Book review: The Scars of Evolution (Elaine Morgan)


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Elaine Morgan

THE SCARS OF EVOLUTION

What our bodies tell us about human origins

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Book review by Anthony Campbell. The review is licensed under a Creative
Commons License.
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The suggestion that our remote ancestors went through a semi-aquatic
phase was first made as long ago as 1942, by a German scholar called Max
Westenhöfer, but it did not attract any attention outside Germany.
Alister Hardy, a young marine biologist, had thought of the same idea
independently even earlier, in about 1930, although he did not make it
public until 1960. Elaine Morgan, a writer, then took it up and
popularised it with a feminist slant in a series of books.

In The Scars of Evolution Morgan reviews the "orthodox" view of human
evolution - that it took place on the savannah - and points out a number
of difficulties with it, some of which she regards as fatal. The aquatic
ape hypothesis, she claims, resolves most or all of these difficulties
in a more satisfactory manner.

It is hardly surprising that, as an amateur without scientific
credentials in this or any field, Morgan has encountered strong
opposition from supporters of the conventional view. Nevertheless she
makes a pretty good job of criticising the savannah hypothesis here. The
topics she considers include human hairlessness, fat amounts and
distribution, bipedalism, the voluntary control of breathing (needed for
speech), childbirth, and mating behaviour. All these, she believes,
would be unsuitable for life on the savannah but would be much more
suitable for an aquatic environment.

It is undoubtedly true that in these and other respects there are
surprisingly large differences between ourselves and our nearest
relatives, the chimpanzees and bonobos. It is also true that there are
interesting similarities between us and aquatic or semi-aquatic mammals
such as hippopotamuses, seals, whales, beavers and others.

However, critics have pointed out that the aquatic ape hypothesis has
difficulties of its own. No aquatic mammals are truly bipedal. Many
non-aquatic mammals do have at least some voluntary control of
breathing. A more serious objection, I think, is that the presumed
aquatic phase of the human ancestors would have been much shorter than
that of other aquatic mammals yet it is supposed to have brought about
very considerable modifications in anatomy and physiology. Would there
have been time for these to occur?

My own impression of the debate is that it seems to be pretty much a
draw. Morgan has certainly scored some major hits on the savannah
hypothesis, but there are probably more difficulties with her own view
than she acknowledges. That does not mean that it will not ultimately
prevail. Morgan herself cites the ultimate acceptance of Wegener's
theory of continental drift as a precedent for the triumph of an
initially heretical scientific idea, and she may prove to be right.

I rather hope she is. There is certainly something attractive in the
notion of an aquatic ape. And Morgan has done a good job here of
presenting it in a popular form. Although she is a partisan of the
theory, she discusses the evidence in a fairly objective form and she
has evidently done her homework. She does nod occasionally; I wish she
had not repeated the old canard about us using only a small fraction of
our brain potential (p.169). This is an unusual lapse, however, and for
the most part her statements are well substantiated.

30 December 2005
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%T The Scars of Evolution
%S What our bodies tell us about human origins
%A Elaine Morgan
%I Oxford University Press
%C Oxford
%D 1990, 1994
%G ISBN 0-19-509431-X
%P xii + 196 pp
%K evolution
%O paperback edition
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