The meaning of absence: the primate tree that did not make it into Darwin's The Descent of Man

BJHS Themes ◽

10.1017/bjt.2020.14 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-17

Author(s):

Marianne Sommer

Keyword(s):

Human Populations ◽

Ernst Haeckel ◽

Species Status ◽

Tree Diagram ◽

Organismic Evolution ◽

Racial Hierarchies ◽

Descent Of Man ◽

Human Phylogeny

Abstract This paper engages with a specific image: Darwin's tree of the primates. Although this diagram was sketched in ink on paper in 1868, it did not make it into the publication of The Descent of Man (1871). This may seem all the more in need of an explanation because, as Adrian Desmond and James Moore have shown, Darwin strongly relied on the notion of familial genealogy in the development of his theory of organismic evolution, or rather descent. However, Darwin expressed scepticism towards visualizations of phylogenies in correspondence with Ernst Haeckel and in fact also in Descent, considering such representations at once too speculative and too concrete. An abstraction such as a tree diagram left little room to ponder possibilities or demarcate hypotheses from evidence. I thus bring Darwin's primate tree into communication with his view on primate and human phylogeny as formulated in Descent, including his rejection of polygenism. I argue that considering the tree's inherent teleology, as well as its power to suggest species status of human populations and to reify ‘racial’ hierarchies, the absence of the diagram in The Descent of Man may be a significant statement.

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Knowing savagery: Australia and the anatomy of race

History of the Human Sciences ◽

10.1177/0952695119836587 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 32 (4) ◽

pp. 115-134 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Bruce Buchan ◽

Linda Andersson Burnett

Keyword(s):

Early Years ◽

Human Populations ◽

Skull Morphology ◽

Climatic Variations ◽

Physical Classification ◽

Physical Stature ◽

The 19Th Century ◽

Racial Hierarchies ◽

New Criteria ◽

Colour Hair

When Australia was circumnavigated by Europeans in 1801–02, French and British natural historians were unsure how to describe the Indigenous peoples who inhabited the land they charted and catalogued. Ideas of race and of savagery were freely deployed by both British and French, but a discursive shift was underway. While the concept of savagery had long been understood to apply to categories of human populations deemed to be in want of more historically advanced ‘civilisation’, the application of this term in the late 18th and early 19th centuries was increasingly being correlated with the emerging terminology of racial characteristics. The terminology of race was still remarkably fluid, and did not always imply fixed physical or mental endowments or racial hierarchies. Nonetheless, by means of this concept, natural historians began to conceptualise humanity as subject not only to historical gradations, but also to the environmental and climatic variations thought to determine race. This in turn meant that the degree of savagery or civilisation of different peoples could be understood through new criteria that enabled physical classification, in particular by reference to skin colour, hair, facial characteristics, skull morphology, or physical stature: the archetypal criteria of race. While race did not replace the language of savagery, in the early years of the 19th century savagery was re-inscribed by race.

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The sense of obligation is culturally modulated

Behavioral and Brain Sciences ◽

10.1017/s0140525x19002371 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 43 ◽

Author(s):

Andrea Bender

Keyword(s):

Cultural Studies ◽

Cross Cultural ◽

Human Populations ◽

Cultural Group ◽

Target Article ◽

Sense Of Obligation ◽

Cross Cultural Studies

Abstract Tomasello argues in the target article that, in generalizing the concrete obligations originating from interdependent collaboration to one's entire cultural group, humans become “ultra-cooperators.” But are all human populations cooperative in similar ways? Based on cross-cultural studies and my own fieldwork in Polynesia, I argue that cooperation varies along several dimensions, and that the underlying sense of obligation is culturally modulated.

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Self-Injurious Behavior vs. Nonsuicidal Self-Injury

Crisis ◽

10.1027/0227-5910/a000127 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 33 (2) ◽

pp. 106-112 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Christopher M. Bloom ◽

Shareen Holly ◽

Adam M. P. Miller

Keyword(s):

Positive Reinforcement ◽

Empirical Investigation ◽

High Stress ◽

Animal Research ◽

Stress Conditions ◽

Human Populations ◽

Pharmacological Interventions ◽

Self Injury ◽

Cns Stimulant ◽

Nonsuicidal Self Injury

Background: Historically, the field of self-injury has distinguished between the behaviors exhibited among individuals with a developmental disability (self-injurious behaviors; SIB) and those present within a normative population (nonsuicidal self-injury; NSSI),which typically result as a response to perceived stress. More recently, however, conclusions about NSSI have been drawn from lines of animal research aimed at examining the neurobiological mechanisms of SIB. Despite some functional similarity between SIB and NSSI, no empirical investigation has provided precedent for the application of SIB-targeted animal research as justification for pharmacological interventions in populations demonstrating NSSI. Aims: The present study examined this question directly, by simulating an animal model of SIB in rodents injected with pemoline and systematically manipulating stress conditions in order to monitor rates of self-injury. Methods: Sham controls and experimental animals injected with pemoline (200 mg/kg) were assigned to either a low stress (discriminated positive reinforcement) or high stress (discriminated avoidance) group and compared on the dependent measures of self-inflicted injury prevalence and severity. Results: The manipulation of stress conditions did not impact the rate of self-injury demonstrated by the rats. The results do not support a model of stress-induced SIB in rodents. Conclusions: Current findings provide evidence for caution in the development of pharmacotherapies of NSSI in human populations based on CNS stimulant models. Theoretical implications are discussed with respect to antecedent factors such as preinjury arousal level and environmental stress.

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