Coming 126 years after his death, the church’s apology will focus on how wrong it was for senior bishops in the past to misunderstand and attack Darwin’s theory about man being descended from apes.
Senior church officials will post the apology in the form of an article written by the Reverend Dr Malcolm Brown on the church’s website tomorrow.
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Ardipithecus ramidus
The most primitive hominid yet found, this species has more chimpanzee-like features than any other human ancestor. Ardipithecus ramidus may have walked upright. Other fossils discovered with A. ramidus suggest that the species lived in the forest. First fossils found 1992
Australopithecus anamensis
Exhibiting some chimp-like characteristics, A. anamensis’ jaws are more primitive than those of later hominids. And yet, its humerus (an arm bone) is quite human-like. Characteristics of its tibia (a lower leg bone) indicate that A. anamensis walked on two feet. First fossil found 1965.
Australopithecus afarensis
This species includes “Lucy,” the 3.2 million year old fossil found by Donald Johanson. A. afarensis’ small braincases and relatively large teeth and chewing muscles are similar to those of chimpanzees. However, their teeth, as well as their leg and pelvis bones, exhibit human-like characteristics. They ranged in height from three and a half feet to five feet and walked upright. First fossils found 1973.
Australopithecus africanus
Although similar in many ways to A. afarensis, this species had a slightly larger brain (but still only slightly larger than a chimp’s brain), smaller canine teeth, and larger molars. The wear of the teeth suggests that A. africanus ate fruits and foliage. First fossils found 1924.
Australopithecus robustus
Believed to be roughly the same size as A. afarensis, A. robustus had a large, “robust” (heavier, thicker) skull, as well as a jaw and large teeth that were well adapted to chewing. Like some present-day apes, this species had a “sagittal crest” (a ridge running from front to back on the top of the skull) from which muscles running to the jaw were attached. First fossil found 1938.
Australopithecus boisei
A. boisei is similar to A. robustus, except that its skull and teeth are even larger. Some experts consider the two closely related, both branching from another species called A. aethiopicus. Others believe A. robustus evolved from A. africanus. Like all of the other Autralopithecus species, A. boisei walked upright. First fossil found 1959.
Homo habilis
Homo habilis, which actually means “handy man,” is apparently the first species to make and use primitive stone tools. About five feet tall and weighing 100 pounds, H. habilis had a brain that was larger than the largest Autralopithecus brain, but smaller than the Homo erectus brain. First fossil found 1960.
Homo erectus
The first example of Homo erectus, known as “Java Man,” was discovered in Indonesia in 1893. Fossil remains of Homo erectus have since been found throughout Africa and Asia, making it the first wide-ranging hominid. Despite the primitive appearance of its skull, the erectus skeleton is very similar to that of modern humans, although more robust (thicker and heavier). Homo erectus was probably the first hominid to use fire. 300,000 years ago. First fossil found in 1893.
Homo sapiens (archaic)
Also known as Homo heidelbergensis, this species has a brain that was larger than H. erectus’ and smaller than that of a modern human. The brain was enclosed in a skull that was more rounded than H. erectus’. Fossil remains of archaic Homo sapiens have been found in Africa and Europe. 500,000 – 200,000 years ago. First fossil found in 1921.
Homo sapiens neanderthalensis
Averaging five and a half feet in height and possessing short limbs, Neanderthals were well-adapted to living in a cold climate. Attached to their robust (thick and heavy) bones were powerful muscles. The Neanderthal’s brain was larger than the brain of living humans, although its shape was longer from front to back and not as rounded in the front. 230,000 – 30,000 years ago. First fossil found in 1856.
Homo sapiens (modern)
Modern Homo sapiens, also known as Homo sapiens sapiens, have been around for the past 120,000 years. Homo sapiens living about 40,000 years ago made elaborate tools out of bone, antler, ivory, stone, and wood, and produced fine artwork in the form of carvings and cave paintings. 120,000 years ago – present.
First “Cro-Magnon” specimens found in 1868.
By Charles Darwin
“I WILL here give a brief sketch of the progress of opinion on the Origin of Species. Until recently the great majority of naturalists believed that species were immutable productions, and had been separately created. This view has been ably maintained by many authors. Some few naturalists, on the other hand, have believed that species undergo modification, and that the existing forms of life are the descendants by true generation of pre-existing forms. Passing over allusions to the subject in the classical writers,* the first author who in modern times has treated it in a scientific spirit was Buffon. But as his opinions fluctuated greatly at different periods, and as he does not enter on the causes * Aristotle, in his ‘Physicae Auscultationes’ (lib. 2, cap. 8, s. 2), after remarking that rain does not fall in order to make the corn grow, any more than it falls to spoil the farmer’s corn when threshed out of doors, applies the same argument to organization: and adds (as translated by Mr Clair Grece, who first pointed out the passage to me), ‘So what hinders the different parts [of the body] from having this merely accidental relation in nature? as the teeth, for example, grow by necessity, the front ones sharp, adapted for dividing, and the grinders flat, and serviceable for masticating the food; since they were not made for the sake of this, but it was the result of accident. And in like manner as to the other parts in which there appears to exist an adaptation to an end. Wheresoever, therefore, all things together (that is all the parts of one whole) happened like as if they were made for the sake of something, these were preserved, having been appropriately constituted by an internal spontaneity, and whatsoever things were not thus constituted, perished, and still perish. or means of the transformation of species, I need not here enter on details.
Lamarck was the first man whose conclusions on the subject excited much attention. This justly-celebrated naturalist first published his views in 1801; he much enlarged them in 1809 in his “Philosophie Zoologique,’ and subsequently, in 1815, in the Introduction to his “Hist. Nat. des Animaux sans Vertébres.’ In these works he upholds the doctrine that species, including man, are descended from other species. He first did the eminent service of arousing attention to the probability of all change in the organic, as well as in the inorganic world, being the result of law, and not of miraculous interposition. Lamarck seems to have been chiefly led to his conclusion on the gradual change of species, by the difficulty of distinguishing species and varieties, by the almost perfect gradation of forms in certain groups, and by the analogy of domestic productions. With respect to the means of modification, he attributed something to the direct action of the physical conditions of life, something to the crossing of already existing forms, and much to use and disuse, that is, to the effects of habit. To this latter agency he seemed to attribute all the beautiful adaptations in nature; — such as the long neck of the giraffe for browsing on the branches of trees. But he likewise believed in a law of progressive development; and as all the forms of life thus tend to progress, in order to account for the existence at the present day of simple productions, he maintains that such forms are now spontaneously generated.*
We here see the principle of natural selection shadowed forth, but how little Aristotle fully comprehended the principle, is shown by his remarks on the formation of the teeth. *I have taken the date of the first publication of Lamarck from Isid. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire’s (‘Hist. Nat. Générale,’ tom. ii. p. 405, 1859) excellent history of opinion on this subject. In this work a full account is given of Buffon’s conclusions on the same subject. It is curious how largely my grandfather, Dr Erasmus Darwin, anticipated the views and erroneous grounds of opinion of Lamarck in his ‘Zoonomia’ (vol. i. pp. 500-510), published in 1794. According to Isid. Geoffroy there is no doubt that Goethe was an extreme partisan of similar views, as shown in the Introduction to a work written in 1794 and 1795, but not published till long afterwards: he has pointedly remarked (‘Goethe als Naturforscher,’ von Dr Karl Medinge s. 34) that the future question for naturalists will be how, for instance, cattle got their horns, and not for what they are used. It is rather a singular instance of the manner in which similar views arise at about the same time, that Goethe in Germany, Dr Darwin in England, and Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (as we shall immediately see) in France; came to the same conclusion on the origin of species, in the years 1794-5.
Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, as is stated in his ‘Life,’ written by his son, suspected, as early as 1795, that what we call species are various degenerations of the same type. It was not until 1828 that he published his conviction that the same forms have not been perpetuated since the origin of all things. Geoffroy seems to have relied chiefly on the conditions of life, or the ‘monde ambiant’ as the cause of change. He was cautious in drawing conclusions, and did not believe that existing species are now undergoing modification; and, as his son adds, “C’est donc un problème à réserver entièrement à l’avenir, supposé meme que l’avenir doive avoir prise sur lui.’
In 1813, Dr W. C. Wells read before the Royal Society ‘An Account of a White female, part of whose skin resembled that of a Negro’; but his paper was not published until his famous ‘Two Essays upon Dew and Single Vision’ appeared in 1818. In this paper he distinctly recognises the principle of natural selection, and this is the first recognition which has been indicated; but he applies it only to the races of man, and to certain characters alone. After remarking that negroes and mulattoes enjoy an immunity from certain tropical diseases, he observes, firstly, that all animals tend to vary in some degree, and, secondly, that agriculturists improve their domesticated animals by selection; and then, he adds, but what is done in this latter case ‘by art, seems to be done with equal efficacy, though more slowly, by nature, in the formation of varieties of mankind, fitted for the country which they inhabit. Of the accidental varieties of man, which would occur among the first few and scattered inhabitants of the middle regions of Africa, some one would be better fitted than the others to bear the diseases of the country. This race would consequently multiply, while the others would decrease; not only from their inability to sustain the attacks of disease, but from their incapacity of contending with their more vigorous neighbours. The colour of this vigorous race I take for granted, from what has been already said, would be dark. But the same disposition to form varieties still existing, a darker and a darker race would in the course of time occur: and as the darkest would be the best fitted for the climate, this would at length become the most prevalent; if not the only race, in the particular country in which it had originated.’ He then extends these same views to the white inhabitants of colder climates. I am indebted to Mr Rowley, of the United States, for having called my attention, through Mr Brace, to the above passage in Dr Wells’ work.”
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By Olivia Judson
MY fellow primates, 200 years ago today, Charles Darwin was born. Please join me in wishing him happy birthday!
Unlike many members of the human species, Darwin makes an easy hero. His achievements were prodigious; his science, meticulous. His work transformed our understanding of the planet and of ourselves.
At the same time, he was a humane, gentle, decent man, a loving husband and father, and a loyal friend. Judging by his letters, he was also sometimes quite funny. He was, in other words, one of those rare beings, as likeable as he was impressive.
For example, after his marriage, Darwin worked at home, and his children (of the 10 he fathered, seven survived to adulthood) remembered playing in his study. Later, one of his sons recounted how, after an argument, his father came up to his room, sat on his bed, and apologized for losing his temper. And although often painted as a recluse, Darwin served as a local magistrate, meting out justice in his dining room.
Moreover, while many of his contemporaries approved of slavery, Darwin did not. He came from a family of ardent abolitionists, and he was revolted by what he saw in slave countries: “Near Rio de Janeiro [Brazil} I lived opposite to an old lady, who kept screws to crush the fingers of her female slaves. I have stayed in a house where a young household mulatto, daily and hourly, was reviled, beaten and persecuted enough to break the spirit of the lowest animal …. It makes one’s blood boil, yet heart tremble, to think that we Englishmen and our American descendants, with their boastful cry of liberty, have been and are so guilty.”
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by Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai
if i were the center of everything for a day…
everything would be aimed towards, dictated by, catered to,
tailored for five foot two tattooed Asian females
when you turned on the television – no martha stewart,
no oprah, no tom brokaw, katie couric, or steven colbert,
only five foot two tattooed Asian females giving
make-up tips for the Asian eye, how to raise children
multilingually in America, custom-design builders who
retrofit houses for the fabulously petite, news that focuses
the latest community organizing campaigns and
where the hottest DJ set is for that night.
everything catered to me – all the movies will tell the
stories of wayward brainiac liberated activist single girls
and their pot dealer mc boyfriends, healing wounds
with families overseas while striving to create fair wages for factory
workers around the world, which would be easier since all the governments
would be run by five foot two tattooed Asian girls,
we’d wave to the camera enthusiastically, give free sandwiches
out to the entire world every Wednesday, we’d match our
lipgloss to our fair trade boots and throw a dance party every time
we passed a truly revolutionary bill.
and i’d get to ask people dumb questions all day about things
that just never occurred to me, because isn’t everybody a five foot
two tattooed Asian girl, and isn’t it so great to be us?
but you know what? i might let you (non-five-foot-two-
tattooed-Asian-girl people) keep your languages, and
i might even give you equal access to health care and education too,
i might even let you share the airwaves, the houses of government,
and give you a shot of working your way up in the financial institutions,
because i know there is no you without me, and from the center to the
margin, there is no me without you.
Pratap Chatterjee on “Halliburton’s Army: How a Well-Connected Texas Oil Company Revolutionized the Way America Makes War”
Despite a storm of controversy involving allegations of bribery and wrongful death, the military contractor KBR has been awarded a new $35 million contract for electrical work in Iraq. We speak to award-winning investigative journalist Pratap Chatterjee, author of the new book Halliburton’s Army: How a Well-Connected Texas Oil Company Revolutionized the Way America Makes War. [includes rush transcript]
AMY GOODMAN: It’s good to have you with us. As the US government says that the troops will draw down over the next year, year and a half, in Iraq, what’s happening with Halliburton and, as you call it, Halliburton’s Army?
PRATAP CHATTERJEE: Well, the US military is completely dependent on Halliburton. Despite all the news that you read of, you know, soldiers being electrocuted, drivers being shot, the company continues to get contracts. And it’s because half the people in Iraq are contractors, and a large number of them are KBR employees. You know, they’re South Asian workers, they’re Indians, Pakistanis, they’re Southeast Asian Filipinos. They are Halliburton’s Army, and they make this military tick. They make this army—allow this army to march forward on its stomach. It’s because they feed that stomach.
(Submitted by a reader)
By Beena Sarwar
OF the many challenges Pakistan’s elected government faces perhaps the most menacing and deep-rooted is Talibanisation — a phenomenon identified earlier on by the then exiled Afghan government’s acting foreign minister, Abdullah Abdullah, on Sept 21, 2000, in his address to the United Nations General Assembly.
Pleading for urgent measures to combat this threat, Abdullah wondered “how far the evil threat of Talibanism shall expand … before the conscience of the international community would be awakened, not to just consider, but to adopt immediate and drastic preventive measures.”
His warnings fell on deaf ears. Today, Pakistan bears the brunt of the Taliban fallout, thanks to short-sighted Pakistanis fixated on creating an illusionary ‘strategic depth’ and Americans who thought routing the Taliban militarily in Afghanistan, thanks to superior technology, would ‘root out the evil’. All it did was push their support base underground for a while, even as the political vacuum created by mainstream Pakistani party leaders being in exile allowed the Taliban-sympathetic Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (also referred to by Benazir Bhutto as the Mullah Military Alliance) to win elections and strengthen these forces.
They have been gaining ground since Pakistan’s creation, with formulations like the Objectives Resolution. The process accelerated with successive governments pandering to right-wing ideologues who practically took over the country during the Afghan war. Then it suited Washington and its allies, including the Zia regime, to arm and train the Mujahideen and initiate what Dr Eqbal Ahmad called ‘jihad international’.
Writers and artists also courageously took on these elements. The dozens of works exhibited recently by the Peshawar-based cartoonist Zahoor at The Second Floor in Karachi included one dated Dec 23, 2007 in which he personifies a cloud as an armed, bearded man (‘Taliban’ inscribed on his turban) hovering ominously overhead, moving from Darra towards Peshawar. Another cartoon titled ‘Scenic Swat Valley’ shows a mean-faced, hirsute volcano overseeing a pile of burning television sets.
Perhaps most prescient was the short-story writer Ghulam Abbas who during another time of ‘enlightened moderation’ (Ayub Khan’s) predicted the logical conclusion of organised bigotry and fanaticism in Hotel Mohenjodaro, a futuristic story in which guests at the fictional Hotel Mohenjodaro celebrate Pakistan becoming the first country to send a man to the moon (Abbas wrote it in 1967 or so, before Neil Armstrong’s feat).
Mullahs around the country condemn the astronaut’s act as heretical. They whip up a frenzy that topples the government, grab power, destroy universities, schools and libraries and impose strict gender segregation. They ban music, art, English and modern inventions — but don’t mind using these inventions (loudspeakers then, Internet, television and FM radio stations now) for their own purpose. Their infighting leads to anarchy. Pakistan is invaded and destroyed. Years later, a tour guide points to the spot in a desert “where, before the enemy struck, stood the Hotel Mohenjodaro.”
The Taliban have already reduced many hotels and educational institutions to rubble in Swat and other previously idyllic areas. Recovery from the nightmare they have unleashed will take much time, once it is over. And over it must be, later if not sooner. In the long term, as Pervez Hoodbhoy predicts, “the forces of irrationality will cancel themselves out because they act at random whereas reason pulls only in one direction.”
Those who justify the Taliban uprising in Pakistan as an anti-imperialist movement forget that since the Taliban first swept into Afghanistan in 1996 (with the blessings of the Pakistani establishment), they have been a threat to women, pluralism and democracy in the region. Their oppressive order in Afghanistan pre-dates the American invasion of Iraq, bombing of Afghanistan, and drone attacks in Pakistan.
Although many Afghans initially welcomed the Taliban for their ‘speedy justice’, oppressive measures like closing girls’ schools and pushing women out of the public sphere added to the people’s miseries. Forced to give up their jobs, thousands of women, the sole bread-earners for their families, had three choices: beggary, starvation or prostitution.
Pushed out of Afghanistan in 2001, the Taliban and their ideological extensions began attempting to enforce this order in Pakistan. Over the past months they have closed or demolished scores of girls’ schools in Swat and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata), forcing thousands of girls to discontinue their education.
The diary of a seventh-grade Swat schoolgirl writing under the pen name ‘Gul Makai’ (BBC Urdu Online) bears poignant testimony to these horrors. On Jan 3, she wrote, “I had a terrible dream yesterday with military helicopters and the Taliban. I have had such dreams since the launch of the military operation in Swat…. I was afraid going to school because the Taliban had banned all girls from attending schools.” That day, only 11 out of 27 students attended class because of the Taliban’s edict. Three of her friends had already moved to Peshawar, Lahore and Rawalpindi with their families. In the latest installment, her own family has moved to Islamabad.
Here in Karachi, even my seventh-grade old daughter argues that all this has nothing to do with Islam.
What it has to do with is territorial control and power. As the historian Rajesh Kadian notes, most of Asia’s major countries are “frayed at the edges with central authority barely maintaining the functions, power and dignity of the state”. Pakistan’s “frayed fringe” Fata was strategically important to the West during the Afghan war and after 9/11. The exception was “the extraordinary valley of Swat”, the cradle of Tibetan Buddhism, the home of Shah Mir whose piety converted the Kashmiris to Islam, boasting the highest literacy rates in the area especially among women. By targeting this peaceful, settled area with its diverse cultural and religious traditions, the Taliban have made life hell for its residents. They have also challenged the writ of the state by establishing their own parallel system.
This would have been impossible if the heavily armed and trained Pakistan Army meant business. Instead, they say they are unable to even neutralise the FM radio station from which daily announcements are made of the Taliban’s next targets. The army’s recently stated resolve to work in tandem with the civilian government counters public perceptions about its reluctance to do just that. Somewhere, the will seems to be lacking. It will continue to remain lacking unless those who control Pakistan realise that the target of these ‘jihadi’ forces is not just to control some areas, but to overrun the entire country, just as Ghulam Abbas predicted.
The writer is a freelance journalist and documentary filmmaker based in Karachi.
beena.sarwar@gmail.com
Submitted by Hamid Bashani Khan.
Originally published in Dawn