Science is wrong to reject the aquatic ape theory of human origins.

Darwinists love to say how similar humans are to chimps genetically. But then, why are humans so different from chimps. Chimps are hairy and walk on four legs. Humans have little hair and are bipedal. Scientists used to think it was because when human ancestors left the forest and moved onto the savanna they had to stand upright to see over the tall grass and hold weapons, and they got too hot chasing game so they lost their hair. However that theory has been rejected because scientists found that the micro fauna, herbivores, and pollen accompanying remains of human ancestors were not savanna species.

"Thomas S. Kuhn wrote a seminal treatise about this back in 1962. He said what scientists do when a paradigm fails is, guess what -- they carry on as if nothing had happened."

The differences between humans and chimps can be explained if human ancestors spent part of their evolution as an aquatic species.
  1. Loss of body hair: Whales, hippos, rhinos, even elephants, spent part of their evolution as aquatic species.
  2. All apes and monkeys can walk on two legs. The only time they all do is when they are wading in water.
  3. Humans are the only primate with a layer of fat under the skin but other aquatic mammals have one too.
  4. The ability to speak is dependent on conscious control of the breath. The only animals that have conscious control of the breath are diving animals.
  5. Humans are streamlined, we can dive into the water and hardly make a splash.
"Some of them have come over. There was Professor Tobias. He's come over. Daniel Dennett, he's come over. Sir David Attenborough, he's come over. "

"So I get the impression that some parts of the scientific establishment are morphing into a kind of priesthood. But you know, that makes me feel good, because Richard Dawkins has told us how to treat a priesthood.
(Laughter)
He says, "Firstly, you've got to refuse to give it all the excessive awe and reverence it's been trained to receive." Right. I'll go ahead with that. And secondly, he says, "You must never be afraid to rock the boat." I'll go along with that too. "



Well, this is 2009. And it's the Bicentenary of Charles Darwin. And all over the world, eminent evolutionists are anxious to celebrate this. And what they're planning to do is to enlighten us on almost every aspect of Darwin and his life, and how he changed our thinking.

I say almost every aspect, because there is one aspect of this story which they have thrown no light on. And they seem anxious to skirt around it and step over it and to talk about something else. So I'm going to talk about it. It's the question of, why are we so different from the chimpanzees?

We get the geneticists keeping on telling us how extremely closely we are related -- hardly any genes of difference, very, very closely related. And yet, when you look at the phenotypes, there's a chimp, there's a man; they're astoundingly different, no resemblance at all. I'm not talking about airy-fairy stuff about culture or psychology, or behavior. I'm talking about ground-base, nitty-gritty, measurable physical differences. They, that one, is hairy and walking on four legs. That one is a naked biped. Why?

I mean --
(Laughter)

if I'm a good Darwinist, I've got to believe there's a reason for that. If we changed so much, something must have happened. What happened?

Now 50 years ago, that was a laughably simple question. Everybody knew the answer. They knew what happened. The ancestor of the apes stayed in the trees; our ancestors went out onto the plain. That explained everything. We had to get up on our legs to peer over the tall grass, or to chase after animals, or to free our hands for weapons. And we got so overheated in the chase that we had to take off that fur coat and throw it away. Everybody knew that, for generations.

But then, in the '90s, something began to unravel. The paleontologists themselves looked a bit more closely at the accompanying microfauna that lived in the same time and place as the hominids. And they weren't savanna species. And they looked at the herbivores. And they weren't savanna herbivores. And then they were so clever, they found a way to analyze fossilized pollen. Shock, horror. The fossilized pollen was not of savanna vegetation. Some of it even came from lianas, those things that dangle in the middle of the jungle.

...
This is not something I've made up. It's not a minority theory. Everybody agrees with it. Professor Tobias came over from South Africa and spoke to University College London. He said, "Everything I've been telling you for the last 20 years, forget about it. It was wrong. We've got to go back to square one and start again." It made him very unpopular. They didn't want to go back to square one.

I mean, it's a terrible thing to happen. You've got this beautiful paradigm. You've believed it through generations. Nobody has questioned it. You've been constructing fanciful things on top of it, relying on it to be as solid as a rock. And now it's whipped away from under you. What do you do? What does a scientist do in that case? Well, we know the answer because Thomas S. Kuhn wrote a seminal treatise about this back in 1962. He said what scientists do when a paradigm fails is, guess what -- they carry on as if nothing had happened.
(Laughter)

...

And the irony of it is, that this is one occasion of a paradigm collapse where we didn't have to wait for a new paradigm to come up. There was one waiting in the wings. It had been waiting there since 1960 when Alister Hardy, a marine biologist, said, "I think what happened, perhaps our ancestors had a more aquatic existence for some of the time." He kept it to himself for 30 years.

But then the press got hold of it and all hell broke loose. All his colleagues said, "This is outrageous. You've exposed us to public ridicule! You must never do that again." And at that time, it became set in stone: the aquatic theory should be dumped with the UFOs and the yetis, as part of the lunatic fringe of science.

Well I don't think that. I think that Hardy had a lot going for him. I'd like to talk about just a handful of what have been called the hallmarks of mankind, the things that made us different from everybody else, and all our relatives.

Let's look at our naked skin. It's obvious that most of the things we think about that have lost their body hair, mammals without body hair, are aquatic ones, like the dugong, the walrus, the dolphin, the hippopotamus, the manatee. And a couple of wallowers-in-mud like the babirusa. And you're tempted to think, well perhaps, could that be why we are naked? I suggested it and people said, "No no no. I mean, look at the elephant. You've forgotten all about the elephant haven't you?" So back in 1982 I said, "Well perhaps the elephant had an aquatic ancestor." Peals of merry laughter! "That crazy woman. She's off again. She'll say anything won't she?" But by now, everybody agrees that the elephant had an aquatic ancestor. This has come 'round to be that all those naked pachyderms have aquatic ancestors. The last exception was supposed to be the rhinoceros. Last year in Florida they found extinct ancestor of a rhinoceros and said, "Seems to have spent most of its time in the water." So this is a close connection between nakedness and water.

As an absolute connection, it only works one way. You can't say all aquatic animals are naked, because look at the sea otter. But you can say that every animal that has become naked has been conditioned by water, in its own lifetime, or the lifetime of its ancestors. I think this is significant. The only exception is the naked Somalian mole-rat, which never puts its nose above the surface of the ground.

And take bipedality. Here you can't find anybody to compare it with, because we're the only animal that walks upright on two legs. But you can say this: all the apes and all the monkeys are capable of walking on two legs, if they want to, for a short time. There is only one circumstance in which they always, all of them, walk on two legs, and that is when they are wading through water. Do you think that's significant? David Attenborough thinks it's significant, as the possible beginning of our bipedalism.

Look at the fat layer. We have got, under our skin, a layer of fat, all over: nothing in the least like that in any other primate. Why should it be there? Well they do know, that if you look at other aquatic mammals, the fat that in most land mammals is deposited inside the body wall, around the kidneys and the intestines and so on, has started to migrate to the outside, and spread out in a layer inside the skin. In the whale it's complete: no fat inside at all, all in blubber outside. We cannot avoid the suspicion that in our case it's started to happen. We have got skin lined with this layer. It's the only possible explanation of why humans, if they're very unlucky, can become grossly obese, in a way that would be totally impossible for any other primate, physically impossible.

Something very odd, matter-of-factly, never explained. The question of why we can speak. We can speak. And the gorilla can't speak. Why? Nothing to do with his teeth or his tongue or his lungs or anything like that -- purely has to do with its conscious control of its breath. You can't even train a gorilla to say "Ah" on request. The only creatures that have got conscious control of their breath are the diving animals and the diving birds. It was an absolute precondition for our being able to speak.

And then again, there is the fact that we are streamlined. Trying to imagine a diver diving into water -- hardly makes a splash. Try to imagine a gorilla performing the same maneuver, and you can see that, compared with gorilla, we are halfway to being shaped like a fish.

I am trying to suggest that, for 40-odd years, this aquatic idea has been miscategorized as lunatic fringe, and it is not lunatic fringe. And the ironic thing about it is that they are not staving off the aquatic theory to protect a theory of their own, which they've all agreed on, and they love. There is nothing there. They are staving off the aquatic theory to protect a vacuum.
(Laughter)
(Applause)

...

Apart from that, some of the heads count more than others. Some of them have come over. There was Professor Tobias. He's come over. Daniel Dennett, he's come over. Sir David Attenborough, he's come over. Anybody else out there? Come on in. The water is lovely.
(Applause)

...

So I get the impression that some parts of the scientific establishment are morphing into a kind of priesthood. But you know, that makes me feel good, because Richard Dawkins has told us how to treat a priesthood.
(Laughter)
He says, "Firstly, you've got to refuse to give it all the excessive awe and reverence it's been trained to receive." Right. I'll go ahead with that. And secondly, he says, "You must never be afraid to rock the boat." I'll go along with that too. Thank you very much.
(Applause)
 
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Elaine Morgan's original motive in championing Alister Hardy's theory was to challenge Darwin and the predominant 19th century phallocentric view that claimed we became hairless, upright conversationalists because men got hot when they went hunting and needed to hold weapons, look over tall grass and communicate about prey. Meanwhile the women, who were back at camp and did none of these things (apparently, let's not forget, this is all conjecture based on a handful of bones and stones) also became naked, talking bipedals and produced more naked, talking bipedals. In fact women's influence seems to have had little say in this aspect of his-story, despite the fact they actually reproduce these humans.

A picture - Procreator (female) holding baby, threatened by quadrupedal carnivore would run into deep water up to her neck and swim. Giving birth to babies is easier in water, babies can swim and instinctively hold their breath under water. Hair on the head streams out for a handle and breasts float for a feed. E Morgan provides many more very convincing arguments, so isn't it time we let go of a 200 year old antiquated masculine-dominant inaccurate theory and remember the significance of who actually gives birth and nurtures the species?
 
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