Born in 1920 in Pontypridd, South Wales, where her father worked in the pit. Won an  Exhibition to  Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, took a degree in English, and taught for three years in the Workers’ Educational Association.

Married 1945. Three sons.

Between 1955 and 1988 wrote for television, gaining eleven awards including two BAFTAs and a Writer of the Year award. Three dramatised documentaries were about scientists:  Gregor Mendel, Alfred Russell Wallace, and Marie Curie.

Her first book, The Descent of Woman, was a best seller and Book of the Month choice in  America in 1972.  Since then she has devoted her attention increasingly to the subject of human origins.

Books by Elaine on the aquatic ape hypothesis (AAT)

• The Descent of Woman (Souvenir Press, 1972)
• The Aquatic Ape (Souvenir Press, 1982)
• The Scars of Evolution (Souvenir Press, 1990)
• The Descent of the Child (Souvenir Press, 1994)
• The Aquatic Ape Hypothesis (Souvenir Press, 1997)
• The Naked Darwinist (Eildon Press, 2008) which was available in traditional hardback format . It is now out of print but can be downloaded free in pdf format here.

Personal life

Elaine Floyd was born and brought up in Hopkinstown, 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.

Writing

Elaine Morgan began writing in the 1950s after winning a competition in Statesman, successfully publishing, then joining the BBC 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, and in this role was awarded Columnist of the Year for 2011 in the Society of Editors’ Regional Press Awards.

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.

Aquatic ape hypothesis (AAH)

Morgan first became drawn into scientific writing when reading popularizers of the savannah hypothesis of human evolution 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.

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 0-9525620-3-0
• “L’origine della donna”, 2012, Castelvecchi editore, ISBN 9788876157967

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

References

1. “Elaine Morgan” (in Welsh/English). List Of Writers. The Academi. 2009. Retrieved 2009-09-29.
2. News Are we all Aquatic apes? Cardiff University
3. Citation for her honorary degree at Cardiff University in 2007 – accessed 2008-08-07
4. Glamorgan Honours Wales’ Finest
5. My Cardiff, Cardiff University Elaine Morgan: Writer Elaine Morgan recalls the day she became an Honorary Fellow of the University
6. The London Gazette: (Supplement) no. 59090. p. 12. 13 June 2009.
7. “Royal Society of Literature All Fellows”. Royal Society of Literature. Retrieved 10 August 2010.
8. Lionel Tiger and Robin Fox The Imperial Animal (1972)
9. Wilson, Edward O. (2000 (1975)). “2. Elementary concepts of Sociobiology”. Sociobiology: The New Synthesis. Part 1 (25 ed.). Harvard University Press. pp. Reasoning in Sociobiology, p.27–30. ISBN 0-674-00089-7.
10. Elaine Morgan’s web site
11. Langdon, J. (1997). “Umbrella hypotheses and parsimony in human evolution: a critique of the Aquatic Ape Hypothesis”. Journal of Human Evolution 33 (4): 479–494.doi:10.1006/jhev.1997.0146. PMID 9361254.
12. McNeill, D (2000). The Face: A Natural History. Back Bay. pp. 36–37. ISBN 0-316-58812-1.
13. Graham, JM; Scadding GK; Bull PD (2008). Pediatric ENT. Springer. pp. 27. ISBN 3-540-69930-9.
14. “Interview: The natural optimist”. New Scientist. 2005-04-25. Retrieved 2010-07-18.
15. Human Evolution, publisher: Springer, ISSN 0393-9375 Volume 15, Numbers 3-4 / July, 2000
16. “Elaine Morgan says we evolved from aquatic apes”. TED. 2009-07-01. Retrieved 2010-07-18.

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 Database
• Biography at h2g2
• Elaine Morgan on TED

Twitter: #WOWWales

There’s many reasons why online marketers fail…

Click play below to listen!

So can you identify with some or all of the reasons why e-businesses fail? Do you have any personal stories or experiences around failure that you’d like to share with us?  Any thoughts, feelings, or feedback?

 And again, please share this post today with anyone in your life who may need to hear the message.

With kind regards,

Michael

1) Establishing Your Online Presence:

Developing and building your personal brand has never been so important as it is today. It is a different world with different dynamics such as the Web and Social Media.

When ever you apply for a Job, tender for a contract or generally try to get on in the world today, the chances are that “Your Going To Get Googled” by the hire/recruitment manager or by anyone that is thinking of doing any kind of business with you.

Corporate and/or Personal Career Building Now Demands Personal On-line Branding.

The starting point for developing Brand You! * is to register your personal domain name and/or brand name i.e. http://www.michaelcloke.com/

Next you will need *Hosting* including 3 MySQL databases with http://WordPress.org installed. (Not to be confused with http://WordPress.com)

Now you will need to set up your own blog or website and include, photos, videos, a brand statement, bio and attributes. This will help you position and differentiate yourself from the crowd.

The next thing you need to do is lock down all your social media URL’s. You will definitely need to sign up to Linkedin, Facebook, Blogger, Twitter, WordPress.org, Flickr, Digg and Gmail.

To bring it all together, you will need carry out some *research* and decide on keywords. And finally connect to your social networks.

Now you are good to go, start blogging and promoting yourself. You should spend at least one hour per day on your Social Media sites.

2) Email Marketing – The You Inc business model:

1) Email Marketing – The You Inc business model:
2) Build your email list
3) Build a relationship with your list
4) Market to your list

The problems facing online business owners are:

1. A vast increase in competition and Information. With the advent of Ad Sense and the ability to carry out research on your product/service find a better deal elsewhere.
2. A decrease in attention span. Unless you can give people what they want in the format they want it and a price that’s acceptable, they are gone. Booom…
3. An increase in attrition. Unless you can get your prospects up and running and making a success with your opportunity within 6 weeks, they are gone. Booom…The You Inc Model is designed to solve these NEW problems that on-line marketers face Today!

The advantages of the You Inc business model are:
1. Anyone can generate FREE leads.
2. Automatic marketing via auto responders and web sites.
3. Protect you from competition.
4. Multiple income streams.

The You Inc business model:
1. Build your list. This is your biggest asset.
2. Relationships. This is your value and equity.
3. Market to your list.

Let’s take a closer look.
1.Building your list requires traffic and a way of capturing optin’s. This is done by giving away great value on your websites, blog and social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
2.Relationships are critical. This is where you endeavour to get people to know, like and trust you.
3.Market to your list and monetise. Offer something that your list wants and or needs.

3) Article Marketing:

Article marketing is one of the best ways to create back links to your site and get some free targeted traffic. Here are some of my favourite article sites:

http://GoArticles.com
http://Amazines.com
http://fellgr8.co.uk
http://www.articlealley.com/
http://www.articlecube.com/
http://www.articlesbase.com/
http://www.ideamarketers.com/
http://www.affsphere.com/

These are all free to join and you can start posting straight away.

4) Social Media Marketing:

One of the Golden Rules on Social Networking Sites is that you are meant to build up a relationship with your friends and followers. There are some amazing people out there to begin networking with and over time, they will become good friends. The big mistake a lot of newbies are making is to pitch their business opportunity to people that they don’t even know.
People will seek out what it is you do, once they are interested in you. They will never respond positively to being sold to.

5) Pay Per Click Marketing:

Pay Per Click Marketing is the best way to drive traffic to your web site with any given keyword, phrase or geography.

The main pay per click site is Google Adwords.

1. Google Adwords
2. Facebook
3. Yahoo Search

Google is undoubtedly the best (PPC) program but you will need to be very careful to begin with. You will need to test each ad for performance and once you have a proven ad, then you can upgrade the amount you bid per impression.

If you got a lot out of this education today, please help me to spread the word and share this post with your friends on facebook and/or followers on twitter.

Thanks for sharing your time here with me today  

To Your Super Mega Success,

Michael

For whatever reason, you must be clear about WHY because this is going to be the single most powerful motivator that you have. It will see you through the tough times and spur you on to become better and better at what you choose to do.

Next you will need to focus on the WHAT? For most, it is something that they are genuinely interested in and like to learn about. If you are a school boy rugby coach with years of experience then you should seriously think about writing a small handbook that shares all the best information.

I myself decided on marketing, branding, web design and copy writing.

So you know your reasons WHY and have decided your WHAT… Now you need to think about WHO is going to help and support you? So your family and friends are all there but you will need to learn from other successful people in your chosen niche. A good mentor or 3 is very important and will save you a lot of time and expensive mistakes.

If you got a lot out of this education today, please help me to spread the word and share this post with your friends on facebook and/or followers on twitter.

Thanks for sharing your time here with me today  

To Your Super Mega Success,

Michael