Come gather round primates, where'er you roam.
And admit that the waters around you have grown.
And accept that soon you'll be drenched to the bone.
And if the time to you is worth saving.
Then you better starting swimming or you'll sink like a stone.
For the times they are a changing.
Come Socio-biologists, please here the call.
Don't stand in the doorways, don't block up the hall.
For he who gets hurt will be he who has stalled.
There's a battle outside and it's raging.
It will soon shake your windows and rattle your walls.
For the times they are a changing.
Hello everbody!
This was a little song I made up, in honor of some of the new ideas about human evolution that are just starting to be taken seriously. 200 years ago Charles Darwin published the book "Origin of the Species" which suggested that humans were closely related to African Apes, which was at the time a controversial idea. And generally the view that the differences between humans and apes such as chimps and bonobos came from leaving the trees for the Savannahs, has been unchallenged by scientists (as opposed to those who reject evolution, of course). Many versions of this theory, take the view that warfare is the result of aggressive violent instincts that were shaped on the Savannahs, commonly known as the "killer ape" theory. This has deeply informed the conventional wisdom of our time. Indeed, a generation before Darwin came the Prussian military strategist Carl von Clausewitz who said that war was simply politics by other means, or a Darwinian struggle for resources. A view further reinforced by Marx.
And yet, a number of newer ideas seem to being gaining credibility. Perhaps the most significant recent event was at the 2009 TED Conference where Elaine Morgan discussed the Aquatic Ape Hypothesis. Namely the idea that human beings are different from chimps and bonobos because of time spent living a semi aquatic lifestyle.
See video here.
One interesting point about Alistair Hardy: During the time he was keeping quiet about his aquatic ape theory, he worked at Oxford and knew JRR Tolkien. Therefore, it has been speculated that this theory was the inspiration for the creature Gollum, who after all was described as coming from the "river folk" who were the ancestors of the Hobbits in the Third Age.
Of course, it's hard to know for certain where science will go in the future. But TED has a long reputation as a spring board from the margins to the mainstream, for ideas. And the case has been made that so much that has been assumed about human evolution for decades is under question. It appears that humans did not evolve on the Savannah's and the idea that our ancestors might have had a semi-aquatic phase, at the very least raises some important questions. Another important question is whether our ancestors were more like the chimpanzee or more like the bonobo. Until the 1990's a surprising number of people with degrees in biology had never even heard of a bonobo, and chimps got all the press as our closest living relatives. As bonobos began to get more attention in part because of primatologist Frans de Waal, some observers wondered why they had been ignored for so long.
Then there are other theories about human evolution that are starting to enter the margins. Perhaps the most surprising was the book "Blood Rites" by Barbara Ehrenreich where she begins with humanity's history as a prey animal in order to investigate the root cases of war. In this book she talks about the evolution of blood sacrifice as both ritual and warfare over the millenia. But other ideas question what exactly we may know about:
1) The relationships between modern humans and Neandrathals.
2) Whether prehistoric societies truly resembled the hunter gatherer groups we see today.
3) When humans started making textiles.
4) How far back civilization actually goes.
5) When and how agriculture and domestic animals evolved.
Many of these areas started with assumptions that were made in the 19th century, but where new evidence has put the conventional wisdom under question.
Above all the answers to these questions may be full of surprises.
Say Goodnight Readers!
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