WEBVTT - From the Vault: Aquatic Humanoids, Part 2 0:00:05.880 --> 0:00:07.920 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your mind. My name 0:00:07.960 --> 0:00:10.600 is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday, 0:00:10.600 --> 0:00:12.680 so that means it's time to venture into the vault 0:00:12.720 --> 0:00:15.880 for a classic episode. That's right. This is the second 0:00:15.920 --> 0:00:19.360 part of our our look at Aquatic Humanoids. This is 0:00:19.400 --> 0:00:24.200 from January, and it's a look at everything from the 0:00:24.239 --> 0:00:27.440 Sirens of the Odyssey to the creature from the Black Lagoon, 0:00:28.320 --> 0:00:33.000 the Guild people from the the HP Leftcraft stories, and 0:00:33.080 --> 0:00:36.159 it's going to get into territory explored by the recently 0:00:36.159 --> 0:00:39.559 published sci fi podcast Transgenesis, which I wrote and created 0:00:39.840 --> 0:00:44.519 along with the help of Alexander Williams, Lauren Vogelbaum, various 0:00:44.520 --> 0:00:46.640 folks here at how stuff works in some very talented 0:00:46.640 --> 0:00:49.479 people from outside the organization as well. Joe shows up 0:00:49.479 --> 0:00:51.360 in the show at one point. I think I make 0:00:51.400 --> 0:00:53.599 a creepy camey. You do, you may make an extended 0:00:53.600 --> 0:00:57.080 creepy cameo. All ten episodes are gonna launch at once, 0:00:57.360 --> 0:00:59.480 so that you can you can binge them. You can, 0:00:59.560 --> 0:01:01.960 you can, you can spread them out over your commute, 0:01:02.000 --> 0:01:03.320 you know, however you want to do it. You can 0:01:03.360 --> 0:01:06.520 also find it online at Transgenesis dot Show. But it's 0:01:06.520 --> 0:01:09.680 a sci fi podcast that has certain things to do 0:01:09.840 --> 0:01:13.640 with the idea of deep sea intelligent life, deep sea 0:01:13.760 --> 0:01:16.440 human ooid creatures, and that's the kind of thing that 0:01:16.560 --> 0:01:19.400 we explore in this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind. 0:01:19.720 --> 0:01:22.040 That's right, So, without any further ado, I say, let's 0:01:22.040 --> 0:01:28.000 go right to the episode. Welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:01:28.040 --> 0:01:37.119 Your Mind from how Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, welcome 0:01:37.120 --> 0:01:39.080 to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name is Robert 0:01:39.120 --> 0:01:41.320 Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and today is going to 0:01:41.360 --> 0:01:43.880 be part two of a two part episode about the 0:01:43.880 --> 0:01:47.560 aquatic humanoid. Now, last time we really focused on the 0:01:47.680 --> 0:01:53.840 mythology and cultural beliefs about our aquatic counterparts, the humanoid 0:01:53.960 --> 0:01:56.840 types who live in the depths and there this is 0:01:57.080 --> 0:02:00.520 a trope all throughout fiction. You find it in all 0:02:00.600 --> 0:02:02.920 kinds of human cultures. But one thing I think we 0:02:02.960 --> 0:02:05.760 didn't discuss last time, or if we did, it's my 0:02:05.840 --> 0:02:09.440 memory is not serving me well, is the movie Leviathan. 0:02:09.639 --> 0:02:12.320 Oh Yes, one of the one of the several nineteen 0:02:12.360 --> 0:02:16.480 eighty nine underwater peril movies that that we keep chatting about, 0:02:16.520 --> 0:02:18.959 and at least in a previous episode, I'm not sure 0:02:18.960 --> 0:02:21.400 if we we talked about it in The Aquatic Humanoids 0:02:21.440 --> 0:02:24.160 Part one or not. We've talked about it so much recently, 0:02:24.240 --> 0:02:27.040 I can't even recall when it happened. But anyway, Yeah, 0:02:27.040 --> 0:02:30.080 so ninety nine you had James Cameron's The Abyss, but 0:02:30.120 --> 0:02:34.000 you also had Deep Star six Leviathan, Lords of the Deep. 0:02:34.440 --> 0:02:39.280 For some reason, everybody went nuts making underwater sci fi movies. Yeah, 0:02:39.440 --> 0:02:42.280 we've been sort of trying to piece together in a 0:02:42.360 --> 0:02:45.160 casual way. Why that was, you know, what what was 0:02:45.200 --> 0:02:47.560 happening in the world was it did have to do 0:02:47.639 --> 0:02:50.880 with that, with recent underwater exploration that really inspired everybody 0:02:50.880 --> 0:02:52.680 at the same time. Or did everyone just know that 0:02:52.880 --> 0:02:55.600 the Abyss was coming and it made sense for all 0:02:55.680 --> 0:02:59.280 the various cinematic lamp preyest to converge upon it. Now, 0:02:59.400 --> 0:03:02.079 Leviathan is a I think you'll back me up here, 0:03:02.160 --> 0:03:05.800 a terrible movie, but a great terrible movie. It is. Uh, 0:03:06.760 --> 0:03:10.639 it is a thoroughly enjoyable, flawed film. It's this the 0:03:10.680 --> 0:03:13.200 type of bad movie that I just really eat up 0:03:13.240 --> 0:03:16.480 that ends up in I think inspiring me more than 0:03:16.600 --> 0:03:20.160 good underwater movies. Yeah, it's such an alien rip off 0:03:20.280 --> 0:03:24.120 the DVD I had of it, it actually says alien 0:03:24.240 --> 0:03:28.160 underwater that's the poll quote. Yeah, it is highly derivative. 0:03:28.200 --> 0:03:30.919 But God that the cast is so good and the 0:03:31.080 --> 0:03:32.880 look of the film, like it has a Stan Winston 0:03:33.320 --> 0:03:36.400 Studios monster in it, so you know that's gonna look 0:03:36.440 --> 0:03:39.320 like a million bucks. And the the overall sets that 0:03:39.360 --> 0:03:42.640 are used, especially the interior sets for this underwater station, 0:03:42.960 --> 0:03:46.120 are tremendous. Like the set does as much as the 0:03:46.160 --> 0:03:49.360 cast does, really to create a sense of back story 0:03:49.440 --> 0:03:52.520 for these characters. You know, in a way, the sleaziness 0:03:52.600 --> 0:03:55.440 of Daniel Stearns performance in the movie is kind of 0:03:55.480 --> 0:03:58.160 a set in its own. It's like a landscape of 0:03:58.240 --> 0:04:02.000 sleeves and obnoxious nous. Yeah, he plays this sleazy character 0:04:02.120 --> 0:04:06.000 named six Pack, I believe, and it's easy to think 0:04:06.040 --> 0:04:07.960 back on the film and think that their moments where 0:04:07.960 --> 0:04:11.480 the character reaches peak sleaziness, but he really just achieves 0:04:11.480 --> 0:04:15.960 a high plateau of sleaziness throughout his time in the film. Okay, 0:04:16.000 --> 0:04:19.320 let's not dwell on Leviathan too much, but it does 0:04:19.400 --> 0:04:21.440 relate to what we're going to talk about today. So 0:04:21.520 --> 0:04:25.440 today we wanted to address some of the biological ideas 0:04:25.480 --> 0:04:28.839 about aquatic humanoids. And so one of the things in 0:04:28.960 --> 0:04:32.719 Leviathan is you spoiler alert for this nineteen eighty nine 0:04:33.040 --> 0:04:36.240 b movie. You find out that the Russians in the 0:04:36.279 --> 0:04:41.240 movie are trying to create an aquatic humanoid through genetic alteration. Right, 0:04:41.320 --> 0:04:43.680 of course, that ends up creating a monster. A monster 0:04:43.839 --> 0:04:46.360 I should add that is in many ways kind of 0:04:46.400 --> 0:04:49.440 an etheo centaur, of which we discussed in the first episode, 0:04:49.440 --> 0:04:52.960 this sort of hybrid of different parts creating this this 0:04:53.040 --> 0:04:58.120 kind of large centaur esque chimera. So, yeah, you've got 0:04:58.160 --> 0:05:00.760 this giant monster that's basically got a at fish head 0:05:01.080 --> 0:05:03.520 and then it's got Daniel Stearn's face sticking out of 0:05:03.520 --> 0:05:06.960 its back and some other random tentacles and lampreys poking 0:05:07.040 --> 0:05:09.840 off of it. But this was, in the context of 0:05:09.839 --> 0:05:13.560 the film, an attempt to create Homo aquaticus, the human 0:05:14.000 --> 0:05:17.280 version of an underwater creature, or maybe the underwater version 0:05:17.440 --> 0:05:20.320 of the human today. We want to look at could 0:05:20.400 --> 0:05:24.520 such a creature exist, and what would it look like biologically, 0:05:25.120 --> 0:05:29.800 and if aquatic humanoids could exist in reality, how would 0:05:29.839 --> 0:05:34.479 they figure into our our picture of human evolution. Yeah, 0:05:34.560 --> 0:05:37.080 it's it's a fascinating question. Of course, the you know 0:05:37.120 --> 0:05:39.640 the the The easy answer is, of course, yes, all 0:05:39.920 --> 0:05:42.080 life came from the sea, and we have plenty of 0:05:42.120 --> 0:05:45.040 cases of terrestrial life returning to the sea, so we're 0:05:45.080 --> 0:05:50.040 not talking about just complete whackadoodle ideas about about life 0:05:50.320 --> 0:05:53.120 emerging from one or descending into the other. Right, you 0:05:53.160 --> 0:05:55.839 are correct to point out that that leaving the water 0:05:56.000 --> 0:05:59.880 for terrestrial existence can happen, and then leaving terrestria is 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:02.400 that the now, and I guess leaving the land for 0:06:02.440 --> 0:06:05.839 a watery existence can also happen. These are totally biologically 0:06:05.880 --> 0:06:09.279 plausible scenarios and they happen all the time. But could 0:06:09.320 --> 0:06:12.680 it happen with us? And in fact, has it already 0:06:12.760 --> 0:06:16.159 happened with us? So I guess it's time to venture 0:06:16.320 --> 0:06:19.400 into something that people have asked us to discuss on 0:06:19.440 --> 0:06:22.200 the show before. We we've never done it before. But 0:06:22.320 --> 0:06:26.919 it is a fringe hypothesis and human evolution called the 0:06:26.960 --> 0:06:30.760 aquatic ape hypothesis. Yes, and and of course that instantly 0:06:30.800 --> 0:06:34.800 summons the images of a guerrilla mermaid. I will not 0:06:34.880 --> 0:06:37.400 I will not try to convince you to dismiss that 0:06:37.920 --> 0:06:41.640 that apparition from your mind, but but it is almost 0:06:41.640 --> 0:06:44.039 impossible not to think of that So now you're saying, 0:06:44.080 --> 0:06:47.520 like fish tail with guerrilla top, yes, not like not 0:06:47.560 --> 0:06:51.159 like Mermaid top with guerrilla legs. No, no, no fish 0:06:51.240 --> 0:06:54.119 fish on the bottom. Uh, silver back grilla on the top. 0:06:54.240 --> 0:06:57.400 That's the only way to put it together, Marilla. Yeah, 0:06:57.760 --> 0:07:00.359 not exactly, but close. Now, before we get into the 0:07:00.400 --> 0:07:02.760 specifics of the hypothesis, I just want to start by 0:07:02.760 --> 0:07:05.760 cautioning that this is not a hypothesis that is widely 0:07:05.800 --> 0:07:09.960 accepted by scientists or biologists. It's generally frowned upon by 0:07:10.560 --> 0:07:13.360 paleo anthropologists and other people who study the history of 0:07:13.440 --> 0:07:17.440 human evolution. But I think it's worth addressing, especially since 0:07:17.440 --> 0:07:20.720 people have asked about it before, and it fits into 0:07:20.760 --> 0:07:24.560 this model of the aquatic humanoid and creates at least 0:07:24.640 --> 0:07:27.800 a plausible sounding scenario in which there could have been 0:07:27.840 --> 0:07:30.480 an aquatic humanoid. Yeah, if we entered into it as 0:07:30.520 --> 0:07:33.480 a as an alternate hypothesis, If we enter into it 0:07:33.520 --> 0:07:35.640 as a thought experiment, and we do not enter into 0:07:35.720 --> 0:07:39.280 it trying to make an argument for the existence of 0:07:39.440 --> 0:07:42.960 Triton's or or mer people or some sort of underwater race, 0:07:43.120 --> 0:07:46.120 then I think we're in safe waters. Okay, So it 0:07:46.240 --> 0:07:50.480 starts with a simple observation. Our closest relatives in the 0:07:50.480 --> 0:07:53.480 animal kingdom are the other great apes, also known as 0:07:53.480 --> 0:07:58.800 hamanids or the family Homonida. This includes orangutans, guerrillas, chimpanzees, 0:07:58.840 --> 0:08:03.400 and binobos, and metically we are extremely similar to these animals, 0:08:03.520 --> 0:08:08.960 especially to chimpanzees and binobo's. Anatomically we're also extremely similar 0:08:08.960 --> 0:08:10.640 to them if you look at all of our body 0:08:10.720 --> 0:08:13.680 parts in the way they fit together, were very very 0:08:13.720 --> 0:08:17.120 close to these animals. But there are a few key differences, 0:08:17.800 --> 0:08:20.400 and some of the most major of these key differences 0:08:20.440 --> 0:08:26.520 are that we are mostly hairless bipeds, were naked, smooth skinned, 0:08:26.640 --> 0:08:29.840 and we walk on two legs. And meanwhile, all these 0:08:29.840 --> 0:08:33.360 other animals are hairy quadrupeds. They're covered from head to 0:08:33.400 --> 0:08:37.800 toe in in hair for and usually walk on four legs. 0:08:37.840 --> 0:08:41.280 So why that difference? What happened in the history of 0:08:41.440 --> 0:08:45.640 only the human branch of this family to drive our 0:08:45.760 --> 0:08:50.280 ancestors to become relatively smooth and bipedal while the rest 0:08:50.280 --> 0:08:53.800 of our closest cousins didn't. Now just a note, I've 0:08:53.800 --> 0:08:57.320 often seen this framed in terms of questions like, quote, 0:08:57.480 --> 0:09:00.440 how did we get from chimpanzees to human ends. That 0:09:00.559 --> 0:09:04.320 question is obviously nonsense, because we didn't get from chimpanzees 0:09:04.320 --> 0:09:08.000 to humans. Both chimpanzees and humans came from something that 0:09:08.080 --> 0:09:11.680 lived more than four million years ago. Chimpanzees are our cousins, 0:09:11.760 --> 0:09:14.959 not our ancestors. But the question is why do humans 0:09:15.080 --> 0:09:18.280 look different from them and from every other hominid, given 0:09:18.320 --> 0:09:22.360 that were such close cousins. Well, in March nineteen sixty 0:09:22.440 --> 0:09:26.200 a British marine biologist named Alistair Hardy published an article 0:09:26.240 --> 0:09:29.760 and New Scientists arguing for a pretty startling answer to this. 0:09:30.559 --> 0:09:34.480 Hardy said, in the distant past, our ancestors distinguished themselves 0:09:34.480 --> 0:09:37.000 from the other great apes or the other great ape 0:09:37.040 --> 0:09:41.760 ancestors by becoming an aquatic organism. So the idea here's 0:09:41.760 --> 0:09:44.920 our ancestors adapted to life in the water for a 0:09:44.960 --> 0:09:47.800 while and then returned to land exactly, and that that 0:09:48.000 --> 0:09:52.560 shaped the differences between humans today and the other great apes. 0:09:52.920 --> 0:09:56.000 And so in this article, Hardy summarized his hypothesis about 0:09:56.040 --> 0:10:00.360 how quote Man's immediate ancestors diverged from quote more ape 0:10:00.400 --> 0:10:04.920 like forms as follows. My thesis is that a branch 0:10:05.040 --> 0:10:09.079 of this primitive ape stock was forced by competition from 0:10:09.160 --> 0:10:12.400 life in the trees to feed on the seashores and 0:10:12.440 --> 0:10:17.000 to hunt for food shellfish, sea urchins, et cetera. In 0:10:17.040 --> 0:10:20.840 the shallow waters off the coast. I suppose that they 0:10:20.880 --> 0:10:23.400 were forced into the water, just as we have seen 0:10:23.480 --> 0:10:27.200 happen in so many other groups of terrestrial animals. I'm 0:10:27.200 --> 0:10:30.160 imagining this happening in the warmer parts of the world, 0:10:30.480 --> 0:10:33.319 in the tropical seas, where man could stand being in 0:10:33.360 --> 0:10:37.080 the water for relatively long periods, that is, several hours 0:10:37.120 --> 0:10:40.720 at a stretch. I imagine him waiting at first, perhaps 0:10:40.720 --> 0:10:44.680 still crouching almost on all fours, groping about in the water, 0:10:45.080 --> 0:10:48.960 digging for shellfish, but becoming gradually more adept at swimming. 0:10:49.440 --> 0:10:52.400 Then in time I see him becoming more and more 0:10:52.440 --> 0:10:55.600 of an aquatic animal, going farther out from the shore. 0:10:56.000 --> 0:10:59.840 I see him diving for shellfish, prizing out worms, burrowing 0:11:00.040 --> 0:11:03.000 crabs and bivalves from the sands at the bottom of 0:11:03.040 --> 0:11:06.959 shallow seas, and breaking open sea urchins, and then with 0:11:07.040 --> 0:11:11.480 increasing skill, capturing fish with his hands. And of course 0:11:11.520 --> 0:11:13.640 this matches up the what we know about human cultures 0:11:13.720 --> 0:11:18.160 that have a legacy of existing close to the sea 0:11:18.200 --> 0:11:20.600 and upon the sea. Yeah, now this is describing what 0:11:20.640 --> 0:11:23.520 we might call a semi aquatic existence rather than a 0:11:23.559 --> 0:11:27.280 fully aquatic existence. Right, So it's not that we became 0:11:27.480 --> 0:11:31.079 whales and lived entirely in the water, but that the 0:11:31.160 --> 0:11:34.160 hypothesis is that we sort of became like Homo beachicus, 0:11:35.160 --> 0:11:37.760 that we live adjacent to the water and spent a 0:11:37.800 --> 0:11:43.080 whole lot of time in it. Homo beach bummocus, Homo 0:11:43.120 --> 0:11:46.600 biwa chicas. I like it. Now, this might sound crazy, 0:11:46.679 --> 0:11:49.280 and as we said, it is certainly not accepted by 0:11:49.320 --> 0:11:52.839 mainstream biologists or paleo anthropologists. But I want to say 0:11:52.920 --> 0:11:56.680 that there's nothing in principle wrong with the idea of 0:11:56.679 --> 0:11:59.560 a land dwelling mammal evolving to become an aquatic creature. 0:11:59.559 --> 0:12:02.440 We mentioned this earlier, but just to reiterate, like, where 0:12:02.440 --> 0:12:05.920 do you think whales and dolphins came from? More than 0:12:06.000 --> 0:12:09.000 fifty million years ago? The ancestors of whales and dolphins 0:12:09.000 --> 0:12:12.320 were four legged, land dwelling mammals that went through many 0:12:12.400 --> 0:12:15.880 stages of evolution deeper and deeper into the water. They 0:12:15.920 --> 0:12:18.920 started as these creatures that lived adjacent to the water 0:12:19.320 --> 0:12:21.640 and spent more and more time in the water over 0:12:21.679 --> 0:12:24.800 the generations, becoming more and more adapted to it from 0:12:24.840 --> 0:12:29.800 the semi aquatic waiting lifestyle of pacacidas and into high 0:12:29.880 --> 0:12:33.360 us to like this more otter like existence of this 0:12:33.440 --> 0:12:37.440 creature called ambulositis, and then eventually two creatures like the 0:12:37.520 --> 0:12:40.080 Dora don which start to look sort of like modern 0:12:40.120 --> 0:12:42.840 whales with eyes on the side and the breathing hole 0:12:43.240 --> 0:12:47.040 dorsally migrated up toward the top of the head. And 0:12:47.120 --> 0:12:50.320 there's a similar story with pinnipeds like seals and sea lions. 0:12:50.360 --> 0:12:53.840 They're believed to have evolved from land dwelling quadrupeds that 0:12:53.880 --> 0:12:57.640 were something more like bears or musta Lloyd's meaning things 0:12:57.679 --> 0:13:01.920 like skunks, raccoons, or weasels. So evolution of land dwelling 0:13:01.960 --> 0:13:04.960 mammals into water dwelling mammals is not only possible, it 0:13:05.040 --> 0:13:07.920 has happened lots of times. This is something that's totally 0:13:07.960 --> 0:13:12.200 biologically plausible. The plausibility of that scenario is not something 0:13:12.360 --> 0:13:15.960 that's necessarily a problem with the aquatic ape hypothesis. The 0:13:16.000 --> 0:13:19.640 problems come in later because what's the real question? Did 0:13:19.679 --> 0:13:24.480 it specifically happen to our ancestors? Right? Because if it, 0:13:24.600 --> 0:13:26.400 if it did happen, we should be able to find 0:13:26.480 --> 0:13:29.520 some evidence of it. Right. So, as we said this, 0:13:29.600 --> 0:13:32.760 this hypothesis is not popular with scientists and experts in 0:13:32.800 --> 0:13:35.560 the field, but it has really continued to capture the 0:13:35.640 --> 0:13:38.640 interest of the public since it was first introduced. So 0:13:38.679 --> 0:13:41.280 it was first proposed by, as we said, the British 0:13:41.280 --> 0:13:44.400 marine biologist Alastair Hardy in nineteen sixty but it was 0:13:44.480 --> 0:13:48.760 really most popularized by a Welsh author named Elaine Morgan 0:13:48.920 --> 0:13:52.920 in the nineteen seventies and eighties, primarily through she She 0:13:52.960 --> 0:13:55.360 wrote about it in a book called The Descent of Woman, 0:13:55.400 --> 0:13:58.319 but then also in a book called The Aquatic Ape 0:13:59.000 --> 0:14:02.400 and so more. His argument for the aquatic a hypothesis 0:14:02.640 --> 0:14:05.680 is interesting, and she she summarized it in a TED 0:14:05.760 --> 0:14:08.160 talk in two thousand nine before she passed away in 0:14:08.160 --> 0:14:10.760 two thousand thirteen. And so I think maybe we should 0:14:10.800 --> 0:14:13.319 look at some of the specifics of her argument. Uh 0:14:13.400 --> 0:14:15.319 so then we can we can think about them and 0:14:15.559 --> 0:14:17.600 see how they stack up. All right, But before we 0:14:17.600 --> 0:14:19.120 do that, let's take a quick break and when we 0:14:19.160 --> 0:14:22.560 come back, we'll dive in to the aquatic ape theory 0:14:22.640 --> 0:14:27.400 some more. Thank thank alright, we're back, all right. So 0:14:27.480 --> 0:14:30.680 Morgan's talk has a lot of framing material in it, 0:14:30.720 --> 0:14:33.480 where she sort of lays the context for her argument 0:14:33.560 --> 0:14:36.960 by talking about the idea of paradigm shifts and science 0:14:36.960 --> 0:14:39.840 and about how scientific consensus has often been wrong in 0:14:39.880 --> 0:14:44.200 the past. That's absolutely true. Scientific consensus has very often 0:14:44.240 --> 0:14:47.640 been disproved um. But one of the things I think 0:14:47.840 --> 0:14:50.080 we should be cautious about is when you start to 0:14:50.080 --> 0:14:56.000 hear somebody using that fact as an argument for their argument. 0:14:56.400 --> 0:14:58.400 If you know what I mean, it's often the opening 0:14:58.520 --> 0:15:02.280 argument of somebody who's about the some some some really 0:15:02.360 --> 0:15:05.880 fringe theory on you. Right, So, it is true that 0:15:05.920 --> 0:15:08.920 scientific consensus has often been wrong, but the fact that 0:15:08.960 --> 0:15:11.640 it has often been wrong is not evidence that your 0:15:11.800 --> 0:15:17.280 particular bucking of it is correct. Now, so what is 0:15:17.280 --> 0:15:20.480 the evidence that Morgan presents for her hypothesis. Well, so, 0:15:20.520 --> 0:15:23.040 first of all, she looks at the really obvious thing, 0:15:23.680 --> 0:15:26.920 where's all the hair, right, the naked skin. When you 0:15:27.000 --> 0:15:31.040 look for other mammals without body hair like us, they're 0:15:31.080 --> 0:15:34.920 almost all, she says, water dwelling creatures, the doo gong, 0:15:35.160 --> 0:15:40.360 the walrus, dolphins, whales, the hippopotamus, the manateee. Yeah. The 0:15:40.400 --> 0:15:42.040 only other example that comes to mind is, of course 0:15:42.080 --> 0:15:45.000 the naked mole ratum, which is also kind of a 0:15:45.040 --> 0:15:49.960 special case given in it's a subterranean rodent that lives 0:15:50.280 --> 0:15:53.200 with a with a hive like structure. Yes, she mentions 0:15:53.240 --> 0:15:55.720 it actually, and then she says, wait a minute, Wait 0:15:55.720 --> 0:15:58.480 a minute, what about the elephant. That's a land dwelling 0:15:58.520 --> 0:16:01.800 mammal without much body hair. Morgan says, it turns out 0:16:01.920 --> 0:16:05.080 that more recent studies have found that the elephant had 0:16:05.120 --> 0:16:08.160 an aquatic ancestor. I looked this up to make sure 0:16:08.240 --> 0:16:11.360 she's she's sort of correct about this. The elephants are 0:16:11.440 --> 0:16:15.520 related to an ancient mammal called the more ethereum, which 0:16:15.680 --> 0:16:19.240 apparently was semi aquatic lived in around swamps and rivers. 0:16:19.960 --> 0:16:22.720 Maybe not necessarily a direct ancestor of the elephant, but 0:16:22.760 --> 0:16:26.920 a very close ancient relative of elephants. She says, there's 0:16:26.920 --> 0:16:30.320 a strong correlation between nakedness and water. There are some 0:16:30.400 --> 0:16:33.080 hairy or furry mammals that do live in the water, right. 0:16:33.160 --> 0:16:35.400 You can think of a few, Oh yeah, I mean 0:16:35.480 --> 0:16:38.240 the otters, beavers. If you want to make a stretch, 0:16:38.280 --> 0:16:40.920 you can even look at things like like the polar bear, 0:16:40.960 --> 0:16:44.360 which does is not an aquatic mammal. Per se but 0:16:44.440 --> 0:16:46.440 does spend a lot of time in the water and 0:16:46.760 --> 0:16:50.040 is an adapted swimmer. Yeah, but there, she says, there 0:16:50.040 --> 0:16:53.800 are almost no hairless or smooth mammals that do not 0:16:53.920 --> 0:16:57.040 either live in the water or have fairly recent ancestors 0:16:57.080 --> 0:16:59.200 that lived in the water. And she claims that the 0:16:59.280 --> 0:17:02.440 only except and as we mentioned, is the naked Somalian 0:17:02.520 --> 0:17:05.639 mole rat, which she says, quote never puts its nose 0:17:05.720 --> 0:17:08.560 above the surface of the ground. Then there's the question 0:17:08.560 --> 0:17:12.960 of bipedality, right, there's no real comparison in nature because 0:17:12.960 --> 0:17:16.200 we're the only mammal that walks consistently on two legs. 0:17:16.200 --> 0:17:20.360 According to Morgan, Yeah, you know, at times a cat 0:17:20.440 --> 0:17:22.720 will rear up on two legs and look exceedingly creepy. 0:17:22.840 --> 0:17:25.200 But but that's about it. It's four legs the rest 0:17:25.240 --> 0:17:27.199 of the time. Now that's mammals. Of course, once you 0:17:27.200 --> 0:17:30.200 start looking into birds and dinosaurs, of course you get 0:17:30.320 --> 0:17:36.400 basically humanoids by this characteristic. But some four legged animals, 0:17:36.400 --> 0:17:38.560 of course, as we say, can occasionally stand up on 0:17:38.600 --> 0:17:42.600 two legs. When do our closest ape relatives walk on 0:17:42.680 --> 0:17:46.520 two legs? Will Morgan claims there's only one circumstance when 0:17:46.560 --> 0:17:49.040 they always walk on two legs, and it's when they're 0:17:49.080 --> 0:17:52.280 wading through water. You should remember that, because I want 0:17:52.280 --> 0:17:55.119 to take issue with that in a bit. Then she 0:17:55.119 --> 0:17:58.280 she marshals some more evidence. She says that, how about 0:17:58.320 --> 0:18:02.280 subcutaneous fat. Morgan says, we have a layer of fat 0:18:02.440 --> 0:18:05.920 running underneath our skin, and other great apes don't have this. 0:18:06.400 --> 0:18:09.600 They're fat is stored more internally around their kidneys and 0:18:09.640 --> 0:18:11.760 so forth, And our fat is stored largely in this 0:18:11.840 --> 0:18:15.200 layer under our skin, similar to other water dwelling animals, 0:18:15.280 --> 0:18:18.119 kind of a blubber layer basically. Yeah. I mean, it's 0:18:18.160 --> 0:18:21.000 kind of an unfair comparison to make here, but we've 0:18:21.000 --> 0:18:24.600 all seen these images of a hairless gorilla and they're 0:18:24.640 --> 0:18:29.080 just completely jacked, you know, they're just exceedingly ripped in ways. 0:18:29.080 --> 0:18:32.520 It's like hilarious muscles comic book cover muscles. Yeah, that 0:18:32.800 --> 0:18:35.959 it is a comic book of physique, and the kind 0:18:36.000 --> 0:18:40.280 of which you you rarely see in in the average human. 0:18:40.800 --> 0:18:43.199 Here's another one. She says, how about speech. This is 0:18:43.200 --> 0:18:45.520 a pretty big difference, right, Oh yeah, I mean that's 0:18:45.560 --> 0:18:49.600 the one of the defining properties of of humans. Yeah. 0:18:49.640 --> 0:18:52.400 In fact, you know, there are a lot of people 0:18:52.400 --> 0:18:54.439 who would make the case, including somebody we've had on 0:18:54.480 --> 0:18:56.639 the show in the past. Friends at evolved that a 0:18:56.680 --> 0:18:59.080 lot of the distinctions we try to make that really 0:18:59.240 --> 0:19:03.320 separate humans and other animals by some hard line of division, 0:19:03.640 --> 0:19:06.080 the linees a lot blurrier than you might think. But 0:19:06.560 --> 0:19:09.280 one thing he sort of made allowances for is maybe 0:19:09.359 --> 0:19:12.719 language that we that is the closest thing we've got 0:19:13.000 --> 0:19:16.240 to like a real edge on other animals. And so 0:19:16.359 --> 0:19:18.840 how come we can talk and other hominids can't. Well, 0:19:18.960 --> 0:19:21.359 Morgan claims that the difference between a human and a 0:19:21.400 --> 0:19:25.119 guerrilla is not in the speech producing organs of the 0:19:25.240 --> 0:19:29.160 throat and the lungs, but in the ability to consciously 0:19:29.359 --> 0:19:33.520 control the use of breath. And this is interesting to 0:19:33.520 --> 0:19:36.040 me because I think I've asked this on the show before. 0:19:36.160 --> 0:19:40.840 But why are some body processes controlled entirely by the 0:19:40.960 --> 0:19:46.000 unconscious nervous system while others are conscious and others can 0:19:46.040 --> 0:19:50.200 be toggled on and off between conscious and unconscious control, 0:19:50.640 --> 0:19:54.360 Like you can't consciously toggle on and off your digestion 0:19:55.040 --> 0:19:58.400 or your heart beat or your metabolism. But even though 0:19:58.600 --> 0:20:01.840 most of the time you're breathing is unconscious and automatic, 0:20:01.960 --> 0:20:05.919 you can take it over with your executive control and 0:20:05.960 --> 0:20:08.800 consciously toggle your breath on and off if you want to, 0:20:08.880 --> 0:20:11.960 Like what causes this difference? Yeah, I mean, if memory 0:20:12.080 --> 0:20:15.440 serves me correctly, thinking back to our John C. Lily 0:20:15.480 --> 0:20:20.160 episodes in the past, Uh, dolphins uh have such manual 0:20:20.200 --> 0:20:25.679 control over their breathing that they can arguably decide to 0:20:25.760 --> 0:20:29.600 just shut it down and to drown themselves. Yeah. Well, 0:20:29.640 --> 0:20:31.480 I mean that would be an example that would sort 0:20:31.480 --> 0:20:34.800 of go with her hypothesis, right. The idea is that, uh, 0:20:34.880 --> 0:20:37.680 the only reason we would be able to evolve this 0:20:37.800 --> 0:20:41.080 conscious control of our breath is if our past ancestors 0:20:41.080 --> 0:20:43.800 were shaped by a selection pressure that favored the ability 0:20:43.840 --> 0:20:47.000 to like hold the breath and dive underwater. She says, 0:20:47.040 --> 0:20:48.760 this would explain a lot. I do think that's a 0:20:48.800 --> 0:20:52.280 really interesting question of why we can do that. I'm 0:20:52.280 --> 0:20:54.440 not sure I'm going to go along with her on 0:20:54.560 --> 0:20:59.920 this being an exclusively human and aquatic mammal trade because 0:21:00.119 --> 0:21:02.720 I don't know. I've seen videos of dogs diving deep 0:21:02.800 --> 0:21:06.240 underwater and other mammals doing that. It seems that they 0:21:06.240 --> 0:21:08.399 have some kind of ability to hold their breath and 0:21:08.440 --> 0:21:12.639 they're not semi aquatic. Mammals. Yeah, I would agree with that. Okay, 0:21:12.680 --> 0:21:17.680 another thing, she says, how about hydrodynamics, we are anatomically streamlined. 0:21:18.080 --> 0:21:20.000 Do you ever think about why is the human body 0:21:20.080 --> 0:21:23.200 basically a straight line? Why are we sort of dart 0:21:23.240 --> 0:21:27.320 shaped where we can dive smoothly into the water? She says, quote, 0:21:27.320 --> 0:21:32.560 try to imagine a gorilla diving into water. I think 0:21:32.560 --> 0:21:35.560 I've seen it done in a cartoon. But that's about it. Well, 0:21:35.880 --> 0:21:38.200 it's like a cannonball, right and make a big splash. 0:21:38.760 --> 0:21:42.840 Morgan says, we're halfway between being a chimp into fish 0:21:42.880 --> 0:21:46.399 and so Morgan, after marshaling this evidence, she says that 0:21:46.480 --> 0:21:49.800 she wants to insist the idea is not lunatic fringe. 0:21:50.560 --> 0:21:53.960 And I'd say I largely agree. I think it's probably wrong, 0:21:54.200 --> 0:21:57.440 but I don't think it's like the ancient aliens hypothesis 0:21:57.520 --> 0:22:01.760 or something. I think it is, and it straineous hypothesis 0:22:01.760 --> 0:22:04.719 that that we don't really need to resort to, and 0:22:04.760 --> 0:22:09.560 so it's not parsimonious. But I think it's like reasonable 0:22:09.680 --> 0:22:12.800 to play around with this idea. Yeah, yeah, I would 0:22:12.840 --> 0:22:17.880 agree it is certainly not ancient aliens. Uh, But there 0:22:17.920 --> 0:22:21.520 are some some issues, some some problems and some gaps 0:22:21.520 --> 0:22:25.000 that have not been filled in by uh fossil evidence 0:22:25.040 --> 0:22:27.600 for example. Right, But the real question is, like, what 0:22:27.720 --> 0:22:31.879 is the substance of the critique from biology and paleo anthropology. 0:22:31.960 --> 0:22:36.479 Why would they not accept this hypothesis. So, starting with 0:22:36.520 --> 0:22:40.240 a few answers, probably the biggest weakness for the hypothesis is, 0:22:40.440 --> 0:22:42.720 and this might sound kind of silly when we say it, 0:22:42.800 --> 0:22:47.160 but there's no direct evidence for it. There's no fossil 0:22:47.200 --> 0:22:51.560 evidence whatsoever that we've ever had any instance of an 0:22:51.600 --> 0:22:55.119 aquatic humanoid. Right, show me the remains of the aquatic humanoid, 0:22:55.680 --> 0:22:58.600 and it is the directive, and we do not have 0:22:58.680 --> 0:23:01.880 an answer. Yeah, nothing like that now. So this means 0:23:01.880 --> 0:23:05.600