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Darwin-L Message Log 7: 31–65 — March 1994
Academic Discussion on the History and Theory of the Historical Sciences
Darwin-L was an international discussion group on the history and theory of the historical sciences, active from 1993–1997. Darwin-L was established to promote the reintegration of a range of fields all of which are concerned with reconstructing the past from evidence in the present, and to encourage communication among scholars, scientists, and researchers in these fields. The group had more than 600 members from 35 countries, and produced a consistently high level of discussion over its several years of operation. Darwin-L was not restricted to evolutionary biology nor to the work of Charles Darwin, but instead addressed the entire range of historical sciences from an explicitly comparative perspective, including evolutionary biology, historical linguistics, textual transmission and stemmatics, historical geology, systematics and phylogeny, archeology, paleontology, cosmology, historical geography, historical anthropology, and related “palaetiological” fields.
This log contains public messages posted to the Darwin-L discussion group during March 1994. It has been lightly edited for format: message numbers have been added for ease of reference, message headers have been trimmed, some irregular lines have been reformatted, and error messages and personal messages accidentally posted to the group as a whole have been deleted. No genuine editorial changes have been made to the content of any of the posts. This log is provided for personal reference and research purposes only, and none of the material contained herein should be published or quoted without the permission of the original poster.
The master copy of this log is maintained in the Darwin-L Archives (rjohara.net/darwin) by Dr. Robert J. O’Hara. The Darwin-L Archives also contain additional information about the Darwin-L discussion group, the complete Today in the Historical Sciences calendar for every month of the year, a collection of recommended readings on the historical sciences, and an account of William Whewell’s concept of “palaetiology.”
-------------------------------------------
DARWIN-L MESSAGE LOG 7: 31-65 -- MARCH 1994
-------------------------------------------
_______________________________________________________________________________
<7:31>From sally@pogo.isp.pitt.edu Sat Mar 12 07:07:22 1994
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: Structural and historical linguistics
Date: Sat, 12 Mar 94 08:07:21 -0500
From: Sally Thomason <sally@pogo.isp.pitt.edu>
Bob O'Hara asks what it is about Saussure's historical inference
about the vanished "laryngeals" that made it a structural inference.
Of course Saussure's proposal wasn't made in an intellectual vaccum:
the regularity hypothesis for sound change (the idea that if sound x
changes to y in context A in one word, x will change to y in context
A in all other words) is also, in an important sense, structural.
What was different about Saussure's proposal was that he (a) figured
out the structure of the set of alternations, and then (b) realized
that the structure would be a lot neater, more regular, if there had
been a set of consonants in the proto-lg. that were unattested in
*any* of the then-known daughter languages. That is: he used the
structure of the system to construct a hypothesis about previously
existing sounds, rather than following the usual procedure of his
day in taking only the attested sounds and reconstructing a best-guess
proto-lg. sound from that set.
The system in question had to do with vowel alternations in roots
in various morphological contexts (i.e. word structures). English
verb pairs like sit/set, drink/drench, and fall/fell [as in "to fell
a tree"] are descended from one such alternation; the first member
of each pair -- at least those pairs that have an ancient etymology,
like sit/set -- goes back to a PIE word with a vowel *e; the second
member had *o in PIE. Other alternations resemble those found in
English sing/sang/sung. And so forth. The patterns could be
established by comparing the attested languages (not surprisingly,
if even modern English retains traces of some of the alternations!),
but there were a LOT of exceptions, and for these there was no
adequate explanation at all before Saussure published his monograph.
Instead of taking the patterns AND exceptions as a given, he took
the patterns, the overall structure, as a given, and then considered
how the exceptions might have arisen from such a structure.
What Saussure was doing was what is now called Internal
Reconstruction: he started with the parent language, Proto-Indo-
European (that's what PIE stands for -- sorry, should've said
that earlier), in its form (as believed in Saussure's time) shortly
before it diverged into the various daughter languages, and drew
conclusions about its earlier structure, basing his conclusions
entirely on the then-current reconstructions of PIE structure.
(One could then talk about "early PIE" -- before the "laryngeal"
consonants disappeared -- and "late PIE", shortly before the
break-up into daughter languages.) (The reason for the assumption
that the "laryngeals" were lost before late PIE -- again, based
on what was known in Saussure's time, minus Hittite -- was that
the consonants disappeared with exactly the same effects in all
the daughter languages, as far as one could tell then; so the
simplest hypothesis was that the consonants were lost before the
break-up into separate languages.)
And finally, a coda to Bob's question about whether he could
have done the same thing without a "structuralist component" --
or, at least, without seriously structural(ist) thinking: I doubt
it. Without the concept of the overall structure of the system,
and a belief that the system must have had a truly regular structure
(at least at an earlier time), it is unlikely, I think, that
Saussure would have thought to posit something so weird (in his day)
as a whole set of unattested consonants. It's true, of course, that
this was before he began the work that was to earn him the title
of Father of Structural Linguistics. But I think his future work
is clearly foreshadowed in his 1879 Me'moire sur le syste`me primitif
des voyelles dans les langue indo-europe'ennes.
Sally Thomason
sally@pogo.isp.pitt.edu
_______________________________________________________________________________
<7:32>From LANGDON@GANDLF.UINDY.EDU Sat Mar 12 13:57:34 1994
Date: Sat, 12 Mar 1994 13:57:34 -0600
From: "JOHN LANGDON" <LANGDON@GANDLF.UINDY.EDU>
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: Humanoid fossils in Time.
I found the Time story surprisingly good as general background and I agree with
its assessment of both the Java date (demanding some serious rethinking) and
the China date (skepticism is appropriate for now).
One might add that Java had produced old dates (> 1.0 Myr) in the past which
were viewed skeptically. This latest study was the evidence that pushed the
argument into the limelight where it could not be ignored. The China dates have
not reached that stage.
I recommend the excellent discussion of the Java data in the Feb 25 issue of
Science, pp. 1087-1088.
JOHN H. LANGDON email LANGDON@GANDLF.UINDY.EDU
DEPARTMENT OF BIOLOGY FAX (317) 788-3569
UNIVERSITY OF INDIANAPOLIS PHONE (317) 788-3447
INDIANAPOLIS, IN 46227
_______________________________________________________________________________
<7:33>From PICARD@Vax2.Concordia.CA Sat Mar 12 15:24:28 1994
Date: Sat, 12 Mar 1994 16:26:23 -0500 (EST)
From: MARC PICARD <PICARD@Vax2.Concordia.CA>
Subject: Re: Structural and historical linguistics
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Here's something that may help all the non-linguists out there get
a better handle of what linguists understand by STRUCTURALISM. Following is
the definition of this term given by R. L. Trask in his recent DICTIONARY
OF GRAMMATICAL TERMS IN LINGUISTICS (Routledge, 1993).
1. Any approach to linguistic description which views the grammar of a
language primarily as a system of relations. Structuralism in this sense
derives largely from the work of the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure.
Virtually all twentieth-century approaches to linguistcs are structuralist in
this sense, in contrast with the predoninantly atomistic approach of much
nineteenth-century linguistics, in which a language was seen primarily as a
collection of individual elements...
2. (also American structuralism) A particular approach to linguistic
description developed in the United States in the 1940s and 1950s. The
American structuralists (or 'post-Bloomfiedians') drew their inspiration
from the work of Leonard Bloomfield, though it is clear that Bloomfield
would not have approved of some of their more extreme positions. The
framework was characterized by an extremely narrow view of what constituted
scientific investigation and a remarkable set of dogmatic principles which
have been rejected by almost all other approaches. Among these principles
were the doctrine of the separation of levels, by which no morphological
analysis could be undertaken until the phonological analysis was complete,
and the complete rejection of appeals to processes in linguistic description
in favour of a rigidly distributional view of linguistic elements often
referred to as the 'Item-and-Arrangement' framework. In rejecting most of
these doctrines, the early generative linguists came to use 'structuralist'
as a term of abuse; they rejected the structuralist programme en bloc as
a merly 'taxonomic' one, that is, as one concerned only with labelling and
classification, and not with explanation. Nevertheless, the achievements
of the American structuralists were considerable: their concern for
explicitness for precision and for generality helped pave the way for general
linguistics; their development of the notion of constituent structure
influenced the later development of syntax far more than is often recognized;
and their enormous respect for primary linguistic data, at the expense of
theoretical elegance, deserves more credit than it is sometimes accorded...
Anyone interested in the rise and fall of American structuralism
might want to take a look at P.H. Matthews' GRAMMATICAL THEORY IN THE
UNITED STATES FROM BLOOMFIELD TO CHOMSKY (Cambridge University Press, 1993).
Marc Picard
_______________________________________________________________________________
<7:34>From rjohara@rjohara.uncg.edu Sat Mar 12 21:24:33 1994
Date: Sat, 12 Mar 1994 22:24:30 -0500
From: "Robert J. O'Hara" <rjohara@rjohara.uncg.edu>
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: March 12 -- Today in the Historical Sciences
MARCH 12 -- TODAY IN THE HISTORICAL SCIENCES
1626: JOHN AUBREY is born at Easton Pierse, Wiltshire, England. Following
study at Trinity College, Oxford, where his interest in antiquities will be
kindled, Aubrey will inherit a considerable fortune from his father, but he
will manage his affairs poorly and live extravagantly, and will be reduced
to poverty within a few years. His cheerful disposition will win him many
patrons, however, and his continuing and ever expanding interest in British
antiquities will earn him a patent from the Crown giving him the right to make
antiquarian surveys anywhere in Britain. His careful studies of the ancient
monuments of Stonehenge and Avebury will serve as exemplars for future
antiquarian investigators, and although he will formally publish almost
nothing during his lifetime, he will leave behind a great quantity of
influential manuscript material, including _Monumenta Britannica_, _Remains
of Gentilism and Judaism_, and also the _Essay Towards the Description of
the North Division of Wiltshire_ (1659): "Let us imagine then what kind of
countrie this was in the time of the ancient Britons. By the nature of the
soil, which is a sour woodsere land, very natural for the production of oakes
especially, one may conclude that this North Division was a shady dismal wood:
and the inhabitants almost as savage as the beasts whose skins were their only
rayment. The language British, which for the honour of it was in those dayes
spoken from the Orcades to Italie and Spain. The boats on the Avon (which
signifies River) were basketts of twigges covered with an oxe skin: which the
poore people in Wales use to this day. They call them _curricles_. Within
this shire I believe that there were several _Reguli_ which often made war
upon another: and the great ditches which run on in the plaines and elsewhere
so many miles (not unlikely) their boundaries: and withall served for defence
against the incursions of their enemies, as the Pict's wall, Offa's ditch: and
that in China, to compare things small to great. Their religion is at large
described by Caesar. Their priests were druids. Some of their temples
I pretend to have restored, as Avebury, Stonehenge, ∧c., as also British
sepulchres. Their waie of fighting is lively sett down by Caesar. Their
camps with their way of meeting their antagonists I have sett down in another
place. They knew the use of iron. They were two or three degrees, I suppose,
less savage than the Americans."
Today in the Historical Sciences is a feature of Darwin-L, an international
network discussion group on the history and theory of the historical sciences.
For more information about Darwin-L send the two-word message INFO DARWIN-L to
listserv@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu, or gopher to rjohara.uncg.edu (152.13.44.19).
_______________________________________________________________________________
<7:35>From TOMASO@utxvms.cc.utexas.edu Sun Mar 13 12:38:49 1994
Date: Sun, 13 Mar 1994 12:38:36 -0600 (CST)
From: TOMASO@utxvms.cc.utexas.edu
Subject: Re: DARWIN-L digest 166
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
This reply is about Straussian structuralism, time, and social evolutionism.
My apologies to those that have posted on historical and structural linguistics
recently. I am a bit backed up in reading my Email.
Sally Thomason wrote:
> So it isn't true, for historical linguistics, that structuralism
>was antithetical; structural linguistics has provided many useful
>ways of attacking the problem of unraveling linguistic history,
>though nothing as exciting as Saussure's Laryngeal Theory.
I agree that structuralism was never antithetical to historical linguistics.
However, historical linguistics is a presentist methodology, where present
realities are used to retrodict past ones. One of the differences between
historical linguistics and historicism, in my mind, is that historical
linguistics seems to work, generally, without _a priori_ assumptions about the
past cultural context from which a language derives (or which it constructs).
Historical linguistics, then, is not historicist linguistics. Historicism
itself is also somewhat antithetical to social evolutionism. The kind of histor
icism that good Levi-Straussian structural analysis might lead to would be
just as free from assumptions about the trajectory of cultural change as
historical particularism attempts to be.
Margaret Winters wrote:
>re-/mis-interpretations of
>the Cours have given rise to the strict division between the two
>approaches carried to the point of claiming total irrelevance of
>diachronic data to "the best kind" of synchronic analyses.
I, for one, would like to hear more about this perspective. Intuitively,
agree with Winters' conclusions, but I am not sure how I got there.
On Levi-Strauss, Fred Gleach wrote:
>the theory was explicitly
>based in an effort to understand historical processes *through* the study
>of structure.
Again, I was not suggesting that Strauss intended to be anti-historical, but
anti-social evolutionary. One of the problems of his kind of interest in
diachronics is the 'presentism' of it. His data derive almost exclusively
from the present, and the mental framework employed in his analysis does not
really seek evidence for a cultural context within which his reconstructed
'data' concerning the past might have existed. Historicism requires an attempt
to work from the past context to the present, not the reverse. Hence,
Strauss' methods can not be considered historicist. I am not writing this
as a condemnation of structuralism generally, but as an attempt to clarify
the distinctions between historicism, evolutionism and structuralism, which,
I believe, are central to this discussion. For, I completely agree with
Gleach's later observation that:
>"post-structuralism" in today's anthropology too often means a pose of
>complete rejection rather than a building on those ideas. As Marshall
>Sahlins has suggested, there are a lot of people standing on L-S's
>shoulders and shitting on his head.
As a compliment to this, I would add that many of the 'post-structuralists'
end up doing structuralism without making the structuralist bases of their
arguments explicit. This, I believe, is a serious problem for anthropo-
logists that claim to be more 'reflexive' than those of the past.
Gleach also adds that:
>The structuralism of L-S can be better
>seen as a reaction to the ahistorical (even anti-historical) functionalism
>of Malinowski than to evolutionary ideas.
I would not dispute this.
I reccommended, and continue to reccommend Fabian's _Time and the Other_
which deals explicitly with these topics, and in a way that I can not
duplicate here without resorting to excessive quotations. His central
point regarding L-S, however, is that Strauss' methods, designed, in part,
to overcome the problems of fragmentary or nonexistent history, end up
reifying time distance between the anthropologist and his or her subjects
simply because time itself is bracketed off (though L-S seems to waiver
significantly on this). By the way, Fabian's book is not exactly 'post-
structuralist' - it is rather a broad criticism of anthropological practice
and writing. His main argument is that intersubjectivity is the key
missing element in anthropological writing, and that this is bound up in
anthropology's problematic treatment of time and the other.
The original point was that structuralist analysis is not what the
social evolutionists used, implicitly or explicitly, to construct data
and theory. I don't think that this point needs much more elaboration.
I wonder, however, what structuralism's reaction to historicism (which is,
at least, related to the evolutionists' approach) might tell us about
evolutionist thinking. Is it true that L-S simply blew-off evolutionary
arguments by discrediting the temporal continuity that evolutionists and
historicists attempted to construct? Or, does structuralism actually
assume temporal continuity in its efforts to get at diachronic relations?
And which is more convincing - diachronic relations authored with little
more than present data and hindsight as guidance, or an historicist
explanation with emic and etic foundations laid down by an observer that
continually distances him or herself in time? These, I hope, will be
perceived as an honest question.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Matt Tomaso
Department of Anthropology
University of Texas at Austin
INTERNET:
TOMASO@UTXVMS.CC.UTEXAS.EDU
TOMASO@GENIE.GEIS.COM
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
_______________________________________________________________________________
<7:36>From DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu Sun Mar 13 16:30:02 1994
Date: Sun, 13 Mar 1994 17:30:00 -0500 (EST)
From: DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu
Subject: History-oriented discussion groups
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Organization: University of NC at Greensboro
A listing of history-oriented discussion groups was recently posted on the
CLASSICS list, and I reproduce an edited version of it here for the possible
interest of Darwin-L members. Most of these groups treat standard civil
history rather than the historical sciences (evolution, archeology, historical
linguistics, geology, etc.), but it may be of interest to some people just
to see what's out there. Discussion groups come and go, so it isn't possible
to guarantee that all of the groups below still are active, nor can I provide
any more information about them than appears below. Darwin-L continues to
occupy a special niche that isn't otherwise covered, thanks to your many
contributions.
Two lists appear here; first a list of Classics and ancient history lists:
AEGEANET (pre-classical Greece)
majordomo@acpub.duke.edu subscribe aegeanet
AIA-L (archaeology and technology)
mailserv@cc.brynmawr.edu subscribe aia-l
ANCIEN-L (ancient history)
listserv@ulkyvm.louisville.edu subscribe ancien-l [your name]
ANE (ancient near east)
majordomo@oi.uchicago.edu subscribe ane
ARCH-L (archaeology)
listserv@tamvm1.tamu.edu subscribe arch-l [your name]
AUGUSTINE (James O'Donnell's on-line Augustine seminar)
listserv@ccat.sas.upenn.edu subscribe augustine [your name]
BMCR-L (Bryn Mawr Classical Review)
listserv@cc.brynmawr.edu subscribe bmcr-l [your name]
BYZANS-L (Byzantine studies)
listserv@mizzou1.missouri.edu subscribe byzans-l [your name]
CAAL (computers & ancient languages)
caal-owner@ff.cuni.cz subscribe caal [your name]
CLASSICS (classics and mediterranean archaeology)
listserv@uwavm.u.washington.edu subscribe classics
ELECTRONIC ANTIQUITY (Electronic journal: communicating the classics)
antiquity-editor@classics.utas.edu.au subscribe EA [your name]
ELENCHUS (early christianity)
listserv@acadvm1.uottawa.ca subscribe elenchus [your name]
IBYCUS-L (ibycus)
listserv@vm.ucs.edu subscribe ibycus-l [your name]
IOUDAIOS (early judaism)
listserv@vm1.yorku.ca subscribe ioudaios [your name]
LATIN-L (latin and `neo-latin' discussions)
listserv@psuvm.psu.edu subscribe latin-l [your name]
LEXI (Greek & Latin language/lexicography)
listserv@uci.edu subscribe lexi [your name]
NT-GREEK (new testament Greek)
nt-greek-request@virginia.edu subscribe nt-greek [your name]
PAPY (papyrology)
listserv@igl.ku.dk subscribe papy [your name]
PERSEUS (perseus)
listserv@brownvm.brown.edu subscribe perseus [your name]
PERSIA-L (Persian period: 6th-4th BCE)
listserv@emuvm1.cc.emory.edu [subscribe persia-l [your name]
SOPHIA (ancient philosphy)
listserv@liverpool.ac.uk subscribe sophia [your name]
The second list includes all bitnet listservs having something to do with
history; subscribe by sending SUBSCRIBE <your name> to LISTSERV@<nodename>:
AERA-F AERA-F@ASUACAD AERA-F Division F: History and Historiograp
AMERCATH AMERCATH@UKCC AMERCATH - A DISCUSSION LIST ON THE HISTORY
AMWEST-H AMWEST-H@UMRVMB AmWest-H - American West History Forum
ANCIEN-L ANCIEN-L@ULKYVM History of the Ancient Mediterranean
ASTR-L ASTR-L@UIUCVMD Theatre History Discussion List - Amer. Soc
CLIOLOGY CLIOLOGY@MSU Theories of History
COMHIST COMHIST@RPITSVM History of human communication
ECONHIST ECONHIST@MIAMIU Teaching and Research in Economic History
EMHIST-L EMHIST-L@RUTVM1 EMHIST-L Early Modern History Forum
ESPORA-L ESPORA-L@UKANVM History of the Iberian Peninsula
ETHNOHIS ETHNOHIS@HEARN ETHNOHIS: General Ethnology and History Dis
FRANCEHS FRANCEHS@UWAVM FRANCEHS List for French history scholars
H-ALBION H-ALBION@UICVM H-Net British and Irish History discussion
H-ASIA H-ASIA@UICVM Asian History list
H-CIVWAR H-CIVWAR@UICVM Civil War History discussion list
H-DIPLO H-DIPLO@UICVM H-DIPLO Diplomatic History discussion list
H-DURKHM H-DURKHM@UICVM Durkheim History discussion list
H-ETHNIC H-ETHNIC@UICVM Ethnic History discussion list
H-FILM H-FILM@UICVM History of film discussion list
H-GRAD H-GRAD@UICVM H-Net History Graduate Students discussion
H-IDEAS H-IDEAS@UICVM H-NET Intellectual History List
H-ITALY H-ITALY@UICVM Italian History List
H-LABOR H-LABOR@UICVM H-Net Labor History discussion list
H-LATAM H-LATAM@UICVM Latin American History discussion list
H-LAW H-LAW@UICVM Legal History discussion list
H-POL H-POL@UICVM H-Net Political History discussion list
H-RHETOR H-RHETOR@UICVM H-NET HISTORY OF RHETORIC DISCUSSION LIST
H-RURAL H-RURAL@UICVM H-Rural Rural & Agricultural History discus
H-RUSSIA H-RUSSIA@UICVM Russian History list
H-SOUTH H-SOUTH@UICVM H-South U.S. Southern History discussion li
H-TEACH H-TEACH@UICVM H-Net Teaching History discussion list
H-URBAN H-URBAN@UICVM H-URBAN Urban History discussion list
H-WOMEN H-WOMEN@UICVM H-WOMEN Women's History discussion list
HABSBURG HABSBURG@PURCCVM Austrian History since 1500
HASTRO-L HASTRO-L@WVNVM History of Astronomy Discussion Group
HISLAW-L HISLAW-L@ULKYVM History of Law (Feudal, Common, Canon)
HIST-L HIST-L@UKANVM (Peered) History - Peer Distribution List
HISTEC-L HISTEC-L@UKANVM History of evangelical Christianity
HISTORY HISTORY@CSEARN (Peered) History
HISTORY@IRLEARN (Peered) History
HISTORY@MCGILL1 (Peered) History - History Discussion Forum
HISTORY@PSUVM (Peered) History Discussion Forum
HISTORY@RUTVM1 (Peered) History Discussion Forum
HISTORY@UBVM (Peered) History Discussion Forum
HISTORY@UMRVMB (Peered) History Discussion List
HISTORYA HISTORYA@UWAVM HISTORYA History Department
HISTORYF HISTORYF@UWAVM LISTNAME History Faculty
HISTOWNR HISTOWNR@UBVM HistOwnr - Discussion list for owners of hi
HN-ASK-L HN-ASK-L@UKANVM History Network Forum
HN-ORG-L HN-ORG-L@UKANVM THE HISTORY NETWORK
HOPOS-L HOPOS-L@UKCC A Forum for Discussion of the History of th
HPSST-L HPSST-L@QUCDN History and Philosophy of Science and Scien
HTECH-L HTECH-L@SIVM History of Technology Discussion
IEAHCNET IEAHCNET@UICVM American Colonial History Discussion List
ISLAM-L ISLAM-L@ULKYVM History of Islam
KUHIST-L KUHIST-L@UKANVM History at KU
MAPHIST MAPHIST@HARVARDA Map History Discussion List
MEDIEV-L MEDIEV-L@UKANVM Medieval History
MILHST-L MILHST-L@UKANVM Military History
OHA-L OHA-L@UKCC Oral History Association Discussion List
PERSIA-L PERSIA-L@EMUVM1 Jewish Literature and History in the Persia
RENAIS-L RENAIS-L@ULKYVM Early Modern History - Renaissance
RUSHIST RUSHIST@CSEARN (Peered) RusHist - Russian History Forum
RUSHIST@UMRVMB (Peered) RusHist - Russian History Forum
SHARP-L SHARP-L@IUBVM SHARP-L Society for the History of Authorsh
SHOTHC-L SHOTHC-L@SIVM History of Computing Issues
SOVHIST SOVHIST@CSEARN (Peered) SovHist - Soviet History Forum
SOVHIST@UMRVMB (Peered) SovHist - Soviet History Forum
STUDIUM STUDIUM@BLEKUL11 University history discussion list
WHIRL WHIRL@PSUVM Women's History in Rhetoric and Language
WHR-L WHR-L@PSUVM Women's History in Rhetoric
WORLD-L WORLD-L@UBVM World-L - Forum on non-Eurocentric world hi
_______________________________________________________________________________
<7:37>From decaritat@ecol.ucl.ac.be Mon Mar 14 07:12:36 1994
Date: Mon, 14 Mar 1994 13:09:31 +0100
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
From: decaritat@ecol.ucl.ac.be (Anne-Kirstine de Caritat)
Subject: public understanding of science
Has anyone heard of some list devoted to popular science, scientific
communication, public understanding of science... and related subjets?
Thank you for any help.
****************************************
* A. Kirstine de Caritat *
* Universite catholique de Louvain *
* Unite d'Ecologie et de Biogeographie *
* Croix du Sud, 4-5 *
* B - 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgium) *
* Phone : + 32 (0)10 473688 *
* Fax : + 32 (0)10 473490 *
* e-mail: decaritat @ ecol.ucl.ac.be *
****************************************
_______________________________________________________________________________
<7:38>From OMARTI@TIFTON.CPES.PEACHNET.EDU Mon Mar 14 14:01:44 1994
Date: Mon, 14 Mar 1994 14:58:54 -0500 (EST)
From: "Orville G. Marti" <OMARTI%TIFTON.BITNET@KU9000.CC.UKANS.EDU>
Subject: Re: public understanding of science
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Organization: COASTAL PLAIN EXPERIMENT STATION
Try these:
skeptic@jhuvm
scifraud@albnyvm1
************************************************************************
Orville G. Marti, Jr. O.G. Marti, Jr. Dick Marti
U. S. Department of Agriculture
Agricultural Research Service
Insect Biology and Population Management Research Laboratory
P.O. Box 748
Tifton, Georgia, USA 31793
Microbiologist
Phone: 912-387-2328 (office) BITNET: OMARTI@tifton
Phone: 912-387-2350 (lab) INTERNET: OMARTI@tifton.cpes.peachnet.edu
Fax: 912-387-2321
Sunday: A day given over by Americans to wishing that they
themselves were dead and in Heaven, and that their neighbors
were dead and in Hell. ......H. L. Mencken
*************************************************************************
_______________________________________________________________________________
<7:39>From idavidso@metz.une.edu.au Mon Mar 14 16:11:49 1994
Date: Tue, 15 Mar 1994 08:11:34 +0700
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
From: idavidso@metz.une.edu.au (Iain Davidson)
Subject: Re: Humanoid fossils in Time.
James F. Mahaffy writes:
>Perhaps some of the anthropologists can let me know if there are any
>glaring errors in presentation in the recent Time magazine on Humanoid
>fossils. I do know something about fossils, but vertebrate paleontology
>is NOT my strength. Although a little cautious about popular
>presentation, I am especially cautious after the heat Scientific America
>got from the linguists. In other words is it a fairly accurate
>popularily written article?
Perhaps some of the geneticists on the list or others would care to comment
on Alan Thorne's statement about gene flow:
"Today human genes flow between Johannesburg and Beijing and between Paris
to Melbourne. Apart from interruptions from ice ages, they have probably
been doing this through the entire span of _Homo sapiens_ evolution."
It has always seemed to me that gene flow is *such* an important part of
the multiregional evolution hypothesis that it is puzzling that there is
not some modelling of how it might happen, or some demonstration of the
sorts of data which might represent it. Does anyone think it coherent to
have gene flow from Johannesburg to Beijing at 400 000 years ago, a) in
principle or b) in practice?
As I understand it, the problem is still whether the sediments which have
been dated in Java was originally deposited at the same time as the hominid
specimens. See the comment in the Science review referred to by Langdon:
"The crystals are that age".
Seems to me it strengthens the idea that _Homo erectus_ was just an ape.
Iain Davidson
Archaeology and Palaeoanthropology
University of New England
Armidale NSW 2351
AUSTRALIA
Tel (067) 732 441
Fax (International) +61 67 73 25 26
(Domestic) 067 73 25 26
_______________________________________________________________________________
<7:40>From jacobsk@ERE.UMontreal.CA Mon Mar 14 19:41:59 1994
From: jacobsk@ERE.UMontreal.CA (Jacobs Kenneth)
Subject: Re: H. erectus gene flow (was: Humanoid fossils...)
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Date: Mon, 14 Mar 1994 20:41:49 -0500 (EST)
Iain Davidson writes:
> Perhaps some of the geneticists on the list or others would care to comment
> on Alan Thorne's statement about gene flow:
>
> "Today human genes flow between Johannesburg and Beijing and between Paris
> to Melbourne. Apart from interruptions from ice ages, they have probably
> been doing this through the entire span of _Homo sapiens_ evolution."
> It has always seemed to me that gene flow is *such* an important part of
> the multiregional evolution hypothesis that it is puzzling that there is
> not some modelling of how it might happen, or some demonstration of the
> sorts of data which might represent it. Does anyone think it coherent to
> have gene flow from Johannesburg to Beijing at 400 000 years ago, a) in
> principle or b) in practice?
In general, it is probably safest to think in terms of gene flow as always
having been the _rule_ rather than the exception. Two principle factors act
to mitigate against gene flow between human groups: geographic barriers and
social barriers. A good argument has been made that, for most hunter-gatherer
systems, social barriers will not be important. If anything, social practices
would have as one of their effects the fairly unimpeded flow of genes from one
end of the geographic range of the species to another (restrictions being
solely physiographic in nature; for the essential of this argument, see Wobst,
H.M. 1976, Locational relationships in Paleolithic society. J Hum Evol. 5:49-
58). Social barriers to gene flow would have arisen (with instructive
exceptions) most easily with the advent of food production, when local
populations size and density could go up. The genetic effects of the kind of
open mating networks (i.e., the implications of the gene flow) implied here
were explored nicely in: Weiss, K.M. & T. Maruyama 1976, Archaeology,
population genetics and studies of human racial ancestry. Am. J Phys. Anthrop.
44:31-50.
Note that the above models apply solely to pre-food production hunter-
gatherer systems. Once closed mating networks, as would have been associated
with central-place dominated food producers, started to clutter up the land-
scape, the situation was irretrievably changed. Whether Homo erectus
can be considered a pre-food production hunter-gatherer, or just a Binfordian
serendipitously foraging beastie is a question for another day.
Ken Jacobs
jacobsk@ere.umontreal.ca
_______________________________________________________________________________
<7:41>From rjohara@rjohara.uncg.edu Mon Mar 14 23:13:19 1994
Date: Mon, 14 Mar 1994 21:21:46 -0600 (UTC -06:00)
From: "Robert J. O'Hara" <rjohara@rjohara.uncg.edu>
Subject: March 14 -- Today in the Historical Sciences
To: Darwin-L@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
MARCH 14 -- TODAY IN THE HISTORICAL SCIENCES
1793: KARL (KONRAD FRIEDRICH WILHELM) LACHMANN is born at Braunschweig,
Germany. Lachmann will serve for most of his career as professor of philology
at Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin, where he will codify the principles
of modern textual criticism. From study of the many extant manuscripts of
Lucretius's _De Rerum Natura_, Lachmann will publish in 1850 a reconstruction
of the state of the ancestral manuscript from which they all had been copied,
calculating even the number of pages in the lost ancestor and how many lines
it had on each page. His work will establish a school of historical text
criticism that will profoundly influence Classical scholarship for the
remainder of the nineteenth century.
Today in the Historical Sciences is a feature of Darwin-L, an international
network discussion group on the history and theory of the historical sciences.
For more information about Darwin-L send the two-word message INFO DARWIN-L to
listserv@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu, or gopher to rjohara.uncg.edu (152.13.44.19).
_______________________________________________________________________________
<7:42>From kent@darwin.eeb.uconn.edu Tue Mar 15 08:43:11 1994
Date: Tue, 15 Mar 94 09:44:32 EST
From: kent@darwin.eeb.uconn.edu (Kent Holsinger)
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: Humanoid fossils in Time
Iain Davidson raises the important issue of whether there could have been
gene flow from "Johannesburg to Beijing" at 400,000 years ago. As he notes,
extensive gene flow of this sort is one requirement if the multiregional
hypothesis is to be correct.
There can, of course, be *some* gene flow. Exchange of individuals between
neighboring villages or camps could lead to the spread of new genetic
variants over thousands of miles, *given enough time*. That's the rub.
Given what little I know about the presumed population structure of early
human ancestors, I would regard it as *highly* unlikely that there was enough
gene flow among those populations to allow them all to evolve simultaneously
from _Homo erectus_ to _Homo sapiens_. Far more likely is that _Homo sapiens_
arose in one place and spread from there. That is the universal pattern of
species origin in every other animal (and plant) that I know of. I don't
know of *any* cases where simultaneous evolution of a set of populations into
a new species has been proposed over geographical areas as extensive as a
continent.
-- Kent
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Kent E. Holsinger Internet: Holsinge@UConnVM.UConn.edu |
| Dept. of Ecology & Kent@Darwin.EEB.Uconn.edu |
| Evolutionary Biology, U-43 BITNET: Holsinge@UConnVM |
| University of Connecticut |
| Storrs, CT 06269-3043 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
_______________________________________________________________________________
<7:43>From bsinger@eniac.seas.upenn.edu Wed Mar 16 05:07:47 1994
From: bsinger@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Bayla Singer)
Subject: Re: Humanoid fossils in Time
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Date: Wed, 16 Mar 1994 06:07:43 -0500 (EST)
Excuse me: I'm having a bit of trouble visualizing the different time
scales required for
(a) gene-pool mixing via exchange of migrating individuals, which
would support the evolution of several populations along
similar/same lines
versus
(b) evolution of H erectus to H sapiens being 'finished' at
one site, and spreading with little or no further evolution.
Spread-and-evolve seems congruent to Evolve-and-spread: why is it not so?
Would someone please spell this out?
Many thanks.
--bayla
_______________________________________________________________________________
<7:44>From kent@darwin.eeb.uconn.edu Wed Mar 16 07:01:49 1994
Date: Wed, 16 Mar 94 08:03:09 EST
From: kent@darwin.eeb.uconn.edu (Kent Holsinger)
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: Humanoid fossils in Time
Bayla Singer writes:
>Excuse me: I'm having a bit of trouble visualizing the different time
>scales required for
>
> (a) gene-pool mixing via exchange of migrating individuals, which
> would support the evolution of several populations along
> similar/same lines
>
>versus
>
> (b) evolution of H erectus to H sapiens being 'finished' at
> one site, and spreading with little or no further evolution.
>
>Spread-and-evolve seems congruent to Evolve-and-spread: why is it not so?
>
>Would someone please spell this out?
The difference, as I see it, is as follows. Evolutionary biologists usually
envision species as having a single, geographically restricted place of origin.
Once a species has arisen it may spread from its place of origin, but new
populations are recognizably part of the same species. There is much debate
about how important continuous gene flow among populations is to retaining a
species identity. I am highly skeptical about the efficacy of present day
migration in maintaining species identity. The amount of gene movement between
house sparrow populations in southern California and northern Europe, for
example, must be so small as to be irrelevant. It seems far more plausible
that a species maintains its recognizable identity because all populations are
(relatively) recent derivatives of a single common ancestor.
In short, the single origin scenario envisions divergence between species in a
single, restricted geographic region. As applied to human origins, it would
imply the _H. erectus_ and _H. sapiens_ were contemporaneous, for a time, and
that _H. sapiens_ replaced _H. erectus_.
The multiregional hypothesis, as I understand it (and I'm not an
anthropologist, so someone please correct me if I have misunderstood it), is
that _H. erectus_ populations everywhere evolved simultaneously into _H.
sapiens_. Under this hypothesis _H. erectus_ and _H. sapiens_ were never
contemporaneous, and _H. sapiens_ replaced _H. erectus_ only in the sense
that _H. sapiens_ evolved from _H. erectus_.
Does that help?
-- Kent
_______________________________________________________________________________
<7:45>From sturkel@cosy.nyit.edu Wed Mar 16 11:04:21 1994
Date: Wed, 16 Mar 1994 12:00:58 -0500
From: sturkel@cosy.nyit.edu
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: Humanoid fossils in Time
There are two points to keep in mind, in respect to Homo erectus:
1) The genomic difference between modern Homo sapiens and modern
Chimps is about 2%. Given that the most recent common ancestor of
these two species lived 5 million years ago minimum, the difference
between the genomes of Homo erectus and Homo sapiens is likely to be
quite small indeed.
2) Homo erectus is a paleospecies. Simpson long ago pointed out that
this does not equate to actual determination that the population is
or was reproductively isolated from other paleospecies or from modern
species.
spencer turkel
department of life sciences
new york institute of technology
sturkel@cosy.nyit.edu
_______________________________________________________________________________
<7:46>From dnewma@seaccc.ctc.edu Wed Mar 16 12:45:56 1994
Date: Wed, 16 Mar 94 10:39:09 PST
From: dnewma@seaccc.ctc.edu
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: public understanding of science
Try SKEPTIC. This bbs features discussions about public
perception of scientific and psuedo-scientific phenomena.
Be warned that the standpoint of many in this group mirrors
that found in Skeptical Enquirer and features the gleeful
debunking of Near Death Experiences, UFOs, and other events
that many (if polling data is to be believed) hold near and
dear. Send the command subscribe skeptic <your first name,
last name>
See ya,
David B. Newman
dnewma@seaccc.ctc.edu
_______________________________________________________________________________
<7:47>From KIMLER@social.chass.ncsu.edu Wed Mar 16 14:13:14 1994
From: KIMLER@social.chass.ncsu.edu
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Date: Wed, 16 Mar 1994 15:12:49 EST5EDT
Subject: re: Symposium on William Jones
Here's an announcement that came my way, which might interest List
members:
The Sir William Jones Symposium, April 21, 1994
New York University
(The Faculty Club, D'Agostino Hall, 108 W. 3rd St.)
"A one-day interdisciplinary symposium organized around the themes of
Language and Linguistics, 18th Century Law and Jurisprudence, History
of Science, and Historiography of East-West Encounter." Participants
are R. H. Robins, W. P. Lehmann, Garland Cannon, David Kopf, Rosane
Rocher, O. P. Kejariwal, James C. Oldham, Kenneth A. R. Kennedy.
There will also be an exhibit of letters and manuscripts.
Registration is through the Program Coordinator, Reina Scratter
New York University Development Office
25 West Fourth Street, 4th Floor
New York, NY 10003-1199
(212) 998-6909
_______________________________________________________________________________
<7:48>From simond@polaris.nova.edu Wed Mar 16 16:05:07 1994
Date: Wed, 16 Mar 1994 17:05:02 -0500 (EST)
From: David Simon <simond@polaris.nova.edu>
Subject: Re: public understanding of science
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
On Wed, 16 Mar 1994 dnewma@seaccc.ctc.edu wrote:
> Try SKEPTIC. This bbs features discussions about public
> perception of scientific and psuedo-scientific phenomena.
> Be warned that the standpoint of many in this group mirrors
> that found in Skeptical Enquirer and features the gleeful
> debunking of Near Death Experiences, UFOs, and other events
> that many (if polling data is to be believed) hold near and
> dear. Send the command subscribe skeptic <your first name,
> last name>
>
> See ya,
> David B. Newman
> dnewma@seaccc.ctc.edu
You forgot to give the address. To subscribe to the SKEPTIC discussion
group, send the message to:
listserv@jhuvm.hcf.jhu.edu
To post messages to the entire group, send them to:
skeptic@jhuvm.hcf.jhu.edu
One of the current discussions on SKEPTIC that might interest members
of DARWIN-L is about a recent debate between a biologist and a
creationist, Duane Gish. Two summaries of the debate were posted, and a
discussion of how to effectively debate a creationist is currently
continuing. Discussions of Gould's "Mismeasure of Man" (and arguments
about heredity versus environment, in general) also pop up periodically.
David Simon
simond@polaris.nova.edu
_______________________________________________________________________________
<7:49>From bsinger@eniac.seas.upenn.edu Wed Mar 16 18:33:57 1994
From: bsinger@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Bayla Singer)
Subject: Re: Humanoid fossils in Time
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Date: Wed, 16 Mar 1994 19:33:46 -0500 (EST)
Thanks to Kent Holsinger for his explanation, but it doesn't quite speak
to my real problem. The <amount of time involved> had been cited as the
main issue in dismissing the spread-and-evolve scenario; the assumption
that species arise at a single point is exactly what is being challenged
in this case. We all know that mutations can arise in several independent
places; the case of hemophilia (in all its types) is an example of this.
If the genetic difference between -erectus- and -sapiens- is small, it
seems plausible that in the course of geologic time -e- could have made
the transition to -s- in more than one place, by the mutation of a few
labile sites.
Populations of -e- and -s- could even have been contemporaneous, though
separated in space, in this scenario.
If <species arise at one point> is dogma, then time is not the issue. If
species -may- arise at multiple points, I still need an explanation of why
the timescale is a discrimination point between evolve-and-spread vs
spread-and-evolve.
--bayla
_______________________________________________________________________________
<7:50>From rjohara@rjohara.uncg.edu Wed Mar 16 19:39:46 1994
Date: Wed, 16 Mar 1994 19:39:35 -0600 (CST)
From: "Robert J. O'Hara" <rjohara@rjohara.uncg.edu>
Subject: March 16 -- Today in the Historical Sciences
To: Darwin-L@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
MARCH 16 -- TODAY IN THE HISTORICAL SCIENCES
1794 (200 years ago today): AMI BOUE is born at Hamburg, Germany. The son of
a shipbuilder, Boue will be orphaned at the age of eleven and will be raised
by relatives in France and Switzerland. After receiving an inheritance at the
age of twenty, he will emigrate to Scotland where he will study medicine at
the University of Edinburgh. Under the influence of Robert Jamieson, Boue's
interests will turn to botany and especially geology, and after returning to
the Continent he will travel extensively making geological observations. His
_Essai geologique sur l'Ecosse_ will appear in 1820, and his _Geognotisches
Gemalde von Deutschland_ will follow several years later. In 1830 he will
join with a group of French geologists to found the Societe Geologique de
France, and Boue will serve as president of that society in 1835. His
comprehensive _Essai de carte geologique du globe terrestre_ will appear in
1845, and he will retire to Austria, where he will die, at Voslau, in 1881.
Today in the Historical Sciences is a feature of Darwin-L, an international
network discussion group on the history and theory of the historical sciences.
For more information about Darwin-L send the two-word message INFO DARWIN-L to
listserv@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu, or gopher to rjohara.uncg.edu (152.13.44.19).
_______________________________________________________________________________
<7:51>From jacobsk@ERE.UMontreal.CA Wed Mar 16 20:03:07 1994
From: jacobsk@ERE.UMontreal.CA (Jacobs Kenneth)
Subject: Re: H. erectus into H. sapiens (was re: Humanoid...)
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Date: Wed, 16 Mar 1994 21:02:51 -0500 (EST)
Kent Holsinger writes:
> The multiregional hypothesis, as I understand it (and I'm not an
> anthropologist, so someone please correct me if I have misunderstood it),
> is that _H. erectus_ populations everywhere evolved simultaneously into _H.
> sapiens_. Under this hypothesis _H. erectus_ and _H. sapiens_ were never
> contemporaneous, and _H. sapiens_ replaced _H. erectus_ only in the sense
> that _H. sapiens_ evolved from _H. erectus_.
Part of the difficulty in envisioning "H. erectus evolving everywhere
_simultaneously_ into H. sapiens" is caused by semantics. Because the start
point of the single lineage (on this view of the matter) has been given a
name which is distinct from the _end-point_ of the lineage (i.e., H. erectus
versus H. sapiens), one cannot help but tend to see what is called H. erectus
as being very distinct from what is called H. sapiens. Yet in the middle some-
where, at the arbitrary point which divides the two taxonomic units, there will
be virtually no difference. The difference between a 0.25Mya "H. erectus" and
a 0.24Mya "H. sapiens" will be 0.01My and not much else. The taxonomic night-
mare which is late Middle Pleistocene Europe attests to just this phenomenon.
Think of it in terms of a long, wide river (the Mississippi, for in-
stance). If, for some bizarre reason, it was decided that from now on the
river south of St. Louis was to be called the Nile, would we then be arguing
whether the Mississippi turned into the Nile simulaneously on both the right
and left banks? (not to mention the middle). I think not, for we would be able
to recognize the distinction as the arbitrary construct it really is. That we
cannot do so quite so readily with respect to _H. erectus_, the "Neadertals,"
and others of our forebears bespeaks volumes IMHO about our persistent
inability to come to grips with our origins.
Ken Jacobs
jacobsk@ere.umontreal.ca>
_______________________________________________________________________________
<7:52>From lgorbet@mail.unm.edu Wed Mar 16 23:17:48 1994
Date: Wed, 16 Mar 1994 22:17:48 -0700
To: Darwin-L@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
From: lgorbet@mail.unm.edu
Subject: Re: Humanoid fossils in Time
Maybe I'm *really* missing something, but the "single vs. multiple origins"
question seems to be being discussed as though the options were
(a) whatever mutations were necessary to get to _sapiens_ from _erectus_
all occur in one place and then spread; or
(b) all these things happened independently at a number of spatially (and
somewhat genetically) separated places.
An option that intuitively seems at least worth serious consideration is
what I *think of* as a variant of (b)---that at least some mutations
happened only at one or very few places, but that different critical
mutations happened at *different* places, so that the gene flow (that
resulted in _sapiens_ all over) was critically multidirectional.
Thus _sapiens_ would not have evolved at a single place, but the same
mutations and evolution would not have to be happening independently at
multiple locations either. In principle, it might have even been critical
for our eventual evolution that *different* evolutionary events were
occurring initially independently, in that the chance for various parts of
the puzzle to get established might be greater in some environments than in
others and perhaps in the absence of interactions with other changes
happening elsewhere.
The picture I imagine is one whether some gene flow but not a lot enables
"enough but not too much" differences to develop for a while. Later, some
of these changes perhaps increase the range of environments which can be
effectively utilized (and maybe populations), so that the rate of gene flow
increases "before it's too late".
Maybe this is all old hat and maybe it's based on fundamental
misunderstandings on my part. I'd be curious to get feedback from those of
you who know what you're talking about... Thanks.
Larry Gorbet lgorbet@mail.unm.edu
Anthropology & Linguistics Depts. (505) 883-7378
University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM, U.S.A.
_______________________________________________________________________________
<7:53>From sctlowe@kraken.itc.gu.edu.au Thu Mar 17 00:58:56 1994
Date: Thu, 17 Mar 1994 16:56:23 +1000 (EST)
From: Ian Lowe <I.Lowe@sct.gu.edu.au>
Subject: scientific fraud
To: Darwin-L@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
David Newman and David Simon have supplied the necessary LISTSERV
command[s] for those who wish to join skeptic. Does anyone know the
equivalent magic words to summon up scifraud?
Thanks in advance to the gatekeepers, wherever they may be.
Ian Lowe
_______________________________________________________________________________
<7:54>From dasher@netcom.com Thu Mar 17 01:10:47 1994
Date: Wed, 16 Mar 1994 23:11:46 -0800
From: dasher@netcom.com (Anton Sherwood)
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: how quickly would proto-human genes spread?
> There can, of course, be *some* gene flow. Exchange of
> individuals between neighboring villages or camps could
> lead to the spread of new genetic variants over thousands
> of miles, *given enough time*. That's the rub.
I read somewhere that polydactyly in cats, which first appeared
as a mutation in 18th c. Boston, has been spreading in New England
at a fraction of a mile per year (1/5?). Does this help any?
Anton Sherwood *\\* +1 415 267 0685 *\\* DASher@netcom.com
_______________________________________________________________________________
<7:55>From JMARKS@YALEVM.CIS.YALE.EDU Thu Mar 17 05:52:40 1994
Date: Thu, 17 Mar 94 06:35:49 EST
From: Jon Marks <JMARKS@YaleVM.CIS.Yale.edu>
Organization: Yale University
Subject: Groundhog Day in anthropology
To: Darwin-L <darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu>
Actually, we have previously lived through the question of whether or not
H. erectus could have evolved out of H. sapiens several times.
In 1962, Carleton Coon published The Origin of Races, in which he put
forth the argument that the transition had occurred independently in five
different areas. Europe first, then Asia, then Africa (x2), then Australia.
Which, he suggested, accounted for the cultural "backwardness" of the
non-white peoples: they just hadn't been members of the species for very long.
Though his interpretations of the anthropological material were generally
rejected within physical anthropology, evolutionary biologists were more
divided. Dobzhansky trashed the book in Scientific American (reprinted in
Current Anthropology) saying that its central thesis was genetically virtually
impossible; but Mayr reviewed it quite favorably in Science, as did
Simpson in Perspectives in Biology and Medicine.
The only glaring error I caught in the Time story was calling the Java
remains Anthropopithecus erectus, when it was Pithecanthropus erectus. Dubois
adopted the name Pithecanthropus from Haeckel. Earnest Hooton later observed
that "Pithecanthropus erectus" is an anagram for "Pursue the person, catch
it!"
--Jon Marks
_______________________________________________________________________________
<7:56>From kent@darwin.eeb.uconn.edu Thu Mar 17 07:02:56 1994
Date: Thu, 17 Mar 94 08:04:15 EST
From: kent@darwin.eeb.uconn.edu (Kent Holsinger)
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: Humanoid fossils in Time
Bayla Singer writes:
>We all know that mutations can arise in several independent
>places; the case of hemophilia (in all its types) is an example of this.
>If the genetic difference between -erectus- and -sapiens- is small, it
>seems plausible that in the course of geologic time -e- could have made
>the transition to -s- in more than one place, by the mutation of a few
>labile sites.
*Individual* mutations may, of course, arise repeatedly. The question is
whether a species can have multiple origins. To use the jargon of evolutionary
biolgy, can a species be polyphyletic?
The only examples for polyphyletic origin of species that I know of involve
multiple origins of polyploids. The best example I know of is in the genus
_Tragopogon_, where the polyploid, _T. mirus_ arose independently at least
three times from different ancestral populations of the diploids _T. dubius_
and _T. porrifolius_. I know of know examples where multiple origins of a
species at the diploid level has been postulated. That, of course, is what the
multiregional hypothesis proposes.
Why don't species have multiple origins? Well, for a new species to originate
a very special set of circumstances must apply. Most populations spread
geographically and found new populations remain part of the same species. If
they didn't, most populations of animals and plants would be part of different
species. Given that speciation is a rare event, and that once it occurs the
new species evolve independently from one another, it is very unlikely that
species B will arise from species A both at place X and at place Y. Why?
Because the genetic composition of a population of species A will be different
in place X and place Y. Whatever the processes involved in the origin of a new
species and even if they are the same at place X and place Y, which they may
not be, the results of that process are likely to be different in the two
places. In short, if speciation occurs at place Y, it is likely to give rise
to species C.
That's why we call evolutionary biology a _historical science_. The contingent
facts of history, the place you start from, has an enormous impact on where you
end up. It is not impossible for the multiregional hypothesis to be correct.
It would be the *only* example I know of where multiple independent origins of
a diploid species applies.
-- Kent
_______________________________________________________________________________
<7:57>From OMARTI@TIFTON.CPES.PEACHNET.EDU Thu Mar 17 07:06:24 1994
Date: Thu, 17 Mar 1994 08:07:19 -0500 (EST)
From: "Orville G. Marti" <OMARTI%TIFTON.BITNET@KUHUB.CC.UKANS.EDU>
Subject: Re: scientific fraud
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Organization: COASTAL PLAIN EXPERIMENT STATION
On Thu, 17 Mar 1994 03:29:38 -0600 Ian Lowe said:
>David Newman and David Simon have supplied the necessary LISTSERV
>command[s] for those who wish to join skeptic. Does anyone know the
>equivalent magic words to summon up scifraud?
scifraud@albnyvm1
************************************************************************
Orville G. Marti, Jr. O.G. Marti, Jr. Dick Marti
U. S. Department of Agriculture
Agricultural Research Service
Insect Biology and Population Management Research Laboratory
P.O. Box 748
Tifton, Georgia, USA 31793
Microbiologist
Phone: 912-387-2328 (office) BITNET: OMARTI@tifton
Phone: 912-387-2350 (lab) INTERNET: OMARTI@tifton.cpes.peachnet.edu
Fax: 912-387-2321
Sunday: A day given over by Americans to wishing that they
themselves were dead and in Heaven, and that their neighbors
were dead and in Hell. ......H. L. Mencken
*************************************************************************
_______________________________________________________________________________
<7:58>From kent@darwin.eeb.uconn.edu Thu Mar 17 07:19:08 1994
Date: Thu, 17 Mar 94 08:20:27 EST
From: kent@darwin.eeb.uconn.edu (Kent Holsinger)
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: H. erectus into H. sapiens (was re: Humanoid...)
Ken Jacobs writes:
>Part of the difficulty in envisioning "H. erectus evolving everywhere
>_simultaneously_ into H. sapiens" is caused by semantics. Because the
>start point of the single lineage (on this view of the matter) has been
>given a name which is distinct from the _end-point_ of the lineage (i.e.,
>H. erectus versus H. sapiens), one cannot help but tend to see what is
>called H. erectus as being very distinct from what is called H. sapiens.
>Yet in the middle somewhere, at the arbitrary point which divides the two
>taxonomic units, there will be virtually no difference. The difference
>between a 0.25Mya "H. erectus" and a 0.24Mya "H. sapiens" will be 0.01My
>and not much else. The taxonomic nightmare which is late Middle
>Pleistocene Europe attests to just this phenomenon.
Actually, that's not the problem *at all* as I see it. The question, is
whether _H. erectus_ and _H. sapiens_ are related anagenetically or
cladogenetically. For those not familiar with the terms, let me explain.
Imagine the following tree of relationships:
A B C
\ / /
\/ /
D /
\ /
\ /
E
|
|
Species A and B share a more recent common ancestor with one another (D) than
either shares with C (E). Anagenesis is evolutionary change that happens
*along* the branches, i.e., from E to C, E to D, D to A, or D to B.
Cladogeneis is the process that leads to splitting of lineages, i.e., the
process that takes the single lineage leading to E and splits it into two, one
leading to A and B, the other to C. Similarly, cladogenesis occurs at D
producing two lineages.
The multiregional hypothesis suggests that _H. erectus_ and _H. sapiens_ are
related anagenetically. The single origin hypothesis suggests that they are
related cladogenetically. As I said in my early reply to Bayla Singer (though
not in these words), I know of no case other than the origin of human beings
where evolutionary biologists have postulated (in the last twenty years at
least) an anagenetic relationship between two widely distributed species.
-- Kent
_______________________________________________________________________________
<7:59>From LANGDON@GANDLF.UINDY.EDU Thu Mar 17 07:40:20 1994
Date: Thu, 17 Mar 1994 07:40:20 -0600
From: "JOHN LANGDON" <LANGDON@GANDLF.UINDY.EDU>
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: Humanoid fossils in Time
In message <m0phASn-000Sm6C@eros> writes:
> Maybe I'm *really* missing something, but the "single vs. multiple origins"
> question seems to be being discussed as though the options were
>
> (a) whatever mutations were necessary to get to _sapiens_ from _erectus_
> all occur in one place and then spread; or
>
> (b) all these things happened independently at a number of spatially (and
> somewhat genetically) separated places.
>
> An option that intuitively seems at least worth serious consideration is
> what I *think of* as a variant of (b)---that at least some mutations
> happened only at one or very few places, but that different critical
> mutations happened at *different* places, so that the gene flow (that
> resulted in _sapiens_ all over) was critically multidirectional.
Your a / b dichotomy sounds like a replay of Calton Coon's version of
multiregionalism-- long since dismissed. Here is my interpretation of the
issue. Both camps recognize or can accommodate a single origin for any relevant
mutation(s). They differ in how that mutation(s) became fixed in the descendent
species. Was it
(a) by gene flow; i.e., interbreeding with subsequent natural selection, etc.,
occurring within populations and always favoring the new mutation(s); or
(b) by actual population replacement in which the mutant population completely
displaced and replaced other populations.
The major issue here is whether these older populations contributed
significantly to future gene pools. Some morphologists are saying yes; those
studying mitochondrial DNA are saying no.
JOHN H. LANGDON email LANGDON@GANDLF.UINDY.EDU
DEPARTMENT OF BIOLOGY FAX (317) 788-3569
UNIVERSITY OF INDIANAPOLIS PHONE (317) 788-3447
INDIANAPOLIS, IN 46227
_______________________________________________________________________________
<7:60>From princeh@husc.harvard.edu Thu Mar 17 14:53:44 1994
Date: Thu, 17 Mar 1994 15:05:20 -0500 (EST)
From: Patricia Princehouse <princeh@husc.harvard.edu>
Subject: Re: Time article
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
I'm glad Jon Marks finally pointed out the most glaring error of
the _Time_ piece ("Anthropopithecus" obviously their fact checkers were
down that day...). Otherwise it is not the worst popular article to come
out recently. However, there is the error of having it at all.
Recall that the argument for "out of Africa" sees _H.s.s._ as
arising in Africa @200kya. Everybody accepts that _H.e._ was in Java at
least 800kya and as John Langdon pointed out there have been suggestions
before that the fossils were perhaps as old as 1.2 or 1.4 my. The 1.8my
date, even assuming it's good (that is, assuming that the fossil wasn't
redeposited in older sediment at some point, an occurance more common
than anybody wants to think about), doesn't change anything.
The date makes ABSOLUTELY NO DIFFERENCE WHATSOEVER as far as the African
vs multiple origin debate goes.
It puzzles me greatly as to why _Time_ chose to make such a big
noise about it. I'm afraid it's a sort of tabloid stunt. They sort of
imply that since _Homo erectus_ in Asia is 1.8 and the oldest "African H.
erectus" (more and more called _H. ergaster_ because it does not have the
diagnostic characteristics of the species as named in Asia -other than
brain size, that is.) is also 1.8my then the spread might have gone either
way -ie in spite of 4 my of hominid fossil record in Africa, our immediate
ancestors might have somehow arisen in Asia and migrated to Africa. They
don't take it far enough to conjecture whether erectus arose in Asia by
spontaneous generation or by springing whole from the brow ridge of some
local diety.
Of course the Chinese 200ky "H.s." skull is mixed up in all this
but it's never made clear that this skull looks like erectus with a big
brain -not like you and me and the African _H.s.s._ fossils.
Bayla Singer asks good questions which deserve answers. I think the most
important things to bear in mind are:
1) one migrant per generation is enough to prevent speciation in animals
generally
2) geographic isolation does not necessarily lead to genetic
incompatibility no matter how much morphological change takes place and no
matter how many loci are fixed for different alleles.
Really strong reproductive isolation comes from large rearrangements of
the genome such as changes in chromosome number or large or multiple or
important inversions which make reproduction impossible.
We can't go back and see if _H.e._ in Asia could produce fertile
offspring with "H.e." in Africa 1.8 my ago. So, we guess -based on what
we know about living and fossil primates.
The Asian _H.e._ has distinctive morphological traits not shared
with other hominids, so, many people feel they were a distinct species,
even at the level of reproductive isolation. As such, they could not be
the ancestors of _H.s.s._ along with the ones in Africa. However, this
entails assuming that increase in brain size is a convergence between our
line and theirs. How reasonable is this? Well, brain size increase is one
of the more common trends in all mammal lineages in the past 50 my. And it
certainly happened independently in our line and the robust
australopithecus line (black skull @ 400cc, later ones up to 550cc). So,
why not. It seems the most parsimonious explanation to me.
Sorry to be so long-winded.
Patricia Princehouse
Princeh@harvard.edu
_______________________________________________________________________________
<7:61>From DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu Thu Mar 17 15:52:01 1994
Date: Thu, 17 Mar 1994 16:51:53 -0500 (EST)
From: DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu
Subject: New list on map history (fwd from INGRAFX)
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Organization: University of NC at Greensboro
Here's another new discussion group that may be of interest
to some members of Darwin-L.
Bob O'Hara (darwin@iris.uncg.edu)
--begin forwarded message--------------
Date: Thu, 10 Mar 1994 12:29:53 -0400
From: COBB@WIDENER1.MHS.HARVARD.EDU
Subject: New Listserv - Map History
Please excuse any duplication.
To subscribe please send the following command:
sub MAPHIST yourFirstName yourLastName
to LISTSERV@HARVARDA.HARVARD.EDU
MAPHIST is a discussion group whose primary focus is historical
maps, atlases, globes and other cartographic formats. This listserv
is open to all persons interested in the history of cartography and
discussion is encouraged on all aspects of this broad subject.
The primary purpose of MAPHIST is to encourage individuals to
communicate current research; evaluate methods and tools of
analysis; announce important acquisitions and news; announce
position vacancies; announce new publications (direct advertising,
however, is discouraged); investigate library holdings; and to
share information between conferences and the appearance of
relevant journals.
David A. Cobb
Harvard Map Collection
--end forwarded message----------------
_______________________________________________________________________________
<7:62>From LANGDON@GANDLF.UINDY.EDU Fri Mar 18 08:18:53 1994
Date: Fri, 18 Mar 1994 08:18:53 -0600
From: "JOHN LANGDON" <LANGDON@GANDLF.UINDY.EDU>
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: Time article
In message <Pine.3.87.9403171520.A7368-0100000@husc8.harvard.edu> writes:
> The date makes ABSOLUTELY NO DIFFERENCE WHATSOEVER as far as the African
> vs multiple origin debate goes.
I disagree; the new date pushes the debate slightly in favor of a later African
origin for modern humans. I say this because I feel that the debate has come
down to a shouting match in which the determining factor for each scholar is
his/her gut feelings about which model seems more compatible with his/her
understandings of evolutionary processes. (I expect future evidence to change
this.) In this context, a 1.8 Myr date for Java is significant.
Under the previous consensus (0.8 Myr in Java), the differences between the
earliest African and eastern/southeastern Asian forms of H. erectus could be
readily explained as chronological differences and all were comfortably lumped
into the same species. Some researchers, to be sure, expressed discomfort about
lumping. If, however, African and Asian forms are really contemporaries, there
is less room in the taxon for the observed variation and there is less time
depth for the origin of a recognizable Homo erectus that could then have spread
across the Old World. The possibility that African forms are not erectus is
increased and the chance of maintaining genetic contact for 1.6 Myr instead of
6 Myr is less. This is not conclusive, but I feel that it undermines the notion
of multiregional speciation through gene flow.
> It puzzles me greatly as to why _Time_ chose to make such a big
> noise about it. I'm afraid it's a sort of tabloid stunt.
Many other interesting questions arise from the new date. When did hominids
leave Africa? The 2.0 Myr faunal date from 'Ubeidiya in Israel suddenly looks
more plausible. What species first left Africa? Instead of erectus, we are now
forced to consider something more along the lines of ergaster or habilis. We
now have a new missing link between the early African Homo and Asian erectus.
I think the question of where in Africa Homo arose is more open than ever. The
Rift Valley dates now seem too recent. Very likely the focus on the Rift Valley
has been only an artifact of sampling.
> Of course the Chinese 200ky "H.s." skull is mixed up in all this
> but it's never made clear that this skull looks like erectus with a big
> brain -not like you and me and the African _H.s.s._ fossils.
I agree with this criticism. I think it got into the Time article because it
also was a recent development involving human evolution and for no other
reason. I don't think it carries the same weight as the Java date.
JOHN H. LANGDON email LANGDON@GANDLF.UINDY.EDU
DEPARTMENT OF BIOLOGY FAX (317) 788-3569
UNIVERSITY OF INDIANAPOLIS PHONE (317) 788-3447
INDIANAPOLIS, IN 46227
_______________________________________________________________________________
<7:63>From kent@darwin.eeb.uconn.edu Fri Mar 18 08:49:30 1994
Date: Fri, 18 Mar 94 08:08:07 EST
From: kent@darwin.eeb.uconn.edu (Kent Holsinger)
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: Time article
Just a minor point, but worth mentioning.
Patricia Princehouse writes:
> 1) one migrant per generation is enough to prevent speciation in
> animals generally
That's not quite right. Wright's classic result is that the exchange of
one migrant per generation is sufficient to _limit_ genetic divergence
between populations (not to prevent it completely) _only_ if the only process
producing divergence is genetic drift. Both points are important.
1) Migration between semi-isolated populations reduces divergence through
genetic drift, but cannot eliminate it unless the product of effective
population size and migration rate is infinite. Since the migration rate
is intrinsically between 0 and 1, that means the population size must be
infinite for migration to prevent eliminate genetic differences among
semi-isolated populations, i.e., there must be no genetic drift.
Wright's result refers to whether the distribution of allele frequencies
among semi-isolated populations is unimodal or bimodal. If there is more
than one migrant per generation (and drift is the only process producing
divergence), then the distribution will be unimodal. If there is fewer
than one migrant per generation, then the distribution will be bimodal.
2) Wright's result also assumes that divergence among populations is occurrring
only as a result of genetic drift. If populations are subject to different
selection pressures, genetic divergence may occur even in the face of
*much* more gene flow. To the extent that differences among species
reflect adaptive differentiation, it is conceptually possible at least
that divergence happened in the face of substantially more gene flow than
one individual per generation. Whether that has actually occurred, of
course, is another question entirely.
-- Kent
_______________________________________________________________________________
<7:64>From CBLINDERMAN@vax.clarku.edu Fri Mar 18 16:23:55 1994
Date: Fri, 18 Mar 1994 17:24 EST
From: CBLINDERMAN@vax.clarku.edu
Subject: PILTDOWN
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
I should like to know what Darwinians think about the recent identification
of Arthur Keith as collaborative Piltdown hoaxer. I think this identification
is even less persuasive than my identification of Lewis Abbott. Cordially,
Charles Blinderman, Clark University
_______________________________________________________________________________
<7:65>From DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu Fri Mar 18 23:28:28 1994
Date: Sat, 19 Mar 1994 00:28:24 -0500 (EST)
From: DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu
Subject: Hominid evolution and "species" (I)
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Organization: University of NC at Greensboro
I have been following the discussion of hominid phylogeny with interest,
and have been learning a lot. Many thanks to all who are contributing to
it. I just wanted to add my two cents' as a systematist (though not an
anthropologist) who has an interest in the idea of "species."
Ken Jacobs in a recent posting hit on a very important point that I have
always felt was insufficiently appreciated in the anthropological literature.
He wrote:
Part of the difficulty in envisioning "H. erectus evolving everywhere
_simultaneously_ into H. sapiens" is caused by semantics. Because the
start point of the single lineage (on this view of the matter) has been
given a name which is distinct from the _end-point_ of the lineage (i.e.,
H. erectus versus H. sapiens), one cannot help but tend to see what is
called H. erectus as being very distinct from what is called H. sapiens.
Yet in the middle somewhere, at the arbitrary point which divides the two
taxonomic units, there will be virtually no difference. The difference
between a 0.25Mya "H. erectus" and a 0.24Mya "H. sapiens" will be 0.01My
and not much else. The taxonomic nightmare which is late Middle
Pleistocene Europe attests to just this phenomenon.
Think of it in terms of a long, wide river (the Mississippi, for instance).
If, for some bizarre reason, it was decided that from now on the river
south of St. Louis was to be called the Nile, would we then be arguing
whether the Mississippi turned into the Nile simulaneously on both the
right and left banks? (not to mention the middle). I think not, for we
would be able to recognize the distinction as the arbitrary construct it
really is. That we cannot do so quite so readily with respect to H.
erectus, the "Neadertals," and others of our forebears bespeaks volumes
IMHO about our persistent inability to come to grips with our origins.
The problem Ken describes is the problem of "group thinking" versus "tree
thinking." The true history -- the true chronicle of events that a
systematist would be interested in reconstructing -- has no seams: it is a
continuous genealogical nexus extending through time. When we think in
terms of this genealogical nexus -- the tree -- the questions we ask are of
the form "how is this individual or population genealogically connected to
the other populations and individuals we know?" If we are "group thinkers"
though, we ask questions like "is this population really _Homo sapiens_ or
really _Homo erectus_, or should we perhaps call it by a new name?" The fact
that evolution is an historical process means that when we consider evolving
populations in time there aren't "really" any boxes that the individuals fit
into -- there is only the genealogical nexus that connects them. This is
the reason there has been a "species problem" is systematics since the field
began; "species" is to a considerable extent a classificatory concept, and
when we look at the genealogical nexus up close, classification is sometimes
too blunt an instrument to be useful.
(I should point out in passing that I use the term "tree" in a broad sense:
I do not mean a history that is strictly branching. When you stand back
and look at evolutionary history at a coarse level of resolution it is
mostly branching, while "up close" it is mostly reticulate; this is all the
same "tree" in my sense. If I wanted to be really precise I would call it
the Natural System or the evolutionary chronicle, but "tree" is easier to
type.)
In response to Ken Jacobs' message, Kent Holsinger raised some other
important questions about cladogenesis and anagenesis in the context of
this topic. Let me put some comments on Kent's posting in another message
so that this one doesn't get any longer than it is already.
Bob O'Hara, Darwin-L list owner
Robert J. O'Hara (darwin@iris.uncg.edu)
Center for Critical Inquiry and Department of Biology
100 Foust Building, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Greensboro, North Carolina 27412 U.S.A.
_______________________________________________________________________________
Darwin-L Message Log 7: 31-65 -- March 1994 End
