Elaine Morgan independent feminist and evolutionary thinker has died

[Guest]

Elaine Morgan, award-winning writer, screen-writer, columnist and evolutionary biology theorist has died aged 92.

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/award-winning-columnist-feminist-playwright-author-5074740

Her theories of human evolution are fascinating, well thought out and always controversial.

A true original

Elaine Morgan TEDs on 'aquatic apes'

http://www.ted.com/talks/elaine_morgan_says_we_evolved_from_aquatic_apes.html

[Anna]

There has been a lot about Elaine Morgan's death on Welsh radio and tv of course, I imagine the obits will be in tomorrow's national papers. Meanwhile, as regards The Descent of Women, this is an article which only appeared last month in The Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/the-h-word/2013/may/13/aquatic-ape-elaine-morgan-history-science

Most people of course will remember her for the tv dramatisations of How Green Was My Valley, The Life and Times of Lloyd George and Testament of Youth

[Pabmusic]

She was important in trying to tackle one of the more tantalising puzzles - why are we so much more different from the other apes? The idea she pursued - that we were aquatic apes - has almost nothing to support it and has long been dismissed, but it is through applying such 'lateral' thinking that sometimes we take a step forward. Here's an article about the aquatic ape hypothesis (very wrongly often called a theory):

http://skeptoid.com/episode.php?id=4357#bottom

For the record, it seems very likely that loss of our hair initially had much to do with living on the savannah, and in particular with keeping cool during distance running in order to hunt - it's why we also developed big bums for one thing (the gluteous maximus apparently plays little part is walking - running is its thing). Sexual selection also seems likely to have played a big part as well as the millenia passed (except not so much for the ancestors of Northern Europeans, who lived in a colder climate!).

[amateur51]

She was important in trying to tackle one of the more tantalising puzzles - why are we so much more different from the other apes? The idea she pursued - that we were aquatic apes - has almost nothing to support it and has long been dismissed, but it is through applying such 'lateral' thinking that sometimes we take a step forward. Here's an article about the aquatic ape hypothesis (very wrongly often called a theory):

http://skeptoid.com/episode.php?id=4357#bottom

For the record, it seems very likely that loss of our hair initially had much to do with living on the savannah, and in particular with keeping cool during distance running in order to hunt - it's why we also developed big bums for one thing (the gluteous maximus apparently plays little part is walking - running is its thing). Sexual selection also seems likely to have played a big part as well as the millenia passed (except not so much for the ancestors of Northern Europeans, who lived in a colder climate!).

Elaine Morgan's hypothesis resulted from her frustration (she was not alone!) with the Descent of Man proponents (Desmond Morris chief amongst them) which she addressed with The Descent of Woman. I can certainly relate to that, not least because it needs to address the descent of non-breeding humans too.

[Pabmusic]

Elaine Morgan's hypothesis resulted from her frustration (she was not alone!) with the Descent of Man proponents (Desmond Morris chief amongst them) which she addressed with The Descent of Woman. I can certainly relate to that, not least because it needs to address the descent of non-breeding humans too.

Oh yes. You can't do someone justice in a few words. Interestingly perhaps, present understanding accounts for non-breeding and finished-breeding humans (the former phenomenon is not uncommon anyway in the animal world - very common in wolf packs, for instance, or ant colonies; the latter is the unusual one) as helping the group with looking after children whilst both parents scavenge.

[Beef Oven]

An amazing person. Do we make them like that anymore?

RIP EM

[clive heath]

In all fairness, Elaine Morgan uses the "Aquatic Ape" ideas of Sir Alastair Hardy as the basis for her fascinating book, "The Descent of Woman" and I find some of the biological details intriguing
a womans hair thickens before the birth ( more for the baby to cling on to)
the only other mammals with breasts are dugong, who live mostly in the water
the explanation that the change of our spinal orientation to upright is facilitated by the bouyancy of water
the streamlining of body hair
babies are almost undrownable, they have a reflex

just read the book!!!! and disagree..............it's one of my favourite "bonkers" theories.

[Pabmusic]

In all fairness, Elaine Morgan uses the "Aquatic Ape" ideas of Sir Alastair Hardy as the basis for her fascinating book, "The Descent of Woman" and I find some of the biological details intriguing
a womans hair thickens before the birth ( more for the baby to cling on to)
the only other mammals with breasts are dugong, who live mostly in the water
the explanation that the change of our spinal orientation to upright is facilitated by the bouyancy of water
the streamlining of body hair
babies are almost undrownable, they have a reflex

just read the book!!!! and disagree..............it's one of my favourite "bonkers" theories.

Maybe I shall - you give it such a recommendation.

The trouble is, it's an early hypothesis (theory if completely the wrong word) that is rather selective about what it says. Perhaps you can explain some things in the way you have done (I'm not for a moment suggesting that these are your own explanations of course) but there are other explanations for the same things, and there seem to be mistakes - nothing but humans and dugongs have breasts? Not true at all (plenty of photos available of chimps with obvious breasts - though they're usually older females who've given birth many times).

The biggest refutation of course comes now from DNA - we're the very close cousins of chimpanzees, sharing as much as 99.4% of our genome: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3042781.stm. No-one has ever argued that chimps were aquatic.

No evidence there of major differences. The two biggest differences are the fact that we have 23 pairs of chromosomes rather than 24 (as all other primates have - it's because our chromosome number 2 is in fact two pairs that have fused into one), and that we probably demonstrate neotony. Neotony occurs when juvenile traits are carried forward into adulthood. We are in effect pre-pubescent apes who are nonetheless sexually mature. The most obvious difference is in the shape of our skulls compared with an adult chimp - ours are more like a young chimp. (The principle is that if you mature so early, there is no need to waste energy developing all other adult trappings, like long skulls.)

What we get from neotony is problem teeth, because all the adult teeth have to fit into a smaller jaw - and they don't do it easily (wisdom teeth, for instance).