The Accidental Species Misunderstandings of Human Evolution

218 Pages·2015·1.014 MB·English

by  Gee, Henry

THE
ACCIDENTAL
SPECIES

The
Accidental
Species
MISUNDERSTANDINGS OF
HUMAN EVOLUTION
Henry Gee
The University of Chicago Press
Chicago and London
Henry Gee is a senior editor at Nature and the author
of such books as Jacob’s Ladder, In Search of Deep
Time, The Science of Middle-earth, and A Field Guide to
Dinosaurs, the last with Luis V. Rey. He lives in Cromer,
Norfolk, England, with his family and numerous pets.
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
© 2013 by Henry Gee
All rights reserved. Published 2013.
Printed in the United States of America
22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 1 2 3 4 5
ISBN- 13: 978-0-226-28488-0 (cloth)
ISBN- 13: 978-0-226-04498-9 (e- book)
DOI: 10.7208/ chicago/ 9780226044989.001.0001
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gee, Henry, 1962– author.
The accidental species : misunderstandings of
human evolution / Henry Gee.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-226-28488-0 (cloth : alkaline paper)
ISBN 978-0-226-04498-9 (e- book)
1. Human evolution. 2. Human beings. I. Title.
GN281.G36 2013
599.93′8—dc23
2013016599
o This paper meets the requirements of
ANSI/ NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).
To the memory of John Maddox (1925– 2009):
colleague, mentor, and friend,
in the hope that he’d have approved

Contents
Preface: No More Missing Links ix
1 AN UNEXPECTED PARTY 1
2 ALL ABOUT EVOLUTION 20
3 LOSING IT 42
4 THE BEOWULF EFFECT 57
5 SHADOWS OF THE PAST 73
6 THE HUMAN ERROR 97
7 THE WAY WE WALK 112
8 THE DOG AND THE ATLATL 124
9 A CLEVERNESS OF CROWS 135
10 THE THINGS WE SAY 146
11 THE WAY WE THINK 157
Afterword: The Tangled Bank 169
Notes 173 Index 197

Preface: No More Missing Links
Here’s the thing. It’s the curious phenomenon in which otherwise sane
and rational news reporters lose all sense of reason or proportion when
confronted with anything to do with human evolution, no matter how
trivial or (ultimately) inconsequential it might be. Scientists make all
kinds of discoveries every day, but almost all add just one small brick
to a wall of knowledge that’s sky high. Very few are deserving of any
press coverage at all, let alone in the tumescent tones reserved for hu-
man evolution. Yet it seems that any paper on human evolution is fair
game for the breathlessly orgasmic treatment usually reserved for
voice- overs for commercials for expensive ice cream. If all discoveries
are treated the same way, one is forced to wonder, then no discrimina-
tion can be made between them, and the eff ect is a kind of dull infan-
tilization in which the signifi cance of the discovery is obscured, and
science as a whole is done a disservice.
A recent case was the media brouhaha surrounding the discovery
of a fossil primate called Darwinius masillae. If you care to look up the
scientifi c paper in which Darwinius is described, you can—it’s freely ac-
cessible to anyone.1 If you do, you’ll fi nd a perfectly fi ne description
of a rare and beautiful fossil. If you read carefully, you’ll see that Dar-
winius masillae is one of a number of primates belonging to an extinct
group called adapids. Darwinius is a particularly fi ne specimen of an
adapid, but it does not reveal any exceptional insight into the evolu-
tion of adapids or of primates as a whole. The evolutionary signifi cance
of adapids is debated by specialists, but most agree that they are more
closely related to lemurs and bush babies than modern monkeys or
apes, let alone humans.
The media circus (there is no other word) implied something rather
diff erent—that the fossil represented a crucial stage in human evolu-