Aquatic Ape theory?

Hey Raz,So, what are you saying, Homo floresiensis is a shrunken Homo sapiens? Cladistic analysis puts flo after H habilis. There just are too many ape like features to link it to H erectus, let alone H sapiens.As far as I know this is the latest word on the environment Ardi was found: "According to Scott Simpson, the Gona Project's physical anthropologist, the fossil evidence from the Middle Awash indicates that both A. kadabba and A. ramidus lived in "'a mosaic of woodland and grasslands with lakes, swamps and springs nearby,'" but further research is needed to determine which habitat Ardipithecus at Gona preferred."Edited by arrogantape, : Ardi lived in in a watery wooded landscape. I checked it out, and I am right.

Hi, Ape.Can you please start using the "reply" button at the bottom right corner of the message you're replyiing to: that makes it easy to follow who and what you're responding to.Don't use the "Gen Reply" button unless you're not responding to somebody specifically. ...and jumping and dancing and sitting in chairs......Seriously, learn to recognize confirmation bias and stop letting it determine your opinions about things.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Hi, Ape. I don't see anything that RAZD said that even remotely resembles this.----- You somehow manage to overlook the word I underlined every time you read and quote this. If you were being really honest, you would have to admit that the inclusion of "grasslands" in the habitat of Ardipithecus kind of undermines your only real argument against the "brave hunter on the plains" model.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Hi Blue,Confirmation bias? The reason I don't believe in the brave hunter model is because the few holdouts on the, "Peeking over the grass," impetus for uprightness don't really look at the difficulties presented by this model. The earliest upright walkers had no specialized tools. A pride of lions would make a quick meal of them caught out in the open.Remember, it's the transitional uprightness that would lead to a quick end, if there is no easy escape. That is why doing the obvious, sticking to a quick getaway in the water sounds so plausible.I gave you three good examples of primates doing just that.So, what did you think of the three monkeys I portrayed?

But where are the aquatic monkeys?A few examples of a particular behavior does not a full adaptation make.And in this case your examples of monkeys seem to argue against the whole aquatic hypothesis. Monkeys are simply not aquatic in spite of the examples you cited.

Hi arrogantape, You mean aside from the fact that none of these monkeys exhibit any of the traits that you attribute to hominids and a aquatic adaptation?No loss of fur
No upright gait as preferred mode of over open ground?I call it confirmation bias and post hoc ergo propter hoc logical fallacy. Curiously, I consider the savanna theory to be falsified by the fact that bipedalism evolved before the savanna ecology developed.http://www.sciencedaily.com/...ases/2009/10/091008113341.htm

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The carbon isotope ratios of the soils indicated that in the time of Ardipithecus the landscape varied from woodland in the western part of the study zone to wooded grassland in the east. None of the Ardipithecus specimens were found in the grassy eastern part of the arc.

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On the west we find lots of Ardipithecus fossils and they’re associated with a lot of woodland and forest animals, he said. And then there’s a break; Ardipithecus and most of the monkeys that live in trees disappear, and grass-eating animals become more abundant.

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Ardi in the woods, not in the grassland, eating foods found in the woods, not eating foods found in the grassland. Curiously, the quickest escape would be to climb trees, as that ability was not lost even by the time of Lucy and the australopithicines.http://www.sciencedaily.com/...ases/2009/10/091008113341.htm

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This evidence, along with the anatomical studies indicating that Ardipithecus could walk upright but also grasped tree limbs with its feet, suggests that this early hominid took its first steps on two legs in the forest long before it ventured very far into the open grassland, Ambrose said.

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Multiple lines of evidence now suggest that they were beginning to leave the trees before they left the forest, he said.

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But still kept to the wooded ecology, because that provided the refuge by climbing trees to avoid predators.http://www.sciencedaily.com/...ases/2010/03/100319202526.htm

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More than three million years ago, the ancestors of modern humans were still spending a considerable amount of their lives in trees, but something new was happening.

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A trackway of fossil footprints preserved in volcanic ash deposited 3.6 million years ago was uncovered in Laetoli, Tanzania, more than 30 years ago. The significance of those prints for human evolution has been debated ever since. The most likely individuals to have produced these footprints, which show clear evidence of bipedalism, or walking on two legs, would have been members of the only bipedal species alive in the area at that time, Australopithecus afarensis. That species includes "Lucy," whose skeletal remains are the most complete of any individual A. afarensis found to date.

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A number of features in the hips, legs, and back of this group indicate that they would have walked on two legs while on the ground. But the curved fingers and toes as well as an upward-oriented shoulder blade provide solid evidence that Lucy and other members of her species also would have spent significant time climbing in trees.

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Curiously, the fact that these early hominids retained traits that allowed them to (rapidly) climb trees (to avoid predators), while at the same time evolving the traits necessary for an efficient upright gait, is how evolution works, as compared to evolving two new abilities at the same time (walking and swimming).I also consider the aquatic ape theory to be virtually falsified due to the absolute lack of evidence of any adaptation specific to an aquatic habitat.The hands, shoulders and feet are still adapted for tree climbing, even at 3.6 million years (long after Ardi).Ardi was adept at climbing and moving about in trees. It is beginning to explore the ecology available to ground walkers, but only where trees are nearby.Enjoy.

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Coyote,I am not just making things up. I will be more careful in the future to post sites where one can see for themselves primates using the water as an escape, and one, the Talapoin using the water for food supply.Here they are. The Allen Swamp Monkey, and the TalapoinAllen's Swamp Monkeys - Facts, Information & HabitatThe Proboscis Monkey is a well know monkey the adult mails having a pendulous nose. Their upright wading in the water is well documented.

First of all, I do not believe any hominid was aquatic. We are not born of mermaids. All I am saying is I believe the upright stance, and a push to nudity, was accomplished quickly by a move to tidal flats, streams, and lake edges. I believe they moved there for relative safety, and for a largely untapped rich food source.Lucy could climb trees. My son climbs trees. The chimp is still the champ. The chimp can run really fast too. The question remains what pushed an ape to walk on two legs? The chimp rules the woods with it's speed, power, and aggression. Ardi was there. What was it's advantage over the chimp?Find a video of the Proboscis Monkey wading in tidal flats. See how easily it glides through the water on an incomplete pelvic/leg adaptation. Yes, the Proboscis is a monkey, it is not an equivalent. We are apes. I am just using this monkey as an example how a primate does adapt to two legged walking through wading in the water.

Hi, Ape. Why did Ardipithecus need an advantage over a chimpanzee?Outcompeting chimpanzees is not the only formula for survival.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Hi, Ape. Do you really think these "holdouts" think early hominids suddenly dropped out of the trees, walked away on two legs, and never looked back?Seriously, put a little thought into this, please!What intermediate would there be between a tree-dwelling ape and brave savannah hunter? Do you think maybe the intermediate would be a facultative biped that could still climb trees? What would such an organism look like? Wouldn’t it look like Ardipithecus?----- I think they're about as relevant to human evolution as three salamanders are to frog evolution.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Hi Blue,And you still have not given me any alternative to my belief that would explain what pushed our former ape ancestor into an upright stance.

Hi arrogantape, And once again we see that your monkey examples do not show the adaptations you claim hominids have derived from your hypothesis of similar behavior:(a) No loss of fur
(b) No upright gait as preferred mode of over open ground Ardi was there, chimp was not. At 4.4 million years ago there were no chimps. There was likely an ancestor of chimps somewhere in Africa, but that would have been intermediate between our common ancestor and modern chimps. Ardi appears close to our common ancestor, which is currently put at circa 6 million years ago. Please, do try to use a little logic here. Neither your son nor chimps were in those woods 4.4 million years ago.The amusing thing is that there is more evidence for tree climbing as a means for Ardi to evade predators than swimming, but you are convinced of swimming and skeptical of climbing. That is not logical. Confirmation Bias, Cognitive Dissonance and ide fixes, are not the tools of an open-mind or an honest skeptic, and continued belief in the face of contradictory evidence is delusion.Enjoy.

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Hi, Ape. None that you're willing to consider, anyway.The point of the problem is that we have an animal that is pretty well intermediate between bipedal and arboreal, and you're wanting to introduce another factor into the equation on the basis of... really, nothing, other than that you happen to be a water-lover and find the idea of a water-based phase of human evolution to be attractive.The theory that the upright stance evolved so Ardipithecus could gather and carry armloads of food has more support and more parsimony than the aquatic ape theory.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

There is good reason why it is a rule here to not argue one's point via websites alone, one of them being that someone can simply wave off such objections by ignoring them while the reader, unless they visit the very website in question, has no idea as to what is being ignored.Therefore in the interest of actually defending the Aquatic Ape Hypothesis could you actually explain any of the following evidence contrary to AAH proponent assertions: (numeric bulleting added by me to aid in ease of reading)

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1) Claim: Human hairlessness is explained by an aquatic past

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Fact: Humans' relative hairlessness is unlike aquatic mammals, because A) most aquatic mammals aren't hairless; and B) those few that are have skin that's radically different from humans (there's a link for this in the seal skin and sweat section below).

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2) Claim: The pattern of human hair alignment is strikingly different from apes and indicates streamlining for swimming.

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Fact: The pattern of human hair alignment is only very slightly different from apes. Also, in order for this pattern to indicate streamlining for swimming we would have to be swimming with the crown of the head facing straight forward and your arms held at your sides. Just take a look. This is so easy to see, you've got to wonder how AAT/H proponents can make the claim, or why it's swallowed so uncritically. There's also the problem that humans are not even close to being fast swimmers to whom streamlining therefore might help (more info in the "hairlessness" link above).

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3) Claim: The human body responds the same to the act of standing up as it does to surgery or massive haemorrhage but this reaction doesn't occur when standing up in water.

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Fact: Ooh, this is a thorny thicket; neither part is true but are misrepresentations of facts twisted about to make a point which isn't true sound true. To see how and why, you'll have to read this link on aldosterone and bipedalism.

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4) Claim: Only humans and marine mammals shed salty tears.

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Fact: All primates shed salty tears (see tears link below).

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5) Claim: Only humans, Indian elephants, and aquatic mammals cry emotional tears.

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Fact: Humans are the only mammals proven to cry emotional tears. There are no animals other than humans which have been scientifically proven as having emotional tears. However, there are unproved accounts of many other mammals crying emotional tears, but these are not just aquatic animals; they include dogs and wolves, seal, sea otter, lab rats, cats, cows, pigs, lambs, horse, a kangaroo and a gorilla.

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6) Claim: Only marine reptiles and birds have salt glands.

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Fact: Salt glands are found in many non-marine reptiles and birds, including ostriches and other birds, and many lizards, including iguanas, chuckwallas, and others.

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7) Claim: The human response to salt indicates we evolved in a salt-water environment.

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Fact: Human responses to salt are similar to terrestrial mammals, including chimps. Mammals which live in salt-rich environments do not exhibit these responses as humans do. Our salt mechanisms indicate a terrestrial past with a large herbivorous component to our diet, unlike the AAT/H claims.

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8) Claim: Human infants naturally swim while other non-aquatic mammals' infants can't.

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Fact: The infant "swimming response" has been found in all mammals tested.

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9) Claim: Only humans and aquatic animals exhibit the "diving reflex".

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Fact: The "diving reflex" is found in all mammals.

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10) Claim: Only humans and aquatic animals can hold their breath.

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Fact: Non-human, non-aquatic animals can and do hold their breath (refs in diving reflex link above).

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11) Claim: The descended larynx of humans is like that of aquatic mammals, and must have arisen in an aquatic environment. Although it's necessary to make all the complex sounds we use in speech, it cannot have arisen for that purpose, because it wouldn't be useful for that purpose in its initial stages.

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Fact: The descended larynx of humans is not particularly similar to those which are found in (only a very few) aquatic mammals (refs and info in diving reflex link above). Previously here I'd said that the evidence from the fossil record also indicates that this feature developed several million years after the purported aquatic period, but research on the larynx over the past shows this is actually a far more common trait than previously thought, and is primarily because of vocalization (see the "descended larynx" section of the breathholding, descended larynx, and diving reflex link).

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13) Claim: Non-human primates have nostrils that point forward, unlike humans.

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Fact: What can I say; Old World primates are in fact called Catarrhine primates precisely because their nostrils face down. Morgan likes to try to have this one both ways; while she claims that forward-facing nostrils are detrimental to aquaticism, and that we had a human-like nose several million years before the bones on our ancestors' faces indicate they did, she takes the nose of both male proboscis monkeys (with its downward-facing nostrils) and of female and juvenile proboscis monkeys (which face as much forward as other Old World monkeys) as aquatic adaptations. (Scientists who study these monkeys' behavior say it's sexual selection, as is true of all sexually dimorphic traits which aren't due to differences in use.) She even has a drawing of a juvenile proboscis monkey swimming in her latest book which, according to her theory, should have water shoved up his forward-facing nostrils. Why, if it's no problem for a monkey, would it be such a big problem for hominids as to force a massive change? Morgan doesn't see the contradiction.

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14) Claim: Our ancestors wouldn't have changed from quadrupedalism to bipedalism, because initially bipedalism would be less efficient than quadrupedalism.

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Fact: Actual tests of chimpanzees by Taylor and Rowntree in 1973 (Science 176: 186-187) has shown that bipedalism is no less efficient for them than quadrupedalism. It wouldn't be for our ancestors, even if they evolved from knuckle-walking apes such as chimps. Also, the consensus over the last few decades has been that the LCA was far more likely to have been a brachiating (swinging from branches) ape rather than a knuckle-walker, which makes it even less of a problem to be bipedal. In fact, brachiating apes -- such as gibbons -- virtually always walk bipedally when they are on the ground.

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15) Claim: Proboscis monkeys use bipedalism more often than other primates and often walk bipedally as "merely an alternative locomotor mode of getting from A to B."

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Fact: Morgan bases this claim on several seconds of film taken by Japanese filmmakers, which showed several proboscis monkeys walking bipedally. On this subject, I just (August 9, '01) watched a TV program, "The Secret World of the Proboscis Monkeys", and over the course of the hour, those obnoxious primates simply refused to do any bipedal walking. Perhaps it was because it was French filmmakers this time, or maybe the anthropological conspiracy quashed all the bipedal episodes. Or, just possibly, it's what years of observations by primatologists tell us: Proboscis monkeys don't walk bipedally more often than other primates (all primates use bipedalism occasionally).

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16) Claim: It was too dangerous for our ancestors to live on land during the transition from ape ancestor to hominid. The water provided safety from predators.

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Fact: The water environment would be far more dangerous than the land environment; the predators there are more numerous and harder to deal with.

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17) Claim: Our ancestors couldn't have dealt with predators on land, because the only way to do so is to run away, and we weren't fast enough and there were no trees to climb.

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Fact: Not only were there trees in the hominids' environment (see savannah definition if you haven't already), but it is unlikely we would have been limited to running from predators. How we probably would have handled them is how chimpanzees handle predators now (see the predators link just above).

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18) Claim: The body temperature of normal, healthy humans is the same as that of whales, rather than our primate relatives or other terrestrial mammals, and it doesn't fluctuate, while that of terrestrial mammals does.

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Fact: The body temperature of normal, healthy humans is like that of our primate relatives, it does normally fluctuate, and it's not like that of whales.

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19) Claim: Hymens are an aquatic trait.

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Fact: Besides humans, hymens are found in lemurs (fellow primates, you'll note), guinea pigs, mole rats, hyenas, horses, llamas, elephants, rats, horses, and some species of galago, as well as in aquatic mammals such as toothed whales, seals, and sirenia. Among these, toothed whales, seals, and sirenia are aquatic. And note that the aquatic ones are fully aquatic, not casual dip in the water types; once again AAT/H proponents are comparing us to mammals which have been fully aquatic for tens of millions of years.

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There's another thing: the hymen seems to vary an awful lot, so much that it doesn't look like you can make the easy comparisons across species the AAT/H relies on. For instance, guinea pigs' hymens are quite different from most others, and those in whales are apparently different enough that various textbooks refer to them as "vaginal bands" or refer to "a hymen-equivalent possibly present in juveniles" ("Reproduction in Marine Mammals" by Ian L. Boyd, Christina Lockyer, and Helene D. Marsh, in Biology of marine mammals edited by John E. Reynolds III and Sentiel A. Rommel, 1999).

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Also, AAT/H proponents suggest that the reason for a hymen in humans was to seal off the female reproductive organs from waterborne parasites and such; but since the hymen is generally absent from the time of first intercourse (and very often before) this protection wouldn't be available for much of the female's lifespan.

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20) Claim: Vibrissae (sensory whiskers) are absent only in humans and in aquatic mammals.

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Fact: Among aquatic mammals, vibrissae are actually absent only in some types of whales (whales such as blue, fin, and humpback whales have them) and of course they are abundant and very sensitive in most aquatic mammals. They are, however, also absent in other, terrestrial, mammals, such as tree shrews and the monotremes (platypus and echidna). The great apes have few vibrissae compared to other mammals, and their absence in humans seems to be yet another of the "continuation of a trend" features we see in primates (hair and sweat glands are other such features). A few minutes search on the web (using the term "vibrissae" with either "primates", "comparative", or "whales") easily turned up this information. Why do AAT/H proponents not do even so easy and basic research as this before making their claims?

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21) Claim: Human fat quantity and distribution is like that of aquatic mammals; it is adapted for insulation and swimming in an aquatic environment. Humans have subcutaneous fat which is bonded to the skin rather than anchored within the body, unlike non-aquatic mammals.

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Fact: Human fat characteristics show no sign of any aquatic adaptation, and are radically different from the aquatic mammals AAT/H proponents say we resemble. Human fat deposits are anchored to underlying depots, just as those of all mammals are. Human fat deposits are found in the same places, and are anchored the same way, as those of other primates.

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22) Claim: Seals sweat through eccrine sweat glands, like humans, because aquatic mammals lose their apocrine sweat glands.

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Fact: Seals don't sweat via eccrine sweat glands, and in fact the sweat glands of seals are apocrine glands (refs in "skin" link below).

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23) Claim: Human sebaceous glands waterproof the skin, like the sebaceous glands of seals (and that "Sebum is an oily fluid whose only known function in mammals is waterproofing the hair and skin.").

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Fact: Sebaceous glands cannot waterproof human skin (which is why your skin wrinkles when wet). This is because human skin is very different than the skin of seals. And that's not the only evidence that human sebaceous glands are not an aquatic adaptation. The primary function of sebum, the output of the sebaceous glands, is to produce scent (generally as a sexual attractor). This is true of a variety of mammals, including humans. In some seals, sebum can also keep their highly specialized skin pliable as an aid in waterproofing (refs in "skin" link).

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24) Claim: Aquatic mammals copulate facing each other, like humans do, while other terrestrial mammals don't.

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Fact: This statement is at odds with the facts about mating postures.

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25) Claim: Hominids couldn't have developed large brains without Omega-3 fatty acids (DHA) from a shore-based diet.

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Fact: Simply untrue, and rather obviously as well. See brains and "brain food".

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Taken verbatim from that website by Jim Moore you so casually dismissed located at AAT/H Claims and the FactsAs I said, I find the hypothesis interesting but until this, what seems to me to be pretty damning evidence to the contrary, I remain unconvinced.Perhaps as an adherent, you can show me the error of my skepticism.Pick one or two at a time and maybe together we can accomplish something more than mutual incredulity.

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The idea of the sacred is quite simply one of the most conservative notions in any culture, because it seeks to turn other ideas - uncertainty, progress, change - into crimes.
Salman RushdieThis rudderless world is not shaped by vague metaphysical forces. It is not God who kills the children. Not fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds them to the dogs. It’s us. Only us. - the character Rorschach in Watchmen

My mind just can't wrap around the notion some ape (The Chimps and Gorillas split at 7 mil) female let the male know she is forsooth a housewife. To carry on the premise, the knuckle walker male set out on a perilous journey to find scarce food. There were predators, and territorial apes to avoid. Finally, after some harrowing near misses, he found some decent chewables, he gathered a bunch under his arm and carefully knuckled to home base. So here is the evolutionary impetus. There is an ever demanding bitch yelling at the male to get more!!!Somehow, I don't think so.