Kosh

Seems like things are bit slow since Randman
ran away....

What's the current view on the whole Aquatic
Ape theory? I know that most people think it's
boloney (bologna?), but a program I saw on it
a few years back had some convincing arguments.

Any pro's have insight as to why it ain't so?

Troll Hunter

Sigh ... don't I know it. Life as a troll hunter is like a Wagnerian opera: moments of brilliance sandwiched between hours of banality .

Kosh

Should have done some research first.

<a href="http://aquaticape.topcities.com/firstpage.html" target="_blank">http://aquaticape.topcities.com/firstpage.html</a>

Seems that AAT proponents would get along fine
with creation scientists and quote
miners like Randman....

tronvillain

*shrugs* I still like it.

Oolon Colluphid

It explains several things, like our fat layer, babies' swimming/holding breath reflex, the pattern of hair on our bodies etc. But last I heard, it has lots going for it except hard evidence. Seems that if there was an aquatic stage to our evolution, it wasn't for all that long.

Oolon

Vorkosigan

Hi Oolon! These are cases of "false facts." Sheep have better diving reflexes than humans, the pattern of our hairs is the same as that of other apes, and the subcutaneous layer of fat is known in many animals that are terrestrial. It was an interesting idea, and may enjoy a revival as the savannah theory gives way to the new evidence showing we learned to walk in forests.

Michael

phlebas

There is a nice, readable critique of it on the Straight Dope site. Whether or no you buy it all is up to each of you, I guess

<a href="http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/maquaticape.html" target="_blank">http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/maquaticape.html</a>

Ergaster

Well...it keeps some people from playing in the road, but other than that...

As someone else pointed out, it suffers fronm a decided lack of hard evidence. It selects a very few features in *modern* humans, and then pretends that these few features cannot be explained in any other fashion than via an "aquatic" phase. The problems are: these are invariably soft-tissue characters which will not be preserved in fossils; and therefore we have no idea if they existed in extinct hominids in the same way they exist now (i.e. hair distribution--we simply do not know when the modern pattern of hair density and distribution occurred); there are explanations that are better; the "aquatic" explanation overall makes less sense (i.e. is unparsimonious) and explains *fewer* traits of humans and hominids than the usual, non-aquatic one.

The main difficulty is that it seems simply to be yet another "umbrella hypothesis", or an all-encompassing single explanation for an extremely complex phenomenon; it tries to turn a process (the evolution of humans) into an "event" (which it is assuredly not). People like these all-encompassing single explanations, which is why they tend to be popular (among the laiety, anyway...), but they don't hold much currency among professionals in the field.

(Other problems have been addressed by the other links in this thread).

Besides, there is no consensus aabout *when* this putative aquatic phase was supposed to have happened. And no paleoecological evidence that the first bipeds (so far as we know them) lived in any particularly aquatic environment).

A good critique is:

Langdon J. (1997). Umbrella hypotheses and parsimony in human evolution: a critique of the Aquatic Ape Hypothesis. Journal of Human Evolution 33:479-494

It also puts paid to the accusation that AAH is ignored by the professional journals... (-:

Deb

Peez

The only time that I have heard any biologist discuss the aquatic ape hypothesis was as a thought experiment. Nobody that I know takes it seriously at all. The arguments for it are rather simplistic, and sometimes plain wrong. A real comparison of modern humans with other aquatic mammals suggests that there is no convergent evolution at all. Being bipedal is terribly inefficient in the water, our nose and ears are poorly-designed for semi-aquatic life, other mammals have the "diving reflex," most semi- aquatic mammals have fur and some terrestrial ones do not, contrary to what some aquatic ape advocates may say our body fat is poorly-distributed for aquatic life, etc. I give that hypothesis no credence.

Peez

Godless Dave

Otters, seals, platypuses (platupi?). Also Labradors and Newfoundlands; they were bred for it, but if you've ever had one in the back seat of your car you know they have hair!

Whales are hairless or nearly so, but they are totally aquatic, evolved that way a long time ago, and have a LOT of fat to keep them warm. We don't have enough fat to keep us warm, or hair to keep us warm. Our lack of body hair would seem to argue against the aquatic ape hypothesis.