Jim Moore's "AAT Sink or Swim?" Web Site
Wegener, Continental Drift, and unaccepted theories

http://www.aquaticape.org/wegener.html

On this page Moore curiously attacks even one of the analogies AAH proponents have used for the situation the AAH finds itself in - ostracised by the scientific establishment.

His counterarguments are, at best, picky but really, as he asks himself, what does this have to do with the AAH?
 

What does Continental Drift have to do with the so-called "Aquatic Ape theory"?
Good question. Moore includes this topic because it has been used by Morgan, Verhaegen and others to show that sometimes the scientific establishment turns its nose up to a hypothesis for years, but ultimately has to collectively eat humble pie and accept that the idea was right all along.

His counter argument is rather picky. He claims that the analogy is poor because Wegener wasn't really laughed at, some people actually supported him and also because Wegener was right about what happenned  but not about how it happenned. According to Moore the AAH agrees with what happenned but disagrees with how it happenned.

Once again, Moore seems to go too far with his vindictive attack on people who's only 'crime' is to ask 'why has this hypothesis not been considered more carefully?'

The history of science is full of similar stories and Morgan et al could have chosen any of them. The Wegener analogy is used most probably because it is most likely the best known to have been turned around as recently as the 20th Century.

It is perhaps not surprising that AAH supporters make such comparisons when one considers how the AAH was received after Hardy's talk in Brighton. Having seen the reports in the tabloid press in 1960: "Dip in Sea Turns Man into Ape" - Le Gros Clark, the leading

anthropologist in London at the time, apparently phoned Hardy and told him 'never do that again'. 

The hypothesis, once dismissed by the top man, stayed dismissed seemingly though peer pressure and academic inculturation for a whole generation without the need for the formalities of any scientific investigation to deny it any credibility.

Instead of spending time stamping on every little argument AAH proponents make in favour of their claims, perhaps Moore could have spent a moment or two considering if a mild version of the hypothesis had any merit.

As Desmond Morris said, the whole debate has become too polarised. It's time for more balanced consideration.
 

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