Some thoughts on The Aquatic Ape Theory by Tani Jantsang Some thoughts on The Aquatic Ape Theory
by Tani Jantsang

"Some ideas to think over as yet (I think) not thought out."

Many of the traits adapted in humans which seem "strange" may have been recessive in man, only to express as a phenotype DUE TO the stresses in the new environment, and then selected in favor of or against. Remember Darwin's skew and spew, perish then diversify.

1. webbing of feet 7% of human popullation could be ancient, from ampihibian stage, and in the genes. Not something new or related to MAMMALS at all.

2. ability to walk and run upright: gibbons have it despite their other differences.

3. hairlessness: burrowing animals have it and there'd have to have been many such burrowing animals when mammals lived ALONG SIDE dinosaurs and had to hide. Point never brought up: which race of humansa re you speaking about? White man is usually the hairiest man. Not yellows or blacks. Why baldness but hairy faces (again, mostly in whites)? Nature is not perfect, but is PARSIMONIOUS instead.

4. sub-fat. Again, which race do you speak of? Us Asians? We have most sub-fat. We even might be more foetalized. We are less DIMORPHIC in appearance and in behavior.

5. Predation? No one knows what chimps WERE back then. They have since evolved too. Chimps sometimes do engage in predation and in organized war (Goodall). No sea mammal predators? UH, the ORCA? They gang up and prey on whales. Fossils: Man did not kill man; this is recent. Other: Bonobos copulate front on. Monkeys and other ape species can swim easily if they start doing it young (as zoo keepers noted). Primates that do have to wallow in shallows still have hair just as savannah primates have hair. Human babies have strong arms, weaker legs. Yes, they can swim when born, but they also naturally braciate and grab things soon. Even cats can swim if you heave them into a pool. And adult humans still "briachiate" to keep balance.

Melanin? Melanocytes develop from same part of embryo as does spine and nervous system: IN ALL VERTEBRATES. Why is melanin being brought up? Certain humans LOST permanent melanin due to massive cereal diet, lack of Vit. D., neeeding to get it from the sun instead. Cf. Cavalli-Sforza involved in human genome project. These go in sun, get dark, get Vit. D. Has nothing to do with cold climate or ice and such ice-dwellers are NOT fair people, again, they never gave up Vit. D. in what they ate. Cavalli-Sforza. (Imagine if cats were color conscious....)

I agree with AA theory because I like it and my knees float I'm so buoyant, and that's NO reason to agree with anything; but Morgan uses teleological arguments thus far. The savannah theory is shot: Savannah started 2.7 mil years ago. Hominids were around 4 or more mil years ago. However - endogenous C retrovirus marker, or "banoon marker" is like genetic fingerprint proof that the African hominids are NOT MAN'S ANCESTORS! Is this being ignored because a Japanese person showed this? This is a HARD proof here, not just some bones or peculiar adaptations we have with theories of their recent origin. Alll our AA appearances may, in fact, be very old potentials we had in genotype which expressed due to stresses in environment, got selected in favor of, etc - Darwin. What if we all married with those 7% webbed footed fellow humans and made even more preference for the ones with webbed hands? There's be more than 7% next time around. Darwin holds true. What about ecto, meso, and endomorphic human types? This is also "set" early on in the embryo. No one mentions it.

Who is being Lamarckian? What do these people mean by "acquired" traits? Inherited? Yes. But there is also selection going on, there is perishing going on, and all that DARWINIAN stuff. Some people are violent, some are passive by nature - this is known. Let women choose the gangster types for a few generations and you end up with violent people where once before not long ago (when the mothers and women cast such violent people away) you had peaceful people. It can happen fast. It happened right here in the USA with some blacks.

Environment (uterine and nutritional env included) can become unsuitable for an organism. Many perish but some take into themselves the unsuitable env until it BECOMES suitable. Then this becomes the preferred env - that is, it is absorbed into the metabolism. This would be a mutation that is directed by the unsuitable-became-suitable environment. Adjusted organisms select amongst themselves: new species. This is not Lamarckian. It is Darwinian and LUSENKO-ISM as a fact (I have his own papers). But it's how evolution works. It's why we are not insects despite the face we share homeobox gene with insects, it is why we are not apes tho we share 99% identical genes with chimps. SOME stress in the environment did not just make SOME mutation occur - NO! It also caused what was already hidden in the genes to express itself, show up as a phenotype; and it was selected in favor of while those that lacked this perished. DO WE have sub-fat from water adaptation? Try staying in the water for 12 hours (salt water) and see if this is right. The Korean women example is not Lamarckian. Those able to hold breath long and tolerate cold water the best are SELECTED IN FAVOR OF to breed with. How do you think RACES came into being? God? Morgan has good things she points out but teleological arguments won't stand. The Savannahists have good arguments against the AA of the Morganists but they have NO explanation otherwise that holds water. BOTH ignore the retrovirus "baboon" marker. Neither look further further back into man's REMOTE ancestry to figure out why we have what we have.

Morgan: using orangutans (and a flat, changeless pseudo-Darwin) to justify RAPE of women won't do. What happens when a gang of female orangs start killing lone males that tend to rape out of hand? Can't happen? Cave paintings of women in cone hats standing around a lone male with weapons in their hands tell another story: so do some of those bands of women in the east that British soldiers ran into not too long ago. What happens when chimps go to war? Can't happen? Goodall disagrees because she saw it. And then there is Bobbit - and there are feminiazis and there is the ova's electrical field not allowing sperm in (requiring zona-blasters, used in Israel). Mankind IS evolving if only people LET IT evolve and understand it DOES evolve. That women have "certain attitudes" means their brains work along certain lines. That's all part of it: evolution. Who says we have to remain placental mammals? _Not_ Darwin! Man the Hunter and Woman the Gatherer? When did this become Man the Lazy and Woman the Slave in most agricultural societies such as Africa and India? What about Man the Communal Social Animal? Is that only restricted to the "more civilized" countries or is the civilization of this sort a MARKER of evolution? Primitive hunter gatherers are not master/slave societies, with women being the slaves, at all. So this has nothing to do with "civilization" per so, but more to do with CIVIL-ization of types of man.

I notice that many botanists tend to talk as if Lamarckian, yet I think they don't explain themselves correctly. Plants do things animals can't do. The expression of a long unseen genotype can be taken as "new variation" unless you see it submerge again when the plant is back in the old environment - but if you select and keep doing this by stressing the environment with a KNOWN DIRECTION IN MIND to MAKE this old-"new" trait stick, you can get a variation, perhaps a new species. Can't happen? People aren't all black anymore. It happens. Cf. McKlintock on this with plants. Organisms probably do "direct" their evolution toward what would be suitable and AID EACH OTHER in this intraspecific COOPERATION, Cf Carnes or "the instructionists" (also Lysekno again) Carnes with bacteria, new data. Nothing mystical about it. Particles "feel" certain forces and not others, too. Electrons had to "feel" protons for the whle thing to start: behold there is atmosphere. Amino acids are not alive. Then came RNA, DNA, then the fist cell that prokayote. Then that strange phagocyte that behaved in a rather Lamarckian way (for real) by incorporating bacteria into itself and passing down this definately ACQUIRED trait: MITOCHONDRIA. Cf. Margulis (Nobel Priza for that data), and deDuve. Environment came first of course. The environment was alien back then, another eco-system.

Thank you. Think about it - think new thoughts. Synthesize new data and THROW OUT the mysticism. GOOD LUCK! (SMASH the Tarzanists, they gave us M.A.D.).