Debunking the Aquatic Ape Hypothesis

Did human evolution actually feature a period where our ancestors lived in the water? Short answer: no. Longer answer (but still short enough for a YouTube Short) is in this in this video where Dr. Tina Lasisi unpacks the Aquatic Ape Hypothesis and explores why humans (perhaps unfortunately depending on your POV) did not have their own “mermaid era”.

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Original Production Funding Provided by National Science Foundation - Grant No. 2120006 Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation

[DDeden]

Simply speaking, humans descended from the arboreal swinging apes and brought the arboreal ape bowl nest down too, but flipped it to make a dome hut, always near open water.

[Tom_Bombadil]

well dang, i guess that's it then. one youtube short is all it takes to discredit something that is quite frankly very viable. btw, there's some things that make no sense in almost every species. we just happen to have quite a few of them that are suggestive of a semi aquatic phase in the very distant past.

[FelipeKana]

This was very poorly researched.
- AAH doesn't says "sea" apes. It says waterside apes, intentionally not specifying if sea or not. Many propose lakes, rivers, and floodplains (like the environments found back then in central Africa, including some very big lakes exactly in the spots you marked in the fossil map)
- AAH doesn't talks only about those two features, the list is long. All traits that are supposedly "uniquely" human but we share with other aquatic mammals.
- AAH knows our body fat has other uses. The same other uses it has on other aquatic mammals.
- Legs are incredibly streamlined features and one of the most perfectly explained features by AAH. HAVE YOU SEEN WHAT GREAT APES DO WHEN THEY NEED TO DEAL WITH FLOODS OR RIVERS? Or how swimmers use our legs? Or how hindbody parts grew in most aquatic mammal clades?
- My own graduation thesis focused on the fossil claims around AAH x SH. Most of our fossils were found in river beds and lake beds, including great lakes and old flood plains and marshes! SH claims that’s just because rivers and lakes are where most fossils can fossilize. Fair enough, BUT THEY DON’T DISPROVE ANYTHING.
- The body of work currently under the AAH umbrella is so big that whoever wrote this short didn’t really gave it barely a google search, did it?

[Thealmostnerd]

one of my favorite movies was Mr. Limpet

[svennoren]

If sweating on naked skin is a positive trait, why don't more animals on the savannah do that? Sure, elephants and rhinoceros' are hairless, but they don't sweat to cool off.
Predators like dogs and cats should benefit from efficient thermoregulation but they are hairy and don't sweat.

[TragoudistrosMPH]

Now, if we had snorkels for noses, I'd perk my ears up lol.

[RHCole]

We also have semi-webbed hands/feet, our newborns instinctively hold their breath when submerged, and our ability to stand upright with our legs would be perfectly suited for scanning many types of flat terrain besides savannahs... Like tidal flats. Further, there are species of apes that live in coastal regions. Lastly, the fossil record is limited and absence of evidence is not evidence of absence 👍🏻

[charlesmcgrath]

Elephants descend from a semi-aquatic mammal….

[Robert]

Do humans have more body fat than other apes??

[Oke.]

Me: source
Darvin : Trust me bro !
Som youtube short : bet

[boxbattle]

AAH debunked by a YouTube short? Nope. This didn't even hit any of the good criticism OR support for the theory. Major disappoint.

[ShawnHCorey]

Since aquatic mammals also have some of these traits, you have to go all the way back to the most recent common ancestor. The likely reason we have these traits is because they come with breath control, which is needed for speech.

[MWhaleK]

I like the hypothesis but I still understand that it is bunk.

[jennyjen]

All of this evolution nonsense needs to be tossed out at this point. It's laughable.