Elaine Morgan (writer)

The Delegates of the Aquatic Ape Symposium 1987
Elaine Morgan is to the right of Machteld (Maggie) Roede, a conference organiser who is at the front. Her husband, Morien Morgan, is to the left of Maggie.

Elaine Morgan OBE FRSL (7 November 1920 – 12 July 2013)^[1] was a Welsh writer for television and the author of several books on evolutionary anthropology, especially the aquatic ape hypothesis: The Descent of Woman, The Aquatic Ape, The Scars of Evolution, The Descent of the Child, The Aquatic Ape Hypothesis, and The Naked Darwinist (2008), which discusses the reception of aquatic scenarios in academic literature. She also authored Falling Apart and Pinker's List.

Personal life

Elaine Floyd was born and brought up in Hopkinstown, near Pontypridd, in Wales. She lived for many years, up until her death, in Mountain Ash, near Aberdare. She graduated from Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, with a degree in English. She married Morien Morgan (d. 1997) and had three sons. Her eldest son was Dylan Morgan.

She died at the age of 92 on 12 July 2013.

Writing

Elaine Morgan began writing in the 1950s after winning a competition in the New Statesman, successfully publishing, then joining the BBC when they began to produce her plays for television.^[2] Morgan's works included popular dramas, newspaper columns, and a series of publications on biological anthropology.^[3]

Morgan wrote for many television series including the adaptations of How Green Was My Valley (1975) and Testament of Youth (1979). Her other work included episodes of Dr. Finlay's Casebook (1963–1970), the biographical drama The Life and Times of David Lloyd George (1981) and contributions to the Campion (1989) series.

She won two BAFTAs and two Writers' Guild awards. She also wrote the script for the Horizon documentary about Joey Deacon, the disabled fund-raiser. This won the Prix Italia in 1975. She was honoured with the Writer of the Year Award from the Royal Television Society for her serialisation Vera Brittain's Testament of Youth (1979).^[4]

In 2003 she started to write a weekly column for the Welsh national daily newspaper The Western Mail, and in this role was awarded Columnist of the Year for 2011 in the Society of Editors' Regional Press Awards.^[5][6]

She was awarded an honorary D.Litt. by Glamorgan University in December 2006,^[7] an honorary fellow of the University of Cardiff in 2007, and awarded the Letten F. Saugstad Prize for her "contribution to scientific knowledge".^[8]

Morgan was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2009 Birthday Honours for services to literature and to education.^[9] She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature the same year.^[10] She was made an honorary freeman of Rhondda Cynon Taf in April 2013.^[11]

Her book Pinker's List was a response to Steven Pinker's The Blank Slate, in which she rejected his claim to objectivity and argued that the "blank-slate" beliefs he caricatured have long been extinct.

Aquatic ape hypothesis

Morgan first became drawn into scientific writing when reading popularizers of the savannah hypothesis of human evolution such as Desmond Morris. She described her reaction as one of irritation because the explanations were largely male-centered. For instance, she thought that if humans lost their hair because they needed to sweat while chasing game on the savannah that did not explain why women should also lose their hair as, according to the savannah hypothesis, they would be looking after the children. On re-reading Desmond Morris's The Naked Ape she encountered a reference to a hypothesis that humans had for a time gone through a water phase, the so-called aquatic ape hypothesis. She contacted Morris on this and he directed her to Alister Hardy. Her first book The Descent of Woman (1972) was originally planned to pave the way for Hardy's more academic book, but Hardy never published his book.

Morgan's first publication was mentioned by E. O. Wilson in 1975, comparing it to other "advocacy approaches" such as The Imperial Animal^[12] as an "inevitable feminist" counter, but describing the method as less scientific than other contemporary hypotheses.^[13] Morgan accepted this criticism and her later books were written in a more scientific tone, or more "po-faced" as she herself described it. As an outsider and a non-scientist she claims to have encountered hostility from academics. Consequently many of her books seem to be written as much to counter the many arguments put forth against the Aquatic Ape Theory as to advance its merits. Her position is summarised in her website.^[14] The story of Morgan's quest to have the aquatic ape hypothesis taken seriously was chronicled in the 1998 BBC documentary The Aquatic Ape.

Morgan's version of the AAH has achieved much popular appeal,^[15] but has never achieved significant acceptance or serious scrutiny within the scholarly community.^[16][17][18] The Aquatic Ape Hypothesis was subjected to a full academic symposium in Valkenburg, South Holland in 1987, but the papers were mostly critical of the hypothesis.^[19] Despite this, Morgan continued to promote the hypothesis, with invitations to speak at universities^[20][20] and symposia^[21] including a TED talk in 2009.^[22]

Works

Morgan's earlier works as a playwright include:^[2]

• The Waiting Room: A Play for Women in One Act (Samuel French Ltd, 1958)
• Rest You Merry: A Christmas Play in Two Acts (Samuel French Ltd, 1959)
• Eli’r Teulu: Comedi Dair Act (Gwasg Aberystwyth, 1960)
• The Soldier and the Woman: A Play in One Act (Samuel French Ltd, 1961)
• Licence to Murder: A Play in Two Acts (Samuel French Ltd, 1963)
• A Chance to Shine: A Play in One Act (Samuel French Ltd, 1964)
• Love from Liz (Samuel French Ltd, 1967)

Morgan's books on palæontology include:^[2]

• The Descent of Woman, 1972, Souvenir Press, ISBN 0-285-62063-0
• The Aquatic Ape, 1982, Stein & Day Pub, ISBN 0-285-62509-8
• The Scars of Evolution, 1990, Souvenir Press, ISBN 0-285-62996-4
• The Descent of the Child: Human Evolution from a New Perspective, 1995, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-509895-1
• The Aquatic Ape Hypothesis, 1997, Souvenir Press, ISBN 0-285-63377-5
• The Naked Darwinist, 2008, Eildon Press, ISBN 0-9525620-3-0
• L'origine della donna, 2012, Castelvecchi editore, ISBN 9788876157967

Other works:

• An essay "The Escape Route", also on Hardy Theory
• Falling Apart: The Rise and Decline of Urban Civilisation, 1976, Souvenir Press Ltd. ISBN 0-285-62234-X
• Pinker's List, 2005, Eildon Press, ISBN 0-9525620-2-2

References

External links

• "Scars of Evolution", a BBC Radio 4 programme featuring Morgan. David Attenborough hosts the series that chronicles the rising evidence in support of an aquatic environment in human evolution.
• Elaine Morgan at the Internet Movie Database
• Biography at h2g2
• Elaine Morgan at TED
• Details of Aquatic Ape Symposium 1987 and subsequent book. (Accessed 26.09.2015)
  • "I believe we evolved from aquatic apes" (TEDGlobal 2009)