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| 4.18
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| 2009
| Nov 29, 2010
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it was amazing
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A NOBEL PRIZE-WINNING GENETICIST LOOKS CRITICALLY AT SOME ASPECTS OF EVOLUTIONARY THEORY Thomas Hunt Morgan (1866-1945) was an American evolutionary b A NOBEL PRIZE-WINNING GENETICIST LOOKS CRITICALLY AT SOME ASPECTS OF EVOLUTIONARY THEORY Thomas Hunt Morgan (1866-1945) was an American evolutionary biologist, geneticist and embryologist and science author who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1933 for discoveries elucidating the role that the chromosome plays in heredity. This book represents the Louis Clark Vanuxem Foundation Lectures for 1915-1916. [NOTE: page numbers refer to the 197-page 1916 hardcover edition.] He wrote in the Preface, "Occasionally one hears today the statement that we have come to realize that we know nothing about evolution. This point of view is a healthy reaction to the over-confident belief that we knew everything about evolution. But there are those rash enough to think that in the last few years we have learned more about evolution than we might have hopes to know a few years ago. A critique therefore not only becomes a criticism of the older evidence but an appreciation of the newer evidence. IN the first lecture an attempt is made to put a new valuation on the traditional evidence for evolution. In the second lecture the most recent work on heredity is dealt with... In the third lecture the physical basis of heredity and the composition of the germ plasm are examined in the light of new observations; while in the fourth lecture the thesis is developed that chance variation combined with a property of living things to manifold themselves is the key note of modern evolutionary thought." He observes, "Mutations have occurred involving the pigmentation of the body and wings [of Drosophila]... If put in line a series may be made from the darkest flies at one end to the light yellow flies at the other. These types... furnish a complete series of gradations; yet historically they have arisen independently of each other... But such a serial arrangement would give a totally false idea of the way the different types have arisen; and any conclusion based on the existence of such a series might very well be entirely erroneous, for the fact that such a series exists bears no relation to the order in which its members have appeared." (Pg. 12-13) He points out, "Darwin based many of his conclusions concerning variation and heredity on the evidence derived from the garden and from the stock farm. Here he was handicapped to some extent, for he had at times to rely on information much of which was uncritical, and some of which was worthless." (Pg. 59) He admits, "It is, of course, hardly to be expected that ANY random change in as complex a mechanism as an insect would improve the mechanism, and as a matter of fact it is doubtful whether any of the mutant types so far discovered are better adapted to those conditions to which a fly of this structure and habitat is already adjusted." (Pg. 86) He also states, "Any one who repeats for himself this kind of selection experiment will find that while his average class experiment will find that while his average class will often change in the direction of his selection, the process slows down as a rule rather suddenly. He finds, moreover, that the limits of variability are not necessarily transcended as the process continues even although the average may for a while be increased. More tall men may be produced by selection of this kind, but the tallest men are not necessarily any taller than the tallest in the original population. Selection, then, has not produced anything new, but only more of certain kinds of individuals. Evolution, however, means producing more new things, not more of what already exists." (Pg. 153-154) Though more than a hundred years old, this book may still interest those studying the development of evolutionary theory. ...more |
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THE FAMED DEFENDER OF EVOLUTIONARY THEORY DEFENDS IT AGAINST RECENT ATTACKS Kenneth Raymond Miller (born 1948) is an American cell biologist and molec THE FAMED DEFENDER OF EVOLUTIONARY THEORY DEFENDS IT AGAINST RECENT ATTACKS Kenneth Raymond Miller (born 1948) is an American cell biologist and molecular biologist who is currently Professor of Biology at Brown University; he has also written/cowritten 'Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution,' 'Biology,' etc. He wrote in the first chapter of this 2008 book, "In the pages that follow I will argue that evolution is only a placeholder in what is, in fact, a larger argument... The stakes in the battle over evolution... concern much more than just Darwin's great idea. And we cannot really resolve the issues at hand until we understand what the disagreement is really all about...”(Pg. 8) He adds, "For more than a century America has occupied a position of scientific leadership and has gradually come to take it for granted... I now fear that that is about to change, for something has arisen that may indeed signal a change in our national character. That something... reveals a deep and profound split in the American psyche, an unease that threatens the way we think of ourselves as a people, the place we hold for science in our lives, and the way in which we will more into the twenty-first century. What is at stake, I am convinced, is nothing less than America's scientific soul." (Pg. 16) He says of the bacterial flagellum [a keystone of Michael Behe's argument in Darwin's Black Box], "the inner workings of the flagellum are quite complex, and scientists will freely admit that they do not know how it evolved. That's understandable, since the flagellum is quite likely an ancient structure and may have been around for as many as a billion years. Nonetheless one could use it as a classic 'argument from ignorance' against evolution. Since we don't know how it evolved, perhaps it was specially or miraculously created or designed." (Pg. 35) But later, he argues, "once one discovers a useful, selectable function in part of such a machine, that claim falls apart... New research suggests ... that nearly every one of the proteins in the flagellum shows significant homology to proteins that perform important functions elsewhere in the cell." (Pg. 61) He is critical of the "Intelligent Design" movement: "the public relations problem [of the "young earth" creationists like Gish and Morris] is one today's ID movement has found a way to circumvent. They've done so not by changing their ultimate goals, but by writing a brand-new playbook... With a wink and a nod to the Bible, they've set that heavy book aside ... "ID, they maintain, is a scientific theory, not a religious conviction, and therefore the age of the earth doesn't matter. By positing a designer as the source of each and every 'evolutionary' novelty, design doesn't have to struggle with a worldwide flood, and need not take on earth scientists regarding the geologic column... It doesn't make the scientific claims of young-earth creationism, and that's its beauty as a weapon against Darwinism. It makes for such a deliciously small target that it suddenly becomes almost impossible to attack, and enables the adherents of ID to remain on the offensive. "The evolutionist can then be forced to account for ... the elegant complexity of the bacterial flagellum, for the missing details of the fossil record, and for the detailed, step-by-step evolution of each and every biochemical system in nature." (Pg. 41-42) Noting that ID proponents do not interpret the fossil record in detail, he suggests, "One might almost say that their primary goal seems to be to stake a claim for design, not to understand it." (Pg. 50) He critiques the notion of a "Designer": "the designer created a handful of little browsing species and then, as each one went extinct, he replaced it with a modified version... Whatever one can say of this designer, he's persistent. He's also not very skillful, since just about everything he creates goes extinct relatively soon after its first appearance. Unless, of course, extinction is part of his master plan." (Pg. 51) He adds, "he's not really a designer but a creator... the designer is never satisfied---or perhaps can never get it quite right... The inescapable conclusion ... is that the great intelligence behind ID is a serial creator... intelligent design is actually a hypothesis of progressive creationism... The charge that intelligent design is just another form of creationism may be resented by many in the movement, but it's the unavoidable conclusion of taking design seriously as a scientific idea." (Pg. 52-53) Still later, he asserts, "Is it unfair to claim that ID's ultimate target is not to 'correct' the mistakes of evolution but to destroy scientific rationalism?... To the ID movement the rationalism of the Age of Enlightenment ... is the true enemy." (Pg. 190) He adds, "Maybe the fortunate coincidence of fundamental constants in our universe is proof of a higher power, a cosmic architect... But there's a deep logical problem at the heart of the anthropic principle... Taking as a starting point the observation that you and I are alive... it's obvious that we must live in a universe where life is possible. If we didn't we wouldn't be here to talk about it. So, in a certain sense the fact that we live in a life-friendly universe merits little more than a big 'Duh.' Of COURSE we life in a universe where the six big numbers make life possible... Where else could we live?... We live in a universe where the conditions that make life possible are built into the material fabric of existence." (Pg. 121-122) He concludes, "it's perfectly reasonable to maintain that evolution as we know and understand it was almost certain to produce a species like ours under conditions that prevail on Planet Earth." (Pg. 153) He admits, "When I am asked how I manage to 'reconcile' evolution with religious faith, I often shake my head and try to explain that I don't 'reconcile' them at all. If two ideas are not in conflict, they have no need of reconciliation... If all of nature is part of God's providential plan... then the science of natural cause exists within that providence and does not contradict it." (Pg. 162) He says, "In a very direct and personal way, I have written this book to confront some of the troubling questions that surround our understandings of human origins. My goal is to explore both our ancestries and our anxieties, to probe our connections with the natural world, and finally to see if we can make sense of them. Darwin's story of evolution speaks to all of us, and tells us something profound, welcome or unwelcome, about human nature. "What we all must ask, ultimately, is whether the true story of human origins is to be feared and hidden, or embraced and celebrated." (Pg. 137) He concludes, "the biggest problem posed by avoiding evolution is ... In a very important sense, evolution is the canary in the mineshaft, an indicator whose presence signals the health or sickness of the entire scientific enterprise. That, ultimately, is the point of this book. The question of evolution is really a question of what will happen to the American soul." (Pg. 195) This is an exciting, controversial book (Miller is perhaps a bit overly dramatic, sometimes), that will be “must reading” for anyone interested in the evolution/creation/intelligent design issue---regardless of what “side” (if any) one is on. ...more |
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it was amazing
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A BOOK OF CRITICISM OF SCIENTISTS, THOUGH MOST OFTEN QUOTED BY CREATIONISTS Sir Solly Zuckerman (1904-1993) was a British public servant, zoologist an A BOOK OF CRITICISM OF SCIENTISTS, THOUGH MOST OFTEN QUOTED BY CREATIONISTS Sir Solly Zuckerman (1904-1993) was a British public servant, zoologist and operational research pioneer, best remembered as a scientific advisor to the Allies on bombing strategy in World War II, for his work to advance the cause of nuclear non-proliferation, and for his role in bringing attention to global economic issues. He wrote in the Preface to this 1970 book, "I have long held the view that there are powerful built-in constraints to the supposed freedom with which people select the goals of scientific and technological activity... whatever the goals which may be chosen, their achievement always entails the risk of unpredictable social consequences. Mainly for these reasons I felt it urgent that the distinction between pure basic research as the first step in the scientific process on the one hand, and what is defined as applied research on the other, should be properly recognized... "In the present volume... I am particularly concerned to demonstrate that although the scientist has a special responsibility in deciding what science should be encouraged and what applied... the rules by which the scientist operates when he is engaged in the strict exercise in advancing knowledge are not those which regulate action in social and political spheres, and which determine which kinds of science ... should be fostered and applied." He states, "The third and final example which I propose to use in showing how objective truth can become obscured by personal attitudes and by fashion, and how controversy in consequence can multiply within science, deals with speculations about Man's evolutionary origins as revealed by comparative studies of a fossil bones of a variety of ape-like creatures." (Pg. 61) "After mentioning the discoveries by Louis and Mary Leakey, he observes, "since then the debate has often seemed less like a scientific discussion than a public debate of anatomical speculations as to whether one particular fossil specimen is more or less significant to the story of human evolution than another." (Pg. 62) He argues, "we focused our attention on the areas of the attachment of the gluteus medius and gluteus minimus muscles... Our findings leave little doubt that, in this respect, Australopithecus resembles not Homo sapiens but the living monkeys and apes." (Pg. 90) He concludes, "I look forward with interest to seeing whether these newer and highly precise findings will in any way weaken the general acceptance of the pronouncements of [Raymond] Dart and his supporters that the Australopithecines were creatures which walked and ran upright, and coursed wild animals across the plains with the help of primitive weapons. For my own part, the anatomical basis for the claim that the Australopithecines walked and ran upright like man is so much more flimsy than the evidence which points to the conclusion that their gait was some variant of what one sees in subhuman Primates, that it remains unacceptable." (Pg. 93) [Of course, subsequent finds---such as Donald Johanson's "Lucy"---have clearly shown that they were bipedal.] Zuckerman's work was often cited by creationists in the 1970s and 1980s, but his own tentative conclusions even in this book (which is not a "scientific" treatise, and was written for a popular audience), coupled with the many more recent fossil findings, make this book quite "out of date." ...more |
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| May 10, 2011
| May 10, 2011
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it was amazing
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AN EXCELLENT SURVEY OF THE SEARCH FOR OUR ANCESTORS Author Martin Meredith wrote in the Preface to this 2011 book, "This book follows the endeavors of AN EXCELLENT SURVEY OF THE SEARCH FOR OUR ANCESTORS Author Martin Meredith wrote in the Preface to this 2011 book, "This book follows the endeavors of scientists striving to uncover the mysteries of human origins over the past 100 years... The route back to this ancient world has been marked by misfortune, false hopes, fraud and extraordinary feats of skill and endurance. The early stages of the quest were dominated by a handful of ambitious individuals, obsessed by their work and driven by hopes of fame and glory. Their goal was to find the oldest human ancestor... "[T]he science of paleoanthropology has been renowned not just for the exploits of researchers in the field but for their intense rivalry, personal feuds and fierce controversies. One field scientist observed ruefully in his memoirs how the profession was plagued by 'treachery, cutthroat competition and backstabbing.' ... The results of the quest have been momentous. Scientists have identified over twenty species of extinct humans. They have firmly established Africa as the birthplace not only of humankind but also of modern humans... We have all inherited an African past." (Pg. xiii-xiv) Of Richard Leakey's 1470 skull discovery, he notes, "Alan Walker observed that apart from its large brain, it differed little from Australopithecus africanus. Leakey disagreed. He was convinced that it was a species of Homo---and therefore represented the world's 'earliest known man.' ... In jubilant mood, Leakey took the skull to Nairobi to show his father, knowing how pleased he would be to see such evidence supporting his long-cherished belief in human antiquity... 'It's marvelous,' [Louis] remarked, adding with a laugh, 'but they won't believe you.'" (Pg. 79-80) He recounts the rivalry between Richard Leakey and Donald Johanson: "Johanson wanted to more than to match Leakey; he was determined to surpass him and establish himself as pre-eminent in the field. So often did Johanson talk of his ambition that several of his colleagues thought he had become obsessed with the idea... Johanson had often been scathing about Richard Leakey's lack of academic credentials. The two fossil-hunters had nevertheless developed what appeared to be a firm friendship... in 1973, Leakey had gone out of his way to encourage him, making introductions, taking him into the field, offering advice... But after finding Lucy, Johanson's ambition soared further... 'He wants everything for himself... and it was all because he wanted to pass Richard.'" (Pg. 90) Later, he states, "Johanson... had endured a lean period. He had not made a fossil discovery since 1977. His hopes of resuming his expedition to Hadar had been thwarted by a moratorium imposed by the Ethiopian authorities in 1982 on foreigners wanting to undertake paleoanthropological research. One of the reasons for the ban had been Johanson's admission in his book Lucy of his grave-robbing exploit in Hadar. When Johanson subsequently asked Leakey for permission to study new fossils in Kenya, Leakey had rebuffed him. 'I consider you a scoundrel,' Leakey told him by letter." (Pg. 118) He summarizes, "the fossil evidence was beginning to indicate to paleoanthropologists that in the million years after 2.5 million years ago, there had been no simple linear transition from one species of Australopithecus to a successor species of Homo but rather a period of wild evolutionary experimentation." (Pg. 120) Later, he adds, "The threshold between australopithecines and the first species of Homo is little more than a blur. The fossil record between 2.5 and 2.0 million years ago is so sparse that paleoanthpologists have yet to determine which species of Homo came first and when it emerged from the ranks of australopithecines. What appears certain is that Homo arrived at a time when the world was experiencing another dramatic change in climate... wild swings from wet to dry conditions followed by droughts---which put enormous pressure on hominids to adapt." (Pg. 163) This is an excellent and very informative (not to mention UP-TO-DATE!) book on the quest for human evolution, that will be of great value to anyone seeking such a survey overview. ...more |
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it was amazing
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AN EXCELLENT ACCOUNT OF THE SEARCH FOR HOMINIDS, UP TO 2006 Ann Gibbons is a writer on human evolution for Science magazine; she wrote in the Introduct AN EXCELLENT ACCOUNT OF THE SEARCH FOR HOMINIDS, UP TO 2006 Ann Gibbons is a writer on human evolution for Science magazine; she wrote in the Introduction to this 2006 about a 1994 discovery, "the renowned Hominid Gang fossil hunter Kamoya Kimeu found two parts of a shinbone that resembled those of Lucy's species, showing that this chimp-sized creature had walked upright... These body parts from several individuals showed a mixture of primitive traits, such as those found in a chimpanzee, and more derived characters---new traits that appeared later in early humans but not in the African apes. The new fossils also showed some unique features of their own. The mix suggested that Meave and the Hominid Gang had assembled fossils of a new type of early human---an upright-walking hominid that was more primitive than Lucy." (Pg. 19) She notes of an earlier discovery of Louis and Mary Leakey, "The discoveries also offered a new view of human evolution, showing that the earliest sign of becoming human was not a big brain... The big brain did not come until later, less than 2 million years ago, when it began to expand in Homo Erectus, reaching its largest size in Neanderthals and modern humans." (Pg. 43) She points out that "it was high time for Ramapithecus to come down from the human family tree. More than a decade would pass before many paleoanthropologists --- would admit that Ramapithecus was no hominid. Even then, it would take the paleoanthropologists closest to the fossils to finish off Ramapithecus as a hominid---on the basis of its anatomy." (Pg. 76) She observes, "Then along came Lucy and other members of her species, walking upright with tiny brains---and well before stone tool kits show up in the fossil record, at about 2.5 million years. The thoroughly upright gait of Lucy suggested a host of new questions: How long did it take Lucy's ancestors to develop a modern gait? Did upright walking appear rapidly in one population? Or did it take many, many generations to remodel the anatomy of hominids before they walked like a modern human? [Donald] Johanson was among those who recognized that it was time to consider new hypotheses about why human ancestors got up on their hind legs and started walking in the first place." (Pg. 96-97) After new discoveries by Tim White and his team, "Some paleoanthropologists were beginning to wonder if they were seeing fossils that were part of a radiation, or a proliferation of different types of early hominids that walked upright in different ways---and if more than one had been alive at the same time 4 million years ago. This talk of a 'bushy' family tree would drive White up a tree; he would point out that two species older than 4 million years was hardly a radiation... Nonetheless, consensus about the neat line of descent from A. ramidus down to Lucy and eventually to modern humans was beginning to erode." (Pg. 152) She quotes an article written by Tim White, which concluded, "the science of paleoanthropology at the millennium is in serious trouble. The paleoanthropology commons are at risk from the selfish activities of practitioners. Tenure-tracked, mediaphile paleoanthropologists seem unlikely to rescue the discipline from tragedy. They simply have too much to gain by acting individually and institutionally, rather than for the common good." (Pg. 186-187) This is a well-written and very engaging tale of the search for our hominid ancestors, that will interest anyone studying the subject. ...more |
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THE SEQUEL TO JOHANSON’S FIRST “LUCY” BOOK Donald Carl Johanson (born 1943) is an American paleoanthropologist; he has also written 'Lucy: The Beginnin THE SEQUEL TO JOHANSON’S FIRST “LUCY” BOOK Donald Carl Johanson (born 1943) is an American paleoanthropologist; he has also written 'Lucy: The Beginnings of Humankind,' 'From Lucy to Language,' 'Ancestors: In Search of Human Origins,' and 'Lucy's Legacy: The Quest for Human Origins.' He wrote in the first chapter of this 1989 book, "the celebrity Lucy brought me had a bitter side as well. Along the way, I would also be called a prima donna, a slick operator, a publicity hound. I lost friends, including some of my closest colleagues in the field, whose interpretations of humanity's origins were thrown into serious doubt by Lucy and her Hadar companions. My hopes for a return to Ethiopia to complete the work we had started there would be frustrated again and again. Other field expeditions yielded nothing. Slowly I would come to doubt my famous luck. Eventually I would find myself... wondering whether I was finished as a practicing scientist." (Pg. 23) He says about his relation with Richard and Mary Leakey, "'I think Don was right about the Hadar fossils the first time,' Richard said at the symposium... He believed that there were at least two species at Hadar, one of them 'some kind of primitive Homo.' His arguments, though, were exactly the ones I had used initially ... so I was prepared to counter them. I even offered to review the fossils with him, point by point, Richard declined... Mary Leakey attacked us in 'Science' only on formal, nomenclatural grounds, offering a thin handful of objections to our choice of name... In his public talks, Richard would only give a sprinkling of statements about afarensis, always unsupported, implying that Tim [White] and I were mistaken, and that more fossils were needed before anything would be further clarified. I felt I was fencing with a phantom." (Pg. 118) Of an unplanned "debate" he had with Leakey on a Walter Cronkite program, he observed, "As soon as the taping was finished Richard got up and hurriedly left the set. I was told... that he refused to sign a release on his way out, declaring that he would not allow the show to be broadcast. Leakey's lawyers called and threatened to sue if the tape went on the air... When I next saw Richard, he looked right past me. That was four years ago. We haven't spoken since. In public, he has continued to insist that our 'rivalry' is largely the media's creation, and that beneath the hype there lie nothing more than minor professional disagreements. I wish it were that painless." (Pg. 120-121) He states, "People love to hear about breakthroughs, about sudden transformations in understanding that turn ignorance to knowledge... Science is rarely so dramatic.... I can easily reconstruct the trail of clues that the hominid left for us, and when we came to solve them. It is all duly recorded in my journal. But what the journal lacks is the one entry you would most expect to find" 'Eureka! Today we solved the mystery of the hominid!' That entry isn't there because it didn't happen that way... There was no grand turning point. The evidence kept dribbling in, and through hard labor and some dogged thinking we DID solve the puzzle... though a sort of absorption, just below the level of explicit consciousness." (Pg. 203) He observes, "From what we can see in the fossil record, by six million years ago most of the dozens of hominid species which once inhabited the rain forest had ... [gone] out of existence... whatever the prime motivation for bipedalism, the fragmentation of this forest gave this novel trait room to establish itself: evolutionary innovation of a small group of prehominids, tucked away out of reach of their four-legged ancestral stock. There is not fossil I would rather find than one plucked from that population of transitional bipeds. But the chances of that wish coming true are vanishingly remote." (Pg. 256) He cautions, "I have warned against the dangers of drawing conclusions about human origins by thinking backward from modern humans. It would be easy to dismiss this harshly expedient view of the evolution of humanity as just another narrative told with its conclusion already in mind---Raymond Dart's killer ape again, warmed up with some sociological motivation and granted a scheming mind to go with his bone bludgeon." (Pg. 279) This book goes far beyond Johanson's "Lucy" book, and will be of great interest to anyone studying human evolution. ...more |
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THE STORY OF THE DISCOVERY OF "AUSTRALOPITHECUS AFARENSIS" Donald Carl Johanson (born 1943) is an American paleoanthropologist; he has also written 'L THE STORY OF THE DISCOVERY OF "AUSTRALOPITHECUS AFARENSIS" Donald Carl Johanson (born 1943) is an American paleoanthropologist; he has also written 'Lucy's Child: The Discovery of a Human Ancestor,' 'From Lucy to Language,' 'Ancestors: In Search of Human Origins,' and 'Lucy's Legacy: The Quest for Human Origins.' He wrote in the Prologue to this 1981 of his team's discovery of the "Lucy" fossil: "There was no bone duplication. But a single individual of what? On preliminary examination it was very hard to say, for nothing quite like it had ever been discovered. The camp was rocking with excitement. That first night we never went to bed at all. We talked and talked. We drank beer after beer. There was a tape recorder in the camp, and a tape of the Beatles song 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds' went belting out into the night sky, and was played at full volume over and over again out of sheer exuberance. At some point during that unforgettable evening... the new fossil picked up the name of Lucy, and has been so known ever since..." (Pg. 18) Of the arguments of Sir Solly Zuckerman [Beyond the Ivory Tower, he notes, "With Zuckerman kicking up more and more biometric dust, Le Gros Clark thought it appropriate to challenge him to produce a full set of chimpanzee teeth that bore any resemblance to australopithecine teeth. Zuckerman could not. He ignored the challenge and continued to fire off statistical salvos until professional statisticians began pointing out that his figures had not been calculated properly." (Pg. 76) He notes, "[C. Owen] Lovejoy does not have a good explanation for the condition of Lucy's hand ro arm. Compared with a human arm, hers is rather long, so he again asks the question: what did she use the long arm for?... Lucy's sexual strategy had turned her into a biped. Did she climb at all? If so, how much?... how does one explain her hand? It should have long, apelike fingers, but it does not. They are rather short. Furthermore, although it has the fully opposable thumb of humans, the muscles of the base of the thumb appear to have been small. This means that ... power gripping which involved the thumb and the entire hand was poor. This is exactly opposite to what scientists hitherto have thought... Lovejoy admits that it may take years to unravel that problem." (Pg. 348-349) For anyone wanting to know about how "Lucy" was discovered, and its immediate aftermath, this book will be of great interest. ...more |
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LEAKEY’S FINAL BOOK ON HUMAN ORIGINS [NOTE: page numbers below refer to the 375-page hardcover edition.] Richard Leakey wrote in the Prologue to this 1 LEAKEY’S FINAL BOOK ON HUMAN ORIGINS [NOTE: page numbers below refer to the 375-page hardcover edition.] Richard Leakey wrote in the Prologue to this 1992 book, "as a youth I fiercely wanted my independence and desperately fought to be out of my parents' shadow. I was drawn to the search for beginnings... Long after I became involved in fossil hunting, but while my father and I were still clashing antlers, I came across a manuscript of a lecture he had given... One sentence arrested my attention: 'The past is the key to our future.' ... it expressed my own conviction completely... had i unconsciously absorbed it from him? I doubt the latter, because as a boy I was not much interested in what he was doing. My father was religious, although not in the conventional sense; I am not. Yet apparently we had come to the same numinous point. It was a poignant moment for me..." (Pg. xiv-xv) He observes about the fossils found by Dubois, "It is interesting and instructive that a single set of fossils could provoke such contradictory expert opinion. Fossil anatomy can be extremely difficult to interpret, especially when it is fragmentary, as it so often is. People's expectations, their scientific preconceptions, influence their judgments. All scientists work from some kind of theoretical framework and interpret evidence in its light. Weak evidence can often be made to fit such a framework, whatever its form. I've seen that happen many times in paleoanthropology today." (Pg. 51) He says about Donald Johanson, "About a decade ago our personal and professional relationship began to deteriorate, for reasons I consider best not discussed publicly. One manifestation of the eroding relationship, however, was that, when reporters spotted an opportunity for a 'good personality story,' they frequently set up Don and me in opposition, often where no real confrontation existed..." (Pg. 98) He argues, "I challenge the notion that humanness arose very rapidly and very late in our evolution. I suspect that this extreme position has been adopted because of a desire to have ideas accepted in an unusual intellectual climate, an unconscious but powerful process. Many people believe that humans are so different from the rest of the animal world, they cannot accept the idea that we are a product of evolution, just like other species... Much more reasonable, it seems to me... is the notion that qualities as complex as consciousness, morality, and ethics developed over a long period of time in our history." (Pg. 199) Later, he adds, "In a sense, proto-human culture is not only a product of our ancestors' behavior, it is also part of the selection pressure that drives further evolution." (Pg. 214) He says, "Albert Einstein once quipped that he was interested in finding out 'if God had any choice in creating the universe the way he did.' In the same vein, I would phrase my quest as finding out what plans, if any, God had for Homo sapiens." (Pg. 342) Later, he adds, "To answer my earlier question, God surely had no plans for Homo sapiens, and could not even have predicted that such a species would ever arise." (Pg. 349) He concludes on the note, "I expect to continue my involvement in wildlife conservation for some years, but I may never again be as involved as I once was in the search for human ancestors. The journey of discovery has taken me to new territories, territories from which the place of Homo sapiens in the universe of things is more clearly perceived." (Pg. 359-360) This is an excellent book, that will be of great interest to anyone studying human evolution. ...more |
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LEAKEY GIVES A "POPULAR" EXPLANATION OF HUMAN EVOLUTION Richard Leakey wrote in the Foreword to this 1981 book, "Is evolution fact or fiction? Since 1 LEAKEY GIVES A "POPULAR" EXPLANATION OF HUMAN EVOLUTION Richard Leakey wrote in the Foreword to this 1981 book, "Is evolution fact or fiction? Since 1980, there has been a significant revival of this old debate and a group of religious fundamentalists have committed themselves to the impossible task of discrediting the work of science in the documentation of evolution. There is a move in several states to pass legislation that will require 'scientific creationism' to be taught alongside evolution... Evolution can be shown to have happened and to talk of the 'theory' of evolution is grossly misleading. "The theoretical aspect of evolution is simply the question of the mechanism by which evolution occurs. How does natural selection really work? Can large populations change very slowly over long periods of time or did major evolutionary events happen relatively quickly in small, isolated populations? These questions, and the more complex issues arising from molecular biology and genetics, are often discussed on theoretical grounds. That species DO change and HAVE changed as a result of evolution is a fact as incontrovertible as gravity... "One issue that the fundamentalist critics of evolution dwell upon at length is the fact that paleoanthropologists frequently disagree over the interpretation of fossil evidence. Science can only proceed upon the basis of frank and open debate... It is against this background that the greatly exaggerated 'controversy' between Don Johanson and myself should be seen. Neither of us... doubt that the fossils in Johanson's 'afarensis' collection from Ethiopia include the earliest known ancestor of ourselves, dating from between 3 and 4 million years ago. The issue is simply whether the collection also includes a second species, which was ancestral to the extinct australopithecine species known from later African sites.... "Following my recent recovery from a serious kidney illness... I have determined to do as much as I can to further our knowledge of human origins... Wherever I have spoken, I have found... a deep interest and sincere curiosity about our origins. Many of the questions asked and the doubts expressed have been the same... I have tried to respond to these questions at a popular level." (Pg. 6-7) After outlining the Gould/Eldredge theory of punctuated equilibrium, as opposed to the "gradualist" theory, he suggests, "Does one have to choose between the two? As my good friend Alan Walker says, 'Evolution can surely work in both ways, and in all intermediate positions in between.' It is worth bearing this in mind when considering the woefully incomplete fossil record of human evolution. The immediate impression is that new grades of human ancestors suddenly appear in the record. There are, however, hints of intermediate forms, as we shall see later." (Pg. 30-31) He admits, "Unfortunately, the fossil record is somewhat incomplete as far as the hominids are concerned, and it is all but blank for the apes. The best we can hope for is that more fossils will be found over the next few years which will fill in present gaps in the evidence. The major gap, often referred to as the 'fossil void,' is between eight and four million years ago. David Pilbeam comments wryly, 'If you brought in a smart scientist from another discipline and showed him the meagre evidence we've got he'd surely say, "forget it; there isn't enough to go on."" ... we remain fully aware of the dangers of drawing conclusions from evidence that is so incomplete." (Pg. 43) Of some Homo Erectus fossils, he notes, "it is impossible as yet to measure their age with much confidence... An early date would also lend some support to those people that consider that Homo erectus evolved in Asia rather than in Africa. I believe this latter notion to be unlikely as, so far at least, none of the earlier, pre-Hom Erectus hominids have been identified outside Africa. There is no knowledge of an ancestral stage, such as Homo habilis, from which Homo erectus could have evolved in Asia." (Pg. 114) He argues, "I believe that the nature of man is more complex than is usually supposed. We do not carry with us the burden of a more primitive and savage past: humans are not 'killer-apes' as has been suggested. Nor are we innately peaceful creatures. Natural selection has endowed us with a behavioral flexibility which is quite unknown in the animal world. Without doubt we are highly social creatures... But it would be as wrong to assert that humans are innately co-operative as it would be to say that we are innately aggressive. We are not innately ANYTHING. Humans are cultural animals, and each one of us is the product of our own cultural environment." (Pg. 242) This is a fascinating book of Leakey's, that will be of interest to anyone studying human evolution. ...more |
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A BOOK ABOUT SOCIAL EVOLUTION---AND COUNTERING THE "INNATE AGGRESSION" SCHOOL Co-author Roger Lewin is a British science writer, who wrote in the Prefa A BOOK ABOUT SOCIAL EVOLUTION---AND COUNTERING THE "INNATE AGGRESSION" SCHOOL Co-author Roger Lewin is a British science writer, who wrote in the Preface to this 1978 book, "In telling the story of human origins we attempt to draw from that matrix some of the most important factors, while being aware of the danger of oversimplification. And we try to display the intricately interacting processes, while, hopefully, avoiding total confusion... Last of all we tackle the inescapably political aspect of human prehistory: Are humans innately aggressive? Are war and bloody oppression inevitable elements of human history?" (Pg. 12-13) They note that "In the animal kingdom Homo sapiens is the only species with an apparently well-developed proclivity for killing its own kind. We are not, however, the only animal to indulge in intraspecific killing (call it murder if you like); during recent years animal behaviorists have been able to confirm that infanticide is not at all uncommon in a number of species, such as hanuman langurs, lions, hamadryas baboons, wild dogs, elephant seals, rhesus monkeys, howler monkeys, and many others." (Pg. 33) They point out, "People help each other all the time, and they are motivated to, not by repeated calculations of the ultimate benefit to themselves through returned favors, but because they are psychologically motivated to do so. This is precisely what one would expect; over countless generations natural selection favored the emergence of emotions that made reciprocal altruism work, emotions such as sympathy, gratitude, guilt, and moral indignation... the emotions of compassion and sympathy that stir in the breasts of such pure altruists are the evolutionary products of a long history of an intensely social creature; the decision to help may be sophisticated a cerebral, but the underlying emotion is much more basic." (Pg. 137-138) They suggest, "Although there can have been no SINGLE force responsible for the extreme development of the human intellect---evolution rarely works in such a monolithic way---the demands of social intercourse provided a major thrust in the growth of the human brain. The intellectual exigencies of a gathering-and-hunting economy, and the accompanying advantages of technology, must also have played their part." (Pg. 166-167) They state, "The emergence of the basic grade of Homo sapiens was probably around half a million years ago, perhaps first in Africa, or in Eurasia, perhaps in many different places at about the same time. The complex interaction of physical and intellectual capabilities within a self-created framework of culture probably operated on many populations of Homo erectus, urging them to the sapiens state. Not a divine guiding hand, but a biological inevitability." (Pg. 214) They observe, "Proponents of human aggression often claim that modern man lacks the instinctive responses that in other animals prevent combat escalating to lethal levels... but very soon the rules of biology would have reasserted themselves. Indeed, it would have been evolutionary suicide if our ancestors had cast aside the laws of conflict and converted every dispute into a potential murder. The costs would have been very high, not only for victims, but for the murderers too. Such an animal would not have survived... "One of the major flaws in the argument about aggression is the assumption that it is an unwavering instinct... the behavior itself is very responsive to environmental conditions. A species may be outrageously territorial in one kind of environment, but not at all in another." (Pg. 224-225) This book will be of interest to all who are interested in the social evolution of humans. ...more |
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AN EXCELLENT "OVERVIEW" OF HUMAN EVOLUTION (CIRCA 1977) Richard Leakey has written/cowritten other books such as 'People of the Lake,' 'The Making of AN EXCELLENT "OVERVIEW" OF HUMAN EVOLUTION (CIRCA 1977) Richard Leakey has written/cowritten other books such as 'People of the Lake,' 'The Making of Mankind,' 'Origins Reconsidered: In Search of What Makes Us Human,' 'Wildlife Wars: My Fight to Save Africa's Natural Treasures,' etc. This book was published in 1977. They note, "For the higher primates, with their ability to see that world in color and in three dimensions, and, also to pick up and manipulate objects, the world becomes more than just a three-dimensional color pattern. It is also a world full of identifiable objects. Monkeys, apes, and human beings are almost the only creatures that fiddle with things, picking them up, turning them over, inspecting them visually, by smell and by touch... "The implications of this new mental dimension are vast... The opportunities for learning about the world, rather than simply reacting to particular shapes in a pre-programmed fashion, are enhanced enormously. And, ultimately, the ability to view objects as separate entities is an absolute prerequisite for the evolution of language, which is possibly the one unique human attribute. In a very real sense, we owe our capacity for speech to the higher primates' reaching out to analyse their three-dimensional world." (Pg. 45) The observe, "At least part of the reason for a lengthy childhood in humans is the crown of evolutionary achievement we carry in our heads---the human brain. An uneasy compromise has been evolved, balancing the protection necessary for the delicate, developing brain, especially in its early stages, against the safe delivery of the baby's head through its mother's pelvis. A brain that was fully developed at birth would escape the potential hazards of environmental damage before its development had been completed. But such a brain would make impossible demands on the engineering of the birth canal in the mother's pelvis... The path taken by the evolving human structure was a middle one: an infant with a relatively well-developed brain is delivered through a canal that has caused the pelvis to widen... but not so much as to severely impede walking." (Pg. 149-150) They argue, "It used to be said that many animals KNOW, but only humans KNOW THEY KNOW. For chimpanzees at least, this is probably an injustice. To know in the 'human' sense is to be self-aware... to be aware of oneself as an individual among others... But just as humans are able, through self-awareness, to put themselves in someone else's position, it is a fair guess that to some extent at least, chimpanzees can do the very same thing with one another." (Pg. 189) One might have hoped in this book for more details about the fossils Leakey and his famous parents had been involved in discovering; but the book is a well-illustrated and photographed introduction to human evolution, and is well worth reading for anyone interested in that subject. ...more |
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A FAMED SCIENCE WRITER LOOKS AT CONTROVERSIES OVER HUMAN/HOMINID FOSSILS Roger Lewin (born 1944) is a British science writer, who wrote for "Science" A FAMED SCIENCE WRITER LOOKS AT CONTROVERSIES OVER HUMAN/HOMINID FOSSILS Roger Lewin (born 1944) is a British science writer, who wrote for "Science" magazine for ten years as News Editor; he has written other books such as 'Principles of Human Evolution,' and also co-wrote with Richard Leakey 'Origins,' 'People of the Lake,' and 'Origins Reconsidered: In Search of What Makes Us Human.' He wrote in the first chapter of this 1987 book, "There are four simple themes in the paleoanthropological debates---themes that sometimes are dominant in scientific discourse, sometimes fading into the background, depending on the flow of the moment; They are the Who? Where? When? and Why? questions, just like the classic opening paragraph to a newspaper story. Who was our ancestor? Where did it first arise? When did we break away from the rest of the animal world? And, Why did it happen? " (Pg. 28) He notes that Sir Solly Zuckerman [Beyond the Ivory Tower] "believes that apes and humans diverged way back in the Oligocene, some 25 million years and more ago, a view he developed early in his career and clings to still. It is therefore difficult to see what could persuade him to accept as hominid anything that was anatomically primitive and yet lived only a couple of million years ago. To be admitted into the human family, a creature as recent in time as 2 million years must surely be much more humanlike and much less apelike than Australopituecus obviously was, for in Zuckerman's estimate it would have been separated from the apes for at least 20 million years." (Pg. 82) He explains problems with the proposed "molecular clock" for human evolution devised by Vincent Sarich and others: "There is in fact no obvious reason why the accumulation of mutations in protein molecules should always be regular through time, no reason why the molecular clock should tick metronomically. Biologists have long observed that evolution is a rather irregular process, with modification of form and function occurring in an unpredictable manner, depending on changes in the environment, for instance. There is nothing uniform or inexorable about natural selection." (Pg. 112) He details the various controversies between Richard Leakey and Donald Johanson; for instance: "Relations between Leakey and Johanson had deteriorated so much by this time that Johanson's suspicions were stirred by this contact. 'From what I understand from certain sources, Richard has been undermining our efforts in Ethiopia,' Johanson said recently. 'I don't have any documents to show you, copies of letters or anything, but that is what I understand.' There is indeed no evidence that Leakey acted with the Ethiopians in any way other than as a fellow Third World administrator experienced in antiquities policy." (Pg. 172) He points out, "In suggesting the name Australopithecus afarensis to Mary Leakey, Johanson and [Tim] White knew they might face some resistance. The reason was that... Mary has long been opposed to the idea that Australopithecus might be ancestral to the human line... [She] freely admits limitations when it comes to assessing hominid fossils: 'I'm no anatomist. I've just got a hunch.' So the rationale for the anti-Australopithecus position is not well articulated, but it is nonetheless deeply felt." (Pg. 282) He notes that Tim White told Mary Leakey about the nomenclature proposed for "Lucy": "There are three choices... You can call it 'Homo,' in which case you are putting a creature that is more primitive than any other hominid in the same genus as ourselves. You can name a new genus, but then you would have to explain why all these other things are so similar and yet are in a different genus. Or you can call it Australopithecus as we suggest, and retain a thread of logic in it. Those are the rules of nomenclature.'... Very simply, Australopithecus was the closest model." (Pg. 287) Focusing on the personalities involved at least as much as the scientific data, this engagingly-written book will fascinate everyone interested in human evolution. ...more |
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| Mar 1955
| 1972
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AN EXCELLENT (IF "OLDER") SUMMARY OF THE EVIDENCE Wilfrid Edward Le Gros Clark (1895-1971) was a British anatomist surgeon, primatologist and paleoant AN EXCELLENT (IF "OLDER") SUMMARY OF THE EVIDENCE Wilfrid Edward Le Gros Clark (1895-1971) was a British anatomist surgeon, primatologist and paleoanthropologist; he wrote other books such as 'Man-Apes or Ape-Men?: The Story of Discoveries in Africa,' 'History of The Primates,' 'The Antecedents of Man,' etc. [NOTE: page numbers refer to the 201-page 1964 paperback edition.] He wrote in the Preface to this 1964 book, "this book... aims only to present some of the main sources of evidence in an abbreviated form and to indicate such conclusions as may justifiably be drawn from them. But it is concerned even more to examine critically the logical basis of the arguments and inferences which from time to time have been advanced on the basis of studies of the fossil material or on studies of the comparative anatomy of man and his nearest living relatives... Phylogenetic interpretations based on a fossil record which is still far from complete are, of course, meant to be no more than interpretations. They are offered for confirmation or modification as the record becomes more and more complete. Thus it is not claimed that the conclusions presented in this book are in any sense final." He states in the first chapter, "a brief reference may be made to the indirect evidence of anatomical resemblance [between men and apes]... these resemblances are actually very close... It is precisely for this reason, of course, that sharp controversies in the past have occasionally been around the identification of certain fossil fragments ... whether they should be referred to as ape or man... It is because of zoological classification man and the anthropoid apes have for many years been placed quite close together, and in recent years the tendency has been for a still close approximation." (Pg. 2-3) He notes, "From time to time in the past, claims for a remote antiquity have been made for skulls and skeletons of modern human type. The famous Galley Hill remains... were accepted for many years by some authorities as contemporaneous with the deposits from which they were disinterred... it was seized with avidity by those who were particularly anxious to bolster up arguments for the remote origin of H. sapiens. Such arguments were even used to refute the general conception of human evolution by antievolutionists... In the case of the Ipswich skeleton, the initial claim for its antiquity was ... based on a misinterpretation of the geological evidence, and the skeleton is now regarded as a secondary internment (probably of relatively recent date). The real nature of the Galley Hill skeleton was later determined by the analysis of its fluorine content... the skeleton is of no great antiquity..." (Pg. 56-57) He acknowledges, "the inference that the species H. erectus was ancestral to H. sapiens must be accepted for the present as not very much more than a working hypothesis. But it is a working hypothesis which has the perfectly reasonable basis that it is consistent with the evidence so far available." (Pg. 116) Later, he notes, "it is a reasonable, and indeed an obvious, inference that the bodily posture of the Australopithecinae approximated to that characteristic of the Hominidae and was very different from that of the Pongidae... the validity of this inference is confirmed by the anatomy of the pelvis and limb bones." (Pg. 140) He admits that "the most serious hiatus now in the record of hominid evolution is the gap which separates the genus Australopithecus from the fossil hominids of Pliocene and Miocene times. It is true that, by extrapolation backward... we can contrive a theoretical picture of the intermediate stages which presumably must have been interposed between generalized pongid ancestors and the Australopithecus phase; but in the absence of the concrete evidence of fossil remains, this is not a very satisfying procedure." (Pg. 175) This book may still interest those studying the development of modern paleoanthropology. ...more |
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A BEAUTIFULLY-PRESENTED, YET (NOW) QUITE INACCURATE BOOK Francis Clark Howell (1925- 2007) was an American anthropologist. This book was first publish A BEAUTIFULLY-PRESENTED, YET (NOW) QUITE INACCURATE BOOK Francis Clark Howell (1925- 2007) was an American anthropologist. This book was first published in 1965, and reprinted in 1972. As to why hominid fossils are so rare, he suggests, "Why so scarce? ... There are many reasons... Men... have never been as numerous as oysters and clams. They existed in small numbers, reproduced slowly and lived a long time. They were... less apt to get mired in bogs, quicksands, and tar pits... They often lived and died out in the open where their bones would be worried by scavengers, nibbled by ants... This is an exceptionally poor preserver of bones... Finally, men have been with us one or two million years. There simply has not been as much time for them to scatter their bones about as there has been for some of the longer-lasting types of animals." (Pg. 15) He says of Ramapithecus: "Its credentials as man's oldest known direct ancestor are thus advanced one step further. the impressive thing about Ramapithecus is that each bit of additional evidence about it has tended to strengthen rather than weaken the claim being made for it. If this continues a bit longer, its position in the human ancestral line should be secure." (Pg. 38) The book contains (Pg. 41-45) the famous chart, "The Road to Homo Sapiens," in which a steady progression from Pliopithecus to Proconsul to Ramapithecus to Australopithecus to Homo Erectus to Neanderthal to Cro-Magnon to modern man is presented, making a thoroughly convincing case---except, however, for the fact that Proconsul and Ramapithecus are now rejected as ancestors of humans, and the progression from monkey to upright-walking human is nowhere near as "smooth" as the chart tries to convince us it was. And there are now many more varieties of Australopithecus and Homo that are now added to the mix----many of which lived contemporaneously. He notes in the text accompanying the chart, "[the reconstructions are] pieced together from the fragmentary fossil evidence... it graphically illustrates how much can be learned from how little: the seemingly chaotic collection of bones at left... can give a quite complete picture of how Australopithecus might have walked---a bipedal creature at the very dawn of man. Many of the figures shown here have been built up from far fewer fragments... But even if later finds should dictate changes, these reconstructions serve a purpose in showing how these creatures might have looked... Although proto-apes and apes were quadrupedal, all are shown here standing for purposes of comparison." (Pg. 41) He observes, "We know absolutely nothing about Cro-Magnon man that would indicate that he was either pure or noble. On the contrary, he was undoubtedly as cruel, as untrustworthy, as emotionally unstable and superstition-ridden as any of the most backward peoples living today---and perhaps a good many of the so-called enlightened ones." (Pg. 170) He concludes with a survey of the Australian Bushmen. This lavishly-photographed and illustrated book is a wonder to read (great for young people); unfortunately, it is also grossly out of date. ...more |
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AN ARGUMENT THAT CHARLES DAWSON WAS NOT THE HOAXER Author Ronald Millar wrote in the Introduction to this 1972 book, "Piltdown man ... transfused life AN ARGUMENT THAT CHARLES DAWSON WAS NOT THE HOAXER Author Ronald Millar wrote in the Introduction to this 1972 book, "Piltdown man ... transfused life into a British paleontology feeble from the proliferation of discoveries of Neanderthal men and other prehistorical artifacts across the Channel... Small wonder that Piltdown man's discoverer, Charles Dawson... was congratulated and feted... 'Then came the shock. In 1953---some forty years later---it was announced that Piltdown man was a forgery. He was an amalgam of a modernish skull with the jaw of a modern orangutan... It was obvious that the forger was Charles Dawson... But even a superficial examination of the facts which surround the mysterious Piltdown forgery reveals that that the assumption that because Dawson got the fame he should receive the blame is by no means unassailable..." He says, "[Arthur Smith] Woodward waited until ... two years after [Dawson's death] to announce sensationally that his late friend had in fact discovered a second Piltdown man. The delay is strange and indeed unkind if the modern view that Dawson's lust for glory was the reason for the forgery is correct. Nothing would have pleased [Dawson] more than to pass away to the sound of acclaim." (Pg. 145) He suggests about J.S. Weiner's work 'The Piltdown Forgery,' "His excellent account ... is marred by a strong bias against Dawson... In the book Woodward and Teilhard de Chardin are summarily dismissed as suspects and appear as lay figures manipulated by the puppeteer and arch-villain Dawson... Weiner obviously believed in Dawson's guilt from the outset, just as I was biased in favour of Dawson's innocence." (Pg. 224-225) He argues, "One of my main objections to the assumption that Dawson is inevitably the culprit is that as the discoverer he was wide open to suspicion. He is too obvious a culprit... he surely could not have expected that it would withstand scientific enquiry forever. I find it impossible to believe that Dawson would pit his meagre knowledge ... against that of any skilled human anatomist. the strain on the nerves would be too great... I argue that a forger of such subtlety is beyond the conception of a layman such as Dawson." (Pg. 226-227) He continues, "Sir Arthur Woodward has hitherto entirely escaped suspicion. He seems to have gained even more from Piltdown in the way of fame than Dawson. His long friendship with Dawson would have assured that the 'planted' bones would be returned to him almost automatically. We have only his word that Dawson discovered Piltdown man II. He had ready access to human and animal fossils. He could have sneaked the orang-utan jaw from the museum collection. But Woodward can, I think, be dismissed on the grounds that he was too dedicated, too studious, for such an undertaking." (Pg. 231-232) He contends, "The other successful searcher at Piltdown was Père Teilhard de Chardin. The evidence against the priest is as black, if not blacker, than that against Dawson. One has merely to recall the incredulity of Dawson and Woodward when Teilhard de Chardin discovered the missing canine tooth in a stretch of gravel which had just been thoroughly searched... he did in fact arrive in England too late to have 'planted' the original find in 1908. It is just possible, however, that he might have added the ... molar to gain some kudos. That he likewise planted the controversial canine is highly doubtful." (Pg. 232-233) He eventually targets Sir Grafton Eliot Smith, however: "What was Smith's motive? ... Smith would have loved a chuckle at the expense of what he thought... was stick-in-the-mud paleoanthropology and anatomy. Somehow the whole affair reeks of Smith... "So Piltdown man can be summed up as a hoax that went sour. It was certainly not intended as a forgery that would stand the test of time... Although the realization that Sir Arthur Grafton Smith might be the hoaxer dawned on me about halfway through the preliminary research for this book, try as I may I have not been able to come up with concrete evidence of [his] participation... I do hope, however, that I have shown that Dawson does not fit the bill. And that Smith does." (Pg. 236) More recent evidence has more strongly indicted Dawson, of course. But Millar's book will be engaging reading for all those studying this issue. ...more |
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A FAMED SCIENCE WRITER LOOKS AT THE POSSIBILITY OF EXTRATERRESTRIAL LIFE Walter Seager Sullivan, Jr. (1918-1996) was a famed science journalist for the A FAMED SCIENCE WRITER LOOKS AT THE POSSIBILITY OF EXTRATERRESTRIAL LIFE Walter Seager Sullivan, Jr. (1918-1996) was a famed science journalist for the New York Times, and the author of many other books such as 'Continents in Motion,' 'Black Holes The Edge of Space,' The End of Time,' 'Landprints: On the Magnificent American Landscape.' etc. He wrote in the first chapter of this 1964 book, “Why, in the second half of the twentieth century, has this subject so abruptly become ‘respectable,’ after being so long corrupted and discredited by various science-fiction writers, comic strips, and, more recently, television shows? To understand how this came about it is necessary to retract the evolution of man’s concept of the cosmos, and his place in it, that has occurred since our ancestors first began to wonder about such things.” (Pg. 3) He notes that "For most of human history it has been thought that the stars were fixed to some sort of sphere or were pinholes in that sphere, permitting glimpses of a universal fire that flamed beyond. Whatever the 'model' of the universe, man was at the center---quite natural in view of the fact that the celestial sphere seems equidistant in all directions. The concept of our central position has been hard a-dying." (Pg. 4) Talking of Haldane's and Oparin's concept of the chemical evolution of life, he admits, "That all of this took place as a consequence of random interactions between atoms and molecules seems, at first glance, incredible. It is like the oft-cited illustration of the monkey pecking randomly at the typewriter. Since he must eventually type all possible arrangements of letters and spaces, given enough time he will ultimately 'write' Hamlet. The only problem is to give him enough time (in billions of years). But ... the construction of the big-life molecules is not entirely random. Because of certain characteristics of the atoms involved, and consequent laws of chemistry, the evolution of such substances is bound---or at least apt---to follow paths now being explored by the biochemists." (Pg. 85) He cites Frank Drake's proposals for using radio technology to detect communications from other stars: "On an astronomical time scale, he said 'a civilization passes abruptly from a state of no radio ability to one of perfect radio ability. If we could examine a large number of life-bearing planets... we might expect to find in virtually every case either complete ignorance of radio techniques, or complete mastery.' Thus the chances that any of our neighbors are in our state of transition are negligible.... 'In view of the continuous formation of stars, there should b e a continued emergence of technically proficient civilizations.' ... Therefore, Drake said, we must expect most societies that have crossed the threshold of civilization to be more advanced than our own." (Pg. 201) He concludes, "The world desperately needs a global adventure to rekindle the flame that burned so intently during the Renaissance, when new worlds were being discovered on our own planet and in the realms of science. Within a generation or less we will vicariously tread the moon and Mars, but the possibility of ultimately 'seeing' worlds in other solar systems, however, remote, is an awesome prospect... "The realization that life is probably universal, however thinly scattered through the universe. has meaning for all who contemplate the cosmos and the mortality of man... life, in a sense, may be eternal. Perhaps true wisdom is a torch---one that we have not yet received, but that can be handed on to us by a civilization late in its life and passed on by our own world as its time of extinction draws near. Thus, as our children and grandchildren offer some continuity to our personal lives, so our communion with cosmic manifestations of life would join us with a far more magnificent form of continuity." (Pg. 289-291) This book is sixty years old, so obviously the search for extraterrestrial life has advanced considerably since then. But Sullivan’s well-written exposition of the history up until the mid-20th century will still be of interest to some studying the field. ...more |
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A FASCINATING HISTORY OF SETI, BUT MUCH MORE, AS WELL Frank Donald Drake Ph.D. (born 1930) is an American astronomer and astrophysicist., and one of t A FASCINATING HISTORY OF SETI, BUT MUCH MORE, AS WELL Frank Donald Drake Ph.D. (born 1930) is an American astronomer and astrophysicist., and one of the pioneers in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, including the founding of SETI [Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence]. He wrote in the Preface to this 1992 book, "My scientific colleagues raise their eyebrows when I speculate on the appearance of extraterrestrials. But about 99.9 percent of them agree wholeheartedly that other intelligent life-forms do exist---and furthermore that there may be large populations of them throughout our galaxy and beyond. Personally, I find nothing more tantalizing than the thought that radio messages from alien civilizations in space are passing through our offices and homes, right now... In fact, we have the technology to detect such signals TODAY, if only we knew where to point our radio telescopes, and the right frequency for listening." (Pg. xi) He adds, "This book is the behind-the-scenes story of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence as I have lived it... The point of this book... is that interstellar contact will enrich our lives immeasurably. In all likelihood, any civilization we can detect will be more advanced than our own, providing us with a glimpse of what earth's future could be... I want to show that we need not be afraid of interstellar contact... The extraterrestrials aren't going to come and eat us; they are too far away to pose a threat. Even back-and-forth conversation with them is highly unlikely, since radio signals... take YEARS to reach the nearest stars, and many MILLENNIA to get to the farthest ones, where advanced civilizations may reside." (xii-xiii) He concludes, "I claim... that there are approximately ten thousand advanced extraterrestrial civilizations in or Milky Way galaxy alone. I believe that what they have to tell us is of supreme importance. I feel certain we can find them now... And therefore I maintain it is worth doing everything in our power to ensure that we receive their signal at the earliest possible moment." (Pg. xv) When he and a colleague were planning an early meeting among interested scientists, he recalls, "I don't remember which of us mentioned Carl Sagan's name first, but we both wanted him... I had learned that Sagan's interest in other planets was fueled in part by his desire to know if life could thrive on them. He knew more about biology than any astronomer I'd ever met, and was fast making a never-before-hear name for himself as an 'exobiologist'---a researcher who studies the life of other worlds... Sagan was in Berkeley... conducting experiments to demonstrate how life might have begun on Earth..." (Pg. 47) He tells of a conversation he had with Timothy Leary (yes, the LSD "guru"), who asked him which star would be best to which to send a "starship to save humanity"; Drake told him, "there is simply no way for you---or anyone else---to travel to the vicinity of another star. Every star in our Galaxy is terribly far away from us. Our rockets and spacecraft can't negotiate those enormous distances... "Something as big as an interstellar transport carrying hundreds of people is going to go at a snail's pacer, relatively speaking. You and your passengers would all die of old age before you reached your destination...Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock lied to us. You can't call up Scotty and order warp seven to zip anywhere in the galaxy in two minutes. It's too energy-expensive. The energy required to visit another star prohibits even the most advanced civilizations from making such a journey." (Pg. 119-120) He speculates, "I fully expect an alien civilization to bequeath us vast libraries of useful information, to do with as we wish. This 'Encyclopedia Galactica' will create the potential for improvements in our lives that we cannot predict... Another, even more stirring Renaissance will be fueled by the wealth of alien scientific, technical, and sociological information that awaits us." (Pg. 160) He concludes, "I don't believe the human brain is limited in any fundamental way. I think it can emulate the power of any intelligence we may find in the universe. And I expect the discovery of extraterrestrial life to bear me out on this account soon." (Pg. 210) Much more than just a history of SETI, Drake's book is a wealth of information, ideas, and speculations that will be of great interest to anyone concerned with the question of extraterrestrial life. ...more |
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A CONSIDERATION OF THE PHILOSOPHICAL ASSUMPTIONS UNDERLYING THE SEARCH FOR LIFE ELSEWHERE Paul Charles William Davies (born 1946) is an English physic A CONSIDERATION OF THE PHILOSOPHICAL ASSUMPTIONS UNDERLYING THE SEARCH FOR LIFE ELSEWHERE Paul Charles William Davies (born 1946) is an English physicist, writer and broadcaster, who is currently a professor at Arizona State University as well as the Director of BEYOND: Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science. He has written many other books, such as 'The Mind of God: The Scientific Basis for a Rational World,' 'Are We Alone?: Philosophical Implications Of The Discovery Of Extraterrestrial Life,' 'The Fifth Miracle: The Search for the Origin and Meaning of Life,' 'God and the New Physics,' etc. He wrote in the Preface to this 1995 book, "The question of whether or not mankind is alone in the universe is one of the oldest problems of philosophy, and has deep implications for our world view... I make no attempt at a complete survey of the subjects of exobiology, or the SETI programme as such... Instead, my concern is with the philosophical assumptions that underlie the belief in, and search for, life beyond the Earth, and the impact that the discovery of alien life forms would imply for our science, religion and beliefs about mankind... "Contrary to popular belief, the possibility of extraterrestrials was often debated, and the ramifications analyzed, in previous ages... My book is an attempt to rekindle this debate, and place it in a modern scientific context, by charting what aspects of contemporary science, and of our belief systems in general, are at stake." He notes, "It is possible that micro-organisms can survive quite lengthy sojourns in space if conveyed within protective rocks. During the past year or two, microbes have been discovered deep beneath the ground in terrestrial rocks... It is conceivable that life originated deep underground and migrated to the surface only when conditions became favourable." (Pg. 18) He states, "it is the job of the scientist to try to explain the world without supernatural purposive manipulation, and a number of scientific responses have been made to the problem of the enormous odds discussed above. One of these is to appeal to a larger number of 'trials' to shorten the odds. This lies behind the panspermia theories. If Earthlife did not have to originate on Earth, then there may be trillions of planets on which molecular shuffling is taking place. Given enough planets and enough time, even the most improbable molecular processes will eventually occur somewhere." (Pg. 29) He cautions, "It is important to realize that the discovery of an alien signal would not lead rapidly to radio dialogue between our civilizations. The nearest star is over four light years away. Even on the most optimistic assumptions, the probability of an alien civilization existing within 100 light years of Earth is remote. A message from aliens 100 light years away would take 100 years to reach us, and any reply would take another 100 years to get back to them. It would take some centuries before any concept of a two-way period of adjustment during the early phase, before such a dialogue, when we would need to evaluate the consequences of contact without the benefit of a meaningful exchange." (Pg. 41-42) He argues, "It is important to realize we cannot use the fact that we exist to argue that the formation of intelligent life is probable, any more than the winner of a lottery can argue that most punters will be successful. However improbable intelligent life may be a priori, the fact is that we DO exist. From that starting point we may reason that whatever improbable steps may be necessary for the formation of intelligent life, those steps must have happened once. It does not follow that they must have happened more than once." (Pg. 64) On the notion that we might send "supercomputers" into space, he observes: "the recent failure of the Mars Observer mission underscores how vulnerable technology is in space. The assumption that a man- (or alien-) made machine could operate flawlessly over millions of years in a hostile environment stretches credulity." (Pg. 72) He suggests, "the general [evolutionary] trend from simple to complex, from microbes to mind, seems to me to be built into the laws of nature in a basic way. If so, then we would expect the same general trend that has led to the emergence of life and mind on Earth to take place elsewhere in the universe." (Pg. 80) He adds, "I believe that there's a sort of 'law of increasing organized complexity' operating in the universe. It's not quite a law in the same sense as, say, Newton's law of gravity, more like a tendency or trend, but its manifestation seems unmistakable. There really does seem to be a general tendency in nature for increasing organizational complexity [or depth]." (Pg. 105) This is an excellent discussion of many of the key issues involved with the search for extraterrestrial life, and will be great value to anyone studying this issue. ...more |
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![By Carl Sagan Cosmos (1st Edition) [Hardcover] Carl Sagan](https://cdn.statically.io/img/i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1694862647l/127038845._SX50_.jpg)
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STILL A MODEL FOR WHAT "POPULAR" SCIENTIFIC WRITING CAN AND SHOULD BE Carl Edward Sagan (1934-1996) wrote numerous popular science books in addition to STILL A MODEL FOR WHAT "POPULAR" SCIENTIFIC WRITING CAN AND SHOULD BE Carl Edward Sagan (1934-1996) wrote numerous popular science books in addition to this one, which accompanied the PBS television series [Cosmos], which was the most widely watched series in the history of American public television. He wrote in the Introduction to this 1980 book, "The book and the television series evolved together. In some sense each is based on the other. Many illustrations in this book are based on the striking visuals prepared for the television series... This book goes more deeply into many topics than does the television series. There are topics discussed in the book which are not treated in the television series, and vice versa." (Pg. xv) He starts out with his famous phrase, "The Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be." (Pg. 4; this was an intentional usage of the verbiage of the Christian "Gloria Patri" prayer.) He never actually used the phrase, "billions and billions" in either the book or the TV series, however (although he did say "A galaxy is composed of ... billions UPON billions of stars"; pg. 5). He notes about Columbus' voyage: "Columbus' first voyage is connected ... with the calculations of Eratosthenes... Columbus had been an itinerant peddler of old maps and an assiduous reader of the books by and about the ancient geographers... But for the enterprise of the Indies to work, for ships and crews to survive the long voyage, the Earth had to be smaller than Eratosthenes had said. Columbus therefore cheated on his calculations, as the examining faculty of the University of Salamanca quite correctly pointed out. He used the smallest possible circumference of the Earth and the greatest extension of Asia he could find, and then exaggerated even those. Had the Americas not been in the way, Columbus' expeditions would have failed utterly." (Pg. 16-17) He suggests, "The fossil evidence could be consistent with the idea of a Great Designer; perhaps some species are destroyed when the Designer becomes dissatisfied with them, and all new experiments are attempted on an improved design. But this notion is a little disconcerting. Each plant and animal is exquisitely made; should not a supremely competent Designer have been able to make the intended variety from the start? The fossil record implies trial and error, an inability to anticipate the future, features inconsistent with an efficient Great Designer (although not with a Designer of a more remote and indirect temperament]." (Pg. 29) He notes, "Astrology can be tested by the lives of twins. There are many cases in which one twin is killed in childhood, in a riding accident, say, or is struck by lightning, while the other lives to a prosperous old age. Each was born in precisely the same place with within minutes of each other. Exactly the same planets were rising at their births. If astrology were valid, how could two such twins have such profoundly different fates? It also turns out that astrologers cannot even agree among themselves on what a given horoscope means. In careful tests, they are unable to predict the character and future of people they know nothing about except their time on earth." (Pg. 49-50) He explains, "If the general picture of an expanding universe and a Big Bang is correct, we must then confront still more difficult questions. What were conditions like at the time of the Big Bang? What happened before that? Was there a tiny universe, devoid of all matter, and then the matter suddenly created from nothing? How does THAT happen? In many cultures it is customary to answer that God created the universe out of nothing. But this is mere temporizing. If we wish courageously to pursue the question, we must of course ask next where God comes from. And it we decide this to be unanswerable, why not save a step and decide that the origin of the universe is an unanswerable question? Or, if we say that God has always existed, why not save a step and conclude that the universe has always existed?" (Pg. 257) He adds, "Very likely, the universe has been expanding since the Big Bang, but it is by no means clear that it will continue to expand forever. The expansion may gradually slow, stop and reverse itself. If there is less than a certain critical amount of matter in the universe, the gravitation of the receding galaxies will be insufficient to stop the expansion, and the universe will run away forever. But if there is more matter than we can see---hidden away in black holes, say, or in hot but invisible gas between the galaxies---then the universe will hold together gravitationally and partake of a very Indian succession of cycles, followed by contraction... without end. If we live in such an oscillating universe, then the Big Bang is ... merely the end of the previous cycle..." (Pg. 259) He points out, "A standard motif in science fiction and UFO literature assumes extraterrestrials roughly as capable as we. Perhaps they have a different sort of spaceship or ray gun, but in battle---and science fiction loves to portray battles between civilizations---they and we are rather evenly matched. In fact, there is almost no chance that two galactic civilizations will interact at the same level. In any confrontation, one will always utterly dominate the other. A million years is a great many. If an advanced civilization were to arrive in our solar system, there would be nothing whatever we could do about it. Their science and technology would be far beyond ours." (Pg. 311) He says, "The last scientist who worked in the Library [of Alexandria] was a mathematician, astronomer, physicist and the head of the Neoplatonic school of philosophy... Her name was Hypatia... Cyril, the Archbishop of Alexandria, despised her because of her close friendship with the Roman governor, and because she was a symbol of learning and science... in the year 415... she was set upon by a fanatical mob of Cyril's parishioners. They dragged her from her chariot, tore off her clothes, and ... flayed her flesh from her bones. Her remains were burned, her works obliterated, her name forgotten. Cyril was made a saint." (Pg. 335-336) This book remains a monument to how science can be presented in a "popular" way to a mass audience, without oversimplifying the material. Anyone with even the remotest interest in science should read (and appreciate!) this book. ...more |
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A NOBEL PRIZE-WINNING SCIENTIST LOOKS AT THE "BIGGER PICTURE" OF THE ORIGIN OF LIFE Christian René, viscount de Duve (1917 -2013) was a Nobel Prize-wi A NOBEL PRIZE-WINNING SCIENTIST LOOKS AT THE "BIGGER PICTURE" OF THE ORIGIN OF LIFE Christian René, viscount de Duve (1917 -2013) was a Nobel Prize-winning Belgian cytologist and biochemist, who received the Nobel Prize for Physiology/Medicine in 1974; he wrote other books such as 'Life Evolving: Molecules, Mind, and Meaning,' 'A Guided Tour Of The Living Cell,' 'Singularities: Landmarks on the Pathways of Life,' etc. He wrote in the Preface to this 1995 book, "I feel that the attempt must be made ... to understand our universe and our place in it. Life is the most complex phenomenon known to us, and we are the most complex beings so far produced by life. This book represents my attempt to look at the 'bigger picture.' ... "All through this book, I have tried to conform to the overriding rule that life be treated as a natural process, its origin, evolution, and manifestations, up to and including the human species as governed by the same laws as nonliving processes. I exclude three 'isms': vitalism, which views living beings as made of matter animated by some vital spirit; finalism, or teleology, which assumes goal-directed causes in biological processes; and creationism, which invokes a literal acceptance of the biblical account. "My approach demands that every step in the origin and development of life on Earth be explained in terms of its antecedent and immediate physical-chemical causes, not of any outcome known to us today but hidden in the future at the time the events took place." (Pg. xiv-xv) He adds, "chance operates within constraints---physical, chemical, biological, environmental---that limit its free play. This notion of constrained contingency runs as a leitmotif throughout my reconstruction of the history of life on Earth." (Pg. xvi) He rejects that argument of Fred Hoyle [The Intelligent Universe] and others that life is improbable: "I wish merely to examine the scientific validity of the probability argument. Its logic is impeccable, provided we are dealing with a SINGLE EVENT. But the emergence of life cannot possibly have happened as a single event... This consideration completely alters the probability assessment. We are being dealt thirteen spaces not once but thousands of times in succession! This is utterly impossible, unless the deck was doctored. "What this doctoring implies with respect to the assembly of the first cell is that most of the steps involved must have had a very high likelihood of taking place under the prevailing conditions. Make them even moderately improbable and the process must abort, however many times it is initiated, because of the very number of successive steps involved... To me, this conclusion is inescapable.. It does not, however, imply that the emergence of life followed a rigid, preordained course. Even less does it mean that that only one kind of life was or is possible." (Pg. 8-9) He observes, "The conclusion is clear. We need a pathway, a succession of chemical steps leading from the first building blocks of life to the RNA world. Chemistry, however, has so far failed to elucidate this pathway. At first sight, the kind of chemistry needed seems to unlikely to take place spontaneously that one might be tempted to invoke, as many have done and some still do, the intervention of some supernatural agency. Scientists, however, are condemned by their calling to look for natural explanations of even the most unnatural-looking events... The pathway to life must have been DOWNHILL all the way, with at most a few rare humps that could be negotiated with a help of the acquired momentum." (Pg. 24) He asserts, "the mechanisms that led to the encapsulation of the first protocells must have been intimately associated with the creation of appropriate passageways allowing the necessary molecular traffic between the protocells and their environment to take place. There are unfortunately no clues to the long succession of molecular events that determined this progressive tightening of barriers around increasingly sophisticate means of crossing them. We can only look at the finished product and speculate about its origin." (Pg. 93) He states, "Some readers might be dismayed by the many blanks in the portrait I have painted. I would rather have them marvel at the details that have been gathered... about a miniscule entity of enormous complexity that existed some 50 million human lifetimes ago." (Pg. 117) He admits, "It is noteworthy that the two most important eukaryotic structural proteins... both display complementary regions on the same molecule, so that self-assembly can take place reversibly from a single kind of building block... No reliable clue as to the origin of these two key proteins has yet been found in the prokaryotic world... Perhaps these are simply cases of lack of detection due to incomplete sampling." (Pg. 167) He also concedes, "Nobody knows how dragonflies, butterflies, bees, mosquitoes, and other flying insects won their wings. It is not even known whether they inherited their wings from a common ancestor or achieved flying separately by convergent evolution. Unlike the wings of other flying animals, those of insects are not modified limbs... How such an amazing arrangement ever came into being is anybody's guess." (Pg. 210) He concludes, "If the universe is not meaningless, what is its meaning? For me, this meaning is to be found in the structure of the universe, which happens to be such as to produce thought by way of life and mind. Thought, in turn, is a faculty whereby the universe can reflect upon itself, discover its own structure, and apprehend such immanent entities as truth, beauty, goodness, and love. Such is the meaning of the universe, as I see it." (Pg. 301) Those who enjoy speculative evolutionary theories will be very interested in this book, written in an engaging style by a noteworthy scientist. ...more |
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