Langdon described (subscription required) the aquatic ape hypothesis as 'troubled by inconsistencies' and unlikely to be reconcilable with the fossil record, adding, with respect to Morgan's proclivity to argue from uncertainty or disagreement among paleoanthropologists, 'This aspect of the argument for the aquatic hypothesis greatly resembles the approach that 'creation science' takes to evolutionary biology. Langdon in the Journal of Human Evolution (1997 33:479-494). Despite their high profile among the general public, Morgan's ideas attracted little sustained attention from the scientific community, the main exceptions being a 1987 symposium, the proceedings of which were published as Aquatic Ape: Fact or Fiction? (Souvenir Press, 1987), and a paper by John H.

Morgan contrasted the hypothesis with what she called 'the savannah theory,' as exemplified in popular books such as Desmond Morris's The Naked Ape, which she faulted as not only empirically lacking but also relying on sexist assumptions. The aquatic ape hypothesis, originally due to the marine biologist Alister Hardy, holds that human evolution included a phase in which humans were adapted to a marine environment, citing as evidence such distinctive human features as the reduction of body hair, the unusual amount of subcutaneous fat, and the diving reflex. Morgan wrote a series of books advancing and defending her idiosyncratic views on human evolution, including The Descent of Woman (Souvenir Press, 1972), The Aquatic Ape (Stein & Day, 1982), The Scars of Evolution (Souvenir Press, 1990), The Descent of the Child (Oxford University Press, 1995), The Aquatic Ape Hypothesis (Souvenir Press, 1997), and The Naked Darwinist (Eildon Press, 2008).

The writer Elaine Morgan, known for her advocacy of the 'aquatic ape' hypothesis of human evolution, died on July 12, 2013, at the age of 92, according to the BBC (July 12, 2013).

The Scars of Evolution by Elaine Morgan