So how many of you believe in the Aquatic Ape Theory? Hands up. It seems obvious to me that we humans share many characteristics in common with semi-aquatic and fully aquatic marine life which we don't share with our closer cousins the other apes. Sub-cutaneous fat instead of hair for warmth, vocal communication, a wading form of locomotion, intelligence on a par with Dolphins.

Lucy was found in an ancient lake bed alongside crabs claws and fish bones. I think the protein which gave us big brains originally came from sea life and not from savannah dwelling herbivores we early hominids had no chance of catching.

We didn't have to catch 'em. We could let other animals catch 'em and scavenge what they left behind. (I read in physical anthropology that our ancestors probably ate marrow first and only worked up to eating meat as the marrow provided the fat and protein to help our brains enlarge.)

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Previous Thread:

Aquatic Ape Theory

I'm intrigued by the possibility, but it seems that most of the evidence cited in favour of it can be accounted for more easily without recourse to aquatic apes. Some members of this forum routinely dismiss it all as bad science.

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Moved, from ATM (this idea has little to do with astronomy, cosmology, and space science).

Me for one...

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Pete Tattum

The plural of anecdote isn't data!

Properly trained, almost all humans could eak out an existence on either the seashore or in the woods. I think it's interesting that most centers of human civilization over the years were nearby the seashore. True, some moved inland and found sustanance from other sources (grasses, hunting/gathering).

I recently heard that most human civilization still resides within 100 miles of a seashore.

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If I set the budget, we'd have Ares and more. Unfortunately, I don't set the budget, and Ares is just too expensive and too far out for us to accomplish our goals within the budget we were given.

If we halt the ISS, all versions of Ares, and transport Orion and Altair aboard DIRECTv3's Jupiter family of Shuttle-Derived Launch Vehicles, we just might make it back to the Moon by 2020.

I've never cared much for the theory; it feels too post hoc, and too much like retrofitting human anatomy to a hypothetical lifestyle rather than observing the way people actually live. Besides, if it were true, I'd expect us to be much more water-adapted than we are. My questions are:

1.) why don't we have webbed fingers and toes?
2.) Why aren't our legs extra long for more kick through the water?
3.) Why are we only mediocre at holding our breath?
4.) Why don't we have polarizing membranes across our corneas (like some shore birds) that can allow us to see through water reflections?
5.) For that matter, why are our eyes useless underwater?

I could go on.

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"Call me old-fashioned, but I think fire is magic. And it scares me a lot."

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Other issues:

-If we lived a semi-aquatic existence, we would have nictitating membranes to allow us to see inside and outside of the water.

-We have olfactory systems with functionality roughly on par with that of other primates, the sort that would be expected from a group of mammals that evolved in a jungle with minimal air movemnt. Aquatic mammals do not have functioning oflactory systems, since the mammilian olfactory system cannot operate underwater. We should at least have a degenerated olfactory system relative to other primates if we lived mostly in the water

-We are not particularly good swimmers even compared to other land mammals.

-Whenever we make places of leisure for ourselves like parks and gardens (instead of just using natural ones), they are almost always savahna-type places with grass and scattered trees. We do not make any significant amount of artificial beach, on the contrary we generally fill in water areas.

-Our legs are poorly adapted for running in water. The way we run our legs do not rise very far off the ground. The means that even in relatively shallow water are legs will stay in the water much or all of the time, greatly increasing drag and significantly slowing us down. If we were semi-aquatic you would expect us to either move through the water, and thus be low to the groound like otters, or lift our legs out of the water to run. We do neither.

-Our feet are broad and flat enough to cause lots of splashes and lots of resistance when running through the water, making running through water noisy and difficult, but not broad and flat enough to give us that much assistance when swimming. You would expect on or the other, or better yet both (aquatic birds, frogs, otters, and other animals do both). Our hands are similar, as are our arms and legs. They are all broad and flat enough to be a serious impedence without be that much of a help. Notice that most or all semi-aquatic animals that use their legs for propulsion have legs that are very thin compared to their body diameter. Human legs are much larger.

-Our RBC count is not high enough to allow us to hold our breathe for very long at all, and we are extremely poor at handling high blood CO2 levels that is the other consequence of holding your breath (that is actually what makes you want to breathe, very few people can detect low blood oxygen levels).

-High blood CO2 levels over prolonged periods of time, which would be a given for a swimming mammal, results in the shutdown of our blood CO2 monitors with sometimes disasterous consequences. We should be better able to cope with high blood CO2 levels long-term

-We are very poorly streamlined, with a blunt face, broad shoulders, a wide body, and unevently distibuted fat, and both genders have poorly streamlined, er, pertrusions that aquatic and semi-aquatic mammals have hidden internally (at least when not in use). Our belly button is also poorly suited for swimming.

-Our hair is also poorly suited for swimming, it is not flat, continuous, and streamling like the fur and feathers of semi-aquatic animals, nor is it completely absen like fully-aquatic mammals. The small hairs scattered all over our bodies lead to a whole lot of turbulent flow across our bodies, greatly slowing use down. This is why swimmers shave off their hair, and even then specially-designed swimsuits are needed to further smooth out the body.

-We lack any sort of mechanism for getting food underwater without swallowing a stomachfull of water.

-We lack any mechanism for plugging our nostrils when underwater. All aqutic and semi-aquatic mammals have such a mechanism, but if we try to do anything intersting underwater our noses fill up.

-We lack any mechanism for catching aquatic animals. Fish are too slippery to catch with our hands and our mouths are too small to wrap around a rapidly-moving fish. We lack any sort of defenses that would make it feasible to grab shelfish without them hurting us. We need our hands to swim, so hunting underwater and swimming at the same time is nearly impossible.

I'm sure I could come up with more if I wanted to, but I think the point is clear. We are extremely poorly equippied for aquatic, semi-aquatic, or even coastal life.

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I met this wonderful girl at Macy's. She was buying clothes and I was putting Slinkies on the escalator.
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My Website: The Black Cat's Web Page

I think a response of our actual acquatic practices may help shed some light:

Why have we invented boats?

Why have we invented sails, and more recently, automated propulsion?

Why have we invented nets, so we don't have to?

Why did we figure out where the fish are biting, anyway, so we didn't have to?

Why did we ever need them to be? With boats, oars, nets, cunning, tidetables, and fishfinders, why would we ever need to see underwater, unless it's to cull pearls, in which case they've been quite successful without them for hundreds of years.

So could I!

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If I set the budget, we'd have Ares and more. Unfortunately, I don't set the budget, and Ares is just too expensive and too far out for us to accomplish our goals within the budget we were given.

If we halt the ISS, all versions of Ares, and transport Orion and Altair aboard DIRECTv3's Jupiter family of Shuttle-Derived Launch Vehicles, we just might make it back to the Moon by 2020.

I've always felt that the most compelling piece of evidence in favour of the theory is the fact that we do have rudimentary webbing between our fingers (but not between our toes!), as though we were just beginning to adapt to a life in the water. But, admittedly, that's a pretty slender piece of evidence on which to hang such a radical theory.

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Addendum: Given out abilities to invent all these means of getting around our "shortcomings," our "shortcomings" were no longer shortcomings, but instead became impediments to things like mending nets, tying ropes, and doing the myriads of other things farmers and fishermen do.

By the way, I knew a fellow in high school with webbed toes - real ones, not just a little bit of skin. He was always cutting the skin open on one thing or another. Webbing may work great in the water, but it sucks on land - he had to wear shoes all the time.

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If I set the budget, we'd have Ares and more. Unfortunately, I don't set the budget, and Ares is just too expensive and too far out for us to accomplish our goals within the budget we were given.

If we halt the ISS, all versions of Ares, and transport Orion and Altair aboard DIRECTv3's Jupiter family of Shuttle-Derived Launch Vehicles, we just might make it back to the Moon by 2020.

Makes sense to me. In Asia they eat nothing but fish.

Even in the landlocked countries?

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

No they don't. In many countries they eat primarily rice, with some fish but also some land-based animals, not to mention a great many other plants. Chickens were originally domesticated in China. Cattle and related large domestic animals like yaks are found and eaten throughout asia. Everybody has heard the stories about people eating dogs in China, which is true (I had a teacher who had some). People in Asia eat far more than fish, I would say it probably isn't even a staple in most parts of asia. Japan perhaps, and the coast in some areas, but most of Asia is no where near the coast.

Edit: Oops, seems I am replying to a banned person again.

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I met this wonderful girl at Macy's. She was buying clothes and I was putting Slinkies on the escalator.
-Steven Wright



My Website: The Black Cat's Web Page

i am a believer in aquatic apes. as for why were aren't fish: i would say we just didn't spend enough time on the shores to make us fish- evolution does take an awefully long time (and whales still don't have gills).

in my opionion the strongest evidence is our respitory behavior. ONLY water dwelling animals can hold their breath. sparky the dog can't and he can even swim. it might not be the half hour of whales, but still several minutes is pretty darned good for a tiny little monkey who still has legs. and what do you get when a monkey learns to hold its breath? well, a monkey much more able to produce complex and consciously modulated vocalizations. anyone seen any of those around?

ben

Yay! Another square for the bingo.

I wonder what happened to him, since there's no port in the Banned Posters thread.
His profile lists 4 posts, but "show all posts" only lists 3, I'm guessing he made a post he got banned for, which was then deleted.

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‘To those who regard “crime fiction” as some sacred icon which must follow a rigid formula, I will always be the man who writes 18-syllable haiku.’Trying to make sense of computers, The Error Log.

To address this point, My grilfriend can waterseal her nose with her upper lip. That's how she swims. She has met a few other people that can do it too.

The OP seems to have been banned as well.

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An evil person would do the things I think up.

Both were sock puppets of a previously banned member.

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I never said we would be fish, I said we would have some at least rudimentary features common to all semi-aquatic animals, and we don't. Not a single one.

Note that all semi- or even primarily-aquatic mammals have a great deal of fur. Among at least partially aquatic mammals only fully or nearly fully aquatic mammals that lack fur entirely. This is true for pretty much unrelated animals like manatees, ceteceans, and hippos vs otters, seals, and sea lions. Fur is a much better insulator if you are making the transition back and forth from the water. If that is the model you are basing humans on, you would expect a similar pattern to be followed by humans, so you would expect humans to have evolved from either a fully aquatic mammal like a whale, dolphin or manatee or a nearly fully aquatic mammal like a hippo (hippos even give birth and suckle underwater, not even seals and sea lions do that). If that was the case we would have evolved from a species that was highly adapted for life in the water, so we should have at least some features common to all aquatic and semi-aquatic mammals, even ones like river otters that spend much of their lives on land, yet we have absolutely no such features.

I would like to see a source for this. It seems counterintuitive, mammals have to hold their breath to eat or drink, and I know camels can seal their nose and mouth to keep out sand which most likely means they would be holding their breath while doing so. If mammals that like to swim can't hold their breathe then a single wave, a moment of weakness, or the slightest rough water means they would instantly drown. I find it hard to believe such an animal could survive. My dog couldn't swim but when she accidentally went underwater she was able to avoid drowning for several seconds while I got her out, and there was no obvious sign that water had flooded her lungs while down there. So I would need to see some reliable evidence before accepting this claim.

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I met this wonderful girl at Macy's. She was buying clothes and I was putting Slinkies on the escalator.
-Steven Wright



My Website: The Black Cat's Web Page

So what does the profusion of Disney-style synthetic environments say about our past? Maybe it's replacing our ancient desire to take wild rides on swinging vines and purchase ridiculously priced food and beverages from little striped tents.

On the filling in water areas thing; I don't know. THE hot ticket for summer activity in our area (for kids anyway) is the waterpark; with a new World's Largest springing up almost every month.

The biggest summer vacation spot in our state - The Dells. It is the waterpark & go-kart & mini-golf capital of the world. Therefore, I surmise that Wisconsonians evolved in an environment rife with waterslides, 5-horse Briggs & Stratton engines, and clowns face 18th greens with a hole in the nose for a free game.

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Don of Borg - Cool, Calm, Collective.

"Within the next generation I believe that the world's leaders will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

How many cities have water parks or amusement parks? Not that many. How many have grassy parks? Probably more than don't, often more than one. Everybody has heard of Central Park, how many have heard of even the largest water park? How many people have pools in their yard compared to how many have yards in general? How come streets are lined with fields with a few trees instead of water? Water parks, pools, and amusement parks may be fun, but they are no where near as pervasive as savahnna-type parks and yards.

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I met this wonderful girl at Macy's. She was buying clothes and I was putting Slinkies on the escalator.
-Steven Wright



My Website: The Black Cat's Web Page

I think the main reason is that it's a lot easier to make a grassy park, just don't build anything.

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‘To those who regard “crime fiction” as some sacred icon which must follow a rigid formula, I will always be the man who writes 18-syllable haiku.’Trying to make sense of computers, The Error Log.

Yes, but they don't just not build things. They tear things down and replace them with parks. Central park was originally all buildings, they didn't tear them down to make a beach they tore them down to make a park. And what about areas that were originally wooded, like most of the eastern US coastline? How come most of our sports are played on fields?

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I met this wonderful girl at Macy's. She was buying clothes and I was putting Slinkies on the escalator.
-Steven Wright



My Website: The Black Cat's Web Page

Because it's easier than playing them in forests?

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

If we were originally aquatic, you would expect more aquatic sports. If we were originally from savahnna, you would expect more field sports. The latter is the case by a long shot.

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I met this wonderful girl at Macy's. She was buying clothes and I was putting Slinkies on the escalator.
-Steven Wright



My Website: The Black Cat's Web Page

This whole open space vs beach thing is a bit of a strawman anyway, the aquatic ape hypothesis is that part of our evolution was at the beaches, developing some of our traits, not that the whole of it was.

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‘To those who regard “crime fiction” as some sacred icon which must follow a rigid formula, I will always be the man who writes 18-syllable haiku.’Trying to make sense of computers, The Error Log.

And look where everybody goes for vacation, . . . The Beach. Returning to our roots I say.

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Don of Borg - Cool, Calm, Collective.

"Within the next generation I believe that the world's leaders will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

Maybe we're just trying to return to the womb!

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- Learn a lot teaching others.

From a purely personal perspective, I hate water! It's wet; it's cold, and I can't breathe in it...And I'm supposed to have descended from an aquatic ape?

Give me the trees and savannah anyday...The former make me relax, the latter on edge???

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Kind regards

Pete Tattum

The plural of anecdote isn't data!

No beaches worth visiting here, which suits me just fine--I prefer to go to museums anyway. What does that say?

__________________
Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"