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is an old one, dating back to marine biologist - and let's face it, oddball theorist - Sir Alister Hardy's first, unpublished speculations in 1930.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!

Ancestral claims: why has there been comparatively little research into human origins?

It has been said that we live in a golden age of dinosaur discoveries: from Liaoning Province in China to the Dakota Badlands, new species are being named on an almost monthly basis. But if there is a plethora of dinosaur palaeontologists why has there seemingly been so few scientists studying the origin of Homo sapiens? Surely deciphering the ancestry of mankind is one of the great challenges?

The image of hominins has certainly evolved over the past thirty years, even the naming changing in scientific circles (from the broader term hominid), although as the title of the 2003 BBC series' Walking With Cavemen showed, popular perception has been slow to adopt new research. As a child, I had an early 1970s plastic model kit of a Neanderthal Man. I seem to recall it bore more than a passing resemblance to the Morlocks from the 1960 film adaptation of H.G. Wells's The Time Machine, a far cry from the individuals portrayed in Walking With Cavemen and other, more recent, series. Yet this idea of a shambling, zombie-like creature is still to some extent prevalent. Why should this be, when there is now evidence for Neanderthal ritual and art? Are we simply afraid of finding yet more nails in the coffin of human uniqueness (apologies for the rusty metaphor)?

There are still clear elements of taboo to the subject: the humbling  notion of humans being but a 'monkey shaved' was also felt by early evolutionists, with even natural selection co-founder Alfred Russel Wallace believing humanity the product of divine fiat. Perhaps a sense of embarrassment (try watching zoo visitors as they observe apes) combined with Western religious thought has prevented the discipline becoming popular in the way the love of all things dinosaur has skyrocketed since the 1970s.

Then again, it still seems that people misunderstand evolution via natural selection, considering progress as via ladders rather than differentiating bushes. The 2004 discovery of yet another new hominin species, Sahelanthropus tchadensis, led the Christian Science Monitor to describe it as that hoary old misnomer the 'missing link'. This is despite three decades of popularising by the likes of Dawkins, Fortey, Jay Gould, etal, to dispel the notion. You only have to read archaeologist (note: not palaeontologist) Mark Roberts’ account of the seemingly shoestring Homo heidelbergensis excavations at Boxgrove in England to realise that hominin research has been attracting about one per cent of the news (and a zillionth of the funds) directed towards cutting-edge particle physics.

A primary cause for the dearth of public knowledge can be put down to the actual lack of direct fossil evidence. Although Neanderthal remains were the first actually recognised as belonging to a human ancestor, it took several decades after the initial 1829 discovery before the identification was scientifically confirmed. Into the Twentieth Century the lack of finds allowed such embarrassments as the poor-quality Piltdown fake to be taken at face value. It is easy to see at least one key reason why this should be: human ancestry carries so much emotional baggage that it took over forty years before British scientists saw the obvious, instead of following the patriotism and jingoism inspired by the finds.

As it is, the history of hominin palaeontology has been riddled with contention, serendipity, unfortunate accidents and amateur bungling. If anyone wants to disprove the myth of science as a sterile, laboratory-conditioned activity, this sphere provides key evidence par excellence (good to get a rhythm going). From Eugene Dubois hiding his Java Man (Homo erectus) remains for several decades early in the Twentieth Century to the disappearance of Peking Man (also Homo erectus) fossils during the Second World War - not to mention the grinding up of yet more erectus bones for Chinese traditional medicine - the fate of finds is enough to make a dedicated specialist weep.

In addition, the fact that humans and their ancestors primarily evolved in what are today remote African locations with limited infrastructure can only exacerbate the situation. The work can be tedious, physically arduous and rewards few and far between. Yet fossil remains are the backbone of the discipline (almost a pun there, if you really look for it). After all, an increase in the number of finds can also lead to a paradigm shift in understanding: in the last few years it has been possible to undermine the opinion given on the BBC documentary The making of Walking with Dinosaurs, first broadcast back in 2000, that we would never know the colour of any dinosaur, courtesy of feathered Chinese theropod fossils (try saying that three times fast).

However, the last few decades has seen an improvement in the number of finds as funding has been allocated and professional enthusiasm increased. The problem has been that rather than solidifying the story of our ancestral line the number of species has multiplied without aiding the overall picture; there are still plenty of dashed lines on the human family tree. This indeterminacy has meant that a consensus is hard to find. If you examine any two charts of human ancestry, the chances are that they won’t agree. In the face of limited evidence it seems relatively easy for palaeoanthropologists to promote their own theories as to which species are our direct ancestors. Human nature being what it is, the favoured species usually happen to be those discovered by the said promoter. Such behaviour led to a thirty-year rift between two of the key players, Richard Leakey and Donald Johanson, partially over the number of branches on the direct ancestral tree. If anyone thinks the days of feuding scientists as long past (consider for example the Nineteenth Century American dinosaur pioneers Cope and Marsh) this quarrel ought to set the record straight.

One area of research that has undoubtedly given a boost to the understanding of human origins is the ability to retrieve and read ancient DNA. That’s not to say that it has yet produced much in the way of definitive evidence, but it undoubtedly widens the knowledge that can be gained from a paucity of finds. A recent report suggested that Homo sapiens and Neanderthals did not after all interbreed but share a similar genome via common ancestry. This is a reversal of a previous report that in turn countered earlier genetic evidence...and so on.

The relatively recent demise of the Neanderthals has provoked some interesting theories that show how science can reflect the concerns of contemporary society, namely that the violent aspect our species may have been directly responsible. There is currently no firm evidence for deliberate genocide, with other likely culprits ranging from inability to adjust to climate change to a less flexible neural architecture (specifically, missing out on the 'Great Leap Forward' via imaginative cogitation). Recent texts have attempted to downplay innate human aggression but writers closer in time to the world wars and to the heyday of Freudianism, especially Australian anthropologist Raymond Dart and American author Robert Ardrey, had a major influence on the subject with their promotion of the 'killer ape' theory. From 1960 onwards the first serious, sustained research on wild chimpanzees by Jane Goodall inadvertently reinforced the notion of mankind as a predominantly violent species. Given such notions, it is perhaps little wonder that funding has been lacking.

The new century has so far seen something of an improvement, with a large increase in the number of popular books and television programmes reflecting and in turn further developing public interest. The controversy surrounding the nature of the Homo floresiensis finds of 2003 has proved fortuitous, with general news media at long last paying serious attention. The ball may have been started rolling by the Chalcolithic ice mummy Otzi, who was discovered in the Alps in 1991. A young upstart at a mere 5,300 years old, the incredible preservation of the man, his clothing and tools have helped bridge the gap in how we relate to our prehistoric ancestors.

So times they are a-changing. The Ancient Human Occupation of Britain project is a sustained, well-funded effort to examine the past 700,000 years of evidence in the United Kingdom using a plethora of cross-discipline techniques in addition to conventional archaeology and palaeontology. The use of advanced dating methods such as electron spin resonance and the ability to analyse ancient DNA suggest that even without new finds, hominin research in the near future will generate some surprises. All I can say is that it's about time, too!