Homo aquaticus?

[Dave]

One for Recusant!

The hypothesis proposes that the physical characteristics that distinguish us from our nearest cousin apes - standing and moving bipedally, being naked and sweaty, our swimming and diving abilities, fat babies, big brains and language - all of these and others are best explained as adaptations to a prolonged period of our evolutionary history being spent in and around the seashore and lake margins, not on the hot dry savannah or in the forest with the other apes. The programmes explore the varieties of response to the theory, from when it was first proposed to the present day. Why it is seen by many as a very provoking idea and at the accumulating evidence of recent years that seems to be tipping the mainstream towards assimilating many of the AAH proposals. Programme two ends with dramatic new biological evidence suggesting that water-birthing was a very early human evolutionary adaptation.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/scarsofevolution.shtml

[Recusant]

Why thank you, Gloucester! 

My opinion remains unchanged. I know that David Attenborough is somewhat enamored of the damp primate thing, and that (as the blurb says) he recently did a radio show in which he indulged that particular peccadillo of his. I've observed arguments pro and con (in which Moore participated, as well as true believers in the hypothesis) in some detail since I made that post, and the  hi-jinks of the soggy hominid promoters sometimes echo those of Creationists.

[solidsquid]

From what I've seen all the "evidence" is purely circumstantial and it seems more to be a "theory" in search of evidence rather than evidence producing a theory.  There simply is no evidence to support the ideas championed by Elaine Morgan.

[Dave]

Aw, shucks, and I quite enjoyed the progs!