Evolution: Education and Outreach

A familiar image is often used to represent human evolution. At the far left of the image, there is a small monkey-like creature, usually depicted walking on hands and knees. To the right of this creature, there is another, standing more upright, shorter than the next creature, to its right. At the far right of the picture, there is a human being, standing upright, with a familiar profile. Images of this kind have been copied into this posting. Note that the second comes from the Scientificblogging.com web site, where it is a permanent banner display marking out the section of the Life Sciences page about evolution.

It’s clear what this image is supposed to represent: the progressive evolution of the human species, starting with the monkey-like creature at the left, and ending on the right with the figure recognizable as a modern human being.

The problem with this image is that it doesn’t reflect current—and correct—thinking about how evolution works. The “ascending monkey” image suggests that the monkey is at the base of a linear progression from less advanced to more advanced. This seems to be the sense that the Smith-Cotton Marching Band wants to convey, as does the creator of the Burning Man festival poster. Evolution does not have a general direction and cannot properly be said to progress. Species or local populations adapt to the conditions of their environment. They become optimal with respect to their environment only insofar as they do the best that they can given chance events, the nature of their particular genetic endowment, and the constraints of their development. Long-term progress does not occur, even if one species evolved from another because of the former’s better adaptation to a shared environment. Should the environment change, the new species might find itself faced with extinction.

Besides being incorrect as a representation of biological evolution, this image is pernicious because it has racist undertones. Some Internet research reveals that slurs and jokes aimed at humiliating people with black skin frequently make reference to the notion that they are monkeys, for the reason that a monkey is “more primitive.” Many of these jokes and slurs clearly explicitly draw on the themes of having black skin, being primitive, and being a monkey.

Consider the following racist jokes from http://www.racist-jokes.com/ (pages 5, 6, 1 and 1, respectively):

What’s the difference between a naked white woman and a naked black woman? One’s on the cover of Playboy and the other’s on the cover of National Geographic.

What do you call a white man in a group of twenty black men? Tarzan of the apes.

What does NAACP stand for? Now Apes Are Called People.

What do you call the million man march in the rain? “Gorillas in the mist.”

While these jokes are repugnant in the extreme, it is important to point out that they exist, and that the connection between race, primitiveness, and monkeys has real social currency and is rooted deeply in the cultural context of the US.

A recent controversy over an 18 February 2009 cartoon depicting President Barack Obama as a monkey illustrates that this racist subtext need only be barely concealed. Of central importance is the outrage expressed by many upon seeing the cartoon. The cartoon, which first appeared in the New York Post, shows two police officers just having shot a chimpanzee, which is on its back, dead, on the sidewalk. One of the police officers says “They’ll have to find someone else to write the stimulus bill.” On the one hand, the cartoon is meant to reflect a news item current at the time it appeared—police shot a chimpanzee which was threatening a woman in Connecticut. On the other hand, it’s hard to see what the connection between a chimpanzee and the stimulus bill might be. Someone might point out that the stimulus bill was in fact introduced in in the US Congress, and so President Obama should not be identified with the chimpanzee in the cartoon. Though this is correct, most people probably associate the stimulus bill most closely with Obama himself. The identification of a black man and a monkey is what is intended to stimulate whatever humor there is supposed to be in this cartoon, and there is a clearly racist interpretation of the cartoon. Again, the point is that the connection between race, primitiveness, and monkeys is a meaningful one.

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Hi all

For a few days, this blog was not working. Now it does.

I will have to put up some new posts soon, I mean, some substantial ones, not just about the blog working or not working.

Look for a posting about a misleading pictorial representation of evolution, and one about the importance of studying human evolution, generated from some reflections on recent articles in EE&O.

Rose Chang writes the following:

Hi everyone:

Issue 1 has its newest piece:

Fisher, M., Goetz, A., Hill, S., Kruger, D., Michalski, R., Osipowicz,
K., Platek, S. M., & Salmon, C. (2009). Voices from the field: Current
trends and experiences in Evolutionary Psychology. EvoS Journal: The
Journal of the Evolutionary Studies Consortium, 1(1), 11-33.

While you are checking it out at (http:evostudies.org/vol1.html)
please also sign up for the RSS feed for EvoS Journal. Then you will
be first to learn of new articles!

Thanks,

Rose Chang
Editor, EvoS Journal: The Journal of the Evolutionary Studies
Consortium

This is sure to be interesting and controversial, since it’s on the topic of Evolutionary Psychology, which is often divisive—some people think its main ideas are virtually self-evident as an approach to human thought and behavior, while others think it’s an example of science run amok.

Regardless, take a look, so that when the EvoS journal is publishing its 101st article, you can say, “I remember when they published their 1st. . . . “

Are you interested in the importance of evolution for public policy? EE&O editorial board member and Evolutionary Studies Consortium director at Binghamton David Sloane Wilson has announced the launch of an evolution think tank, The Evolution Institute, of which he and Jerry Lieberman are directors.

The Evolution Institute describes its mission:

The mission of the Evolution Institute is to use evolutionary science to solve real-world problems. Currently, there is no mechanism for applying current theory and research to public policy formulation. We aim to provide the mechanism. Working with our distinguished advisory board, we can:

Identify and assemble the evolutionary expertise for virtually any topic relevant to human welfare.
Organize workshops, coordinate the writing of position papers, and provide advisors.
Assist in the implementation of the policies that we formulate.

The Institute describes the need for an evolution think tank:

When Darwin proposed his theory of evolution, it was obvious to everyone that it would revolutionize our understanding of humanity. Yet, by the early 20th century, evolutionary theory was largely restricted to the biological sciences and avoided for most human-related subjects. Ian Lustick, a political scientist at the University of Pennsylvania, offered this assessment in 2005:

Of course social scientists have no objection to applying evolutionary theory in the life sciences—biology, zoology, botany, etc. Nevertheless, the idea of applying evolutionary thinking to social science problems commonly evokes strong negative reactions. In effect, social scientists treat the life sciences as enclosed within a kind of impermeable wall. Inside the wall, evolutionary thinking is deemed capable of producing powerful and astonishing truths. Outside the wall, in the realm of human behavior, applications of evolutionary thinking are typically treated as irrelevant at best; usually as pernicious, wrong, and downright dangerous.

The Institute is currently at work on childhood education, risky adolescent behavior, the nature of regulation, The Binghamton Neighborhood Project, which “uses the city of Binghamton, New York, as a “field site” for basic and applied research from an evolutionary perspective,” evolutionary religious studies, and The EVoS Consortium.

@Darwin2009 directed me to what looks like an interesting article addressing the question, Are humans evolving? It’s clearly written and nicely balanced between technical sophistication and entry-level exposition. There are a good number of references, too.

The abstract is as follows.

The question of whether or not humans are still evolving often captures the popular imagination and regularly leads to conflicting claims. Here, some of the evolutionary forces predicted to act upon current and future human populations are reviewed. It is postulated that the increasing movement and panmixia of humans, coupled with an unprecedented increase in the global size of the human population, are predictive of an unparalleled intensification of natural selection in the near future. However, regardless of which forces eventually prevail in the coming millennia, the idea that human evolution will somehow cease is one that is increasingly difficult to sustain.

You can read the article by going to http://www.mrw.interscience.wiley.com/emrw/9780470015902/els/article/a0020794/current/abstract.

It looks like the full content of the article is free; but I can’t be sure, since I am on campus, and it’s possible that our school subscribes.