WEBVTT - Aquatic Humanoids, Part 2 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:06.119 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuffworks 0:00:06.120 --> 0:00:14.800 dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:14.880 --> 0:00:17.200 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and 0:00:17.280 --> 0:00:19.239 today is going to be part two of a two 0:00:19.239 --> 0:00:22.600 part episode about the aquatic Humanoid. Now, last time, we 0:00:22.760 --> 0:00:27.560 really focused on the mythology and cultural beliefs about our 0:00:27.680 --> 0:00:32.080 aquatic counterparts, the humanoid types who live in the depths 0:00:32.520 --> 0:00:35.479 and there. This is a trope all throughout fiction. You 0:00:35.560 --> 0:00:38.480 find it in u in all kinds of human cultures. 0:00:38.520 --> 0:00:40.920 But one thing I think we didn't discuss last time, 0:00:41.000 --> 0:00:43.479 or if we did, it's my memory is not serving 0:00:43.479 --> 0:00:47.080 me well. Is the movie Leviathans. Oh. Yes, one of 0:00:47.120 --> 0:00:50.440 the one of the several nineteen eighty nine underwater Peril 0:00:50.479 --> 0:00:54.120 movies that that we keep chatting about, and at least 0:00:54.120 --> 0:00:56.080 in a previous episode. I'm not sure if we we 0:00:56.120 --> 0:00:58.600 talked about it in The Aquatic Humanoids Part one or not. 0:00:59.160 --> 0:01:01.360 We've talked about it so much recently I can't even 0:01:01.400 --> 0:01:04.920 recall when it happened. But anyway, Yeah, so nine you 0:01:04.959 --> 0:01:07.720 had James Cameron's The Abyss, but you also had Deep 0:01:07.760 --> 0:01:11.840 Star six Leviathan, Lords of the deep for some reason, 0:01:12.480 --> 0:01:16.240 everybody went nuts making underwater sci fi movies. Yeah, we've been, 0:01:16.440 --> 0:01:19.360 so I'm just trying to piece together in a casual 0:01:19.440 --> 0:01:22.160 way why that was, you know what what was happening 0:01:22.160 --> 0:01:24.120 in the world. Was it I did have to do 0:01:24.200 --> 0:01:27.440 with the with recent underwater exploration that really inspired everybody 0:01:27.440 --> 0:01:29.240 at the same time, or did everyone just know that 0:01:29.440 --> 0:01:32.160 the abyss was coming and it made sense for all 0:01:32.240 --> 0:01:35.880 the various cinematic lamp preyests to converge upon it. Now, 0:01:35.959 --> 0:01:38.640 Leviathan is a I think you'll back me up here, 0:01:38.720 --> 0:01:42.360 a terrible movie, but a great terrible movie. It is. Ah, 0:01:43.319 --> 0:01:47.120 it is a thoroughly enjoyable, flawed film. It's the that's 0:01:47.160 --> 0:01:49.600 the type of bad movie that I just really eat 0:01:49.680 --> 0:01:52.320 up that ends up in I think inspiring me more 0:01:52.880 --> 0:01:56.720 than good underwater movies. Yeah, it's such an alien rip off. 0:01:56.840 --> 0:02:00.160 The DVD I had of it it actually said, is 0:02:00.280 --> 0:02:04.760 alien underwater? That's the whole quote. Yeah, it is highly derivative, 0:02:04.760 --> 0:02:07.280 but it god that the cast is so good and 0:02:07.320 --> 0:02:08.959 the look of the film like it has a Stan 0:02:09.040 --> 0:02:12.760 Winston Studios monster in it, so you know that's gonna 0:02:12.800 --> 0:02:15.079 look like a million bucks, and the the the overall 0:02:15.200 --> 0:02:18.160 sets that are used, especially the interior sets for this 0:02:18.280 --> 0:02:22.359 underwater station, are tremendous. Like the set does as much 0:02:22.400 --> 0:02:25.280 as the cast does, really to create a sense of 0:02:25.360 --> 0:02:28.280 backstory for these characters. You know, in a way, the 0:02:28.360 --> 0:02:31.919 sleaziness of Daniel Stearns performance in the movie is kind 0:02:31.919 --> 0:02:34.600 of a set in its own. It's like a landscape 0:02:34.639 --> 0:02:38.560 of sleez and obnoxiousness. Yeah, he plays this sleazy character 0:02:38.680 --> 0:02:42.600 named six Pack, I believe, and it's easy to think 0:02:42.600 --> 0:02:44.519 back on the film and think that their moments where 0:02:44.520 --> 0:02:48.040 the character reaches peak sleaziness, but he really just achieves 0:02:48.040 --> 0:02:52.520 a high plateau of sleaziness throughout his time in the film. Okay, 0:02:52.600 --> 0:02:55.880 let's not dwell on Leviathan too much, but it does 0:02:55.960 --> 0:02:58.400 relate to what we're gonna talk about today. So today 0:02:58.440 --> 0:03:02.280 we wanted to address some of the biological ideas about 0:03:02.280 --> 0:03:06.160 aquatic humanoids. And so one of the things in Leviathan 0:03:06.320 --> 0:03:10.200 is you spoiler alert for this nineteen eighty nine B movie. 0:03:10.680 --> 0:03:13.240 You find out that the Russians in the movie, you're 0:03:13.280 --> 0:03:17.800 trying to create an aquatic humanoid through genetic alteration. Right, 0:03:17.880 --> 0:03:20.280 of course that ends up creating a monster. A monster 0:03:20.400 --> 0:03:22.960 I should add that is in many ways kind of 0:03:22.960 --> 0:03:26.000 an ichno centaur, which we discussed in the first episode, 0:03:26.000 --> 0:03:29.520 this sort of hybrid of different parts creating this this 0:03:29.639 --> 0:03:34.720 kind of large centaur esque chimera. So, yeah, you've got 0:03:34.720 --> 0:03:37.760 this giant monster that's basically got a catfish head and 0:03:37.760 --> 0:03:40.240 then it's got Daniel Stearn's face sticking out of its 0:03:40.280 --> 0:03:43.760 back and some other random tentacles and Lamprey's poking off 0:03:43.800 --> 0:03:46.760 of it. But this was, in the context of the film, 0:03:46.760 --> 0:03:51.080 an attempt to create Homo aquaticus, the human version of 0:03:51.120 --> 0:03:54.320 an underwater creature, or maybe the underwater version of the 0:03:54.400 --> 0:03:57.280 human today. We want to look at could such a 0:03:57.320 --> 0:04:02.920 creature exist and what would it look like biologically? And 0:04:03.240 --> 0:04:06.360 if the quatic humanoids could exist in reality, how would 0:04:06.400 --> 0:04:11.040 they figure into our our picture of human evolution. Yeah, 0:04:11.120 --> 0:04:13.640 it's it's a fascinating question, of course that you know. 0:04:13.680 --> 0:04:16.839 The the easy answer is, of course, yes, all life 0:04:16.920 --> 0:04:19.000 came from the sea, and we have plenty of cases 0:04:19.000 --> 0:04:21.760 of terrestrial life returning to the sea. So we're not 0:04:21.800 --> 0:04:27.360 talking about just complete whackadoodle ideas about about life emerging 0:04:27.400 --> 0:04:29.880 from one or descending into the other. Right, you are 0:04:29.920 --> 0:04:32.680 correct to point out that that leaving the water for 0:04:32.800 --> 0:04:36.720 terrestrial existence can happen, and then leaving terrestria is that 0:04:36.880 --> 0:04:39.080 the now, and I guess leaving the land for a 0:04:39.120 --> 0:04:42.920 watery existence can also happen. These are totally biologically plausible 0:04:42.920 --> 0:04:45.960 scenarios and they happen all the time. But could it 0:04:46.040 --> 0:04:49.760 happen with us? And in fact, has it already happened 0:04:49.800 --> 0:04:53.360 with us? So I guess it's time to venture into 0:04:53.839 --> 0:04:56.080 something that people have asked us to discuss on the 0:04:56.080 --> 0:04:59.120 show before. We we've never done it before, but it 0:04:59.200 --> 0:05:04.000 is a fringe hypothesis and human evolution called the aquatic 0:05:04.040 --> 0:05:07.800 ape hypothesis. Yes, and and of course that instantly summons 0:05:07.839 --> 0:05:11.520 the images of a guerrilla mermaid. I will not, I 0:05:11.520 --> 0:05:14.560 will not try to convince you to dismiss that that 0:05:14.680 --> 0:05:18.760 apparition from your mind. But but it is almost impossible 0:05:18.800 --> 0:05:20.719 not to think of that. So now you're saying, like 0:05:20.800 --> 0:05:25.240 fish tail with guerrilla top, not like not like mermaid 0:05:25.279 --> 0:05:28.159 top with guerrilla legs. No no, no fish fish on 0:05:28.200 --> 0:05:31.080 the bottom, uh, silverback grilla on the top. That's the 0:05:31.080 --> 0:05:35.040 only way to put it together, Marilla. Yeah, not exactly, 0:05:35.080 --> 0:05:37.560 but close. Now, before we get into the specifics, of 0:05:37.560 --> 0:05:40.239 the hypothesis. I just want to start by cautioning that 0:05:40.320 --> 0:05:43.040 this is not a hypothesis that is widely accepted by 0:05:43.040 --> 0:05:48.400 scientists or biologists. It's generally frowned upon by paleo anthropologists 0:05:48.400 --> 0:05:50.720 and other people who study the history of human evolution. 0:05:51.560 --> 0:05:54.320 But I think it's worth addressing, especially since people have 0:05:54.360 --> 0:05:57.960 asked about it before, and it fits into this model 0:05:58.080 --> 0:06:02.000 of the aquatic humanoid and creates at least a plausible 0:06:02.160 --> 0:06:05.840 sounding scenario in which there could have been an aquatic humanoid. Yeah, 0:06:05.880 --> 0:06:09.120 if we entered into it as a as an alternate hypothesis, 0:06:09.120 --> 0:06:11.160 if we enter into it as a thought experiment, and 0:06:11.160 --> 0:06:14.320 we do not enter into it trying to make an 0:06:14.400 --> 0:06:18.160 argument for the existence of Triton's or or mer people 0:06:18.240 --> 0:06:20.600 or some sort of underwater race, then I think we're 0:06:20.640 --> 0:06:24.919 in safe waters. Okay, So it starts with a simple observation. 0:06:25.600 --> 0:06:28.560 Our closest relatives in the animal kingdom are the other 0:06:28.600 --> 0:06:32.080 great apes, also known as hominids or the family Homonide. 0:06:32.240 --> 0:06:37.240 This includes orangutans, guerrillas, chimpanzees, and binobos, and genetically we 0:06:37.279 --> 0:06:41.560 are extremely similar to these animals, especially to chimpanzees and 0:06:41.640 --> 0:06:46.080 binobo's anatomically, we're also extremely similar to them. If you 0:06:46.120 --> 0:06:48.000 look at all of our body parts in the way 0:06:48.000 --> 0:06:51.960 they fit together. We're very, very close to these animals. 0:06:51.960 --> 0:06:54.760 But there are a few key differences, and some of 0:06:54.760 --> 0:06:58.320 the most major of these key differences are that we 0:06:58.440 --> 0:07:03.400 are mostly hair us bipeds were naked, smooth skinned, and 0:07:03.440 --> 0:07:06.599 we walk on two legs. And meanwhile, all these other 0:07:06.640 --> 0:07:10.160 animals are hairy quadrupeds. They're covered from head to toe 0:07:10.320 --> 0:07:14.360 in in hair for and usually walk on four legs. 0:07:14.400 --> 0:07:17.840 So why that difference? What happened in the history of 0:07:18.000 --> 0:07:22.200 only the human branch of this family to drive our 0:07:22.360 --> 0:07:26.840 ancestors to become relatively smooth and bipedal while the rest 0:07:26.880 --> 0:07:30.360 of our closest cousins didn't. Now just a note, I've 0:07:30.400 --> 0:07:33.880 often seen this framed in terms of questions like, quote, 0:07:34.080 --> 0:07:37.520 how did we get from chimpanzees to humans? That question 0:07:37.640 --> 0:07:41.360 is obviously nonsense, because we didn't get from chimpanzees to humans. 0:07:41.360 --> 0:07:45.200 Both chimpanzees and humans came from something that lived more 0:07:45.200 --> 0:07:48.400 than four million years ago. Chimpanzees are our cousins, not 0:07:48.480 --> 0:07:51.880 our ancestors. But the question is why do humans look 0:07:52.000 --> 0:07:55.000 different from them? And from every other hominid given that 0:07:55.040 --> 0:07:59.080 were such close cousins. Well, in March nineteen sixty a 0:07:59.120 --> 0:08:02.840 British marine biologist named Alistair Hardy published an article and 0:08:02.920 --> 0:08:06.320 New Scientists arguing for a pretty startling answer to this. 0:08:07.120 --> 0:08:11.000 Hardy said, in the distant past, our ancestors distinguished themselves 0:08:11.080 --> 0:08:13.560 from the other great apes or the other great ape 0:08:13.600 --> 0:08:18.320 ancestors by becoming an aquatic organism. So the idea here's 0:08:18.320 --> 0:08:21.480 our ancestors adapted to life in the water for a 0:08:21.520 --> 0:08:24.400 while and then return to land exactly, and that that 0:08:24.600 --> 0:08:29.119 shaped the differences between humans today and the other great apes. 0:08:29.520 --> 0:08:32.600 And so in this article, Hardy summarized his hypothesis about 0:08:32.600 --> 0:08:36.920 how quote man's immediate ancestors diverged from quote more ape 0:08:36.960 --> 0:08:41.480 like forms as follows. My thesis is that a branch 0:08:41.600 --> 0:08:45.640 of this primitive ape stock was forced by competition from 0:08:45.720 --> 0:08:48.960 life in the trees to feed on the seashores and 0:08:49.040 --> 0:08:53.680 to hunt for food shellfish, sea urchins, etcetera, in the 0:08:53.800 --> 0:08:57.600 shallow waters off the coast. I suppose that they were 0:08:57.640 --> 0:09:00.320 forced into the water, just as we have seen happen 0:09:00.440 --> 0:09:04.359 in so many other groups of terrestrial animals. I'm imagining 0:09:04.400 --> 0:09:07.160 this happening in the warmer parts of the world, in 0:09:07.200 --> 0:09:10.000 the tropical seas, where man could stand being in the 0:09:10.040 --> 0:09:13.800 water for relatively long periods, that is, several hours at 0:09:13.800 --> 0:09:17.560 a stretch. I imagine him waiting at first, perhaps still 0:09:17.600 --> 0:09:21.280 crouching almost on all fours, groping about in the water, 0:09:21.640 --> 0:09:25.520 digging for shellfish, but becoming gradually more adept at swimming. 0:09:26.000 --> 0:09:28.960 Then in time I see him becoming more and more 0:09:29.040 --> 0:09:32.160 of an aquatic animal, going farther out from the shore, 0:09:32.600 --> 0:09:36.440 I see him diving for shellfish, prizing out worms, burrowing 0:09:36.520 --> 0:09:39.560 crabs and bivalves from the sands at the bottom of 0:09:39.640 --> 0:09:43.520 shallow seas, and breaking open sea urchins, and then with 0:09:43.600 --> 0:09:48.040 increasing skill, capturing fish with his hands. And of course 0:09:48.040 --> 0:09:49.720 this match is of the what we know about human 0:09:49.760 --> 0:09:54.480 cultures that have a legacy of existing close to the 0:09:54.520 --> 0:09:57.000 sea and upon the sea. Yeah, now this is describing 0:09:57.040 --> 0:10:00.000 what we might call a semi aquatic existence rather than 0:10:00.000 --> 0:10:03.160 a fully aquatic existence. Right, So it's not that we 0:10:03.360 --> 0:10:07.400 became whales and lived entirely in the water, but that 0:10:07.600 --> 0:10:10.880 the hypothesis is that we sort of became like Homo beachkus, 0:10:11.720 --> 0:10:14.320 that we live adjacent to the water and spent a 0:10:14.360 --> 0:10:22.120 whole lot of time in it. Homo biwa chicas like it. Now, 0:10:22.160 --> 0:10:24.240 this might sound crazy, and as we said, it is 0:10:24.240 --> 0:10:28.640 certainly not accepted by mainstream biologists or paleo anthropologists, but 0:10:28.800 --> 0:10:32.440 I want to say that there's nothing in principle wrong 0:10:32.480 --> 0:10:34.920 with the idea of a land dwelling mammal evolving to 0:10:34.960 --> 0:10:37.440 become an aquatic creature. We mentioned this earlier, but just 0:10:37.520 --> 0:10:40.679 to reiterate, like, where do you think whales and dolphins 0:10:40.720 --> 0:10:44.439 came from? More than fifty million years ago, The ancestors 0:10:44.480 --> 0:10:48.080 of whales and dolphins were four legged, land dwelling mammals 0:10:48.080 --> 0:10:51.480 that went through many stages of evolution deeper and deeper 0:10:51.559 --> 0:10:54.319 into the water. They started as these creatures that lived 0:10:54.320 --> 0:10:57.400 adjacent to the water and spent more and more time 0:10:57.440 --> 0:10:59.839 in the water over the generations, becoming more and more 0:10:59.840 --> 0:11:04.160 adapted to it, from the semi aquatic waiting lifestyle of 0:11:04.240 --> 0:11:08.480 pachactas and into high us to like this more otter 0:11:08.640 --> 0:11:12.960 like existence of this creature called ambulositis, and then eventually 0:11:13.040 --> 0:11:15.640 two creatures like the Dora down which start to look 0:11:15.720 --> 0:11:18.320 sort of like modern whales with eyes on the side 0:11:18.400 --> 0:11:21.760 and the breathing hole dorsally migrated up toward the top 0:11:21.800 --> 0:11:25.520 of the head. And there's a similar story with pinnipeds 0:11:25.559 --> 0:11:28.160 like seals and sea lions. They're believed to have evolved 0:11:28.160 --> 0:11:32.239 from land dwelling quadrupeds that were something more like bears 0:11:32.400 --> 0:11:37.080 or musta Lloyd's meaning things like skunks, raccoons, or weasels. 0:11:37.080 --> 0:11:40.280 So evolution of land dwelling mammals into water dwelling mammals 0:11:40.360 --> 0:11:43.160 is not only possible, it has happened lots of times. 0:11:43.200 --> 0:11:47.280 This is something that's totally biologically plausible. The plausibility of 0:11:47.320 --> 0:11:50.880 that scenario is not something that's necessarily a problem with 0:11:51.000 --> 0:11:54.720 the aquatic a hypothesis. The problems come in later because 0:11:54.720 --> 0:12:00.520 what's the real question, did it specifically happen to our ancestors? Right? 0:12:00.559 --> 0:12:02.400 Because if it, if it did happen, we should be 0:12:02.400 --> 0:12:05.600 able to find some evidence of it. Right. So, as 0:12:05.640 --> 0:12:08.640 we said, this, this hypothesis is not popular with scientists 0:12:08.679 --> 0:12:11.360 and experts in the field, but it has really continued 0:12:11.440 --> 0:12:13.800 to capture the interest of the public since it was 0:12:13.840 --> 0:12:17.400 first introduced. So it was first proposed by, as we said, 0:12:17.400 --> 0:12:20.640 the British marine biologist Alastair Hardy in nineteen sixty but 0:12:20.720 --> 0:12:24.240 it was really most popularized by a Welsh author named 0:12:24.240 --> 0:12:29.080 Elaine Morgan in the nineteen seventies and eighties, primarily through 0:12:29.160 --> 0:12:30.960 she She wrote about it in a book called The 0:12:30.960 --> 0:12:33.960 Descent of Woman, but then also in a book called 0:12:33.960 --> 0:12:37.840 The Aquatic Ape. And so Morgan's argument for the aquatic 0:12:37.920 --> 0:12:41.800 ape hypothesis is interesting, and she she summarized it in 0:12:41.840 --> 0:12:44.400 a TED talk in two thousand nine before she passed 0:12:44.400 --> 0:12:47.040 away in two thousand thirteen. And so I think maybe 0:12:47.040 --> 0:12:49.280 we should look at some of the specifics of her argument. 0:12:49.720 --> 0:12:51.840 Uh so then we can. We can think about them 0:12:51.840 --> 0:12:54.080 and see how they stack up. All right, But before 0:12:54.080 --> 0:12:55.559 we do that, let's take a quick break, and when 0:12:55.600 --> 0:12:58.880 we come back, we'll dive in to the aquatic ape 0:12:58.920 --> 0:13:03.960 theory some more than thank alright, we're back, alright. So 0:13:04.040 --> 0:13:07.240 Morgan's talk has a lot of framing material in it 0:13:07.280 --> 0:13:10.079 where she sort of lays the context for her argument 0:13:10.120 --> 0:13:13.520 by talking about the idea of paradigm shifts and science 0:13:13.520 --> 0:13:16.440 and about how scientific consensus has often been wrong in 0:13:16.480 --> 0:13:20.760 the past. That's absolutely true. Scientific consensus has very often 0:13:20.800 --> 0:13:24.200 been disproved um. But one of the things I think 0:13:24.440 --> 0:13:26.640 we should be cautious about is when you start to 0:13:26.679 --> 0:13:32.560 hear somebody using that fact as an argument for their argument, 0:13:33.000 --> 0:13:35.000 if you know what I mean, it's often the opening 0:13:35.080 --> 0:13:38.440 argument of somebody who's about to lay some some some 0:13:38.559 --> 0:13:42.320 really fringe theory on you. Right, So, it is true 0:13:42.360 --> 0:13:45.280 that scientific consensus has often been wrong, but the fact 0:13:45.360 --> 0:13:47.840 that it has often been wrong is not evidence that 0:13:47.960 --> 0:13:53.560 your particular bucking of it is correct. Now, so what 0:13:53.760 --> 0:13:57.040 is the evidence that Morgan presents for her hypothesis. Well, so, 0:13:57.080 --> 0:13:59.600 first of all, she looks at the really obvious thing. 0:14:00.280 --> 0:14:03.480 Where's all the hair, right, the naked skin. When you 0:14:03.559 --> 0:14:07.600 look for other mammals without body hair like us, they're 0:14:07.640 --> 0:14:14.120 almost all, she says, water dwelling creatures, the dugong, the walrus, dolphins, whales, 0:14:14.240 --> 0:14:17.800 the hippopotamus, the manateee. Yeah. The only other example that 0:14:17.800 --> 0:14:20.280 comes to mind is, of course, the naked mole rat um, 0:14:20.280 --> 0:14:22.880 which is also kind of a special case given in 0:14:23.000 --> 0:14:27.560 it's a subterranean rodent that lives with a with a 0:14:27.640 --> 0:14:30.880 hive like structure. Yeah, she mentions it actually, uh, And 0:14:30.920 --> 0:14:32.760 then she says, wait a minute, wait a minute, what 0:14:32.800 --> 0:14:35.960 about the elephant. That's a land dwelling mammal without much 0:14:35.960 --> 0:14:39.520 body hair? Well, Morgan says, it turns out that more 0:14:39.560 --> 0:14:42.880 recent studies have found that the elephant had an aquatic ancestor. 0:14:43.480 --> 0:14:45.600 I looked this up to make sure she's she's sort 0:14:45.640 --> 0:14:49.240 of correct about this. The elephants are related to an 0:14:49.280 --> 0:14:53.280 ancient mammal called the more ethereum, which apparently was semi 0:14:53.320 --> 0:14:57.440 aquatic lived in around swamps and rivers. Maybe not necessarily 0:14:57.440 --> 0:14:59.920 a direct ancestor of the elephant, but a very close 0:15:00.000 --> 0:15:04.600 ancient relative of elephants. She says, there's a strong correlation 0:15:04.680 --> 0:15:08.320 between nakedness and water. There's some hairy or furry mammals 0:15:08.360 --> 0:15:10.160 that do live in the water, right, You can think 0:15:10.200 --> 0:15:13.440 of a few, Oh yeah, I mean the otters, beavers. 0:15:13.480 --> 0:15:15.280 If you want to make a stretch. You can even 0:15:15.280 --> 0:15:17.960 look at things like like the polar bear, which does 0:15:18.280 --> 0:15:21.400 is not an aquatic mammal per se, but does spend 0:15:21.440 --> 0:15:23.680 a lot of time in the water and is an 0:15:23.720 --> 0:15:27.120 adept swimmer. Yeah, but there, She says. There are almost 0:15:27.160 --> 0:15:31.080 no hairless or smooth mammals that do not either live 0:15:31.120 --> 0:15:34.000 in the water or have fairly recent ancestors that lived 0:15:34.000 --> 0:15:36.680 in the water, and she claims that the only exception, 0:15:36.880 --> 0:15:40.000 as we mentioned, is the naked Somalian mole rat, which 0:15:40.040 --> 0:15:43.040 she says, quote never puts its nose above the surface 0:15:43.080 --> 0:15:46.320 of the ground. Then there's the question of bipedality, right, 0:15:47.280 --> 0:15:50.240 there's no real comparison in nature because we're the only 0:15:50.280 --> 0:15:53.680 mammal that walks consistently on two legs. According to Morgan, 0:15:54.040 --> 0:15:56.160 all the things rear up at the time. You know, 0:15:56.240 --> 0:15:58.160 at times a cat will rear up on two legs 0:15:58.160 --> 0:16:01.800 and look exceedingly creepy, but that's at leg the rest 0:16:01.800 --> 0:16:03.760 of the time. Now that's mammals. Of course, once you 0:16:03.800 --> 0:16:06.800 start looking into birds and dinosaurs, of course you get 0:16:06.920 --> 0:16:12.960 basically humanoids by this characteristic. But the some four legged animals, 0:16:12.960 --> 0:16:15.160 of course, as we say, can occasionally stand up on 0:16:15.160 --> 0:16:19.200 two legs. When do our closest ape relatives walk on 0:16:19.240 --> 0:16:23.080 two legs? Well, Morgan claims there's only one circumstance when 0:16:23.120 --> 0:16:25.640 they always walk on two legs, and it's when they're 0:16:25.640 --> 0:16:28.840 wading through water. You should remember that, because I want 0:16:28.840 --> 0:16:31.720 to take issue with that in a bit. Then she 0:16:31.720 --> 0:16:34.880 she marshals some more evidence. She says that how about 0:16:34.880 --> 0:16:38.840 subcutaneous fat. Morgan says, we have a layer of fat 0:16:39.000 --> 0:16:42.480 running underneath our skin and other great apes don't have this. 0:16:42.960 --> 0:16:46.160 They're fat is stored more internally around their kidneys and 0:16:46.200 --> 0:16:48.320 so forth, and our fat is stored largely in this 0:16:48.440 --> 0:16:51.800 layer under our skin, similar to other water dwelling animals, 0:16:51.840 --> 0:16:54.720 kind of a blubber layer basically. Yeah, I mean, it's 0:16:54.760 --> 0:16:57.560 kind of an unfair comparison to make here, but we've 0:16:57.600 --> 0:17:01.160 all seen these images of a hairless guerrilla and they're 0:17:01.200 --> 0:17:05.960 just completely jacked, just conceedingly ripped in ways. It's like 0:17:06.119 --> 0:17:09.600 hilarious muscles, comic book cover muscles. Yeah, that it is 0:17:09.600 --> 0:17:14.119 a comic book physique, and the kind of which you 0:17:14.119 --> 0:17:18.080 you rarely see in in the average human. Here's another one. 0:17:18.160 --> 0:17:20.920 She says, how about speech. This is a pretty big difference, right, 0:17:21.240 --> 0:17:24.520 Oh yeah, I mean that's one of the defining properties 0:17:24.600 --> 0:17:28.480 of of humans. Yeah. In fact, you know, there are 0:17:28.480 --> 0:17:30.240 a lot of people who would make the case, including 0:17:30.280 --> 0:17:32.040 somebody we've had on the show in the past. Friends 0:17:32.040 --> 0:17:34.840 at evolved that a lot of the distinctions we try 0:17:34.880 --> 0:17:38.400 to make that really separate humans and other animals by 0:17:38.440 --> 0:17:41.600 some hard line of division, The lines a lot blurrier 0:17:41.640 --> 0:17:44.239 than you might think. But one thing he sort of 0:17:44.240 --> 0:17:47.720 made allowances for is maybe language that we that is 0:17:47.760 --> 0:17:50.800 the closest thing we've got to like a real edge 0:17:50.840 --> 0:17:54.040 on other animals. And so how come we can talk 0:17:54.080 --> 0:17:56.960 and other hominids can't. Well, Morgan claims that the difference 0:17:57.000 --> 0:17:59.600 between a human and a gorilla is not in the 0:17:59.640 --> 0:18:03.439 speech producing organs of the throat and the lungs, but 0:18:03.520 --> 0:18:07.600 in the ability to consciously control the use of breath. 0:18:09.119 --> 0:18:11.320 And this is interesting to me because I think I've 0:18:11.320 --> 0:18:14.560 asked this on the show before. But why are some 0:18:14.720 --> 0:18:19.560 body processes controlled entirely by the unconscious nervous system while 0:18:19.600 --> 0:18:24.040 others are conscious and others can be toggled on and 0:18:24.080 --> 0:18:28.840 off between conscious and unconscious control. Like you can't consciously 0:18:28.960 --> 0:18:32.800 toggle on and off your digestion or your heartbeat or 0:18:32.840 --> 0:18:36.200 your metabolism. But even though most of the time your 0:18:36.240 --> 0:18:40.080 breathing is unconscious and automatic, you can take it over 0:18:40.160 --> 0:18:44.199 with your executive control and consciously toggle your breath on 0:18:44.280 --> 0:18:47.840 and off if you want to, like what causes this difference? Yeah, 0:18:47.880 --> 0:18:50.840 I mean, if memory serves me correctly, thinking back to 0:18:50.880 --> 0:18:54.960 our John C. Lily episodes in the past, uh, dolphins 0:18:55.160 --> 0:18:59.160 UH have such manual control over their breathing that they 0:18:59.200 --> 0:19:03.480 can arguably decide to just shut it down and to 0:19:03.600 --> 0:19:07.120 drown themselves. Wow. Well, I mean that would be an 0:19:07.119 --> 0:19:09.560 example that would sort of go with her hypothesis. Right. 0:19:09.600 --> 0:19:12.600 The idea is that, uh, the only reason we would 0:19:12.640 --> 0:19:15.919 be able to evolve this conscious control of our breath 0:19:16.240 --> 0:19:18.800 is if our past ancestors were shaped by a selection 0:19:18.840 --> 0:19:21.399 pressure that favored the ability to like hold the breath 0:19:21.440 --> 0:19:24.600 and dive underwater. She says, This would explain a lot. 0:19:24.640 --> 0:19:27.000 I do think that's a really interesting question of why 0:19:27.040 --> 0:19:29.639 we can do that. I'm not sure I'm going to 0:19:29.720 --> 0:19:33.959 go along with her on this being an exclusively human 0:19:34.160 --> 0:19:37.560 and aquatic mammal trait because I don't know. I've seen 0:19:37.680 --> 0:19:41.920 videos of dogs diving deep underwater and other mammals doing that. 0:19:42.000 --> 0:19:44.119 It seems that they have some kind of ability to 0:19:44.160 --> 0:19:47.320 hold their breath and they're not semi aquatic mammals. Yeah, 0:19:47.320 --> 0:19:50.080 I would agree with that. Okay, Another thing, she says, 0:19:50.080 --> 0:19:55.000 how about hydrodynamics. We are anatomically streamlined. Do you ever 0:19:55.080 --> 0:19:58.560 think about why is the human body basically a straight line? 0:19:58.600 --> 0:20:00.920 Why are we sort of dart ape where we can 0:20:01.000 --> 0:20:04.199 dive smoothly into the water. She says, quote, try to 0:20:04.240 --> 0:20:09.440 imagine a guerrilla diving into water. I think I've seen 0:20:09.440 --> 0:20:12.120 it done in a cartoon, but that's about it. Well, 0:20:12.200 --> 0:20:14.760 they it's like a cannonball, right, they make a big splash. 0:20:15.320 --> 0:20:19.400 Morgan says, we're halfway between being a chimp into fish 0:20:19.440 --> 0:20:23.000 and so Morgan, after marshaling this evidence, she says that 0:20:23.040 --> 0:20:26.360 she wants to insist the idea is not lunatic fringe. 0:20:27.119 --> 0:20:30.520 And I'd say I largely agree. I think it's probably wrong, 0:20:30.800 --> 0:20:34.000 but I don't think it's like the ancient aliens hypothesis 0:20:34.119 --> 0:20:39.000 or something. I think it is an extraneous hypothesis that 0:20:39.000 --> 0:20:41.439 that we don't really need to resort to, and so 0:20:41.520 --> 0:20:46.320 it's not parsimonious, but I think it's like reasonable to 0:20:46.359 --> 0:20:49.960 play around with this idea. Yeah, I would agree it 0:20:50.040 --> 0:20:55.920 is certainly not ancient aliens. But there are some some issues, 0:20:56.359 --> 0:20:58.800 some some problems, and some gaps that have not been 0:20:58.920 --> 0:21:02.600 filled in by uh fossil evidence for example. Right, But 0:21:02.640 --> 0:21:05.240 the real question is like, what is the substance of 0:21:05.240 --> 0:21:09.400 the critique from biology and paleo anthropology. Why would they 0:21:09.640 --> 0:21:13.840 not accept this hypothesis. So, starting with a few answers, 0:21:14.040 --> 0:21:17.639 probably the biggest weakness for the hypothesis is and this 0:21:17.720 --> 0:21:19.520 might sound kind of silly when we say it, but 0:21:19.760 --> 0:21:24.240 there's no direct evidence for it. There's no fossil evidence 0:21:24.320 --> 0:21:29.359 whatsoever that we've ever had any instance of an aquatic humanoid. Right, 0:21:29.440 --> 0:21:33.320 show me the remains of the aquatic humanoid, and it 0:21:33.359 --> 0:21:36.119 is the directive, and we do not have an answer. Yeah, 0:21:36.160 --> 0:21:39.359 nothing like that. Now, So this means it's all inference 0:21:39.400 --> 0:21:43.120 and speculation. It doesn't make it necessarily wrong because we're 0:21:43.160 --> 0:21:46.399 talking about the ancient past, and sometimes when we're trying 0:21:46.400 --> 0:21:48.920 to figure stuff out about the ancient past, we don't 0:21:49.000 --> 0:21:52.439 have direct evidence. Sometimes we're just in that situation and 0:21:52.520 --> 0:21:55.240 all you've got is inference in speculation. So you just 0:21:55.320 --> 0:21:58.960 try to find the best most plausible inference and speculation 0:21:59.320 --> 0:22:02.040 to form your eye ideas around. But we have to 0:22:02.040 --> 0:22:04.560 acknowledge that there is no direct evidence for it, and 0:22:04.600 --> 0:22:07.040 so it's kind of in a weak starting place. Physical 0:22:07.080 --> 0:22:10.160 evidence would make a huge difference. Now. I came across 0:22:10.280 --> 0:22:14.760 another criticism of the aquatic aphypothesis by the paleo anthropologist 0:22:14.840 --> 0:22:18.439 John Hawks of the University of Wisconsin Madison. UH. He 0:22:18.520 --> 0:22:21.560 runs a popular paleo anthropology blog, and he put a 0:22:21.600 --> 0:22:24.840 post on his blog about this idea. UH some of 0:22:24.840 --> 0:22:27.040 the points he makes are are pretty interesting. One of 0:22:27.040 --> 0:22:30.520 the things is that Hawks claims the aquatic ap hypothesis 0:22:30.640 --> 0:22:35.760 is not parsimonious. Now, parsimony refers to the idea of 0:22:35.800 --> 0:22:39.000 the number of assumptions you have to make without evidence 0:22:39.359 --> 0:22:42.920 in order to entertain a hypothesis. So, for a quick example, 0:22:43.280 --> 0:22:45.960 imagine you leave a sandwich sitting on your desk at work. 0:22:46.440 --> 0:22:49.000 You walk away for a minute, you come back, there 0:22:49.080 --> 0:22:53.520 is a human bite shaped chunk of the sandwich missing. Okay, 0:22:53.760 --> 0:22:56.720 Now you look around, everybody's just working like normal. Noe, 0:22:56.720 --> 0:22:59.600 no direct evidence of what happened. So you have to 0:22:59.640 --> 0:23:02.040 make an inference. Right by the way, I am picturing 0:23:02.040 --> 0:23:08.400 the scenario taking place in the movie Leviathan of those coworkers. Right, So, yeah, 0:23:08.520 --> 0:23:11.440