Aquatic Ape Theory

Discussion in 'Human Science' started by LIGHTBEING, Aug 22, 2002.

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  1. LIGHTBEING Registered Senior Member

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    Hey...I'm new to this section. Just recently have I beeninterested in Human Evolution.

    I caught a show on discover lastnight a show on the Aquatic Ape Theory. Anyone heard of this? Sounded very interesting. Don't really know if I absorbed it all. Let me know if I have the jist of it.

    Before we were Human we lived in the Oceans and Seas like Dolphins and Whales do now. We began feeding on the fish and eventually this lead "us" to the shores where fish were more plentiful. The nutrience of the fish combine with the shores and time evolved us into what we are today?

    I'm sure I am missing a lot of points but is this kinda what the theory talks about?

    Also they were saying that most Scientist today are outraged a the new theory???
     
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  3. sinecure71 Registered Senior Member

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    The theory goes against the traditional belief that we came down from the trees (our primate) relatives and evolved in a desert-like environment, which is why it is seen as bunk by most scientists. ~Something like that anyway.
     
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  5. Frencheneesz Amazing Member Registered Senior Member

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    hmm

    sounds like you just didn't understand the topic, exept for the fact that scientists are outraged at the idea...
    Seems to me that animals came out from the sea in a slow process of fish to amphibian to reptile to mamal. I can tell you that noone is ever going to find proof of an aquatic ape.... since there are no ape like creatures, nor do apes have any water related equipment (limbs/organs/other).

    With dolphins and whales, they breath air. Apes have no kind of archetechture that suggests the ability to come up for air every couple minutes. Nor is there anything that an ape has that would be good at catching fish. NOR are there any fossils of like animals, NOR are there any non-extinct animals that remotly resemble an ape.

    Evolution is not at all like a single animal, which is to say that an entire species does not leave the water to search for food, but small parts of the species break off and do what they do best (because otherwise they die), and the process from land to ocean is a VERY time consuming process involving many thousands of evolutions the size of ape to human.

    An ape would have to have been in the water hundreds of millions of years ago to have evolved like that.

    SO sounds like you got the idea, but the idea sucks.
     
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  7. Nova1021 Registered Senior Member

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    I've heard of the theory. I read about it in an old book about mans evolution from the seventies or something so i never really knew if it was still an accepted theory. As i understood it, it was proposed as a reason for humans having lost all their hair except a little and changing to being bipedal. I don't think it tried to say that humans didn't originally descend from the trees, it just said that for a while we lived a semi aquatic lifestyle. Not nearly as aquatic as whales etc, but enough that it influenced our evolution a bit before we returned to land. Interesting, but i'm not sure whether i believe it, i haven't heard any recent studies that say it's true.
     
  8. Merlijn curious cat Registered Senior Member

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    Frencheneesz , you're right again!
    (though, there exist some non-extinct animals that resemble apes... but none of them live in aquatic environments)

    That's the problem with discovery: half of the stuff is thoughtless theorizing by wannabie scientists.
     
  9. Frencheneesz Amazing Member Registered Senior Member

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    "there exist some non-extinct animals that resemble apes"

    LOL, one of those being ...... APES.

    Just thought id let you know

    Frencheneesz
     
  10. wet1 Wanderer Registered Senior Member

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    Welcome to sciforums, Frencheneesz.

    A little food for thought.

    Mammals that live in the ocean are very few and limited. It is thought that it is possible that these mammals are the result of land creatures returning to the sea as mammals abound on land. That they reverse evolved from land to sea.

    People, such as pearl divers show that exercise alone can go a long way towards improving the ability to hold your breath underwater and extend the time that it can be done. Add that to generation after generation until evolution starts to change the body into something more adapted to the new enviroment and you get something like the whale or dolphin.
     
  11. LIGHTBEING Registered Senior Member

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    interesting wet1

    Thanks for the feedback everyone.
     
  12. Frencheneesz Amazing Member Registered Senior Member

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    I suppose wet1, but evolution doesn't come out of excersize. No matter what your parents do to improove their stay under-water, it only matters what genes you get, not what kind of build your parents had.
    Im sure i don't need to go into that. But not like it isn't possible that their were aquatic apes, it just sounds rediculous, and there certainly isn't much evidence for it, it just might explain the lack of hair we have......

    Frencheneesz
     
  13. Avatar smoking revolver Valued Senior Member

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    "it just might explain the lack of hair we have......"

    head....?

    I believe that it was used as a protection from heat , but when we learned to walk on two, the haid gradually went away and only where it is needed it remained

    we are still loosing hair I think
     
  14. spookz Banned Banned

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    "I suppose wet1, but evolution doesn't come out of excersize. No matter what your parents do to improove their stay under-water, it only matters what genes you get, not what kind of build your parents had."

    i dont see how it cant
    genes are part of the human body, it changes when we change
    diet, environment, intellectual stimulation will improve the human body and these newly aquired traits will be passed down to ones offspring.
    are we not running faster? growing taller? its a two way street

    the length of time is irrelevant, only whether it is possible or not

    anyway as soon as biotech guys pinpoint the genes for growing gills, i am gonna tweak mine and head back into the oceans

    ciao

    eat this!
     
  15. Frencheneesz Amazing Member Registered Senior Member

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    Actually spookz, evolution doesn't work like that.

    We are getting taller (statistically) because we have better nutrition now that before. The main reason why many asians are short is not because of genes, but because of the food they eat. Rice does not have all the proteins that the body needs, and so if your diet consists mainly of rice, your bound to have deficiencies.
    We are running faster more because of better running surfaces and shoes, and a little bit because of better technique, not because we are getting better DNA. I suppose food would help the running thing too a bit.

    Your DNA does not change as you change, then only times DNA changes are anomolies in your body (radiation, and other splitting errors [mutation]), and when something reproduces.

    When you get stronger muscles its because you have more muscle tissue, not because of your DNA.

    Evolution does not work with improvements of the body, it works by "natural" selection. We humans have mastered something called cow selection. We pick the best cows and breed those, the worse cows going unbred. In this way, we speculate that the good cows will make good calfs, and since cows are pretty much fed the same and treated the same, the DNA is pretty much all there is.

    The reason why something evolves is because one animal mutates one way, and another either stays the same or mutates a different way. The one that survives better stay non-extinct, and the one that is less adapted dies off. It is not because your traits are passed on, your DNA is passed on, not your body.
    Frencheneesz
     
  16. spookz Banned Banned

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    yes

    if you look at this as something that happens over many generations perhaps
    it might make more sense. it is not something that is readily observable in a single life span

    if i am not quite making myself clear, the point i am trying to get at is what wet1 stated earlier

    " Add that to generation after generation until evolution starts to change the body into something more adapted to the new enviroment and you get something like the whale or dolphin."

    all the points you made are valid but is it the whole story?
     
  17. Frencheneesz Amazing Member Registered Senior Member

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    eh. Its like the tootsie pop comercial. The world may never know.
     
  18. spookz Banned Banned

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  19. AUSSIEABORIGINAL Abnormally original Registered Senior Member

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    Apes came from the sea like all other creatures. Because of predators or climatic changes over even a few centuries, some of these apes gradually managed to adapt through mutation, to survive by living in swamps/sea side, ect... & possibly back in the ocean for some time until land conditions improved again so that the aquatic ape decendants could move back to the land. This is probably the most likely scenario & is supported by the fact that there still isn't a good artifact/hominid--skull/skeleton example of the missing link between Chimps and humans.

    This is a very dry perspective, on my part though. There is a lot more to consider when you take into account the many MANY environmental changes that have happened in the last 60 seconds of the Earth's history, relatively speaking of course.

    I know I wrote about this last year or so

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    It seems like I also wrote about how the enviroment and other lifeforms interact so that the geologists and paleontologists could really predict what types of life would have existed, to a fair degree, even though they would not have a full fossil record.

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    Seems like there was a discussion about the types of life that would exist on other worlds based on the climate & energy that would be present on other worlds.

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  20. wet1 Wanderer Registered Senior Member

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    There was some show I caught on TV long ago where a couple of scientist thought it was possible that we came from the sea and toted our sea with us internally. (ie, the ph is the same in our bodies as that of the sea itself)

    The thought of the ability to increase the time underwater was mentioned with the thought that if this becomes your enviorment, only those who are successful at staying under might survive longer than those who could not, possibily leading to an evolutionary change.

    Being as there are not many species that are aquatic mammals, it is likely that they came from land.
     
  21. spookz Banned Banned

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    ahh
    aquired traits are not the same as inherited traits
    so i could practise holding my breath ,set the world record and still not pass the ability to do so to my offspring?


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  22. Frencheneesz Amazing Member Registered Senior Member

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    quite right spookz. By the way was that a retorical question or an actual insight?

    I would very much doubt that any "missing link" prooves anything but that we dont have enough information. What does show evidence against this aquatic stuff is the fact that there are no fossils (that i know of) of apes or ape like things under the water...

    "Apes came from the sea like all other creatures"
    I would say this was true if you are being metephorical. Apes came indirectly from the ocean as all other creatures probably have (no proof that things werent living in the atmousphere though).

    I wouldn't trust a theory that says apes evolved under water THEN came to the surface. Apes have almost no adapted ways of surviving underwater. No gills, short air span, no flippers, not enough strength for long swims... Everything points away from your idea that apes started under water.

    Frencheneesz
     
  23. spookz Banned Banned

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    actual insight > aquired traits are not the same as inherited traits

    rhetorical question > so i could practise holding my breath ,set the world record and still not pass the ability to do so to my offspring?

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    dunno why french but i am not entirely satisfied. however its gonna have to do for now.

    anyway i totally ignored the topic of this thread - aquatic apes!

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    could make a good movie perhaps?
    "return of the..........."
     
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