This question is prompted by a discussion with a friend about human swimming ability. It was suggested that, because newborn babies don't have to be taught how to swim, it is instinctive. Why should this be?

Humans are clearly adapted for life on the land - we are unable to survive underwater for more than a few minutes, we are defenseless against aquatic predators, we can't outrun anything that's more than a tenth our size, our eyes cannot focus underwater - we are hopelessly inadequate in that particular environment. And yet we possess the 'mammalian dive reflex' and we can swim from the moment we're born.

It seems highly unlikely that we were deliberately designed with poor swimming ability, and equally unlikely that we have developed these abilities from scratch given that human civilization has generally spread away from the sea rather than toward it. I think it is far more likely, and logical to suppose, that our abilities in the water are vestigial, and that through a succession of mutations that gave us many advantages on the land, our physiological usefulness in the water has been all but lost, but the ancient instincts and reflexes of our sea-dwelling forebears remain hard wired into the older functions of our multi-layered brains.

Can anyone suggest any mechanism, other than evolution from marine species to terrestrial species, whereby a human would possess such apparently degenerate aquatic abilities?

Originally posted by Lickszz
This question is prompted by a discussion with a friend about human swimming ability. It was suggested that, because newborn babies don't have to be taught how to swim, it is instinctive. Why should this be?

Humans are clearly adapted for life on the land - we are unable to survive underwater for more than a few minutes, we are defenseless against aquatic predators, we can't outrun anything that's more than a tenth our size, our eyes cannot focus underwater - we are hopelessly inadequate in that particular environment. And yet we possess the 'mammalian dive reflex' and we can swim from the moment we're born.

It seems highly unlikely that we were deliberately designed with poor swimming ability, and equally unlikely that we have developed these abilities from scratch given that human civilization has generally spread away from the sea rather than toward it. I think it is far more likely, and logical to suppose, that our abilities in the water are vestigial, and that through a succession of mutations that gave us many advantages on the land, our physiological usefulness in the water has been all but lost, but the ancient instincts and reflexes of our sea-dwelling forebears remain hard wired into the older functions of our multi-layered brains.

Can anyone suggest any mechanism, other than evolution from marine species to terrestrial species, whereby a human would possess such apparently degenerate aquatic abilities?

I'd say 9 months suspended underwater at neutral buoyancy would probably be enough practice.

And they quickly lose that ability. But the amniotic sac is a throwback to fishier days, in that all life (probably) evolved from the sea and the foetus (and brainstem) follow similar developmental patterns to fish. And then Lizards. And then Mammals. And then Primates. Like a house with a new extension every few million years. (very very broadly speaking mind)

Lyall Watson did a good, if inconclusive investigation on this subject, and it has not been adequately investigated, remaining as it is, on the fringes of evolutionary theory.

Originally posted by Phanerothyme
I'd say 9 months suspended underwater at neutral buoyancy would probably be enough practice.

And they quickly lose that ability. But the amniotic sac is a throwback to fishier days, in that all life (probably) evolved from the sea and the foetus (and brainstem) follow similar developmental patterns to fish. And then Lizards. And then Mammals. And then Primates. Like a house with a new extension every few million years. (very very broadly speaking mind)


Yes, could be. I don't know whether embryos actually swim or just push against the walls when they're big enough. I also don't know if this would explain why babies born underwater immediately swim to the surface rather than down or horizontally.

As far as I know, all land mammals can swim and most of them aren't very good at it, including the other primates. I'm not sure whether apes do it for recreation, but I've seen monkeys swimming and diving apparently just for the hell of it, and they were no better or worse at it than I am.

a lot of the speculation actually surround the direction of hair growth on the human body, which is much better suited to swimming, as it all tends to point downwards to the extremeties; other primates hair growth doesn't follow this.

However, absence of any aquatic type evolutionary developments such as blowholes, vestigial forelimbs etc, would tend to suggest we came down from trees and not out of the water...

Lyall Watson did a good, if inconclusive investigation on this subject, and it has not been adequately investigated, remaining as it is, on the fringes of evolutionary theory.

Just sliding slightly off topic and dumbing it down to my level, I remember reading two books by this author, the first way back in about 1978. Both books were right on the fringes of science and seemed to me even then, when I was a gullible kid, dubious. I remember him theorising on stuff like water having "memory" in some way, and pyramid power. It all smacked of Uri Geller-esque 70s hippy pseudo-science. Is the guy still respected amongst his peers? I dismissed the books almost as soon as I'd read them.

Wasn't it Dr Morris who suggested that man could have evolved from aquatic apes?

This could possibly explain the following:

Short sightedness, which works better underwater.

Hairs on the back face down to help water run off.

The slant eyes of some races are thought to be water
adaptations, but could help in very cold weather.

Possibly beards and nasal hair which may be useful for
sensing food under water when vision is difficult.


Again the problem is no real archaeological evidence. It may be true that various ape species eliminated each other.

Originally posted by Ant
Just sliding slightly off topic and dumbing it down to my level, I remember reading two books by this author, the first way back in about 1978. Both books were right on the fringes of science and seemed to me even then, when I was a gullible kid, dubious. I remember him theorising on stuff like water having "memory" in some way, and pyramid power. It all smacked of Uri Geller-esque 70s hippy pseudo-science. Is the guy still respected amongst his peers? I dismissed the books almost as soon as I'd read them.

What Watson did was collect together stuff from different sourecs and try and attach some scientific theories that might underpin things.

Some of what he reported on was a little 'left field' but other stuff - for example the sensitivity of living organisms to barely acceptable external stimuli, have been more widely accepted.

Don't shoot the reporter - just question what he reports with an open mind and some thoughts on how one might prove or disprove, experimentally, what is reported.

Joe

Lyall watson is certainly a fringe scientist nowadays, like Rupert Sheldrake; and like Sheldrake, his investigations are unafraid of cutting right across scientific orthodoxy.

His experiments with plants as lie detectors and his own cheek and sperm cells when investigating the difference between cell death and organism death revealed fascinating insights.

His chapter on Geraniums as witnesses in court was quite amazing. Of course he wasn't suggesting anything of the kind, but it does seem that plants do have a 'memory' for events and a sympathetic link with other living organisms in the vicinity (which is not surprising).

He's unafraid of making the links, like JP says, that would leave other, more career minded scientists, muttering "pseudoscience", but like Sheldrake, he has a keen appreciation of scientific method and the mind to devising a good experiment.

But aquatic apes? My mind is not made up, but I don't think so.

This maybe slightly off topic - but isnt this what science is all about? Finding new things and rejecting orthodoxy? Its certainly why I got into science!!!

And aquatic apes? Not sure but if I remember my developmental biology correctly (and I happily admit I may not!) doesn't the human feotus goe through a stage where it had vestigal gills which later bevome the cheeks/jaws?

i thought it was generally accepted that all life started off in water and that at some point it moved onto land, so go back far enough and we probably have a common aquatic ancestor with all primates (and presumably all mammals and possibly all land animals).

The idea is that all mammalian life came from the sea. Cetaceans then returned to it where their limbs fused and atrophied into the familiar streamlined shapes we see today. It is speculated that we are descendants of another mammalian line that returned to the sea and then left it again.

Does this tie in with the Dogon/Nommo mythology of dolphins and sirius I wonder?

Originally posted by evildrneil
This maybe slightly off topic - but isnt this what science is all about? Finding new things and rejecting orthodoxy? Its certainly why I got into science!!!

And aquatic apes? Not sure but if I remember my developmental biology correctly (and I happily admit I may not!) doesn't the human feotus goe through a stage where it had vestigal gills which later bevome the cheeks/jaws?

Yes it does. But that's common to most viviparous mammals (not marsupials).

And yeah in the platonic ideal of scientific method this would be true, (Finding new things and rejecting orthodoxy?) but stick humans with careers into the mix, and the whole picture changes.