This volume is the umbilical offshoot of its ‘mother book’, Science and the Soul. Both are truly original works. We begin by linking with the latter. Then, using facts from palaeoanthropology, biology (classical and molecular), information theory, design theory and philosophy, A Mutant Ape? assesses the two main interpretations of your human origin.
The simple difference between these interpretations is identified. So also are the differences between man and ape. Thence the book follows the course of palaeoanthropological history until the second world war and deals with each main character in the order of its scientific discovery. After the war things become, with more workers in the field, more complex. Finds worldwide are covered and various theories seeking to locate human emergence are described and criticised. These include an account of the recent impact of genetics before, at last, we both turn to Australia and return to Europe for the summing up.
Read thoroughly and by the end what will you think? The books Adam and Evolution and A Potted Grammar of Natural Dialectic may further help to clarify the issue.
Tabla de materias
Illustrations
1. For Starters
2. Troublesome Irrationality
3. Skew
4. Imperative
5. Cartoons
6. The Imperative of Law
7. Racism, Slavery and All That
8. An Instructive Analogy
9. When Is a Man a Man?
10. Man as Opposed to Ape
11. Fossils (Not Molecules)
12. Ages of Rock
13. Years of Palaeoanthropology
14. Neanderthal
15. Homo erectus/ Java Man
Dubois
The Selenka Trinil Expedition
von Koenigswald’s Research
16. Piltdown
17. Homo erectus/ Peking Man
18. Other erecti (upright men)
19. Broken Hill Man
20. Australopithecines (and antecessors)
21. Muddle in the Middle
22. Molecules (Not Fossils)
Autosomal DNA
Hot-Spots and Humans
Human Leukogen Antigen (HLA)
Skin Colour
Non-protein-coding (ex-junk) DNA
Pseudogenes
Fusion of Chromosome 2
Human Accelerated Regions (HARs)
The Male Chromosome: Y-DNA
Mt-DNA
23. African Eve
24. Adam and Evolution
Rival Suitors
First Principles
25. Mythological Mirage
Fossil Catalogue Abbreviations
Hominoid Classification Reference
Uniformitarian (Evolutionary) Chronology
Glossary (see also archaeologyinfo.com)
Bibliography
Sobre el autor
M.A. (Oxon) in Classics: B.A. (Open University) Science. Humanities and Science Teacher (with emphasis on Biology). The author has lived practically his whole life in Cambridge, UK and, , from youth, been interested in the integration without prejudice of mankind’s perennial disciplines of philosophy, science and religion. He has travelled widely in Europe, Asia, N. Africa and N. America and is familiar with the different popular and philosophical mind-sets involved.