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Two Framing Ideas About Human Evolution. Human evolutionary change has been rapid and extensive; so much so that the genetic similarity and recent divergence between the human and the chimp lineages came as a profound surprise. Three million years ago humans were relatively minor elements of a rich East African mammalian fauna. Since then, our Continue reading The Evolved Apprentice In “The Metaphysician’s Nightmare”, Bertrand Russell described a Hell in which there is a special torment for practitioners of each branch of scholarly inquiry. In the place in Hell reserved for statisticians, for example, a pack of monkeys walk aimlessly and endlessly on typewriters, each time creating a perfect rendition of a Shakespearean sonnet. Our Continue reading Moral Camouflage or Moral Monkeys? Darwin’s radical new history of the world did not give a central place to the human. It challenged human exceptionalism and emphasised what was shared, across all organisms extant and extinct. He thought of himself initially as a geologist, so was constantly alert to the ghosting presence of past life forms, visible now only as Continue reading Late Darwin and the Problem of the Human This is a précis of an argument that I developed in an article called “Did Darwin Write the Origin Backwards?” The article was published in 2009 and may be found on my web set at http://philosophy.wisc.edu/sober/recent.html. An expanded version of the argument is the first chapter of a book that I’m publishing at the end Continue reading Common Ancestry and Natural Selection in Darwin’s Origin Although humanism itself has often been controversial, until recently there has been a fair amount of consensus about the denotation of “human” among practitioners and critics. This consensus has been notably durable. In the Oxford English Dictionary, the first three senses of “human” distinguish “mankind” from animals, from “mere objects or events,” and from Continue reading Humans and Humanists (and Scientists) I have been studying the same group of monkeys, known as northern muriquis, in a small forest in southeastern Brazil for nearly 28 years. When I began my research they were called Brachyteles arachnoides. Subsequently, and within the lifetimes of many of the individuals in my original study group, they were reclassified as a new Continue reading The Challenge of Comparisons in Primatology Introduction Since Darwin’s time, the human language capacity has been a perennially cited paragon of extreme complexity that defies the explanatory powers of natural selection. And it is not just critics of Darwinism who have argued that this most distinctive human capacity is problematic. Alfred Russel Wallace—the co-discoverer of natural selection theory and in many Continue reading On the Human: Rethinking the natural selection of human language Egbé eja leja ?wè tò, egbé eye leye ?wò lé Fish swim in a school of their own kind; Birds fly in a flock of their own kind. Yoruba Proverb We mention nature and forget ourselves in it. Friedrich Nietzsche So engrained is the trope of the animal in the West that animal Continue reading Animalia: the Natural World, Art, and Theory As a molecular anthropologist, my research involves using genetic data to address questions of anthropological interest about the origins, history, migration, structure, and relationships of human populations. I frequently am asked to give lectures to nonspecialist audiences on insights from genetics into human evolution, and invariably during the ensuing discussion period the viewpoint will be Continue reading Does Culture Prevent or Drive Human Evolution? “I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.” Tennessee Williams To understand portions of one’s own culture demands a lifetime; to become familiar with another’s depends upon a host of enthusiastic interpreters, attentive listening, experiencing a multitude of unfamiliar activities, a receptive heart, and good fortune. Throughout my life, a major Continue reading Wild Animals and a Different Human Face |
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