University College London

Although I graduated with a degree in Zoology/Pharmacology from Nottingham University - a relevant degree for someone who is interested in human evolution - that was a long time ago. I have worked in the computer industry for most of the time since then (self-employed since 1990 as a SQL Server instructor), gradually drifting away from biological sciences and feeling growingly frustrated that I'd wasted my degree.

When my wife, who is a midwifery teacher, gave birth to our fourth child with the help of a birthing tub, it rekindled my interest in human evolution and sparked a fascination with the aquatic ape hypothesis (AAH). I read most of Elaine Morgan's work about it and became distracted by the dilemma it posed: Everything she wrote seemed so sensible and plausible and yet the official texts on human evolution ignored the idea absolutely. There was no rebuttal, no explanation of why it was wrong... nothing. It was as if the theory did not exist.

I became so frustrated by this I decided to go back to university to study human evolution properly for myself. I was determined to get to the bottom of the mystery of why the AAH was ignored. When I arrived at UCL in September 2000 I honestly expected that the AAH would be a hot topic. Everyone would be discussing it, I thought. I couldn't wait until it was the subject at one of the seminars. Then, perhaps, I'd find out why it was flawed. Then I'd get to hear why Elaine Morgan must be wrong.

Of course, that never happened. The AAH was simply not on the agenda. It was not on the syllabus, not on any reading list and it was only discussed in seminars because I raised it - to the predictable groans of frustration from most of my fellow students! I felt rather like a pariah bringing it up and I even started self-censoring myself, allowing myself two mentions of the dreaded 'a' word per session. I must say the most disappointing moments on the course from my point of view were those spent sitting in a lecture hall with scores of undergraduate students all writing down the story about human evolution. All those young, inquisitive minds listening and concentrating on the fascinating enigma which is the study of human evolution and yet the most common question they asked was "how do you spell that?" Even then, in 2001, the 'official' answer was still ...
       ... "s - a - v - a - n - n - a - h".

I really enjoyed my time at UCL although I'm not sure if they felt the same way about me! The key people I had dealings with: Leslie Aeillo, Cathy Keys, Mark Collard, Volker Sommer, Simon Hillson and Mark Thomas were inspirational. They taught me a great deal in a short space of time. But perhaps the thing I learned most was that the AAH has not actually been rebutted at all. In fact it has hardly even been considered.

It would appear that it has been dismissed out of hand but it is difficult to know on what basis this conclusion has been made as the number of scientific studies into it have been minimal to say the least. In that regard I was pleased that I knew, right from the moment I stepped into UCL, what subject I wanted to study for my project.

I decided to write my thesis on the origins of bipedalism and look at the possibility - again never seriously considered in academia - that it arose out of apes that were adapted to a water-side niche. My thesis "Bipedal Wading in Hominoidae past and present" is, (incredibly to my mind), perhaps the first serious study into the possibility that bipedalism might have originated in wading apes. I found that the evidence is actually very strong indeed. It seems to me that if only someone, in the previous 41 years and 5 months that had passed by since Alister Hardy did most of the thinking for us and first published the idea, had even given the possibility a cursory glance they would have seen its explanatory strength. Amazingly, nobody seems to have done so.

There is so much work still to be done in this fascinating area. I want to be part of it. I would encourage anyone else interested in this to do the same.

I have given a couple of talks on the AAH. Once at the Radical Anthropology Group (organised by Chris Knight and Lionel Sims of UEL) in London and once at the UEL itself to a class of undergraduates.

Since 2003, I have been enrolled at UWA (The University of Western Australia) where I'm doing a Ph.D. in bipedal origins. My general PhD proposal can be found by following this link.

Since arriving in Australia I've attended three ASHB (Australiasian Society for Human Biology) seminars and presented three short papers. In 2004 I was awarded the student first prize for my talk entitled 'The so-called aquatic ape hypothesis: Rejected or just misunderstood?"