 

The Neanderthals did have a slightly bigger brain, on average, but it was longer front to back, and the extra volume was not in the frontal lobes. So Neanderthal women probably had an edge during childbirth, with wider hips and narrower babies heads. But the difference would be fairly insignificant. 

7 hours ago, CEngelbrecht said:

Suggesting that maybe as late as 40kya is when hominins started to let go of a chiefly aquatic diet rich in brain beneficial nutrients, in favor of a more calorific terrestrial diet lacking is such nutrients. Which is slowly costing us that big brain we're so bloody proud of.

This is over-claiming on a huge scale. There's no evidence whatsoever that Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens prior to 40,000 years ago were chiefly aquatic. It's pure invention without any evidence. 

[MigL]

From research by W Huttner, of the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics ...

"This changed in the last decade when scientists successfully sequenced Neanderthal DNA from a fossilised toe fragment found in a Siberian cave, paving the way for new insights into how Neanderthal biology differed from our own.
The latest experiments focus on a gene, called TKTL1, involved in neuronal production in the developing brain. The Neanderthal version of the gene differs by one letter from the human version. When inserted into mice, scientists found that the Neanderthal variant led to the production of fewer neurons, particularly in the frontal lobe of the brain, where most cognitive functions reside. The scientists also tested the influence of the gene in ferrets and blobs of lab-grown tissue, called organoids, that replicate the basic structures of the developing brain."

Ths suggests that Neanderthal's brain may have been larger, but not as efficient as Sapiens.

The fact that Apes are bipedal in shallow water is due to the bouyancy provided by the water.
IOW, they got smarter and recognized that standing in water is easier.
Or do you expect hippos to evolve into nimble sprinters becausethey are more bouyant in water ?

[mistermack]

I think it's natural for any ape to adopt an upright position in water. Apes feed using their hands, and naturally adopt an upright position, whether on land, up a tree, or in the water. We would generally go in the water only to feed, so upright is natural. That has no bearing at all on locomotion out of the water. 

There's no advantage in the water to lose the grasping big toe, or evolve changes in the hips and spine. That sort of change would obviously happen to improve upright performance OUT of the water, not in it. 

[CEngelbrecht]

38 minutes ago, mistermack said:

A guy called Jim Moore set up a website on what's wrong with the AAH many years ago, and it's well worth visiting for refutation of pretty much all of the wrong claims made for aquatic apes. It's called "aquatic ape, sink or swim? " and here's the link :     https://www.aquaticape.org/    

Funny how screenplay writer Elaine Morgan to this day is poo-poo'ed for being an amateur speaking up in proper company, but you just looove to listen to car mechanic Jim Moore, an amateur in equal measure.

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On the slight reduction in brain size of modern homo sapiens, it's a tiny change, and it could be for any of many possibilities. The trend has been for humans to get more gracile physically, more lightly built, more mobile and less stocky. That might mean that people slimmer of hip would favour a smaller head during childbirth. 

The Neanderthals did have a slightly bigger brain, on average, but it was longer front to back, and the extra volume was not in the frontal lobes. So Neanderthal women probably had an edge during childbirth, with wider hips and narrower babies heads. But the difference would be fairly insignificant.

 

I know. You're still the master race. The peak of evolution causing your own extinction. Of course you're much smarter than the inferior Neanderthals. We all know the Earth is the center of the universe.

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This is over-claiming on a huge scale. There's no evidence whatsoever that Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens prior to 40,000 years ago were chiefly aquatic. It's pure invention without any evidence.

Except for FUCKING SURFER'S EAR IN THE DAMN SKULLS!!!

GO TAKE A FUCKING LOOK YOURSELF!!!

THIS IS FULL ON DENYING IRREFUTABLE EVIDENCE!!! YOU'RE DOING NOTHING DIFFERENT FROM CREATIONISTS!!!

25 minutes ago, MigL said:

The fact that Apes are bipedal in shallow water is due to the bouyancy provided by the water.
IOW, they got smarter and recognized that standing in water is easier.
Or do you expect hippos to evolve into nimble sprinters becausethey are more bouyant in water ?

'Cause baboons are smart enough to recognize the same thing, sure.

Hippos aren't bipedal in water, because they don't descend from brachiating simians +25mya.

12 minutes ago, mistermack said:

I think it's natural for any ape to adopt an upright position in water. Apes feed using their hands, and naturally adopt an upright position, whether on land, up a tree, or in the water. We would generally go in the water only to feed, so upright is natural. That has no bearing at all on locomotion out of the water.

Except when you pick aquatic foods for five million years.

[mistermack]

19 minutes ago, CEngelbrecht said:

Funny how screenplay writer Elaine Morgan to this day is poo-poo'ed for being an amateur speaking up in proper company, but you just looove to listen to car mechanic Jim Moore, an amateur in equal measure.

I said no such thing. You're inventing your own facts. Which doesn't argue well for the general quality of your arguments. So it's not surprising that the AAH is for you. Jim Moore's writing generally makes sense. Elaine Morgan's writing is pretty worthless, full of special pleading. 

[CEngelbrecht]

15 minutes ago, mistermack said:

I said no such thing. You're inventing your own facts. Which doesn't argue well for the general quality of your arguments. So it's not surprising that the AAH is for you. Jim Moore's writing generally makes sense. Elaine Morgan's writing is pretty worthless, full of special pleading. 

And then there is reality. Jim Moore is this debate's Dan Brown.

We are an old beach ape. Of course we are. Nothing else makes any damn sense, if we truly are a result of the mechanisms of evolution as put forth by Darwin and Wallace. And you're stuck in thinking the Earth is still the center of the universe, and that you don't have to read these banned volumes.

The Waterside Ape | BBC R4

[mistermack]

5 minutes ago, CEngelbrecht said:

We are an old beach ape. Of course we are. Nothing else makes any damn sense, if we truly are a result of the mechanisms of evolution as put forth by Darwin and Wallace. And you're stuck in thinking the Earth is still the center of the universe, and that you don't have to read these banned volumes.

Why do you post such rubbish? Are facts not good enough for you? Science isn't about emotion, which you seem to be full of. This sort of slogan-argument is ridiculous, on a science forum. 

On the subject of 'surfer's ear' you would think that five million years of evolution would have found a way to prevent it, if our ancestors were aquatic for that length of time. It's really evidence AGAINST your AAH. 

It's caused by cold air or cold water. Our ancestors lived outdoor lives, totally unlike how we live now. It's not surprising if some of them encountered some cold winds and rain. Surfer's ear in a few old bones is telling us nothing new. 

[swansont]

1 hour ago, CEngelbrecht said:

Except for FUCKING SURFER'S EAR IN THE DAMN SKULLS!!!

GO TAKE A FUCKING LOOK YOURSELF!!!

 

THIS IS FULL ON DENYING IRREFUTABLE EVIDENCE!!! YOU'RE DOING NOTHING DIFFERENT FROM CREATIONISTS!!!

 

Is it your position that surfers/swimmers who develop this condition are aquatic mammals?

[CEngelbrecht]

16 minutes ago, mistermack said:

Why do you post such rubbish? Are facts not good enough for you? Science isn't about emotion, which you seem to be full of. This sort of slogan-argument is ridiculous, on a science forum. 

On the subject of 'surfer's ear' you would think that five million years of evolution would have found a way to prevent it, if our ancestors were aquatic for that length of time. It's really evidence AGAINST your AAH. 

It's caused by cold air or cold water. Our ancestors lived outdoor lives, totally unlike how we live now. It's not surprising if some of them encountered some cold winds and rain. Surfer's ear in a few old bones is telling us nothing new. 

Surfer's ear does not evolve in cold winds and rain.

I'm gonna repeat that: Surfer's ear does not evolve in cold winds and rain. You have to be in water for hours a week for years. Hence the name.

9 minutes ago, swansont said:

Is it your position that surfers/swimmers who develop this condition are aquatic mammals?

All I know is that today, Homo sapiens match the freediving capacity of sea otters and hippos.

 

[mistermack]

1 minute ago, CEngelbrecht said:

Surfer's ear does not evolve in cold winds and rain.

I'm gonna repeat that: Surfer's ear does not evolve in cold winds and rain. You have to be in water for hours a week for years. Hence the name.

Why don't you back up your claims with evidence? 

In any case, as I pointed out, modern life is totally unlike the life of people living over 40,000 years ago. 

[swansont]

4 minutes ago, CEngelbrecht said:

All I know is that today, Homo sapiens match the freediving capacity of sea otters and hippos.

If that’s all you know, does that mean all the rest is made up by you (i.e. you don’t know it?)

Maybe you could answer instead of dodging the question.

[CEngelbrecht]

1 minute ago, mistermack said:

Why don't you back up your claims with evidence? 

I am.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5696936/

But you're burning these banned volumes. 'Cause we already know everything. Nullius in Verba doesn't apply. Only Might Makes Right.

[TheVat]

Pretty much all the AAT claims made here, like the shoreside DHA theory, do not hold up to the null hypothesis test.  And so may be dismissed.

1 minute ago, CEngelbrecht said:

But you're burning these banned volumes.

Meaningless ad hominem.  You've got bupkes.

[CEngelbrecht]

1 minute ago, swansont said:

If that’s all you know, does that mean all the rest is made up by you (i.e. you don’t know it?)

Maybe you could answer instead of dodging the question.

There are 8 billion semiaquatic apes living on Planet Earth today.

Is that clear enough for you?

Just now, TheVat said:

Pretty much all the AAT claims made here, like the shoreside DHA theory, do not hold up to the null hypothesis test.  And so may be dismissed.

Meaningless ad hominem.  You've got bupkes.

And you're not even acknowledging the existence of the relevant litterature. You don't even click the link.

[swansont]

8 minutes ago, CEngelbrecht said:

Surfer's ear does not evolve in cold winds and rain. You have to be in water for hours a week for years. Hence the name.

From your source:

They found that the length of time that individuals spent surfing was proportional to the presence and severity of the exostoses. In surfers with external ear canal exostoses, 61.1% had surfed for ten years or less but in surfers who had surfed for more than ten years, 82.4% had severe exostoses. Mann further noticed in his study that the severity of external auditory canal exostoses was also influenced by the frequency of water exposure and he found an incidence of 64% in individuals swimming three times a week.

 

You only have to go swimming three times a week to get the rate discovered in the fossil record. Surfing > 10 years gave a greater rate.

2 minutes ago, CEngelbrecht said:

There are 8 billion semiaquatic apes living on Planet Earth today.

Is that clear enough for you?

No, since semiaquatic ≠ aquatic and the topic is the aquatic ape hypothesis, not the semiaquatic ape hypothesis

 

[CEngelbrecht]

"During the last few years, when I have found myself in the company of distinguished biologists, evolutionary theorists, paleoanthropologists and other experts, I have often asked them to tell me, please, exactly why Elaine Morgan must be wrong about the aquatic theory. I haven’t yet had a reply worth mentioning, aside from those who admit, with a twinkle in their eyes, that they have also wondered the same thing."
- Dan Dennett, "Darwin's Dangerous Idea" (1995)

[TheVat]

 

1 minute ago, CEngelbrecht said:

Dan Dennett

argumentum ad veracundum - logical fallacy

You have bupkes.  Zilch.  Nichts.  Nada.

BTW  just ate some walnuts, yum.  My body is busy converting the ALA into DHA, an ability which a land based ape needs, and a pescaterian aquatic ape doesn't.  Oh, and I had a free range omelette which despite it's completely terrestrial origins seems to have DHA.  Who knew?

 

 

 

 

[CEngelbrecht]

21 minutes ago, swansont said:

From your source:

They found that the length of time that individuals spent surfing was proportional to the presence and severity of the exostoses. In surfers with external ear canal exostoses, 61.1% had surfed for ten years or less but in surfers who had surfed for more than ten years, 82.4% had severe exostoses. Mann further noticed in his study that the severity of external auditory canal exostoses was also influenced by the frequency of water exposure and he found an incidence of 64% in individuals swimming three times a week.

 

You only have to go swimming three times a week to get the rate discovered in the fossil record. Surfing > 10 years gave a greater rate.

No, since semiaquatic ≠ aquatic and the topic is the aquatic ape hypothesis, not the semiaquatic ape hypothesis

 

It was always semiaquatic. From before zoology coined the term "semiaquatic". I'm not responsible for WHAT YOU WISH THIS IDEA WAS SUGGESTING!!!

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"My thesis is that a branch of this primitive ape-stock was forced by competition from life in the trees to feed on the sea-shores and to hunt for food, shell fish, sea-urchins etc., in the shallow waters off the coast. I suppose that they were forced into the water just as we have seen happen in so many other groups of terrestrial animals. I am imagining this happening in the warmer parts of the world, in the tropical seas where Man could stand being in the water for relatively long periods, that is, several hours at a stretch."

- Alister Hardy's original phrasing, FROM 1960!!!

Four lines of text, over sixty years old. And you all still refuse to read them!!! 'CAUSE THERE IS NOTHING NEW TO LEARN!!! THE EARTH IS STILL THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE!!!

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"Waterside hypotheses of human evolution assert that selection from wading, swimming and diving and procurement of food from aquatic habitats have significantly affected the evolution of the lineage leading to Homo sapiens as distinct from that leading to Pan."

- Elaine Morgan and Algis Kuliukas contemporary summary from 2011

 

Still no mermaids in there. They were never there in the first place. Still nothing crazy. 'Cause it was never crazy.

You arrogant fools have pissed on your own giant long enough. The continents of the Earth move!!!

10 minutes ago, TheVat said:

 

argumentum ad veracundum - logical fallacy

You have bupkes.  Zilch.  Nichts.  Nada.

BTW  just ate some walnuts, yum.  My body is busy converting the ALA into DHA, an ability which a land based ape needs, and a pescaterian aquatic ape doesn't.  Oh, and I had a free range omelette which despite it's completely terrestrial origins seems to have DHA.  Who knew?

You know how old the genes coding for the ALA-to-DHA enzymes are? 40,000 years. The exact same date as the beginning of sapiens' brain atrophy. What a coincidence. Almost as if your ancestors had to evolve that function to try and keep synthetic access to DHA from other fatty acids when evolving away from being a fishing ape and towards of big game hunting ape. Which is clearly being done insufficiantly, 'cause your brain has been shrinking ever since.

But how could you possibly know that? You're not allowed to read these banned volumes. In paleoanthropology, you're only allowed to take their word for it.

Are you also gonna deny that your master race sapiens brain has been shrinking since the genocide of the fishing Neanderthals?

Edited January 30, 2023 by CEngelbrecht

[swansont]

5 minutes ago, CEngelbrecht said:

It was always semiaquatic. From before zoology coined the term "semiaquatic". I'm not responsible for WHAT YOU WISH THIS IDEA WAS SUGGESTING!!!

Shouting doesn’t actually help your case.

AAH is rather more than ancestors spending some time in the water; it’s that this is responsible for evolutionary changes to our physiology. Showing that they spent some time in the water is insufficient to show this.

Put another way, given that humans need access to fresh water, it’s not all that surprising that hominids would live nearby and bathe or swim.

Noting that Neandertals got swimmer’s ear and thus may have fished is irrelevant; AAH claims that bipedalism was a result of life in the water, and human ancestors were bipedal far earlier. It’s not evidence that any features evolved as a result