I just heard of it today, but the theory is sure pretty seductive: having only one cause for various traits. The Ted talk linked in the guardian article add some nice "explanation":
Thanks for your debunking anyway Pachyderm (animal with no fur) like elephant, and rhinoceros are all proven animals
with aquatic ancestor . Is this right? It 's a contrary argument to yours:human should
revert to "normal" once they leave the water to walk on savanna.
We can speak because of respiration control. No other primate have respiration control, while aquatic bird and such have it.
Elephants and rhinoceros may have aquatic ancestors but that does not prove that humans did. We (presumably) have fossils of aquatic elephants and rhinoceros, but there are no ancient aquatic hominids. If there were ancient aquatic hominids then we could start theorizing about what adaptations we acquired in an aquatic niche (and then a terrestrial niche). But if we make up the adaptations first, assuming that an aquatic ancestor existed, then we are just creating a fictitious evolutionary tale. Furthermore, anthropologists already have well-developed theories for why humans lost their hair, became bipedal, developed large brains, etc. These theories have been tested and match the empirical evidence in the fossil record - unlike the aquatic ape hypothesis.
You've never heard of the swamp ape, Oreopithecus bambolii?????? Marcel F. Williams