Talk:Aquatic ape hypothesis/Archive 3

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The article is too strong for the weakness of the theory

It's not a bad theory mind you, it's just wrong. At some point speculation isn't enough. More than 30 years without finding any evidence and just adding more speculation. Whereas the "orthodox" theories have found more and more evidence. Humans fish a bit. Living near the water is a bit easier than living in a fairly lifeless desert. Plenty of non-aquatic mammals grab some stuff from the ocean when they can, this doesn't make them aquatic. Tat 06:07, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

No, AAT isn't wrong, and is based on anatomic and physiological evidence, not speculation. The limited amount of fossil evidence we have is entirely consistent with a scenario of hominids first developing in the Red Sea area, then extending their range along the waterways and forests of the Rift Valley. As for the "orthodox" theories - what "orthodox theories"? All they have to offer is assertions that human features such as bipedalism developed as a continuation of ape bipedalism, with no particular driver for natural selection required. There is absolutely no evidence for "orthodox" alternatives to AAT/AAH. --Tiffer 23:08, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
Humans bipedalism is easily a continuation of ape bipedalism. Most apes are at least temporarily bipedal. Brachiation is a bit faster, so it is used. But, such apes are still able to use bipedalism. There are a number of major advantages of bipedalism due to the freeing of the arms and hands. Walking around bipedal has huge numbers of advantages such as seeing over grass, carrying tools, walking and running. Also, if the species wasn't a knuckle-walker when Africa dried out there wouldn't have been any real choice. These advantages far outweigh the disadvantages. That's more than enough of a "driver" for evolution. As for evidence, what more do you need? We can show the progression from tree to walking ape (tree apes walk without trees), advantages for walking bipedal, and a pretty solid line from then on out. The period of time you seem intent on focusing on was long long after hominids were fully bipedal. I mean, we have fossil evidence of bipedalism from the miocene! Apes walk bipedal. Humans walk bipedal. Humans just do it more. This isn't a big leap from some to more. And it certainly didn't require water. Tat 03:11, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, all of that is just wrong. Evolution does not proceed by picking up momentum; it reaches an optimum position and stays there until conditions change. To talk about the advantages of bipedalism to us is the teleological fallacy; there had to be an advantage to the first creatures that adopted full-time bipedalism - and for that creature, on land, the balance of advantages and disadvantages would be the same as for the apes. Apes walk bipedally only if they have a particular reason to do so; humans do it because we have lost the ability to go quadrupedally - that is a qualitative difference.
You appear to be trying to apply a scientific basis for your criticisms, yet you show these errors of thinking. --Antony Rawlinson 08:42, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
Ofcourse evolution doesn't pick up momentum. Nor does it tend to hit reach an optimum position, or stay there (it's a constant process). The advatages of bipedalism to us is deeply important. We are the results of our ancestors. It's an anthropic argument to be sure. If it wasn't useful to us, we certainly wouldn't have it. But the fact that we use it and use it to our advatage is very important to the question of how we got the ability. Some apes walk bipedally because they don't have a better way to move around, such as trees. It's not that "there had to be an advantage to the first creatures that adopted full-time bipedalism" there had to be an advantage for increased bipedalism. It's all done gradually. One of the best reasons for increased bipedalism is carrying stuff and not having a tree around (after the forests were replaced by savanna), increased tool use, sentry ability (lesser so). Each of these present a good reason to become increasingly bipedal. Evolution is gradual. It's not you walk bipedal, you don't. Our ancestors would need to become more and more bipedal. There isn't a jump to full-time bipedalism... there aren't jumps in evolution. Tat 00:39, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
You say that the article is "too strong" for the theory, but today I find it full of POV debating points from AAT doubters. The purpose of this article is to provide information on what AAT/AAH has to say, not to act as a platform for sceptics to try to knock it down. --Tiffer 23:08, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
I filled it with facts from modern antropologists. I suppose these could be considered AAT doubters, as they don't accept the hypothesis as such. Human traits are pretty standard. We aren't that fat. We can't swim without a good amount of training (unlike all other mammals). Apes are bipedal to a degree, humans to a greater degree. Hairloss is probably due to a neoteny. I mean, sure humans live by lakes and rivers because they are a great place to get food. Some of this has probably contributed to selection (if somebody drowns, that's selection for you), but the degree which is argued and the traits which are argued for are just wrong. The modern explanations are better. I mean, even in the 1960s these arguments had to stink. Women have more fat because they hang out in the water more to dodge the magical predators. If women hang out in deeper water why aren't they taller than men? Also, head hair is camouflage? Since when? A black spot of hair popping out of a blue ocean, that totally blends in. And camouflage from what? The predators are going to swim out and eat these ocean apes if only they could find something that looked like a black ball floating on the ocean. Because, there are so many grass covered beach balls out there. Hair keeps in heat (as everybody who has shaved their head will tell you), if you want to to be active more hours in the day you need less of it. In colder regions humans have more hair, lighter skin and hair, and more fat. Just as humans in warmer regions have less hair, darker skin and hair, and less fat. Tat 03:11, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
Head hair as camouflage? I've never heard of that before. If it's in the article then it's been put in without justification. The reason for retention of head hair in AAT is much more obvious - the top and the back of the head are the areas least in contact with water. Ocean apes? Where did you get that from? The aquatic apes were (putatively) shallow-water creatures.
Look, I'll say it again - the purpose of this article isn't to provide a platform for anyone to knock down AAT, or to put in their own subjective judgement about whether land alternatives are "better". It's to set out what AAT says so that readers can make their own judgement - no more and no less. The only criterion for inclusion in the article is whether a particular point is in AAT sources - and that's the case even if the point is a contentious one. Even the "Objections" section is a huge concession to AAT sceptics. What you are doing is equivalent to going through the article on Islam and interspersing it with Christian doctrines. --Antony Rawlinson 08:42, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, Tatarize, you'll have to do better than this. I have reverted your changes (keeping your earliest additions, to the "Objections" section), because I see very little other than your own POV in them. You also removed one section wholesale ("Comparison with Land-based theories") which is rather important to understanding what AAH is all about. After this, I'll check through and put back any non-POV bits. --Tiffer 23:47, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Removed section: Some should be reincorporated without pov

See above. If you think this section needs trimming down, then please state which bits of it need taking out. After reverting your previous changes, I have now gone to the trouble of putting back some possibly valid points of yours in the "Objections" section, so please don't take this as an incitement to an edit war. As I said earlier, a Wikipedia article is not a suitable location for the pro/anti debate, but is intended to inform on what the hypothesis has to say. --Antony 00:34, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Reincorporated the comparison section properly. Although, most of the comparison is pretty weak and based as largely on speculation as straw man of the position of terrestrial theories. Tat 01:15, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't see what problems you think were in the original version of this section, which I have put back, with some inaccuracies and repetitions removed. I can see that you are unhappy about some of the statements in this section which you regard as contentious; however, they are intended to reflect what AAH says, without implying any value judgement about it. As to whether it is based on straw man versions of the terrestrial theories, I'm afraid that since the terrestrial alternatives are even vaguer than AAH (IMHO), there's always going to be an element of that.
Your version of this section begins: "Proponents of AAH contend ..." With respect, I don't think it's down to you to say what AAH stands for, and you have IAC included a number of misconceptions about it which I have taken out from other parts of the whole article.
I have also put back and renamed the "Conclusions" section, which was there to outline the contentious nature of the AAT debate, without stating a viewpoint on the correctness of AAT. Please respect this.
The "Objections" section exists to reflect the sceptical viewpoints - there is no need for you to rewrite the rest of the article, including a sceptic's rejoinder in every paragraph. The article is not going to reflect your opinion on every aspect of AAH - that's not what Wikipedia is for.

--Antony 10:28, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Childbirth

There is a section that states that childbirth before hospitals was generally done standing up or leaning, I think this need a citation!

I have seen this before but can't give a citation.

Illogic in Criticism

Under Breathing: "if AAT was correct, infants would be born with a descended larynx to prevent them from drowning in an aquatic environment."

This is akin to saying that if the Savannah theory were correct, infants would be able to walk within minutes of birth (like other animals) to prevent them from being eaten by predators. There are many human capabilities that are not present in infancy (e.g. use of verbal speech/language), which does nothing to invalidate a theory of why non-infants have those abilities. I will remove that sentence. --Landwalker 04:19, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Criticism

There should not be a separate section for criticism, it should be spread througout the article alongside the arguments for. As per Wikipedia policy. Thanks JPotter 03:49, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Swimming and other semi-objections

In the "Swimming" objection, the current revision states: However an ape and human without training would typically drown. How is this a criticism of AAH? If humans can swim better than all other apes, doesn't that show that we have good aquatic abilities... for apes? If we first evolved into apes, and later moved into an aquatic environment; then we would be bad swimmers because of our ape nature, but better swimmers than other apes, just as this "objection" states? More generally, many of the criticisms of AAH seem to assume that AAH posits that humans were fully aquatic. If humans started to evolve to fit an aquatic or semi-aquatic environment, then moved to another environment... one would not assume that they would exhibit all aquatic characteristics. One would expect to see various aquatic characteristics implemented to varying degrees, no?

-One would like to see more information on the exact theory. The critisism and the theory holders both fail to specify if it was fresh water aquatics, salt water, marsh, swamp, river and the text seems to swing wildly too and fro. For example, what's the point of the argument that humans cannot drink sea water if they developed on a delta hunting in the salt water but living near the fresh? I know it's just a wiki article, but clarifications of the specifics of the thoery, and a consistant set of objections to specific versions of the theory would be helpful.

Falsification

Curious, what do AAH researchers say about falsification of the hypothesis? Specifically, how, or what evidence, could falsify it? JPotter 22:06, 8 August 2006 (UTC)


How about this: Unequivocal evidence that chimpanzee or bonobo infants can be trained to swim as well as or better than human infants. If I read such a study I'd drop my support of waterside hypotheses of human evolution (a better label than "the aquatic ape hypothesis") in in instance. AlgisKuliukas (talk) 03:20, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Objections section

Almost every statement made in the Objections... section is unsourced and unattributed. Many points that are disputed are asserted without any evidence. This needs to be fixed. Ashmoo 06:41, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Semi-aquatic babirusa?

Please be aware that there are 3 species of babirusa. 2 of these species are hairy and the third, albeit the most common, is described as having either a sparse coat or absent coat. See [[1]] and/or [[2]]. Clearly, nakedness cannot be looked on as a general feature of the babirusa family. Moreover, I can find no corroborating evidence that these animals are semi-aqautic and, indeed, no reference to it outside of wiki nor before December 2005 when it was added anonymously here. For reasons that I wan't go into, I suspect this information is a deliberate plant. If it cannot be substantiated then I would suggest that references to the babirusa be completely withdrawn.

A sparse or absent coat sounds like nakedness to me. Humans could also be described as having a sparse or absent coat, and babirusa look as or more naked than humans in the photographs I have seen. Regarding the statement that they are semi-aquatic, your link [[3]] says that their natural habitat is "on the banks of rivers and lakes" and that they are "good swimmers, being able to swim to off-shore islands", so they certainly appear to be a creature with ties to the water. Exactly what qualifies as semi-aquatic is a partly semantic argument, however I think that littoral (dwelling on the lake or seashore) might be a better description of a babiruas habitat, I have added this to the text. I take your point that there are 3 species of babyrusa, thanks for bringing it up, however as you point out, the most common species, the one typically thought of as a babirusa, fits with the description in the text. I shall edit the article to add "Babyrousa celebensis" to clarify which species is being talked about. Might I also suggest that you try to take other peoples edits in good faith, rather than using offensive terms like "deliberate plant." All the best, Nicolharper 15:33, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Fair enough, but what should be said is that one of the three species is naked. Failing to mention that 2 others are not gives a biased view of the situation, albeit unintentionally so. As to being semi-aquatic, I would ask what aspect of their lifestyles requires an aquatic environment? Almost all animals can swim. Many animals are also very good swimmers. I don't think it is reasonable to maintain that an animal is semi-aquatic merely because it swims well. What aspect of its life is carried out in water? What aspects of its life is it unable to carry out if deprived of an aquatic setting? Without an answer to those questions it is unreasonable to say that the animal is semi-aquatic.

As to the use of "deliberate plant", I have chosen that term after a great deal of consideration. Wiki is not the only place where AAH is debated and I find it highly suspicious that there is no reference to babirusa being semi-aquatic outside of wiki, and that the first mention of this occurs at the same time as the debate began elsewhere. It may just be co-incidence, and if it is then there will be independent corroboration of the claim. As to good faith, I'm afraid I cannot approach wiki in that way. This is a great concern of mine and should also be a concern for you too. As the Siegenthaler affair has shown, the wiki authoring process is deeply flawed and easy for partisan opinions to manipulate, particularly in an area where emotions can run high like this one - and I remind you that it is an anonymous posting that made the claim. I hope I am wrong in this case, but only the referencing of independent corroboration would allay my fears. Steve 17:54, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Rewrite Needed

My overall impression of this article is that it is not written from a neutral POV. Whilst some effort has been made to show the pro and anti sides of the argument, the layout and haphazard writing quality gives far too much prominence to the pro argument. (I'm not saying that was intentional. I just think that far more effort and quality control has been put into one side than into the other.) I think an expanded summary section is needed up front, before the for/against sections, to summarise briefly what the arguments are. This prepares the reader to look for both sides of the debate.

The section on comparison with terrestrial models is a pure propoganda job. Why is it needed in the first place? AAH , like any other theory, stands or falls on how it alone measures against the evidence. Any relevant points in this section ought to be merged in with the relevant subheadings of the for and against sections. If people want to know about other theories, they can read it for themselves if the links are put in. Whilst on the subject, the bee-in-the-bonnet thing about the savannah theory needs to go. Fossil evidence has blown that out of the water a long time ago. Rabbiting on about ST just makes the article look out-of-date.

How one deals with the large number of factual innaccuracies is an interesting question. Yes, there are a large number of things stated to be true, at one time or another, in AAH which are demonstrably false. Does one let these statements stand, as they accurately reflect the nature of the hypothesis, or does one strike out those which (for example) contradict another wiki entry or were later withdrawn by (for example) Elaine Morgan. As a minimum, I would like to see an expanded history section showing how the theory has evolved and the changes made by the main protagonists where these are a matter of record.

I also think the writing throughout is suffering from too much entropy. It doesn't flow. It's full of non-sequiturs. It's very obviously the work of too many people, and there are too many obvious 1-line edits.

Overall, I think this article would benefit from a total rewrite. Steve 20:46, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree that this article is very poorly written and I agree with your diagnosis of the reason why: too many authors, too many contrary views.
I disagree that it is too pro-AAH, however. I consider myself a proponent of this idea and I think reading this piece gives a very poor explanation of the idea and far too many criticisms of it. If you look up any other hypothesis in Wikipedia I doubt that so much of the content is taken up by counter arguments. It is as if there are some people out there who are so nervous about this idea they are almost trying to censor it out of existance.
I am a PhD student who has been trying to study this properly for the last seven years and in my time in academia I have found a great deal of ignorance and gossip and almost no open minded enquiry.
Your point, that the idea should be summaried first, is a good one but I would go a step further. It should actually be defined first. Actually, it should be properly labelled even before that. The so-called aquatic-ape hypothesis is clearly a misnomer for an idea that is not really proposing and aquatic ape. The label was giveen to it by Desmond Morris as a short-hand term for Hardy's original question "was Man more aquatic in the past?" and, unfortunately, it has stuck. It generates misunderstanding and no clarity and this has not been helped by the fact that none of the proponents, until recently, have tried to make it very clear what it actually is.
I suggest that if we do not know what it is, it is impossible to discuss in any meaningful way.
I have tried to define thiss hypothesis and have included that definition on this page before but, it would seem, some egotistical people do not like that definition and would rather promote their own ideas. The result today is that no-one really knows what the idea even is.
Here is my label and definition again:
Waterside hypotheses of Human Evolution:
The hypothesis that moving through water (i.e. wading, swimming and diving) and obtaining food from aquatic habitats has acted as an agency of selection more in the lineage leading to Homo sapiens more than it has in the lineage leading to the other great apes and thus explains most of the distinct physical differences them. It assumes that even very slight levels of selection can result in profound and rapid differences in and phenotype and therefore does not require that our lineage was ever parrticularly adapted to moving through water, only that our ancestors were exposed to the risk of drowning more than their's. AlgisKuliukas (talk) 04:00, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
That seems to be quite watered down from, say, Morgan. Your comments on "very slight levels of selection" has nothing to do with AAH; that's just biology. Somewhere on this talk page I mentioned watching a swamp guenon swimming under water for extended periods, but I now have something referenceable: 3 minutes before the end of the TV series Planet Earth, "Fresh water" episode, they show macaques that live in a mangrove swamp and spend a lot of time playing, swimming, and feeding under water. They can stay under for 30 seconds, about what I saw with the guenon, who was trying to keep up with river otters. Aquatic adaptations are rare for primates; what Morgan proposes is more like an isolated population of much larger primates living as or probably more aquatically than the guenons and macaques. kwami (talk) 07:04, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
I'd say that was only your interpretation. Elaine Morgan has actually endorsed my definition. Her five books on the subject carefully avoided tying herself to any particular mast simply because she was weary of being attacked. Her aim was always, merely, to promote some study of the idea. You mention her references to larger primates (but, I note, you do not give a specific citation) but there are many others in her work, and that of Hardy before her, where it is clear that they are thinking of something far less aquatic than people have assumed. This is really the main point I want to make: it has been misunderstood.
Some quotes...

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. [0-2] I suppose that they were forced into the water just as we have seen happen in so many other groups of terrestrial animals. [0-3] I am imagining this happenning 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. [0-4] Hardy (1960:642) Hardy, A. Was Man More Aquatic in the Past?. New Scientist 7:642-645, (1960).

Nobody has suggested that they turned into mermen and mermaids. They would have been water-adapted apes in the same sense that an otter is a water-adapted mustelid. If we knew nothing of the otter except what we can deduce from its bare bones, it would take a clever scientist to detect that it was any more aquatic than its cousins the stoats and the polecats. (0-2-2) Morgan (1997:31) Morgan, E. (1997). The Aquatic Ape Hypothesis. Souvenir Press (London)

AlgisKuliukas (talk) 04:00, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
The original comment you replied to is more than a year old - chances are that editor won't reply, though obviously others may (and did in this case). Note that your qualifications are not really important, more important is the addition of referenced material from reliable sources, and this is a much better way of demonstrating expertise. Hardy and Morgan are both already in the page as references, and can be cited as reliable sources. If you do not have sources for your definition of the AAH, you are engaging in original research and this is not suitable for the page. Without a source, Morgan's support for your ideas is not suitable for the page either. That the AAH is a misnomer is also WP:OR without a source - there's many things that are badly named but still stand, and all the OR in the world doesn't matter, no matter how common-sense it is. I can't point out that the fundamental presupposition of The Matrix violates the laws of thermodynamics, so I understand your frustration. Sources are always worth more than theories and personal experience. WLU (talk) 14:58, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
I understand and accept all your points. It is a well known frustration in promoting ideas that are not mainstream. They are subject to Catch 22 problems. You can't back them up with published referenced sources but you can't get anything published either because the peer review process has the same kind of principles. It's all stacked up against anything that is not orthodoxy. AlgisKuliukas (talk) 03:36, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Nutrition

To whoever amended the nutrition section: this smacks of OR. It should have appropriate references or should be clearly labelled as "proponents believe" rather than be presebted as fact. It seems to contradict the wiki article on omega-3s which mention several common sources. Steve 17:35, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Flubber?

forgive me, i may not be the smartest person in the world but who quotes the insulating properties of flubber? the fictional substance that bounces a lot... pwapwap 02:53, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Finger and Toe Webbing

I could be wrong, but I believe that the webbing between fingers and toes in humans has been ascribed to the AAT. Shouldn't it have it's own section?

Three noteworthy issues about finger and toe webbing immediately spring to mind:

  • One, only animals who have spent a significant part of their evolution near or on water develop them, in order to improve their ability to swim.
  • Two, chimpanzees and other evolutionarily proximate primates do not have any sort of webbing, whereas water-based primates do, which indicates that primates can develop webbing under the right circumstances, but that humans' closest relatives did not.
  • Three, traditional, land-based evolutionary theories cannot explain how humans developed webbing, since if we had developed on dry savannahs, there would have been no evolutionary advantage in having webbing between the fingers and toes.

Any thoughts?--TallulahBelle 17:18, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Just a couple. What webbing are you referring to? JPotter 17:53, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
The obvious kind: The flaps of skin between fingers, close to the knuckles, that do not exist in most other primates. --TB —The preceding unsigned comment was added by TallulahBelle (talk • contribs) 18:31, 16 December 2006 (UTC).
I've heard of syndactylism but that is a birth defect that occurs in both humans and non-human apes. But if you can cite a reliable source that indicates the hand's web spaces are evidence of an aquatic past, or that syndactylism is, go for it. JPotter 19:38, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
That's my point: I read somewhere about webbing as a possible indicator of an aquatic past, but I don't recall where I read it or in what context. Hence I can't cite it in the article, though from what I understood, webbing was considered a major piece of evidence for the theory. The webbing refered to the normal webbing humans have, not syndactylism, which is a birth defect. --TallulahBelle 22:27, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
Does finger and toe webbing occur in non-human apes? This is first I have heard of this. Do you have a source for that please Jason Potter? Certainly non-human apes do not have the partially webbed toes and feet that humans have to this day. I think that this should be mentioned in the article. SmokeyTheCat 13:36, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
I read a book about AAT that mentioned webbing as support for the theory. I'll see if I still have it somewhere. It also mentioned the orientation of the body hairs. That it in humans was more streamlined than other apes. // Liftarn (talk)

Objection by comparison to hairy aquatics

In the section on objections to the theory, specifically regarding the nakedness, there's a comparison to hairy aquatic mammals. Does anyone have a timeframe to compare when the aquatic ape was suppose to have existed, and when these other furry animals first took to the water? I really have no idea, but I feel like polar bears, for instance, are relatively recent arrivals to the water. Similar with beavers, otters, etc., which seem so close to fully land based rodents that I feel like maybe they haven't been in the water long enough for nakedness to catch up with them. But i really have no idea. Any input? B.Mearns*, KSC 03:42, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Nevermind child-birth, whatabout child-rearing?

Anybody who's ever been a parent should try to ask themselves the question of how the heck we as a species could possibly have developed in the same environment as large predators. Let me tell you, wherever we evolved it was loud. -- MarkJaroski 16:41, 10 February 2007 (UTC)