Mermaids; The body found

I saw it several weeks ago. I thought the big conspiracy theory storyline was silly but I thought the points made about how much more well suited we are to be in the water than other land mammals were interesting.

 

Of course there's no such thing as mermaids. However, I kind of subscribe to the Aquatic Ape Theory.

Which is that we evolved from a group of isolated ape like creatures, who were basically cut off by water from the rest of their species. The water basically covered the ground with a foot or two of water. That forced us to walk upright and we'd lose a great deal of body hair. Also it would explain why human babies can swim at birth and have a thick layer of fat unlike land mammals but like all aquatic mammals. Plus our diet would have changed to more of a seafood, and seafood has been shown to improve brain function.

 

lol. Its not my theory. Look it up under Aquatic Ape Theory or the name Elaine Morgan. There was a show about it on Discover that I saw, which turned me on to the theory.

To be clear, anthropologists generally laugh this off because there's no proof.

 

There wouldn't be proof because the water and other animals would eat, digest, and destroy any "evidence." This wouldn't be the first time scientist laughed off a theory that was later accepted.

 

If you're baked then remember one thing....this theory is totally my idea. I am Elaine Morgan.

 

Grasping hands, 3D vision, the part of the color spectrum we can see (lots more greens and blues), shoulder sockets which make brachiation possible, and a long digestive tract (for digesting plants) are all taken as adaptations to arboreal (rather than maritime/swampy) life. It's something we share with many other primates, particularly apes.

The Aquatic Ape is not accepted because it does not attempt to explain why traits adapted to water persisted following the transition to terrestrial life (they don't doubt the time scale of 6+ million years, so it has to be more than a purely vestigial argument). For example, the idea that we sweat and have lots of subcutaneous fat is often interpreted as paradoxical or even maladaptive to a land based environment. If they negatively impact reproduction odds, why weren't those features slowly selected out of the gene pool? That has never been convincingly laid out. The Discovery Channel conveniently forget much of that.

 

It's a very cool theory though.

 

I think a lot of what people are forgetting is that: 1. Not all unnecessary features are always lost. 2. Many of the things you describe can be equally useful for aquatic apes. Like grasping hands and 3D vision. Maybe the aquatic apes ate lots of seaweed/kelp necessitating a long digestive tract.

Again, the theory as I understand it, is that aquatic apes were arboreal like most others ape species, but they were unexpectedly isolated, (which is a major force in evolution.) If that is the case, there's no reason to think they'd lose all of their arboreal adaptations. Most tortoises don't swim, but most turtles do for example.

I also forgot too mention that these apes could have still been arboreal during that time. Chimps spend a good amount of time on the ground and a lot of time in the trees. If the ground had a foot or two of water covering it, I suspect chimps would still hang out in trees and adapt to the water covered ground, thereby needing their arboreal adaptations and new ones for the water.

 

So that is more important than why the traits are there to begin with? Perhaps they've persisted because we still tend to spend a lot of time in and around the water. A US Navy recruiting commercial I saw the other day claimed that around 3/4 of the Earth's population live near the water. Has anyone ever claimed that evolution is perfect? We are smart enough to overcome some obstacles that would have negatively impacted the reproduction odds of a less intelligent species. Perhaps as our intelligence increased the need for physical adaptations decreased.

 

Hmmm from what I know, we developed the ability to walk upright due to our having to find our way out in the desert as todays apes basically forced us out.

 

That's a hypothesis. So is this.

 

well yeah I wasn't trying to state it as factual.

 

there's no real reason to select those out. you're thinking of recent history where things like sweat and fat would be a turnoff, but on the evolutionary scale, it's a moot point. evolution happens over millions of years. sweat and fat would never be selected out of primates because they increase chances of survival.

 

Whatever, you just wanted us to argue till we became sweaty and spent...you whore.

 

A theoretical mechanism for persistence of these traits needs to be articulated for it to be taken seriously. There is a huge difference between unnecessary traits (like an appendix) and ones bandied about as maladaptive in a open woodland/savannah environment (not a desert).

I don't think the need for physical adaptations has decreased at all. I think we make that assumption because we don't make a living off the land anymore, but we have different challenges.

The Aquatic Ape seems like an argument specific to the human lineage. You have to overlook important genetic similarities between humans and non-human apes as mere coincidences unless you posit the Aquatic Ape as ancestral to them all.

Interestingly enough, there is actually no doubt that early hominins were in and around water. The fossils that paleoanthropologists study basically can only be formed in lacustrine sediments.

 

I don't think the aqua ape has to be ancestral to them all, but rather one of many branches.

 

I always enjoy a thread about evolution.

 

You have to remember that the Aquatic Ape was articulated generations ago and resurrected by the Discovery channel to popularize a fringe theory. It's actually not a well done 'theory' at all (it makes all sorts of incorrect assumptions). Cable TV does that because it resonates in a very general way with creationist/young earth ilk (suggesting mainstream science is closeted and dogmatic). In reality, scientists love perspectives that throw paradigms on their head (they are very irreverent people), provided they are carefully and thoroughly supported.
Since the idea was described, there are been a slew of new fossil discoveries and significant advances in genetic research. The earliest biped is no longer Lucy (A. afarensis, 3.2 million years ago) but now Orrorin tugenesis (~6 million). Orrorin is thought to data to around the time the human line split from the great ape, and belong to the human side (bipedal, similar femur, similar dentition). So the antiquity of the hominin line nearly twice as long. That further complicates the long-term persistence of supposedly maladaptive features since the idea was proposed years ago. Keep in mind maladaptive in the general sense of not making a living very well or attracting mates.
But there are also features we have which are apparently maladaptive to a aquatic environment, and these are almost completely skipped over by Aquatic Ape-ists. Auditory exotoses (leading to bad ear infections and sometimes hearing loss) are crappy for diving, we blackbout and can die if we hold our breath too long underwater (aquatic mammals don't have the breathing reflex like we do) and, of course, deadly shellfish allergies are quite widespread. After 6+ million years of swimming and diving, it would be odd to have these features persist because they negatively influence the ability to make a living and successfully reproduce.