The Aquatic ape

Discussion in 'Human Science' started by Sock puppet path, Apr 12, 2011.

  1. Me-Ki-Gal Banned Banned

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    I was going to say something like this . Tide pools , sea urchin eggs and the likes . Mussels and limpets. Easy picking on the coast as far as gathering goes . Seaweed is eatable . The High protein diet of fish coupled with mustard greens and seaweed and blam! Of course you still have birds , rabbits ,worms ,grubs, locust and all the other good stuff to eat
     
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  3. Me-Ki-Gal Banned Banned

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    I can. It sounds feasible. I think we were scavengers too. With tools in hand we could scare off wild beast . I got to believe humans were animal like and were quite aggressive like any animal . I bet both sexes too and the kids could probably kick my butt. I don't think I would want to tango with primitive Erectus.
    You ever notice how that looks like Eresh-Ki-Gal Chimpkin
    I think tales of Eesh-Ki-Gal is the ancient tale of her standing and the tales predates any writings . By standing I mean Making changes in human activity . Changing the course of history so to speak .
     
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  5. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    The aquatic ape, if there was one, would have predated H erectus - erectus was already bipedal, for one thing.

    Whether or not it is required, it potentially fills some obvious and stubborn gaps in the conventional accounts. And the entire area is speculative, at this stage.
    Considering some of the bs they do appear to take seriously, that's not much of a criticism. I've seen "serious" proposals that attribute bipedalism to the advantages of seeing over tall grass, or bipedal walking on tree limbs.

    Or this one: How many times have you seen the argument that modern human bipedal walking is more efficient than chimp quadrupedal walking, therefore an evolutionary pressure or guide for the transition has been demonstrated? That's a joke, in comparison with which a wading and climbing, complex environment foraging, singing and socially large-pack ape, gradually adapting to semi-amphibious life, seems prudent and conventional.
     
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  7. Dinosaur Rational Skeptic Valued Senior Member

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    A major problem with the Aquatic Ape concept is that it had to occur prior to Homo Erectus, perhaps 7-9 million years ago. The fossil record does not support a later time for it.

    Consider one of their arguments.
    A layer of fat under the skin would be bad for a jungle or Savannah creature, but a good adapation for an aquatic creature.​
    The above seems very plausible. However, if it were a poor adapation for a land dweller, why did evolution not get rid of it in the 7 million years after the Aquatic Ape became a land dweller?

    Aside from other counter arguments by mainstream anthropologists, the above problem is considered to be a serious drawback of the AAH & it applies to most of the AAH arguments.
     
  8. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    Why could the aquatic ape not have been bipedal on land?
    That was the old savannah hypothesis, and if that hypothesis had turned out to be correct I don't think the assertion would have been wrong. Seeing over the tall grass is certainly a survival advantage, both for hunting and for escaping from larger predators.

    Of course the savannah hypothesis was demolished by the discovery of Ardipithecus, the bipedal forest dweller.
    Ardi, to the contrary, retains a couple of prehensile toes that allowed her to still be reasonably adept at climbing trees, even though she was almost as well adapted to bipedal walking on the ground as we are.
    That's been taken out of context. Bipedal walking is an advantage because it leaves our hands free. Ardi had evolved away from the large-gut gorilla model, which can digest cellulose and therefore can survive by grazing on leaves. Ardi had a smaller gut and required more easily digested food--a precursor to our complete adaptation to a full-time carnivore. Members of her tribe walked relatively long distances and brought back armloads of fruits, nuts, arthropods and other rich food while the others remained in safety, especially the children.
    I didn't realize that the aquatic ape hypothesis postulates a separate species with such distinct anatomy that it could be identified from a fossil.

    I thought they were saying that our species--or a recent ancestor--had made a detour into an aquatic environment, perhaps directly from the trees, or at least a gradual adaptation to a lake on the edge of a forest. While there, we developed the extra mass of fat for buoyancy and the webs between our fingers (of which only vestiges remain), and gradually became fully suited to a life of only going back to land to sleep and raise our young. Modern humans are fabulously good swimmers even in our current form; it wouldn't take a speciating modification to make us even better.

    Then the three-dimensional environment did what it did to other endothermic vertebrates who swim or fly: the real-time calculations of 3-D navigation selected for more intelligence. Once that happened, we were ready to come out of the water and take over the land ecosystem.
    If the aquatic life was simply one stage in the cultural evolution of our species, it could have occurred much more recently, in which case we haven't had time to shed the fat.
     
  9. Me-Ki-Gal Banned Banned

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    I knew a girl with webbed feet and hands . I mean really webbed. . She was a very sexy girl too. Tall and beautiful except she had these webbed feet and hands . I would have done her in a heart beat . That girl could really climb a tree too. Like a friggen squirrel. I just read something about fish diets being the thing that made human brains grow the way they did . Did I read that here? Can't remember ?
     
  10. Dinosaur Rational Skeptic Valued Senior Member

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    Fraggle Rocker: An Aquatic Ape fossil may or may not be recognizably different from other primate fossils, but I do not think this is the critical issue.
    I didn't realize that the aquatic ape hypothesis postulates a separate species with such distinct anatomy that it could be identified from a fossil.​
    The point that mainstream antopologists make is that fossils back to (& perhaps prior to) Homo Erectus are found in contexts which counter-indicate an aquatic environment. The argument is as follows.
    If certain features require evolution in an aquatic environment, why has evolution not drastically modified them in the 7-9 million years since leaving the aquatic environment?

    If the aquatic environment is not necessary for those features, the argument for the Aquatic Ape is seriously undermined.​
    BTW: I am only paraphrasing various articles I found via Web Searches.
     
  11. Dr Mabuse Percipient Thaumaturgist Registered Senior Member

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    Our noses are a point to notice

    Put most any other primate in the water, like a chimpanzee that is often compared to us as being genetically similar, and the water gushes in their nose as they swim.

    Our noses face away and down, and we have nostril control that probably could close at some point in that past, very similar to a seal or otter or many other aquatic mammals.

    Just one of the things that point to a relatively recent aquatic aspect in human evolution.
     
  12. Dinosaur Rational Skeptic Valued Senior Member

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    Dr. Mabuse: What do you mean by recent?
    Just one of the things that point to a relatively recent aquatic aspect in human evolution.​
    The above relates to the configuration of our nose, which I do not think has changed much since prior to Homo Erectus.

    The Aquatic Ape Theory postulates a significant period in primate evolution during which some primate lived an aquatic existence ala the otter, seal, et cetera.

    For various good reasons, this theory has been rejected by mainstream anthopologists.

    Try checking out some articles from the mainstream instead of referring to articles from the Aquatic Ape folks. I read articles from both & the mainstream view seems more convincing to me.

    A previous post of mine merely scratches the surface of the mainstream view.
     
  13. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    The time window during which the aquatic ape detour could have taken place keeps shrinking. Ardipithecus pushed it back to 7MYA
     
  14. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    How would that happen? No reasonable explanation exists, as far as I know.

    It was ludicrous - one of the sillier just so stories that hominid bipedalism has inspired.

    And it illustrates the nature of the discussion in this arena: the people in this field who don't take the wading ape explanation seriously have a history of granting respect to downright ridiculous proposals. There's nothing ridiculous about a wade-foraging ape, forest or savannah or island - and even the bi-pedal transitional forms have advantages, in that environment.
     
  15. Dinosaur Rational Skeptic Valued Senior Member

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    IceAura: It is my understanding that the Aquatic Ape theory claimed an actual aquatic existence, not mere wading in shallow water.
    There's nothing ridiculous about a wade-foraging ape, forest or savannah or island - and even the bi-pedal transitional forms have advantages, in that environment.​
    BTW: It is quite possible that Homo Erectus & other hominid types waded if they lived close to a sea, lake, or river. I would be surprised if it could be determined that they did not wade. Curiosity, if nothing else, is likely to result in wading.
     
  16. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    Given the new timeline of our ancestors' descent from arboreal to semi-arboreal forest walkers, if humans or pre-humans were ever aquatic this would just about have to have been after Ardipithecus came down from the trees. So bipedalism would have developed before the detour into the water. The aquatic ape would already be bipedal because his ancestors were.
    Certainly not fully aquatic like the cetaceans, with the brain hemispheres taking turns sleeping. Just as certainly not almost-fully aquatic like the pinnipeds, coming ashore for sleep and breeding. Adaptation to that life requires far more than buoyancy and webbed fingers, and requires far more time than the fossil record allows. It would have been more like the semi-aquatic otters, but otters rule their territory, as warm-blooded air-breathers always do when they go back to the water.
    Not to mention all those tasty-looking fish.
     
  17. Me-Ki-Gal Banned Banned

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    People swim out past wading depths too . You know what they say . All rivers are deep to people who don't swim . So now I am thinking some cultures in the past and even in the presents are semi aquatic . Some Island people spend a good part of there day diving for pearls . Look at the surfers in modern day society . Who came up with that and how long ago did they start doing it. Maybe Homo Erectus found a flat piece of wood and kicked up there heals like the deer prancing in the woods. What do we really mean by semi aquatic and are humans semi aquatic still?
     
  18. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    ? That does not follow. In the ordinary version of the aquatic ape proposal the transition from chimp form (forest dweller) to hominid form (still forest dweller) was brought about under selective pressure for wading and water foraging capability.

    That was the original hypothesis, as first put forward. The likely existence of an early stage of forest dwelling bipedal hominids was a consequence of this hypothesis, one which was used to argue against it (there being no evidence of such a stage at the time) and the discovery of them rather supports than contradicts it.
     
  19. Dinosaur Rational Skeptic Valued Senior Member

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    IceAura: The following seems like a Strawman fallacy.
    In the ordinary version of the aquatic ape proposal the transition from chimp form (forest dweller) to hominid form (still forest dweller) was brought about under selective pressure for wading and water foraging capability.​
    No one denies that early hominids might have waded & foraged for seafood in shallow waters. No one denies that early hominids had potential (or actual swimming ability).

    The Aquatic Ape Theory claims that some ancestor of Homo Sapiens was aquatic like modern day otters & other mammals which are more than waders or casual swimmers.

    The theory has been rejected (for good reasons) by mainstream anthropologists, mainly because the fossil record & associated evidence strongly indicates that an Aquatic Ape could not have existed later than 7-9 million years ago.

    The mainstream arguments have been briefly mentioned in earlier posts to this thread. More detailed information can be found by a Web search. If you study all the pro & con arguments, you can make an informed assessment instead of merely posting opinions with hardly any cogent arguments to back up the opinions.

    I would be surprised if a serious assesment of the various pro & con arguments would result in support for the Aquatic Ape Theory.
     
  20. Randwolf Ignorance killed the cat Valued Senior Member

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    As you just pointed out, Ice's contention does not match that of the "traditional" Aquatic Ape Theory.

    He seems more inclined to opine on the likelihood of early H. Sapiens to be "shore-dwellers" and reap the easy bounty of the sea. This is a fairly safe position to take, and one I would wholeheartedly back.

    Especially after last night's dinner of "tickled" lobsters off the Florida Gulf-Coast...

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  21. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    That is what I am postulating, as well.

    No sense of "casual" is intended - I am suggesting that it was the selection pressure driving the major structural changes for bipedalism. There is nothing casual about wading - merely a distinction between the demands of shallow and deep water foraging, travel, transport, refuge, etc.

    That is hardly a good reason. So it came about early - so what?
     
  22. Wisdom_Seeker Speaker of my truth Valued Senior Member

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    I think it would have to be after the Australopithecus afarensis (Lucy) 3 million years ago. Homo Sapiens are just hundreds of thousands years ago.
    We have to consider that a lot can happen in evolution in just 500.000 years.

    Some animal similar to the Grizzly Bear about 150.000 years ago evolved into
    the now semi-aquatic Polar Bear (they can travel hundreds of miles in the ocean).

    About 2 million years ago our ancestors are most known (the homos), but in the period of 2-3 millions years ago, missing common ancestors start to appear in our family tree.

    Another argument in favor of the aquatic ape, is that we lost almost all our body hair, just like all aquatic mammals.
     
  23. Dinosaur Rational Skeptic Valued Senior Member

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    IceAura & Others: Nobody seems to read or pay attention to previous posts to this thread. (EG: 104 & 107). I will repost the general idea briefly mentioned in those posts.
    The Aquatic Ape Theory claims that certain Homo Sapien traits indicate an Aquatic Ape era because they are not good adaptations to living in the African Savannah & other environments occupied by hominids, while being good adaptations for an aquatic existence. Exampes: Layer of fat under the skin & hairlessness.

    The context in which hominid fossils are found indicates that an aquatic phase had to occur at least 7-9 million years ago.

    In 7-9 million years of no longer living in an aquatic environment, evolution would have modified or done away with such adaptations if they were poor adaptations to non-aquatic environments.

    Since said adaptations are still with modern Homo Sapiens, they are evolutionary worthwhile for other than aquatic environments.​
    The above logic is applicable to most of the adaptations claimed to be evidence of an aquatic era in hominid evolution and is the basis for rejection by mainstream anthropologists.

    As I previously suggested, do some Web searching for Aquatic Ape Theory articles, both pro & con. That is what I did when I noticed this thread. The con articles seemed more convincing to me.

    Instead of shooting from the hip, how about some analysis of the pertinent literture? When I noticed this thread, my knowledge of the Aquatic Ape Theory was minimal: I remembered that it existed & was rejected, but knew no details. I suspect that most here were (and perhaps are still) as ignorant as I was before doing some Web Searching.
     

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