Oops. For the question mark:

How to test Aquatic Ape?

Science is all about testing ideas and... wait. No.
That's not right.

Science is all about eliminating the human equation.

We humans are biased. We /Like/ some ideas better
than others. We /Dislike/ a person and this colors
our perception of their work or opinions.

WE ALL HAVE OPINIONS!

We all get hunches.

Anyway, science exists to eliminate all these human
traits, filter them out.

Science is a methodology. Humans are morons.

Anyway, in science we're supposed to test ideas, even
ideas we are certain are right.

"What would prove it?"

Ironically, science proves the negative! It never
proves what's right, it proves what's wrong!

PREDICTIONS!

A scientific "Hypothesis" is an explanation, I guess,
and answer. And, this is super duper hyper important,
it's the basis of predictions.

If there's no predictions it's not a hypothesis.

Why? Because it's these predictions that you are going
to test. When you perform an experiment or make careful
observations, it's to confirm or falsify a prediction!

So when I say how do we test Aquatic Ape, what I'm asking
is what if any PREDICTIONS can be derived from the Aquatic
Ape hypothesis?

NOTE: Technically, a prediction does NOT have to be
readily testable. Einstein's "Theory" wasn't. Scientific
confirmation had to wait YEARS...

WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!

Like everything in life, this exercise is a double edged
sword, in a manner of speaking. Very often, PROVING why
human nature is so bad and we need science in the first
place, opponents to an idea will construct an
insurmountable burden of proof -- something well in excess
of anything they endorse might possibly survive.

A great example is from another group with fake "Atheists"
impose a standard for evidence on their opponents which
literally excludes the possibility of atheists existing, or
at least "Proving" that they exist.

What do they have but self reports, no?

So I would recommend, when proposing a test for Aquatic Ape,
that this test would have to be of a level which savanna
nonsense and Out of Africa purity could themselves meet.

Now I've argued here before what I think needs to be done,
and I'll argue it again...

Aquatic Ape says our ancestors lived waterside, exploiting
marine resources, eventually following the coastline back
& forth everywhere from Oceania to southern Africa, and
everywhere in between. Thus..

Determine where the cost used to..and dredge.

Dredging is cheap. It's quick. You just dredge the ocean
floor, making sure you dig down deep enough, and sift it
all like it were gold. One you identify a likely occupation
site THEN you go for the expensive and potentially dangerous
underwater archaeology.

And I need to say: My "Dredging" I don't mean excavating
something the size of the Sueze Canal.

ALSO: The Out of Asia crowd usually points to Sundaland
as Home Base. So I would place an emphasis there. And I
would suspect that the likelihood of some preservation
would be strong. Why? Because of Toba. It probably buried
quite a lot...

Okay, so this is big. It's not a small test. But it kind
of has to be big, because the coastline has changed so
much!

Pick a date, an era, figure out what used to be dry land
but is currently submerged, go dredge.

That's my test.