Descent of Women essays

Descent of Women essays The Descent of Woman, by Elaine Morgan, tells the idea of the Aquatic Theory of Evolution. According to this theory of evolution, the ape, which man is believed to evolve from, comes down from the trees due to a drought and into the water. While adapting to a new environment, the ape evolved to become more like man. When the drought was over, this ape moved back onto the land and completely evolved into man. Morgan goes into great depth and detail throughout the chapters. She covers each process in the evolving of this species that she feels was wrongly described by past evolutionists. In chapter one, she tells how in the Book of Genesis, it is said that God created man first and woman was created later and was not created as well as man. Because of this, whenever a book is written about man evolving the pronoun he is used since man means male and species. This pronoun puts the image of a male in the readers head. This is why Morgan chose to use the pronoun she and tell the theory of evolution through a female evolving. She also tells in this chapter the theory of the Tarzanlike figure a prehominid male came down from the trees and almost immediately became a Mighty Hunter and that everything that evolved did so for the sake of hunting. She explains the flaws in this theory and in the next chapters explains the evolving through the Aquatic Theory. Morgan, in chapter two, dates back to the mild Miocene. During this time there was the hairy prehominid ape still living in the trees and still a vegetarian. She didnt yet evolve into what distinguishes her from other species. After a few million years, a drought occurred in the Pliocene and drove the ape out of the trees and onto the plain. She could simply not adapt to living on the plains. Since she lived in the central part of Africa, there was no water for her to move to so she became extinct. However, her cousin of the sam...