Independently of Westenhöfer's writings, the marine biologist Alister Hardy had since 1930 also hypothesized that humans may have had ancestors more aquatic than previously imagined, although his work, unlike Westenhöfer's, was rooted in the Darwinian consensus. On the advice of his colleagues, Hardy delayed presenting the hypothesis for approximately thirty years. After he had become a respected academic and knighted for contributions to marine biology, Hardy finally voiced his thoughts in a speech to the British Sub-Aqua Club in Brighton on 5 March 1960. Several national newspapers reported sensational presentations of Hardy's ideas, which he countered by explaining them more fully in an article in "New Scientist" on 17 March 1960: "My thesis is that a branch of this primitive ape-stock was forced by competition from life in the trees to feed on the sea-shores and to hunt for food, shellfish, sea-urchins etc., in the shallow waters off the coast."