A quick gander of the thoery in question.....

http://www.planetpuna.com/siriusa/AQApe.htm

and if u dont like this website.... then choose a betta one

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/search/result...uwdwABAA%40%40=

This theory has a lot going for it
it explains pretty much all the odd things about how we evolved from homo erectus to homo sapiens archaic
so maybe it should be called the aquatic homo theory

for once, a thoery ur not debunking

oh i can totally debunk it if you like
i don't personally believe anything in this area thats unproven
thats the problem with the aquatic ape theory
if it was true we'd never find any evidence of it at all
it would have washed away

the dolphin one was a little funny tho
unless we communicate with them somehow,
how will we eva know?
did we even communicate with them in the past
a bit of a stab in the dark to me

There is nothing that directly prohibits it, although there is evidence that it did not occur in this manner. The evidence supporting it is a bit of a stretch, but still within the realm of probability.

Personally, I think it is possible, but not what happened.

so got better thoeries aquatus per chance?

Personally, I like the conventional evolutionary theory of man. It makes the most sense to me. Ultimately, I can't help but think the only reason to think of man as aquatic is because we have bare skin, and that just isn't something I could confidently base and entire seperate theory on.

The AAT certainly has aspects worthy of consideration.

Bare skin
sex face to face
no penile bone
newborns swimming
the list does go on and on in this theory

Makes sense to me to think that the big advantage we lost when coming down from the tree, i.e. safety we recouped by running into the water whenever we were threatened.
then we discovered fish

Sounds like a whale of a theory to me. What's the porpise? It doen't meet with my seal of approval.

Oy...

no sarcasm plse
this is a serious disscussion on a validative thoery
btw nice try but no cigar

you got a new dictionary ?
validative thoery ?
wtf ?

replace that word with 'fascinating'

why
whats wrong with "valid"

ok valid then
have it ur way.

Erm...

I would not yet be able to say it was valid...

Remember, prior to being considered a valid scientific theory, any idea must meet the five pre-requisites of scientific methodology. AAT is falling a bit short, and contains some logical fallacies. Perhaps they can be explained, however I have not seen evidence that they have been.

i hear there is a new scientific approach to thoeries and such
it seems most u of think its reasonable and agreeable to degree
but falls done on scientific evidence
surely body comparison with other apes and aquatic mammals
with give us a big clue?

nope
It could be true it could not be true
like i said if it is true we'll never know because there won't ever be any evidence
Of course a lack of evidence in this case could be telling.

Why is there no chance of evidence, Marduk? (don't know much about this)

*takes marduks place 4 a while*
most of the evidence is circumstantial at best
u can only speculate and point to similarities to other mammals
as far the body fat, bare skin etc....
plus the theory has some 'bugs' to speak of
plus traditional theories culd still account some of these anomalies to some extent

So in theory, if I married a dolphin, copulated face to face with it, and had offspring, the hybrid would be able to reproduce since we are from the same species....?

The article wasnt saying we were the same species, it was saying that there was cohabitation and cooperation. Think something along the lines of dogs only without the domestication I assume.

Anyway, my two cents:
The theory seems to make sense, and probably has some merit and deserves looking into, but like was said above chances are it will just remain speculation for quite some time if anything comes of it at all.

Here's a hypothesis:
The first thing to change after the split with the line leading to chimps was loss of fur. Maybe it was a mutation that wasn't bad enough to make the new creatures die out. Babies of apes cling to their mothers' fur after a few days but babies of the new creatures couldn't cling to their mothers. The mothers would have to carry them. That's very hard when she needs all four limbs to walk, but standing upright would make carrying a baby much easier.
The second link of the AA theory says human babies have much more fat than ape and monkey babies and are too heavy to hang onto fur even if fur was present. If the babies couldn't hang onto the furless mother, evolving to be much fatter makes sense as long as there's an advantage to it, such as storing energy for times when the mother's too hungry or sick to make milk. The disadvantage of being too heavy to hang onto fur would make no difference if there was no fur.

Change 1: lose fur.
Change 2: walk upright to keep babies alive.
Change 3: subcutaneous fat increases, lowering body density and making swimming possible (some monkeys can swim and a few enjoy it but few apes have been seen swimming).
Change 4 (much, much later): increase brain size, possibly because having subcutaneous fat allows the creatures to exploit shoreline habitats and obtain the brain-nourishing fats from water creatures.
Ape fur does little to insulate the ape when it's immersed in water. Subcutaneous fat is excellent insulation in cold water.

Perhaps the naked-hominid pattern evolved first and then the creatures became partially aquatic, as humans are to this day, instead of the AA theory, which says hominids became aquatic first and then evolved the naked pattern.

The AA phase is supposed to have happened around 7 million years ago. That's long, long before Lucy. We don't have any fossils from that long ago other than a few handfuls of bones from ardipithecus species. The AA phase requires loss of fur so all upright hominids would have been naked according to AA. The usual portrayals of hominids show them furry before homo habilis and naked after homo erectus. AA theory requires all of them to have been naked. Ardipithecus - a naked, sweaty, upright chimp... not a pretty picture.

Much of the AA theory makes some sense but as said earlier in this thread, there's too little evidence to give the theory any weight. It's not even a true scientific theory because it has lots of explanations for observations but none of those can't be explained by other theories. There's no direct evidence for AA.

Because to prove that the aquatic ape theory is true you'd need to show the apes in their new environment.
Thats gonna be either on the lake edge or at the seas edge
anything that dies at the lake edge is gonna get eaten very quickly
ditto the sea
You'd need to find say an early homo species with a snorkel and a trident.
Remember how few specimens of our ancestors we've found by looking at the ground
how many anthrapology teams you know that are digging for homo fossils a mile off shore
because sea levels have risen since then too
and if there is any evidence to be found it's more likely to be found by jacques cousteau rather than the leakeys
and jacques cousteau just wouldn't know what he was looking at.

I can't agree. I think the shoreline may be a poor place for fossils but there's no reason why it's impossible. Perhaps the creature died and sank into loose silt. More silt could be deposited over the creature and eventually it fossilizes. If it's in a stagnant, shallow area, big critters may not find the body and little critters strip the bones, leaving the bones intact.
The lake dries up, becomes land and eventually erosion exposes the fossil. Since we've found so few fossils from 5-7 million years ago, the ones we've found were probably from sites well suited to fossilization and shorelines may be much less likely to make fossils. Even so, it's not impossible although it may be very unlikely that anyone ever finds such a fossil.

i agree its not impossible
but seeing as noones ever carried out an archaeological dig looking for homo fossils out at sea its extremely unlikely

i can see sum wackos out there
on hancocks level
planting 'evidence' to make the theory hold water (pardon the pun)

Hancocks a wacko now ?
when did that happen
all these years i just thought he was nuts
but wacko
oooh thats serious man

maybe there are once spots underwater millions of years ago that are on land now prehaps?

I'm not sure if I am right but I seem to remember reading that humans and apes have an comparitively equal amount of hair folicals on our bodies, anyone else ever heard of this?(this is in response to the articles affirmation that we don't have as much hair as primates.

thats a new one to me

so your saying thats wrong or what?

just saying neva heard of it
where didu get it from exactly?
textbook?
internet?
other source?

Africa was much wetter at some times in the past. There were almost certainly some lakes in areas that are now much drier.

Thats the problem, I can't remember at all. I even went on some other sites to look it up and could not find a trail to follow. Sorry, I was hoping there was somebody out there that would read that and point me in the right direction.

It's no problem Stixxman
you're quite right
we have the same number of follicles as an ape
we just don't have the same kind of hair sprouting from them
Thats one of the basic tenets of the aquatic ape theory
hair doesn't keep you warm in the water
we didn't need it

you mean like lake Turkana and lake Rudolf.
That where most of the famous homo fossils have come from so far
around the shores of dried up lakes.
Thats where they found lucy

I remember in my one college bio class that the teacher said that there is a point in the womb where the fetus has gills. Before birth they disappear, but as I recall on very RARE occasions, people will be born with non functioning gills.

Some of the points of AA are interesting, and proving it would not be impossible marduk. The bone density, subcutanious fat quotient, lack of hair, etc. could all point to different evolutionary requirements. The proof would be fossil evidence of a missing link ancestor to homo sapein sapiens that was aquatic. As far as I know, no such evidence exists.

errr
you haven't noticed then that we are semi aquatic.
we like baths and showers.
other primates hate the water apart from a few potatoto eating fellas out in japan. lol
You're not gonna find an evolutionary step half man half fish.
The aquatic ape did not have gills.
He just used the water a lot more than we think he did.
Thats if he existed at all.
Don't forget that evolutionists are still out there looking for the link between homo erectus and homo sapiens.
You ever wonder what omega 3 oils do to a babies brain develpoment ?

thats what i dont get...
the fish diet gave us imprtant chemicals such as omega 3 and some important fatty acids
cant that be provided by just living near shoreline and using fishing net/rod/trident
we only me semi aquatic in freshwater as well wont we??

look up semi aquatic Roswell
No ones saying that a breed of human evolved with fins that can sleep underwater
You've been watching too much tv
lol

i didnt saw we had fins or such
just whether this is a case of
'fire engine going to the wrong fire'

I think its very unlikely that theres any fire involved in the aquatic ape theory

Unless the aqautic apes had a complicated water heating system of course...

just analogy man...

metaphor even

Not a metaphor, or maybe it is if I had seen the full quote.