Murky waters: why is the aquatic ape hypothesis so popular?

Whilst not in the same class as the laughably abysmal Discovery Channel mockumentaries on the likes of mermaids and extant (rather than extinct) megalodon, the recent two-part David Attenborough BBC Radio 4 documentary The Waterside Ape has left me gritting my teeth...grrr.

The programme has confirmed something I suspected from his 2010 BBC television series and associated book, First Life: namely, that the style of his exposition takes priority over the substance of his material. I'll quickly recap on the howler he made in an episode of First Life, ironically one that featured renowned trilobite expert Richard Fortey, albeit in a different sequence. When discussing trilobites, Sir David briefly mentions that they get their name from having three segments from front to rear: head, body and pygidium (tail) - which is totally wrong!

The name is the give-away. Tri-lobe refers to the three segments across the width of the body: a central lobe and two lateral lobes. Many creatures have the head, body and tail segmentation, so it would be far from unique in trilobites. I find this example of incorrect information rather discomforting, especially from someone like Sir David who has been a fan of trilobites since childhood. You have to wonder why experts aren't invited to give BBC science and nature documentaries the once-over before broadcast, just in case any gaffes have got through to the final cut?

The issue then, is that if we non-professionals believe the content espoused by such senior figures in the field of science communication - and if such material goes without basic error-checking from professionals - how is the public to receive a half-decent science education? Of course science isn't a body of knowledge but a toolkit of investigation techniques, but few of the general public have the ability to test hypotheses themselves or access the jargon-filled original scientific papers. So relying on books and media from distinguished communicators is the primary way of increasing our STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) knowledge.

Back to The Waterside Ape. The hypothesis is an old one, dating back to marine biologist - and let's face it, oddball theorist - Sir Alister Hardy's first, unpublished speculations in 1930. However, the idea didn't achieve widespread dissemination until Elaine Morgan began to publicise it in the early 1970's. Otherwise known as a fiction writer, Morgan's output on the aquatic ape hypothesis was originally considered to be a feminist critique rather than particularly serious science, bearing in mind that the author lacks professional training or experience in the field of evolutionary biology.

Whether it is thanks to dissemination via the World Wide Web, her pro-aquatic ape books have become ever more popular over the past twenty years. This is in spite of the ever-increasing number of hominin fossils and sophisticated analytical techniques that have shown little support for the idea. I'm not going to examine the evidence for and against the hypothesis, since that has been done by many others and I'm marginally less qualified to assess it than Elaine Morgan. Instead, I'm more interested in how and why the idea has maintained popular appeal when the general consensus among the specialists is that it is profoundly incorrect.

Could it be that the engaging quality of Morgan's writing obscures a lack of dry (geddit?) analysis upon a subject that could at best be deemed as controversial - and thus fool the general readership as to its validity? Or is there more to it than that? The BBC seem to have maintained an on-going interest in supporting her work over the past two decades.

Indeed, The Waterside Ape is not David Attenborough's first foray into the idea. He made another two-part BBC Radio 4 series called Scars of Evolution back in 2005, which included some of the same interviews as the recent programmes. The BBC and Discovery Channel also collaborated in 1998 on a television documentary favouring the hypothesis called surprisingly enough The Aquatic Ape, albeit without Attenborough's involvement.

A key argument that I'm sure gets public support is that the of a radical - and female - outsider being shunned by the conservative, male-dominated establishment, with Elaine Morgan pitted against the reactionary old guard of palaeontologists, biologists, etc. Her plight has been described in the same vein as meteorologist Alfred Wegener's battle with orthodox geology between the world wars, but in Wegener's case his hypothesis of continental drift lacked a mechanism until plate tectonics was formulated several decades later. As for the aquatic ape, there seems to be a suite of models describing a gamut of ideas, from the uncontroversial speculation of hominins wading for iodine- and Omega-3-rich foodstuffs (promoting brain growth) to human ancestors being Olympic-class ocean swimmers who would feel at home in a Discovery Channel mermaid mockumentary.

We shouldn't ignore the emotive aspects of the hypothesis, which the various programmes have described as a "fascinating idea" that would be "lovely to confirm". Since most people still think of dolphins as innocent, life-saving and cute (when in fact they play brutal cat-and-mouse games with live porpoises) could this be a psychological attempt to salvage something of our own rapacious species?

Elaine Morgan admitted that her first book was a response to her annoyance with the 'killer ape' theories of the 1960's, as espoused in Robert Ardrey's seminal 1961 volume African Genesis. In these post-modern, politically-correct times of gatherers first and hunters second, Raymond Dart and Robert Ardrey's once-influential machismo ape-man has fallen from favour. Unfortunately, the famous Ardrey-influenced Dawn of Man sequence in 2001: A Space Odyssey promotes just such a viewpoint, so perhaps it isn't any wonder that supporting a more tranquil aquatic ancestry might appear to be an easy way to bring 21st century sensitivities to a world reeling from constant violence.

Another possible reason for the hypothesis' widespread support is that it relies on what appears to be an impressive accumulation of facts in the Darwinian mould, without recourse to difficult mathematics or sophisticated technical jargon. For those unable to get a clear understanding of major contemporary science (Higgs boson, anyone?) the idea of aquatic ape ancestors is both romantic and easy to digest, if the supporting evidence is taken en masse and the individual alternatives for each biological feature ignored or undeclared.

Clearly, whoever thinks that science is detached from emotion should think again when considering the aquatic/waterside/paddle-boarding ape. Although on the surface a seductive idea, the collection of proofs are selective, inadequate and in some cases just plain wrong. It might be good enough for the sloppy pseudo-scientific archaeology of Graham Hancock and Erich von Daniken, but good science needs rather more to go on. Yes, there are some intriguing nuggets, but as Dr Alice Roberts said in her critique of the recent Attenborough radio series, science is about evidence, not wishful thinking. Unfortunately, the plethora of material contains rather more subtleties than trilobite nomenclature, so I can only sigh again at just how many equally poorly-concocted ideas may be swashing around the world of popular science communication. Come on, Sir David, please read past the romance and dig a bit deeper: the world needs people like you!

Mopping up spilt milk: pollution in the New Zealand dairy sector

It's been slow to dawn on New Zealanders, but for a country that prides itself on a '100% Pure' image our environmental pollution record is fairly appalling - and shows few signs of alleviation. Politicians who point to the large percentage of the nation's electricity generation coming from renewable sources, not to mention the slow but sturdy growth in hybrid vehicles, are completely missing the point: it has been claimed that over half of New Zealand's greenhouse gas emissions emanate from agri business.

Although the quantity of sheep in the country has plummeted from a 1982 peak of around 70 million to less than 30 million last year, cattle numbers continue to rise. There are about 3.6 million livestock on beef farms and circa 6.5 million dairy cattle. The latter sector generates twenty percent of New Zealand's exports and seven percent of its GDP, so it forms a substantial component of the kiwi economy. But with plans to double the country's dairy production by 2025, the term 'sustainable development' appears to be, well, unsustainable.

Since cattle create as much waste product as fourteen humans, it's not difficult to imagine some of the more obvious forms of dairy pollutant, smell and all. As New Zealand dung beetles are primarily forest dwellers there have been trials of introduced dung beetle species to help clean up the waste, with a reduction in nitrous oxide emissions from the soil and a lowering of cattle disease as side benefits. However, pastoral poo is only one element in the catalogue of pollutants caused by dairy farming.

Last summer I was taken to an outdoor swimming hole not far from Wanganui, consisting of a rectangular concrete-lined pool situated on the edge of a forest. I was informed that children had swam there until a decade or so, but no more: several signs warned that the water is contaminated and no longer safe for humans. This story has been repeated throughout New Zealand, with agriculture being by far the most common culprit. It isn't just artificial environments that have this problem; reports suggest that within the past twenty years about two-thirds of monitored swimming areas within rivers have become too polluted. And that's just for people; there's far less concern for the effects on river fauna and flora.

Although environmentalists have been issuing warnings for years, not enough has been done to alleviate this problem. Last month approximately five thousand inhabitants of Havelock North were taken ill due to tap water contaminated by campylobacter. The source was a series of bores which the director of the Infectious Diseases Research Centre at Massey University, Professor Nigel French, put down to pollution from sheep and cattle. Sources of contamination could include carcases of dead livestock, as well as faecal matter getting into waterways that provide the source of unchlorinated - and therefore at risk - tap water.

In fact, the outbreak appears to be the tip of the iceberg. Despite some hundreds of cases of illegal effluent discharge brought against New Zealand farmers each year, many more escape prosecution. It has to be said this seems to be a regular occurrence for the Ministry for Primary Industries, judging by the recent reports of their waiving prosecutions for commercial fishing vessels caught flouting bycatch and dumping laws. Turning a blind eye seems to be the order of the day when it comes to protecting food production - or at least the food producers. This philosophy seems to be driven by those who clearly have little understanding of the complexity - and at times fragility - of food webs. Not so much short-term thinking as profound myopia!

In addition to the organic matter there are chemical pollutants that can find their way into water supplies situated close to farms. Since the 1990s, the New Zealand Ministry for the Environment has been monitoring ground water for nitrates and has found levels substantially above those recommended for drinking water. Although chemical fertiliser has been blamed in addition to livestock effluent, environmental mapping suggests the latter is the primary cause, since the polluted areas heavily coincide with the widest-scale dairy production.

As well as polluting waterways dairy farmers have also been caught stealing billions of litres of water each year from rivers and aquifers, especially in the Canterbury region. Whilst not a form of pollution per se, this is obviously somewhat lacking in the environmentally-friendly stakes. The deforestation of low-lying plains for cattle grazing is also a source of pollution, as the lack of tree roots, besides allowing greater flooding, can generate increased run-off into rivers. This polluted water can lead to algal blooms, lowering oxygen levels and so endangering freshwater fish. That might not sound of any great concern except to diehard anglers, but for any whitebait fans, four of the five Galaxiidae species whose young form this delicacy are now said to be threatened.

The systematic destruction of forests to make way for pastoral land use has been repeatedly raised as a concern not just by environmental organisations but by the New Zealand Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF) itself. Their 2006 report claimed close to half a million hectares of the nation's forests were at risk of conversion to land for cattle grazing.

In addition, overseas forests are also affected: since 2008 the amount of palm kernels imported into New Zealand as a dairy cattle feed supplement has doubled to over 2 million tons per annum. This accounts for about twenty-five percent of global production and comes at the expense of destruction of rainforests in nations including Indonesia and Malaysia. Although the state-owned farm company Landcorp Farming Ltd is in the process of moving to a different supplement over the next year or so, the dairy giant Fonterra has not announced similar intentions. What's wrong with those guys: a surfeit of Milton Friedman in their formative years?

Having covered solids and liquids, it's time to move on to gas. As I've mentioned on various occasions, methane is a primary greenhouse gas. It was therefore shocking to discover that per capita, New Zealand has the greatest annual methane emission rate worldwide, accounting for over forty percent of the country's greenhouse gas emanations. The methane emission from dairy cattle alone has continually increased over the past quarter century, although the amount reported varies from ten percent to a whopping fifty percent or so. Perhaps that's not surprising, considering cattle can each generate up to 500 litres of methane per day!

There is some recent cause for hope, with various trials under way to reduce bovine emissions. These range from vaccination to selective breeding to diets bases on forage rape, with the latter showing that the change in feed affects fermentation - and therefore reduces methane production - in sheep. However, it wouldn't hurt to see the Government funding more research in this matter: one widely-reported paper last year was Massey University's The New Zealand Dairy Farming: Milking Our Environment for All its Worth, which received much criticism from the dairy sector when it was revealed to consist primarily of a student thesis.

It's very easy to become depressed with such deleterious effects coming from just one sector. Of course no nation can afford to rest on its laurels: we cannot turn the clock back. The halcyon image of bucolic ruralism is a myth perpetrated by those who have never worked on the land and farmers deserve the benefits of modern technology in their work as much as anyone. The development of sophisticated tools and software can aid the dairy sector in preserving the environment. as long as there is enough public money to support this eco-friendly research. But Government funding for this type of sustainable development appears to be sadly lacking. Doesn't it make sense that those who run God's Own Country should try a little harder to prove that the 100% Pure tagline isn't just marketing spin?