A fish is not a fish: Aquatic food may have had implications for hominin evolution

Finally!!!

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Finally... what?

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Yes some primate found and ate an animal roasted in a forest fire and thought: "My that tasted good. I'm going roast the next I catch before eating it too. Perhaps these tough roots will taste better too?"

From there forward his line was on the way to becoming human - Without cooking humans would need to chew leaves, grasses etc. at least 12 hours each day to grow - as other primates still do. It is cooking that freed us up to do thinking things, and those with larger brains were selected for.

 

An increase in brain power was necessary prior to that discovery, probably with some modifications of the wrist and hand implying some degree of bipedalism. Flint knapping is not an easy trick.

The most obvious foraging or other environmental demand immediately rewarding the unskilled employment of simple, unmodified rocks as tools (almost certainly necessary as a precursor to sophisticated knapping) is breaking the shells of shellfish and other armored but easily captured protein - even otters and predatory birds have figured that out.

Probably not - wooden spears work as well or better for fish (easily forked, toothed, barbed, multiply pronged, etc http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl...act=rc&uact=3&dur=6778&page=1&start=0&ndsp=43 ) and spears in general almost certainly predate sophisticated flint-knapping. So do nets and catch baskets, btw. So does bipedalism.

That's not true of aquatic prey - they are often eaten raw, are often available in large quantity within a small area, and are ideal nutrition.

All of that is obvious, immediately confronting anyone paying even minimal attention to the actual hypothesis involved. You see the issue, the motivation of the OP here and in the related thread.

The responses here seem to have missed the writer's point - which was that early transitional hominid reliance on aquatic sources of dietary protein would not preclude colonization of freshwater regions from a seashore population or vice versa, thus removing yet another potential objection to the hypothesis of a shoreline habitat wade foraging niche for the early hominid transition.

 

I have to say it amazes me, that we ever got past thinking the world's flat.

 

A more correct term than aquatic ape is coastal dispersal theory (S.Munro 2010 Molluscs as Ecological Indicators in Palaeo-anthropological Contexts, PhD thesis Austr.Nat.Univ Canberra): Homo populations during the Ice Ages (2.6-0.01 Ma) did not run over open plains (as still believed in popular writings, e.g. endurance running), but simply followed the coasts to different continents (e.g. coastal sites of Indonesia, the Cape & England) & from the coasts went up rivers, wading bipedally, diving & beach-combing for waterside & shallow aquatic foods.
The proceedings of the symposium on human waterside evolution Human Evolution: Past, Present & Future (London 8-10 May 2013 with David Attenborough & Don Johanson) are published in 2 special editions of Hum.Evol.): Special Edition Part 1 (end 2013) & Part 2 (begin 2014) with 12 contributions.
Google e.g.
- econiche Homo,
- Rhys Evans Vaneechoutte.
My paper The Aquatic Ape evolves: Common Misconceptions and Unproven Assumptions about the so-called Aquatic Ape Hypothesis,
Hum.Evol.28:237-266, 2013, can be found at tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/AAT, www.researchgate.net/profile/Marc_Verhaegen, independent.academia.edu/marcverhaegen

 

This crap again! If I am not mistaken, and I don't think I am, you're some whack job that has a bug up your bum about the aquatic origins of man, and are not remotely interested in debate, but just want to push your agenda. What!? Are you paid by the hour?

 

I would very much like you to phrase exactly what it is you think, the idea about "aquatic" apes posits?

 

You know, I can answer that for you, actually. You think, that the aquatic ape hypothesis and other waterside hypotheses argue, that this was somehow our habitat in our recent evolution:

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

But guess what? It doesn't ('cause that is nuts). What it argues is that this was somehow our habitat at some point in our recent biological evolution, two million years ago, five million years ago, 15 million years ago, what ever it is:

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

That's all it says, human. That we're ol' beach apes. No more, no less. No dolphin apes, no Animal Planet mermaids. Just a bloody beach ape. That such an existence would explain many if not most of the features, that distinguish us from our ape cousins.

This is the phrasing that triggered all this panic, in 19-F-word-60:

That is still the core idea, half a century later!!! Can somebody please explain to me, as if I was five years old, why that is "crap"??? 'Cause I still don't get it. I've been observing this aquatic debate (or lack of it) for some two decades, and it still escapes me why it's so preposterous. And conversely, it's so bloody frustrating to encounter even highly educated people, that aparently thinks, the idea is positing something about 24-7-365 seafaring apes in recent human evolution, which it has never argued. And it seems, that those detractors are very reluctant to deal with what's actually being suggested or even read the bloody source texts! Because they think they don't have to.

On top of it all, it seems to me that every year, the evidence to support this silly little splash-splash notion only increases and not decreases. This OT brain nutrition angle being just one of them. Even if its chief proponent for forty years was a Welsh book selling amateur. A woman, which to me stands out as one of the unsung giants of contemporary science.

 

You seem to think of yourself as an evolutionary Magellan. But I think you're conflating circumnavigation and circumlocution.

If we define genus Homo as the branch of apes with fused chromosome II then the evolution of the human thyroid (and related endocrine system function) was necessarily affected. Hormones are the important morphological signalling and control mechanism largely forgotten in these kinds of threads. They unlock the body plan from within the HOX gene during embryonic development. They implement insect metamorphosis. And they therefore affect the balance between cranial and pelvic size (how much brain can fit through the birth canal).

Because the thyroid is involved, it would therefore seem necessary that in order to fill the niche, Homo would have had better luck wherever that niche provided an iodine supply.

That invariably puts aquatic and marine food sources on the menu. I don't think that's nearly as revolutionary an idea as you seem to think.

And your opinion about aquatic apes probably finds no grounds even in this paper you cite. Not without just as much speculation as you've been throwing into the pot without the help of any "outside of the box" article.

 

Thank you so much for telling me what I think. Ever so kind of you. So now that we know what I think, not really that much more to say is there?
Well, maybe just a few things.
1. I am reporting you for trolling.
2. Not that I think you will listen, but if you were a true scientist, you would consider that your pet theory may be partially or even wholly mistaken. You do not seem capable of doing so. It is not science to insist that you are right for two decades and tell others what they think of your pet theory and why they are wrong.
3. Press here to link to Englebert Humperdinck's recent diatribe on The Science Forum. I understand this is just one of many of his tirades.
4. Can I prove it is just one of his tirades? Yes, click here for Sciforum links to his past threads (and the refutations thereof) right here on our own humble forum. Sadly, this thread is locked. Can't imagine what for...

 

This ain't about me, I'm not coming up with any of this. I just read other people's work and see them being harangued for their scientific contributions for all the wrong reasons in the book. Because this idea about splash-splash apes for some damned peculiar reason became an inconvenient truth.

I agree. I have never seen the concept as that controversial, and I was quite frankly baffled, when I realized just how controversial it's being treated as. I simply don't understand why, it is a simple Darwinian concept to consider, if homoids may have ventured into an available aquatic niche and gradually become the furless, bipedal and big-brained hominin we are today. All this based on the principle f convergent evolution.

But I aparently made the sin and the mistake of actually reading the sources, and from day one, I have never interpreted the concept as positing some kind of sea ape on par with cetaceans, which seems to be the big misunderstanding here. I have met anthropologists with decades of academic experience, that thought that was Morgan's core suggestion, or maybe they wanted it to be, 'cause they seemed insanely reluctant to let go of that fantasy. And that only tells me, that an entire field of science suddenly isn't capable of reading source texts, or that they prefer not to, because they prefer Elaine Morgan to be wrong. That is the very definition of pseudoskepticism. To rewrite the posits of a scientific suggestion, because an alternative agenda is going on in people's subconscous, that is exactly what creationists are doing to Darwin. The proponents of this waterside concept are not the ones exaggerating the level of posited aquaticism. It's all the oponents that seem to insist. Why is that? Why does an idea about humans being old beach apes instill this level of hysteria? You'd think we were talking about our world not being the center of the universe all over again.

Look, if these apes in our recent ancestry at some point or another, most likely consistenly for hundreds of thousands of years, otherwise we would never have gotten our big brain, we're so bloody proud of; if they had to go into the water to get these OT brain selective nutrients, nutrients where some are insanely rare in fully terrestrial foodgroups, while abundant in aquatic ones (especially iodine), then why in the hell wouldn't such a shallow water fouraging at the same time have provided the selective reason for this laundry list of defects we have from the other apes, which Hardy, Morgan and others are talking about? :

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

But hell, maybe that's all wrong. Or maybe it's not the full story. But it is not unreasonable to posit, and never was. It is not pseudoscience. It sure as hell ain't the stuff of creationism.

 

Why don't you just go ahead and say it? "Unbeliever!"

Yes, I'm very enthusiastic about this topic. And I'm sorry, I'm not ashamed of it.

You want to make it all about me. Could you possibly tackle the ball instead of the player here? Please explain to me, why it is so nonsensical to look at these features which seperate us from the other apes and see a watery connection because of observed analogies for said traits in aquatic, semiaquatic and former semiaquatic mammals? I have yet to get a straight answer. How am I to see the error of my ways, if they are so bloody obvious?

 

I linked to two threads where several people have provided straight answers and explained why your pet theory doesn't hold water

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

and rather than discussing it further you merely got upset, as you are doing here, because they suggested you might be wrong. Misrepresent Carl Sagan all you like. You situation is nothing like his. He was a scientist and you are a crank.

 

And in both threads, I countered every point made to the best of my ability. Every objection I have to say seems based on a gross prejudicial misunderstanding about the whole aquatic debate. And the detractors seems to refuse to let go of those prejudices. When I presented the main point about these wading apes, the answer I got back was simply: "That not what aquatic apes are about." (!!!) Tremendous answer. I have read a number of thousand pages about this idea over the years, and I have never understood it as anything else. At the very least, that is all the consensus is right now among aquatic proponents. It is insanely frustrating to keep seeing people hammering away at an idea about "dolphin apes", that is not on the table here!!! All while refusing to discuss what's actually on it. That's where you'd just as soon discuss evolution with a creationist. These people could at least read the mere four pages by Alister Hardy, which is linked in the his quote above, and which triggered this entire debate in 1960 and be set straight about what all this is actually about. Can we talk about what's actually being suggested? The actual issue is still being averted. Why is that?

 

Okay. Link us to the four pages of Alistair Hardy please. Then I'll give you my impression if you like.

 

Paste from post #10:
Alister Hardy: "Was man more aquatic in the past," New Scientist, volume 7, pages 642–645, 1960
Alternative

 

Before I comment on Hardy: I also looked at the link you posted in your original post. All that says is that human beings exploited fish as a protein source. It doesn't say they evolved on the sea shore. So why do you say, "Finally!!!" as if they supported the aquatic ape theory?

As for Hardy's article, it is by no means conclusive, and while the majority of paleo-anthropologists could be wrong, the fact that Hardy's ideas have fallen into near oblivion suggest he is mistaken. Besides yourself, tell me, who is it that thinks Hardy is right, and why do they think so? Why even his own conclusion on page four is:

In other words, even Professor Hardy's mind is far from made up. Can you cite some of his later published papers where he perhaps amends his hypothesis, or perhaps does not? Hardy strikes me as a true scientist who was willing to change his mind if the evidence should determine that it ought to. I still don't get why you are so stuck on this theory.

How about besides presenting Hardy's later writings (if any) to us, you also present us with alternative theories of human evolution (upright posture especially) and compare it to the aquatic ape idea, and each theory to all the others, and let's see what we might conclude then (?).

 

And the moderators just moved the thread. This is so wrong. This is just more censorship, still hoping this idea will go away. This site is an insult to scientific debate.

I could talk all about the likes of Philip Tobias, Desmond Morris and David Attenborough being open to the wet concept, and how they are now being persecuted for stepping above the sneer pressure. But I refuse to discuss these matters any further under any derogatory term. There's nothing "alternative" about all this.