Elaine Morgan (writer)
Encyclopedia
Elaine Morgan OBE
(born November 7, 1920) is a Welsh writer for television and also the author of several books on evolutionary anthropology
, especially the aquatic ape hypothesis
: The Descent of Woman, The Aquatic Ape, The Scars of Evolution, The Descent of the Child, The Aquatic Ape Hypothesis, and The Naked Darwinist (2008), which discusses the reception of aquatic scenarios in academic literature. She also authored Falling Apart and Pinker's List.
, near Pontypridd
, in Wales
. She has lived for many years in Mountain Ash, near Aberdare
. She graduated from Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, with a degree in English. She married Morien Morgan (d. 1997) and she has three sons. Her oldest son was Dylan Morgan
.
when they began produce her plays for television.
Morgan's works include popular dramas, newspaper columns, and a series of publications on biological anthropology.
Morgan has written for many television series including the adaptations of How Green Was My Valley
(1975) and Testament of Youth
(1979). Her other work includes episodes of Dr. Finlay's Casebook (1963–1970), the biographical drama The Life and Times of David Lloyd George
(1981) and contributions to the Campion
series (1989)
She has won two BAFTAs and two Writers' Guild awards. She also wrote the script for the Horizon documentary about Joey Deacon
, the disabled fund-raiser. This won the Prix Italia
in 1975. She was honoured with the Writer of the Year Award from the Royal Television Society
for her series of Testament of Youth.
In 2003 she started to write a weekly column for the Welsh national daily newspaper, The Western Mail.
She was awarded an honorary
D.Litt. by Glamorgan University in December 2006, an honorary fellow of the University of Cardiff in 2007, and awarded the Letten F. Saugstad Prize for her "contribution to scientific knowledge".
Morgan was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2009 Birthday Honours for services to literature and to education. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature
the same year.
Her book Pinker's List is a response to Steven Pinker
's The Blank Slate
, in which she rejects his claim to objectivity and argues that the "blank-slate" beliefs he caricatures have long been extinct.
such as Desmond Morris
. She described her reaction as one of irritation because the explanations were largely male-centered. For instance, she thought that if humans lost their hair because they needed to sweat while chasing game on the savannah that did not explain why women should also lose their hair as, according to the savannah hypothesis, they would be looking after the children. On re-reading Desmond Morris's The Naked Ape she encountered a reference to a hypothesis that humans had for a time gone through a water phase, the so-called aquatic ape hypothesis
. She contacted Morris on this and he directed her to Alister Hardy
. Her first book The Descent of Woman (1972) was originally planned to pave the way for Hardy's more academic book, but Hardy never published his book. Morgan's first publication was mentioned by E. O. Wilson
in 1975, comparing it to other 'advocacy approaches' such as The Imperial Animal as an 'inevitable feminist' counter, but describing the method as less scientific than other contemporary hypotheses. She accepted this criticism and so her later books were written on more scientific basis or more "po-faced" as she herself described it. As an outsider and a non-scientist she claims to have encountered hostility from academics. Consequently many of her books seem to be written as much to counter the many arguments put forth against the Aquatic Ape Theory as to advance its merits. Her position is summarised in her website. The story of Morgan's quest to have the aquatic ape hypothesis taken seriously was chronicled in the 1998 BBC documentary "The Aquatic Ape".
Morgan's version of the AAH has achieved much popular appeal, but has never achieved significant acceptance or serious scrutiny within the scholarly community. Despite this, Morgan continues to promote the theory, with invitations to speak at universities and symposia
including a TED talk
in 2009.
Morgan's later books on anthropology included:
Other works:
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
(born November 7, 1920) is a Welsh writer for television and also the author of several books on evolutionary anthropology
Evolutionary anthropology
Evolutionary anthropology is the interdisciplinary study of evolution of human physiology and human behaviour and the relation between hominids and non-hominid primates. Evolutionary anthropology is based in natural science and social science...
, especially the aquatic ape hypothesis
Aquatic ape hypothesis
The aquatic ape hypothesis is an alternative explanation of some characteristics of human evolution which hypothesizes that the common ancestors of modern humans spent a period of time adapting to life in a partially aquatic environment. The hypothesis is based on differences between humans and...
: The Descent of Woman, The Aquatic Ape, The Scars of Evolution, The Descent of the Child, The Aquatic Ape Hypothesis, and The Naked Darwinist (2008), which discusses the reception of aquatic scenarios in academic literature. She also authored Falling Apart and Pinker's List.
Personal life
Elaine Floyd was born and brought up in HopkinstownHopkinstown
Hopkinstown is a small village to the west of Pontypridd town centre in the county borough of Rhondda Cynon Taf, Wales situated alongside the banks of the River Rhondda. Hopkinstown is a former coal mining industrial community and is a district in the town of Pontypridd within the Rhondda...
, near Pontypridd
Pontypridd
Pontypridd is both a community and a principal town of Rhondda Cynon Taf, Wales and is situated 12 miles/19 km north of the Welsh capital city of Cardiff...
, in Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
. She has lived for many years in Mountain Ash, near Aberdare
Aberdare
Aberdare is an industrial town in Rhondda Cynon Taf, Wales, situated at the confluence of the Rivers Dare and Cynon. The population at the census was 31,705...
. She graduated from Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, with a degree in English. She married Morien Morgan (d. 1997) and she has three sons. Her oldest son was Dylan Morgan
Dylan Morgan
John Dylan Morgan was a physicist, hypnotherapist and author. He developed a theoretical approach to hypnotherapy which he published in his book Principles of Hypnotherapy...
.
Writing
Elaine Morgan began writing in the 1950s after winning a competition in Statesman, successfully publishing, then joining the BBCBBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
when they began produce her plays for television.
Morgan's works include popular dramas, newspaper columns, and a series of publications on biological anthropology.
Morgan has written for many television series including the adaptations of How Green Was My Valley
How Green Was My Valley
How Green Was My Valley is a 1939 novel by Richard Llewellyn, telling the story through narration of the main character, of his Welsh family and the mining community in which they live. The author had claimed to have based the book on his own knowledge of the Gilfach Goch area, but this was proven...
(1975) and Testament of Youth
Testament of Youth
Testament of Youth is the first installment, covering 1900–1925, in the memoir of Vera Brittain . It was published in 1933. Brittain's memoir continues with Testament of Experience, published in 1957, and encompassing the years 1925–1950...
(1979). Her other work includes episodes of Dr. Finlay's Casebook (1963–1970), the biographical drama The Life and Times of David Lloyd George
The Life and Times of David Lloyd George
The Life and Times of David Lloyd George is a BBC Wales drama serial broadcast in 1981 on the BBC1 network which starred Philip Madoc, Elizabeth Miles, Kika Markham and David Markham....
(1981) and contributions to the Campion
Campion (TV series)
Campion is a television show made by the BBC, adapting the Albert Campion mystery novels written by Margery Allingham. Two seasons were made, in 1989 and 1990, starring Peter Davison as Campion, Brian Glover as his manservant Magersfontein Lugg and Andrew Burt as his policeman friend Stanislaus...
series (1989)
She has won two BAFTAs and two Writers' Guild awards. She also wrote the script for the Horizon documentary about Joey Deacon
Joey Deacon
Joseph John "Joey" Deacon was a British author and television personality.-Biography:Joseph "Joey" Deacon was born with severe cerebral palsy, a neurological condition which left him with a muscular "spastic pattern", particularly arms and legs, resulting in a tendency of muscular tonus in the...
, the disabled fund-raiser. This won the Prix Italia
Prix Italia
The Prix Italia is an international Italian television, radio-broadcasting and Website award. It was established in 1948 by RAI - Radiotelevisione Italiana in Capri...
in 1975. She was honoured with the Writer of the Year Award from the Royal Television Society
Royal Television Society
The Royal Television Society is a British-based educational charity for the discussion, and analysis of television in all its forms, past, present and future. It is the oldest television society in the world...
for her series of Testament of Youth.
In 2003 she started to write a weekly column for the Welsh national daily newspaper, The Western Mail.
She was awarded an honorary
Honorary degree
An honorary degree or a degree honoris causa is an academic degree for which a university has waived the usual requirements, such as matriculation, residence, study, and the passing of examinations...
D.Litt. by Glamorgan University in December 2006, an honorary fellow of the University of Cardiff in 2007, and awarded the Letten F. Saugstad Prize for her "contribution to scientific knowledge".
Morgan was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2009 Birthday Honours for services to literature and to education. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature
Royal Society of Literature
The Royal Society of Literature is the "senior literary organisation in Britain". It was founded in 1820 by George IV, in order to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". The Society's first president was Thomas Burgess, who later became the Bishop of Salisbury...
the same year.
Her book Pinker's List is a response to Steven Pinker
Steven Pinker
Steven Arthur Pinker is a Canadian-American experimental psychologist, cognitive scientist, linguist and popular science author...
's The Blank Slate
The Blank Slate
The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature is a best-selling 2002 book by Steven Pinker arguing against tabula rasa models of the social sciences. Pinker argues that human behavior is substantially shaped by evolutionary psychological adaptations...
, in which she rejects his claim to objectivity and argues that the "blank-slate" beliefs he caricatures have long been extinct.
Aquatic ape hypothesis
Morgan first became drawn into scientific writing when reading popularizers of the savannah hypothesis of human evolutionHuman evolution
Human evolution refers to the evolutionary history of the genus Homo, including the emergence of Homo sapiens as a distinct species and as a unique category of hominids and mammals...
such as Desmond Morris
Desmond Morris
Desmond John Morris, born 24 January 1928 in Purton, north Wiltshire, is a British zoologist and ethologist, as well as a popular anthropologist. He is also known as a painter, television presenter and popular author.-Life:...
. She described her reaction as one of irritation because the explanations were largely male-centered. For instance, she thought that if humans lost their hair because they needed to sweat while chasing game on the savannah that did not explain why women should also lose their hair as, according to the savannah hypothesis, they would be looking after the children. On re-reading Desmond Morris's The Naked Ape she encountered a reference to a hypothesis that humans had for a time gone through a water phase, the so-called aquatic ape hypothesis
Aquatic ape hypothesis
The aquatic ape hypothesis is an alternative explanation of some characteristics of human evolution which hypothesizes that the common ancestors of modern humans spent a period of time adapting to life in a partially aquatic environment. The hypothesis is based on differences between humans and...
. She contacted Morris on this and he directed her to Alister Hardy
Alister Hardy
Sir Alister Clavering Hardy, FRS was an English marine biologist, expert on zooplankton and marine ecosystems...
. Her first book The Descent of Woman (1972) was originally planned to pave the way for Hardy's more academic book, but Hardy never published his book. Morgan's first publication was mentioned by E. O. Wilson
E. O. Wilson
Edward Osborne Wilson is an American biologist, researcher , theorist , naturalist and author. His biological specialty is myrmecology, the study of ants....
in 1975, comparing it to other 'advocacy approaches' such as The Imperial Animal as an 'inevitable feminist' counter, but describing the method as less scientific than other contemporary hypotheses. She accepted this criticism and so her later books were written on more scientific basis or more "po-faced" as she herself described it. As an outsider and a non-scientist she claims to have encountered hostility from academics. Consequently many of her books seem to be written as much to counter the many arguments put forth against the Aquatic Ape Theory as to advance its merits. Her position is summarised in her website. The story of Morgan's quest to have the aquatic ape hypothesis taken seriously was chronicled in the 1998 BBC documentary "The Aquatic Ape".
Morgan's version of the AAH has achieved much popular appeal, but has never achieved significant acceptance or serious scrutiny within the scholarly community. Despite this, Morgan continues to promote the theory, with invitations to speak at universities and symposia
Symposium
In ancient Greece, the symposium was a drinking party. Literary works that describe or take place at a symposium include two Socratic dialogues, Plato's Symposium and Xenophon's Symposium, as well as a number of Greek poems such as the elegies of Theognis of Megara...
including a TED talk
TED (conference)
TED is a global set of conferences owned by the private non-profit Sapling Foundation, formed to disseminate "ideas worth spreading"....
in 2009.
Works
Morgans earlier works as a playwright include:- The Waiting Room: A Play for Women in One Act (Samuel French Ltd, 1958)
- Rest You Merry: A Christmas Play in Two Acts (Samuel French Ltd, 1959)
- Eli’r Teulu: Comedi Dair Act (Gwasg Aberystwyth, 1960)
- The Soldier and the Woman: A Play in One Act (Samuel French Ltd, 1961)
- Licence to Murder: A Play in Two Acts (Samuel French Ltd, 1963)
- A Chance to Shine: A Play in One Act (Samuel French Ltd, 1964)
- Love from Liz (Samuel French Ltd, 1967)
Morgan's later books on anthropology included:
- The Aquatic Ape, 1982, Stein & Day Pub, ISBN 0-285-62509-8
- The Scars of Evolution, 1990, Souvenir Press, ISBN 0-285-62996-4
- The Descent of the Child: Human Evolution from a New Perspective, 1995, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-509895-1
- The Aquatic Ape Hypothesis, 1997, Souvenir Press, ISBN 0-285-63377-5
- The Naked Darwinist, 2008, Eildon Press, ISBN 0-9525620-30
Other works:
- Falling Apart: The Rise and Decline of Urban Civilisation, 1976, Souvenir Press Ltd. ISBN 0-285-62234-X
- Pinker's List, 2005, Eildon Press, ISBN 0-9525620-2-2
External links
- Elaine Morgan's own web site
- "Scars of Evolution", a BBC Radio 4 programme featuring Morgan. David Attenborough hosts the series that chronicles the rising evidence in support of an aquatic environment in human evolution.
- Elaine Morgan at the Internet Movie DatabaseInternet Movie DatabaseInternet Movie Database is an online database of information related to movies, television shows, actors, production crew personnel, video games and fictional characters featured in visual entertainment media. It is one of the most popular online entertainment destinations, with over 100 million...
- Biography at h2g2H2g2h2g2 is a British-based collaborative online encyclopedia project engaged in the construction of, in its own words, "an unconventional guide to life, the universe, and everything", in the spirit of the fictional publication The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy from the science fiction comedy series...
- Elaine Morgan on TED