Flogging the Aquatic Ape

PZ mentioned the "aquatic ape" hypothesis (AAH) this morning, a relatively obscure speculation about human evolution, and I thought I'd share a two part radio program (or programme) that David Attenborough narrated a few years ago. The notion that humans have an aquatic past might be far fetched, but Attenborough has a knack for making it interesting nonetheless.

The AAH was the brainchild of Sir Alister Hardy, a notable marine biologist who wrote many books on evolution and did some important research on plankton early on. Supposedly through his studies of zooplankton and their relation to marine mammals, he stumbled upon the idea that we may have spent part of our evolutionary history filling a niche in the ocean. As you can imagine, biologists and anthropologists were not impressed.

About 12 years later, a writer named Elaine Morgan took hold of Hardy's unpopular idea and wrote The Descent of Woman, tying up feminist theory with the AAH. Morgan was repulsed by the accepted view of human evolution in the 60's (which hasn't changed too much in the past few decades, relatively):

Not only did I not like the feel of what these people were saying, but I think they got it wrong.

The whole thing was very male centred. It was taken for granted the important thing was the evolution of 'man the hunter'.

Sounds just a tad revisionist, eh?

Anyhoo, the whole program is interesting if you've never heard anything about it. Definitely worth a listen.

Hardy, by the way, ended up becoming somewhat obsessed in his later life with studying the religious experience and the evolution of faith. He was awarded the Templeton Prize and left a whole institute behind to continue his later work. An institute devoted to marine ecology would have been a much better investment, in my opinion.