There were two scientific conferences scheduled recently, both of which would address or were, to one degree or another, inspired by the “aquatic ape hypothesis” of evolution.  One conference will feature speakers supporting the hypothesis, while the second will hold it up for satire and ridicule.  Who says science isn’t a contact sport?

Next week, in London, the Royal Marsten School will sponsor the conference, “Human Evolution Past, Present & Future – Anthropological, Medical & Nutritional Considerations,” “a two-day symposium to explore new research and evidence which suggests that at some stage during the last few million years, our human ancestors were exposed to a period of semiaquatic evolution which led to the acquisition of unique and primordial human characteristics.” Speakers, including Sir David Attenborough, will voice support for the hypothesis.

Just over a week ago, first-ever BAH! (Festival of Bad Ad Hoc Hypotheses) was scheduled to be held in Boston, at Harvard University. The conference was postponed due to the lock-down of Boston during the Marathon bombing manhunt. The festival, as described by its promoters, “will treat an audience at MIT to seven lectures on internally coherent, even convincing — but ultimately hilariously absurd — explanations of evolutionary adaptation.”

As reported by the blog Live Science, Zach Weinersmith, one of the organizers, “was inspired by a classic (or notorious) case of bad evolutionary theory, the aquatic ape hypothesis. First proposed in the 1940s, the theory imagines that human ancestors went through a sea-based stage, which would explain things like the species’ relative hairlessness and greater ability to digest fish compared with other primates.

Despite seeming coherence, though, that theory has very little (if any) support from serious evolutionary theorists. “Clearly, it’s crazy,” Weinersmith said. BAH! Fest just takes that craziness to the extreme.

So what is this hypothesis that is being supported on one side of the pond and held up for ridicule and satire on the other? As reported in the Guardian:

Standard evolutionary models suggest these different features appeared at separate times and for different reasons. The aquatic ape theory argues they all occurred because our ancestors decided to live in or near water for hundreds of thousands or possibly millions of years.

The theory was first proposed in 1960 by British biologist Sir Alister Hardy, who believed apes descended from the trees to live, not on the savannah as is usually supposed, but in flooded creeks, river banks and sea shores, some of Earth’s richest sources of food. To keep their heads above water, they evolved an upright stance, freeing their hands to make tools to crack open shellfish. Then they lost their body hair and instead developed a thick layer of subcutaneous fat to keep warm in the water…

It is not just human physiology that reveals our aquatic past, argue the theory’s supporters. Our brain biochemistry is also revealing. “Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) is an omega-3 fatty acid that is found in large amounts in seafood,” said Dr Michael Crawford, of Imperial College London.

“It boosts brain growth in mammals. That is why a dolphin has a much bigger brain than a zebra, though they have roughly the same body sizes. The dolphin has a diet rich in DHA. The crucial point is that without a high DHA diet from seafood we could not have developed our big brains. We got smart from eating fish and living in water.

Eat fish and live in, on, around or near the water. That still sounds like good advice. And maybe throw in a little rum, just for medicinal purposes.  Some of us may still be aquatic apes, more or less.