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Biological Anthropology: An Evolutionary Perspective
In this course, award-winning teacher and scholar, Barbara J. King (William and Mary University) delves into the story of how, why, where, and when we became human.
These lectures will help you understand the forces that have shaped, and continue to shape, our species.
"An evolutionary perspective on human behavior," notes Dr. King, "results in more than just knowledge about dates and sites when and where specific evolutionary milestones likely occurred."
"It is also a window on the past and future of our species. An entirely new way of thinking comes into focus when we consider the human species within an evolutionary perspective."
A Century of Scholarship
While covering these subjects in this 24-lecture series, Dr. King synthesizes the best that more than a century of scientific scholarship has to offer across a variety of disciplines.
Biological anthropologists study primate anatomy and behavior both to understand evolution and to learn more about our common ancestor.
Biological anthropologists are joined by molecular anthropologists to better understand hominids by studying fossils, ancient skeletal remains, and lifestyle information such as cave art and stone tools.
Case Studies that Clarify Evolution and Its Power
Dr. King begins by explaining key mechanisms through which evolution functions, citing famous and definitive case studies that demonstrate these forces.
In one such landmark study, for example, biologists Peter and Rosemary Grant returned to the Galapagos Islands more than 100 years after Darwin's first voyage to conduct research on island finches.
In 1977, a drought-induced scarcity of soft, edible seeds brought forth in the very next generation a population of finches with larger, stronger beaks capable of crushing larger, tougher seeds.
Extraordinarily, in 1985, heavy rains produced a surplus of softer seeds, and natural selection produced a succeeding generation of the smaller-beaked variety.
Evolution had occurred in two different directions within a decade. This "natural selection" is the theoretical tool of evolution, which helps us make sense of these facts.
Why Evolution Remains Important to Us Today
Perhaps the greatest measure of this theory's power is its relevance to our lives today.
- Did you know that the gene which causes sickle cell anemia must be inherited from both parents to cause the disease but the disease does not occur when only a single gene is inherited?
- Or that the single gene, in fact, affords protection from malaria?
Or that race, a category so securely ingrained in our consciousness, is practically meaningless in biological terms?
- Or how to evaluate the claim that a gene can be responsible for a certain personality trait?
A Glimpse Into Our Selected Primate Heritage
With an understanding of the basic mechanisms of evolutionary change in hand, the course looks at how our ancient primate ancestors adapted.
Consider the anatomical features we share with monkeys, great apes, and other primates. Our large brains, grasping hands, and forward-facing eyes allowing us to perceive depth are critical to the way we function in the world.
Yet the fossil record tells us that some 70 million years ago these distinctive primate features did not exist.
What caused the first primates to emerge from existing mammalian populations?
One proposed solution was that the appearance of insects living in the lower canopies of trees offered a plentiful food resource to those species adapted to procure it. Could depth perception and grasping ability have provided an advantage here, and hence been naturally selected?
This is the function of biological confronting the facts, then suggesting and testing possibilities.
A Course as Much About the Present as the Past
With so much of evolutionary history taken up with the past, the insights gained in these lectures may tempt you to add questions of your
- Is human evolution still a force in today's world?
Hasn't our modern, mobile culture rendered evolution irrelevant?
- In fact, human evolution is a stronger force than ever, interacting with human culture in complex ways.
Issues such as obesity, AIDS, and genetics are all discussed. And you may well find these lectures opening your eyes to the extraordinary ways in which the biological power of natural selection is still at work in the world today.
Course Lecture Titles
1. What is Biological Anthropology?
2. How Evolution Works
3. The Debate Over Evolution
4. Matter Arising—New Species
5. Prosimians, Monkeys, and Apes
6. Monkey and Ape Social Behavior
7. The Mind of the Great Ape
8. Models for Human Ancestors?
9. Introducing the Hominids
10. Lucy and Company
11. Stones and Bones
12. Out of Africa
13. Who Were the Neandertals?
14. Did Hunting Make Us Human?
15. The Prehistory of Gender ...
These lectures will help you understand the forces that have shaped, and continue to shape, our species.
"An evolutionary perspective on human behavior," notes Dr. King, "results in more than just knowledge about dates and sites when and where specific evolutionary milestones likely occurred."
"It is also a window on the past and future of our species. An entirely new way of thinking comes into focus when we consider the human species within an evolutionary perspective."
A Century of Scholarship
While covering these subjects in this 24-lecture series, Dr. King synthesizes the best that more than a century of scientific scholarship has to offer across a variety of disciplines.
Biological anthropologists study primate anatomy and behavior both to understand evolution and to learn more about our common ancestor.
Biological anthropologists are joined by molecular anthropologists to better understand hominids by studying fossils, ancient skeletal remains, and lifestyle information such as cave art and stone tools.
Case Studies that Clarify Evolution and Its Power
Dr. King begins by explaining key mechanisms through which evolution functions, citing famous and definitive case studies that demonstrate these forces.
In one such landmark study, for example, biologists Peter and Rosemary Grant returned to the Galapagos Islands more than 100 years after Darwin's first voyage to conduct research on island finches.
In 1977, a drought-induced scarcity of soft, edible seeds brought forth in the very next generation a population of finches with larger, stronger beaks capable of crushing larger, tougher seeds.
Extraordinarily, in 1985, heavy rains produced a surplus of softer seeds, and natural selection produced a succeeding generation of the smaller-beaked variety.
Evolution had occurred in two different directions within a decade. This "natural selection" is the theoretical tool of evolution, which helps us make sense of these facts.
Why Evolution Remains Important to Us Today
Perhaps the greatest measure of this theory's power is its relevance to our lives today.
- Did you know that the gene which causes sickle cell anemia must be inherited from both parents to cause the disease but the disease does not occur when only a single gene is inherited?
- Or that the single gene, in fact, affords protection from malaria?
Or that race, a category so securely ingrained in our consciousness, is practically meaningless in biological terms?
- Or how to evaluate the claim that a gene can be responsible for a certain personality trait?
A Glimpse Into Our Selected Primate Heritage
With an understanding of the basic mechanisms of evolutionary change in hand, the course looks at how our ancient primate ancestors adapted.
Consider the anatomical features we share with monkeys, great apes, and other primates. Our large brains, grasping hands, and forward-facing eyes allowing us to perceive depth are critical to the way we function in the world.
Yet the fossil record tells us that some 70 million years ago these distinctive primate features did not exist.
What caused the first primates to emerge from existing mammalian populations?
One proposed solution was that the appearance of insects living in the lower canopies of trees offered a plentiful food resource to those species adapted to procure it. Could depth perception and grasping ability have provided an advantage here, and hence been naturally selected?
This is the function of biological confronting the facts, then suggesting and testing possibilities.
A Course as Much About the Present as the Past
With so much of evolutionary history taken up with the past, the insights gained in these lectures may tempt you to add questions of your
- Is human evolution still a force in today's world?
Hasn't our modern, mobile culture rendered evolution irrelevant?
- In fact, human evolution is a stronger force than ever, interacting with human culture in complex ways.
Issues such as obesity, AIDS, and genetics are all discussed. And you may well find these lectures opening your eyes to the extraordinary ways in which the biological power of natural selection is still at work in the world today.
Course Lecture Titles
1. What is Biological Anthropology?
2. How Evolution Works
3. The Debate Over Evolution
4. Matter Arising—New Species
5. Prosimians, Monkeys, and Apes
6. Monkey and Ape Social Behavior
7. The Mind of the Great Ape
8. Models for Human Ancestors?
9. Introducing the Hominids
10. Lucy and Company
11. Stones and Bones
12. Out of Africa
13. Who Were the Neandertals?
14. Did Hunting Make Us Human?
15. The Prehistory of Gender ...
24 pages, Unknown Binding
Published January 1, 2002
7 people are currently reading
167 people want to read
About the author
Barbara J. King
14 books66 followersBarbara J. King
The College of William and Mary
Ph.D., University of Oklahoma
Barbara J. King is a biological anthropologist and Professor of Anthropology at The College of William and Mary. Professor King received her B.A. in anthropology from Douglass College, Rutgers University, and earned her M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Oklahoma.
Professor King’s research interests concern the social communication of the great apes, the closest living relatives to humans. She has studied ape and monkey behavior in Gabon, Kenya, and at the Language Research Center at Georgia State University. The recipient of a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, she has published three books on anthropology, including The Information Continuum: Social Information Transfer in Monkeys, Apes, and Hominids.
At William and Mary, Professor King has won four teaching awards: The William and Mary Alumni Association Teaching Award, the College’s Thomas Jefferson Teaching Award, the Virginia State Council of Higher Education’s Outstanding Faculty Award, and the designation of University Professor for Teaching Excellence, 1999–2002.
The College of William and Mary
Ph.D., University of Oklahoma
Barbara J. King is a biological anthropologist and Professor of Anthropology at The College of William and Mary. Professor King received her B.A. in anthropology from Douglass College, Rutgers University, and earned her M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Oklahoma.
Professor King’s research interests concern the social communication of the great apes, the closest living relatives to humans. She has studied ape and monkey behavior in Gabon, Kenya, and at the Language Research Center at Georgia State University. The recipient of a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, she has published three books on anthropology, including The Information Continuum: Social Information Transfer in Monkeys, Apes, and Hominids.
At William and Mary, Professor King has won four teaching awards: The William and Mary Alumni Association Teaching Award, the College’s Thomas Jefferson Teaching Award, the Virginia State Council of Higher Education’s Outstanding Faculty Award, and the designation of University Professor for Teaching Excellence, 1999–2002.
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Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews
May 24, 2017
2 stars, maybe 2.5 if this is an intro for you. I was never thrilled with her lecture style. She has a few favorite phrases that about drove me nuts & she didn't make it easy to keep facts straight with all her backing & filling. I got far more out of Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors & recommend that over this course. Perhaps it's not fair to directly compare a book to a lecture series, but they have so much material in common that it's tough not to. She also gives this lecture at William & Mary College & really needs to work on her presentation. It's not this lecture's fault that much of the material is dated now - huge advances since 2002.
01) What Is Biological Anthropology? She breaks the science into 6 distinct fields: anthropological geneticist, primatologist, paleoanthropologist, biological (modern & adaptive) & forensic anthropologist. I don't really get the differences between her 2 'biologicals'. 'Modern' is interested in why populations are dis/similar in various ways, while 'Adaptive' assesses the degrees in which they are "adapted to the past" [sic]. Comparative versus exploratory?
She makes a big deal out of how 'race' isn't a particularly good way classify humans saying that 'populations' are better. She goes into details about what constitutes a population, but never defines race save to say that forensic scientists use it. I get worried when comparative definitions get glossed over or left out. It generally means the author is setting up a fallacious argument or she's being too PC. Either way, negative points. Unfortunately, she continues this trend throughout her lectures.
02) How Evolution Works was OK, but I've heard better explanations. Some of the examples were the same, but she scatters info like chicken feed & wanders among it. Tough to keep straight even though most was very elementary.
03) The Debate Over Evolution is a sop to those who think that religious beliefs should be taught as science. She says it's fine to have a religious faith, but then goes on to show why 'Scientific Creationism' & 'Intelligent Design' aren't science & can't be taught as such. They don't meet the criteria for a scientific theory (not reproducible, rely on magic). They're plain wrong on many points such as in the idea of irreducible complexity, a pseudoscientific argument that says our biological systems are too complex to have evolved & only magic can explain them. Apparently almost half the US doesn't believe in evolution. This basic ignorance of the science we depend on is hard to fathom.
04) Matter Arising - New Species was OK, but again scattered. Nothing new nor as well explained in some other books I've listened to lately. Perhaps this is just a little too basic. It did lead well into the next by bringing up how a big brain leads to the ability to socialize.
05) Prosimians, Monkeys, & Apes breaks up the major subgroups of our closest ancestors & discusses distinctions that make them more or less like us (posture, hands, & communication) plus where they are (New or Old World). Sherwood Washburn changed the way we studied them by focusing more on the social aspect.
06) Monkey & Ape Social Behavior introduced me to Cayo Santiago, an island off Puerto Rico which was set up as a study area for free-ranging Old World (Rhesus) monkeys. Interesting how some are matriarchal & vice versa, especially from the evolutionary pressures that would have caused this.
07) The Mind of the Great Ape gets into the Theory of Mind & what it means. Apes have it in spades compared to monkeys & prosimians. It's really interesting that the last two are generally better at vocal communication, while apes are better at nonverbal. Although she never says so directly, it highlights just how many factors need to come together.
08) Models for Human Ancestors discusses how important it is to look at the evolutionary processes that led to various primates rather than comparing us directly to other modern species. While there are homologies, our common ancestor was at least 7 million years ago. Models are constantly undergoing changes as we find out more.
- Referential models use best fit with modern species such as chimps for social bonds including hunting.
- Phylogenetic models use a broader base line pointing out that we're as closely related to bonobos as chimps & the latter are the only great ape that hunts.
- Conceptual models rely on concepts & processes rather than any one species, so can include all nonhuman primates.
09) Introducing the Hominids which are all of them since the split from the great apes, not just our direct ancestors, a time that has been pushed from about 3 million to 7 million since Lucy was found in 1974. Again she belabors the point that it isn't a linear process & we're not always sure which ones are direct. Many were probably dead ends. Climate &/or diet may have played a big role. No one is as sure as they once were as new data is coming in fast.
Dating fossils can be an issue. If found in volcanic ash, it's easier. King doesn't say so, but volcanic rock has radioactive isotopes in it that can be used for dating. She does mention that limestone is less easy to date. Another area where she simplified too much. The upshot is that when we're discussing fossils that are millions of years old, we need to keep in mind the fudge factor. The difference between 2 million & 1.9 million somehow doesn't seem like a lot in this context, but 100,000 years is a long time!
10) Lucy & company The hallmark of a hominid is that it was bipedal rather than a brachiator as shown by the hole in the skull where the spine meets the skull (foramen magnum) but that doesn't mean other major changes or the pelvis was up to supporting bipedalism for extended periods. Lucy (Australopithecus afarensis) had comparatively long arms. Only 40% skeleton, a lot for a 3 million year old fossil. She was found in the East African Rift Valley in volcanic ash, a good place for fossil hunting, & still has an ape sized brain. Probably didn't walk like us.
Maeve Leaky (daughter/sister of the others) found another hominid (Australopithecus anamensis) that may have coexisted with Lucy, although it is dated at about 4 million years old. Sahelanthropus tchadensis is now the oldest hominid fossil at about 7 million years & is believed to be close in time to the common ancestor between apes & hominids.
All of these discoveries are changing how we look at our family tree. Some hominids were built heavier & (from teeth, jaw, & skulls) seemed to have had a more limited diet. One was Australopithecus robustus. Others, like Lucy, ate softer foods & were gracile (lighter boned) species. These were probably our ancestors.
11) Stones & Bones There is no evidence that australopithecines used tools. Homo habilis emerged about 2.5 million years ago & does seem to have had primitive tools; stones that were chipped out & may have been saved in caches (Oldowan tools). Bones of other animals found at these caches (originally thought to be early camps/settlements) indicate eating more meat. No evidence of fire.
12) Out of Africa Java Man was found in Java - not in Africa. Peking Man was found in China (bones lost WWII) & Nariokeotome Boy was found in Kenya. King believes all are Homo erectus, same species, just varied, & date almost 2 million years old, even though the last was very slender compared to the others. New behavior; wide travel out of Africa. All previous examples were in east & south Africa. Bigger brain than previous species. At this time, seems to be a clear ancestor of ours.
13) Who Were the Neandertals (alternate spelling 'Neanderthals', she says the other is more accurate, but doesn't say why. Frustrating.) She says we find evidence of them just about 10K years before modern man, about 130K years ago, but they died out by about 30K years ago & were only found on Europe & Asia. She says they're probably not related & certainly can't be our progenitors since they existed about the same time & in the same areas for about half their time. She said there is one school of thought that said they might be a subspecies homo sapien neanderthalis. They ate a lot of meat, but shouldn't be considered primitive. They had larger brains than we do, but weren't as adaptable. She also mentions there were other 'archaic' hominids around, but doesn't cover them at all. IIRC, there was another species that lived on an island until about 13K years ago that she doesn't mention them at all.
14) Did Hunting Make Us Human discusses the male-oriented model that makes hunting the most important aspect to us becoming human. Seems one sided & was put forth by 2 guys, Washburn & Lancaster. Their bias toward nuclear families seems fairly silly, but apparently was all the rage.
15) The Prehistory of Gender flowed together with the previous lecture for me since this & the previous get into infighting among the anthropologists about preconceptions about gender. King mentions Nancy Tanner & Adrienne Zihlman reversing the gender roles proposed by Washburn & Lancaster. Tanner died in 1989, but Zihlman is apparently around & still strident in her feminism. A search brings up "Feminist Archaeology", so her bias is obvious, too. It's a shame. I expect & hope for more out of scientists.
Richard Wrangham came up with a middling theory that makes more sense, one that King agrees with. It takes 2 to tango & probably varied. Chimp societies do.
I'm disappointed that she never mentioned the effects of fire at all, specifically how it changes meat to make it easier to digest & probably contributed to our ability to support a larger brain. She also mentions that there is less sexual dimorphism, but never mentions this as an indicator of equality in roles, a theory I've read elsewhere & has a lot of merit, IMO.
16) Modern Human Anatomy & Behavior was once thought to suddenly appear about 35K years ago. Seems a silly idea, but again we're seeing cultural bias. Cave paintings & decorated tools were that age in France, but ones twice as old were discovered later in 2 places in Africa. Tools are a good indicator of behavior as they become more sophisticated & can also show trade &/or travel.
17) On the Origins of Homo Sapiens Stephen Jay Gould is one of her heroes. Homo sapiens are no older than 125K & evolved from transitional species. She discusses how we evolved with 3 theories.
- The first is that we evolved into 1 species from 3 separate origins. Very unlikely, but she uses the example of an Oriental type tooth that is specific to older hominid & modern humans in that area, not found in others.
- Second is that we evolved in Africa & spread out from there. From other books & articles I've read, this is well supported by genetic research which she had issues with. That was probably the times. The human genome had just recently been mapped when this book was written.
- The third theory is a partial replacement, Homo sapiens spread out & interbred with other species. There is some evidence for this with Neanderthals that came out well after this book was published, but their contribution was slight for obvious reasons - separate species, by definition, generally don't produce fertile offspring. If they did, they wouldn't be separate, but subspecies.
While she mentions that Neandertals might be a subspecies in the earlier lecture on them, she fails to mention this point in this lecture, surprising given her penchant for repetition. That's a major point that should change how we look at speciation. While I know that mules are occasionally fertile, I've never heard of one becoming a major contributor in a horse or donkey breeding line. Seems to me that Oriental tooth would be a big flag. Convergent evolution?
18) Language, specifically human language, is defined by syntax (structure), the ability to tell stories, & set them in time which is something no other primate can do. They can communicate simple concepts in the present & teach each other, though. Again she sets up the straw man of sudden emergence of this ability & then takes the gradual approach. She mentions how the base of the skull contains clues as to the location & abilities of the major organs for speech (larynx, pharynx, & tongue) which help figure out how much ability older species of hominid might have.
19) Do Human Races Exist? She finally gets to this question & says unequivocally that contemporary biologists find no biological validity to breaking humans up by race. She specifically says there isn't much difference between Africans & Inuits, yet several books specifically mentioned race being a factor that needs to be taken into account. One mentioned a medicine that didn't seem worthwhile on one control group turned out to be a life saver for those of African descent. Another went into the convergent evolution response to malaria & the downside of one such - sickle cell anemia - which she also uses as an example. A couple of forensic anthropology books go into great detail about how differences in bone structure between races is used to figure out who people are from partial skeletal remains. She recognizes these then dismisses them as unimportant. There are too many other experts that find this a useful reference point for me to take her seriously on this point.
OK, race isn't simply skin color & has bad connotations. I think she's taking the PC thing too far. Seems to me more like the bias reaction that occurred about gender. For years race was a cornerstone & used as a bludgeon to make incorrect assessments about intelligence & worth, now she's jumping too far the opposite way. I expect some middling sanity will prevail in the future, but it will take time & might even take a new box being put on our driver's licenses.
20) Modern Human Variation she makes her case for using 'population' instead of race, but neglects to come up with easy terms that we can use & spends so much time being PC & covering her academic ass that it was sad. Wade handled this far better in Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors where he uses 5 continental regions & then says they only really hold true 50K years ago. This allowed him to show mixing of traits & basic differences that still exist without worrying about being PC. She does make a point about high altitude & other extreme condition populations, but these are in a different class than race simply due to the numbers.
21) Body Fat, Diet & Obesity Distribution of fat is the single most pronounced feature of sexual dimorphism, even greater than height & weight. Fat is the buffer against hungry times, something most of us don't worry about anymore, but our bodies don't know that. We still crave the fats & sugars we never used to get enough of, so a large part of the US population (27%?) is now obese. Fad diets don't work, because they trigger our cravings. Some anthropologists are suggesting a 'paleo-diet', while others point out that there was too much variation in diet for that to have any meaning.
22) The Body & Mind Evolving gets into evolutionary psychology, a new & vague field. She gets into salt sensitivity among African Americans. I think that was handled better in this article. She also discusses the differences in sex for choosing mates. Across cultures, men tend to go for younger women while women tend to go for status & ability to acquire resources. Big surprise, right? Both give the offspring a better chance. Ditto with morning sickness as fetal protection. Maybe this last has just been popularized since this was published. I know jealousy (more in males, no cuckoos need apply) has.
23) Tyranny of the Gene there is rarely a 1:1 relationship between genes & a physical or behavioral outcome, but popular science articles make it seem so. She points out that mapping the human genome is overblown. There are many genomes & groups of genes acting with others is a complex process. Diamond's example of differences in domestication of the pecan & oak trees in Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies is a far better example than any she supplies. I don't think she ever mentioned epigenetics, the study of factors that effect gene determination from outside the body, but she eventually makes these points & has some good warnings.
24) Evolution & the Future She makes a great point, yet again, about how young a species we are compared to our cousins the robust australopithicines which were around for about a million years & ultimately failed due to overspecialization. We don't know what evolutionary pressures we'll encounter &/or create. We're mixing our species at an unprecedented rate now, too. We're very dynamic & our history is only indicative of general behaviors.
Her timeline. (mya = millions of years ago)
70 mya - Age of Dinosaurs nears an end; no primates exist yet
65 mya - Age of Mammals begins; ancestral primates appear
55 mya - Earliest definite primate
55-6 mya - Numerous speciation events produce ancestors to today's prosimians, monkeys, & apes
8-7 mya - Common ancestor to African apes & hominids
approx. 7 mya - First hominid, perhaps Sahelanthropus tchadensis
4.2 mya - First australopithecines
3.2 mya - Time at which "Lucy" lived (Australopithecus afarensis)
2.5 mya - First hominid-modified stone tools
2.4 mya - First hominid in the Homo genus, Homo habilis
1.9 mya - First Homo erectus, in Africa
1.8 mya - Some populations of Homo erect us migrate out of Africa to Asia
130,000 ya - First Neandertals
125.000 ya - First Homo sapiens
30,000 ya - Disappearance of Neandertals; Homo sapiens is the only surviving hominid
Overall, it was OK. This might have worked better if the subject was entirely new to me. I mentioned a couple of other books in this review that were better in specific instances & perhaps overall. I'll toss in one more, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. These 3 make this lecture mostly superfluous.
01) What Is Biological Anthropology? She breaks the science into 6 distinct fields: anthropological geneticist, primatologist, paleoanthropologist, biological (modern & adaptive) & forensic anthropologist. I don't really get the differences between her 2 'biologicals'. 'Modern' is interested in why populations are dis/similar in various ways, while 'Adaptive' assesses the degrees in which they are "adapted to the past" [sic]. Comparative versus exploratory?
She makes a big deal out of how 'race' isn't a particularly good way classify humans saying that 'populations' are better. She goes into details about what constitutes a population, but never defines race save to say that forensic scientists use it. I get worried when comparative definitions get glossed over or left out. It generally means the author is setting up a fallacious argument or she's being too PC. Either way, negative points. Unfortunately, she continues this trend throughout her lectures.
02) How Evolution Works was OK, but I've heard better explanations. Some of the examples were the same, but she scatters info like chicken feed & wanders among it. Tough to keep straight even though most was very elementary.
03) The Debate Over Evolution is a sop to those who think that religious beliefs should be taught as science. She says it's fine to have a religious faith, but then goes on to show why 'Scientific Creationism' & 'Intelligent Design' aren't science & can't be taught as such. They don't meet the criteria for a scientific theory (not reproducible, rely on magic). They're plain wrong on many points such as in the idea of irreducible complexity, a pseudoscientific argument that says our biological systems are too complex to have evolved & only magic can explain them. Apparently almost half the US doesn't believe in evolution. This basic ignorance of the science we depend on is hard to fathom.
04) Matter Arising - New Species was OK, but again scattered. Nothing new nor as well explained in some other books I've listened to lately. Perhaps this is just a little too basic. It did lead well into the next by bringing up how a big brain leads to the ability to socialize.
05) Prosimians, Monkeys, & Apes breaks up the major subgroups of our closest ancestors & discusses distinctions that make them more or less like us (posture, hands, & communication) plus where they are (New or Old World). Sherwood Washburn changed the way we studied them by focusing more on the social aspect.
06) Monkey & Ape Social Behavior introduced me to Cayo Santiago, an island off Puerto Rico which was set up as a study area for free-ranging Old World (Rhesus) monkeys. Interesting how some are matriarchal & vice versa, especially from the evolutionary pressures that would have caused this.
07) The Mind of the Great Ape gets into the Theory of Mind & what it means. Apes have it in spades compared to monkeys & prosimians. It's really interesting that the last two are generally better at vocal communication, while apes are better at nonverbal. Although she never says so directly, it highlights just how many factors need to come together.
08) Models for Human Ancestors discusses how important it is to look at the evolutionary processes that led to various primates rather than comparing us directly to other modern species. While there are homologies, our common ancestor was at least 7 million years ago. Models are constantly undergoing changes as we find out more.
- Referential models use best fit with modern species such as chimps for social bonds including hunting.
- Phylogenetic models use a broader base line pointing out that we're as closely related to bonobos as chimps & the latter are the only great ape that hunts.
- Conceptual models rely on concepts & processes rather than any one species, so can include all nonhuman primates.
09) Introducing the Hominids which are all of them since the split from the great apes, not just our direct ancestors, a time that has been pushed from about 3 million to 7 million since Lucy was found in 1974. Again she belabors the point that it isn't a linear process & we're not always sure which ones are direct. Many were probably dead ends. Climate &/or diet may have played a big role. No one is as sure as they once were as new data is coming in fast.
Dating fossils can be an issue. If found in volcanic ash, it's easier. King doesn't say so, but volcanic rock has radioactive isotopes in it that can be used for dating. She does mention that limestone is less easy to date. Another area where she simplified too much. The upshot is that when we're discussing fossils that are millions of years old, we need to keep in mind the fudge factor. The difference between 2 million & 1.9 million somehow doesn't seem like a lot in this context, but 100,000 years is a long time!
10) Lucy & company The hallmark of a hominid is that it was bipedal rather than a brachiator as shown by the hole in the skull where the spine meets the skull (foramen magnum) but that doesn't mean other major changes or the pelvis was up to supporting bipedalism for extended periods. Lucy (Australopithecus afarensis) had comparatively long arms. Only 40% skeleton, a lot for a 3 million year old fossil. She was found in the East African Rift Valley in volcanic ash, a good place for fossil hunting, & still has an ape sized brain. Probably didn't walk like us.
Maeve Leaky (daughter/sister of the others) found another hominid (Australopithecus anamensis) that may have coexisted with Lucy, although it is dated at about 4 million years old. Sahelanthropus tchadensis is now the oldest hominid fossil at about 7 million years & is believed to be close in time to the common ancestor between apes & hominids.
All of these discoveries are changing how we look at our family tree. Some hominids were built heavier & (from teeth, jaw, & skulls) seemed to have had a more limited diet. One was Australopithecus robustus. Others, like Lucy, ate softer foods & were gracile (lighter boned) species. These were probably our ancestors.
11) Stones & Bones There is no evidence that australopithecines used tools. Homo habilis emerged about 2.5 million years ago & does seem to have had primitive tools; stones that were chipped out & may have been saved in caches (Oldowan tools). Bones of other animals found at these caches (originally thought to be early camps/settlements) indicate eating more meat. No evidence of fire.
12) Out of Africa Java Man was found in Java - not in Africa. Peking Man was found in China (bones lost WWII) & Nariokeotome Boy was found in Kenya. King believes all are Homo erectus, same species, just varied, & date almost 2 million years old, even though the last was very slender compared to the others. New behavior; wide travel out of Africa. All previous examples were in east & south Africa. Bigger brain than previous species. At this time, seems to be a clear ancestor of ours.
13) Who Were the Neandertals (alternate spelling 'Neanderthals', she says the other is more accurate, but doesn't say why. Frustrating.) She says we find evidence of them just about 10K years before modern man, about 130K years ago, but they died out by about 30K years ago & were only found on Europe & Asia. She says they're probably not related & certainly can't be our progenitors since they existed about the same time & in the same areas for about half their time. She said there is one school of thought that said they might be a subspecies homo sapien neanderthalis. They ate a lot of meat, but shouldn't be considered primitive. They had larger brains than we do, but weren't as adaptable. She also mentions there were other 'archaic' hominids around, but doesn't cover them at all. IIRC, there was another species that lived on an island until about 13K years ago that she doesn't mention them at all.
14) Did Hunting Make Us Human discusses the male-oriented model that makes hunting the most important aspect to us becoming human. Seems one sided & was put forth by 2 guys, Washburn & Lancaster. Their bias toward nuclear families seems fairly silly, but apparently was all the rage.
15) The Prehistory of Gender flowed together with the previous lecture for me since this & the previous get into infighting among the anthropologists about preconceptions about gender. King mentions Nancy Tanner & Adrienne Zihlman reversing the gender roles proposed by Washburn & Lancaster. Tanner died in 1989, but Zihlman is apparently around & still strident in her feminism. A search brings up "Feminist Archaeology", so her bias is obvious, too. It's a shame. I expect & hope for more out of scientists.
Richard Wrangham came up with a middling theory that makes more sense, one that King agrees with. It takes 2 to tango & probably varied. Chimp societies do.
I'm disappointed that she never mentioned the effects of fire at all, specifically how it changes meat to make it easier to digest & probably contributed to our ability to support a larger brain. She also mentions that there is less sexual dimorphism, but never mentions this as an indicator of equality in roles, a theory I've read elsewhere & has a lot of merit, IMO.
16) Modern Human Anatomy & Behavior was once thought to suddenly appear about 35K years ago. Seems a silly idea, but again we're seeing cultural bias. Cave paintings & decorated tools were that age in France, but ones twice as old were discovered later in 2 places in Africa. Tools are a good indicator of behavior as they become more sophisticated & can also show trade &/or travel.
17) On the Origins of Homo Sapiens Stephen Jay Gould is one of her heroes. Homo sapiens are no older than 125K & evolved from transitional species. She discusses how we evolved with 3 theories.
- The first is that we evolved into 1 species from 3 separate origins. Very unlikely, but she uses the example of an Oriental type tooth that is specific to older hominid & modern humans in that area, not found in others.
- Second is that we evolved in Africa & spread out from there. From other books & articles I've read, this is well supported by genetic research which she had issues with. That was probably the times. The human genome had just recently been mapped when this book was written.
- The third theory is a partial replacement, Homo sapiens spread out & interbred with other species. There is some evidence for this with Neanderthals that came out well after this book was published, but their contribution was slight for obvious reasons - separate species, by definition, generally don't produce fertile offspring. If they did, they wouldn't be separate, but subspecies.
While she mentions that Neandertals might be a subspecies in the earlier lecture on them, she fails to mention this point in this lecture, surprising given her penchant for repetition. That's a major point that should change how we look at speciation. While I know that mules are occasionally fertile, I've never heard of one becoming a major contributor in a horse or donkey breeding line. Seems to me that Oriental tooth would be a big flag. Convergent evolution?
18) Language, specifically human language, is defined by syntax (structure), the ability to tell stories, & set them in time which is something no other primate can do. They can communicate simple concepts in the present & teach each other, though. Again she sets up the straw man of sudden emergence of this ability & then takes the gradual approach. She mentions how the base of the skull contains clues as to the location & abilities of the major organs for speech (larynx, pharynx, & tongue) which help figure out how much ability older species of hominid might have.
19) Do Human Races Exist? She finally gets to this question & says unequivocally that contemporary biologists find no biological validity to breaking humans up by race. She specifically says there isn't much difference between Africans & Inuits, yet several books specifically mentioned race being a factor that needs to be taken into account. One mentioned a medicine that didn't seem worthwhile on one control group turned out to be a life saver for those of African descent. Another went into the convergent evolution response to malaria & the downside of one such - sickle cell anemia - which she also uses as an example. A couple of forensic anthropology books go into great detail about how differences in bone structure between races is used to figure out who people are from partial skeletal remains. She recognizes these then dismisses them as unimportant. There are too many other experts that find this a useful reference point for me to take her seriously on this point.
OK, race isn't simply skin color & has bad connotations. I think she's taking the PC thing too far. Seems to me more like the bias reaction that occurred about gender. For years race was a cornerstone & used as a bludgeon to make incorrect assessments about intelligence & worth, now she's jumping too far the opposite way. I expect some middling sanity will prevail in the future, but it will take time & might even take a new box being put on our driver's licenses.
20) Modern Human Variation she makes her case for using 'population' instead of race, but neglects to come up with easy terms that we can use & spends so much time being PC & covering her academic ass that it was sad. Wade handled this far better in Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors where he uses 5 continental regions & then says they only really hold true 50K years ago. This allowed him to show mixing of traits & basic differences that still exist without worrying about being PC. She does make a point about high altitude & other extreme condition populations, but these are in a different class than race simply due to the numbers.
21) Body Fat, Diet & Obesity Distribution of fat is the single most pronounced feature of sexual dimorphism, even greater than height & weight. Fat is the buffer against hungry times, something most of us don't worry about anymore, but our bodies don't know that. We still crave the fats & sugars we never used to get enough of, so a large part of the US population (27%?) is now obese. Fad diets don't work, because they trigger our cravings. Some anthropologists are suggesting a 'paleo-diet', while others point out that there was too much variation in diet for that to have any meaning.
22) The Body & Mind Evolving gets into evolutionary psychology, a new & vague field. She gets into salt sensitivity among African Americans. I think that was handled better in this article. She also discusses the differences in sex for choosing mates. Across cultures, men tend to go for younger women while women tend to go for status & ability to acquire resources. Big surprise, right? Both give the offspring a better chance. Ditto with morning sickness as fetal protection. Maybe this last has just been popularized since this was published. I know jealousy (more in males, no cuckoos need apply) has.
23) Tyranny of the Gene there is rarely a 1:1 relationship between genes & a physical or behavioral outcome, but popular science articles make it seem so. She points out that mapping the human genome is overblown. There are many genomes & groups of genes acting with others is a complex process. Diamond's example of differences in domestication of the pecan & oak trees in Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies is a far better example than any she supplies. I don't think she ever mentioned epigenetics, the study of factors that effect gene determination from outside the body, but she eventually makes these points & has some good warnings.
24) Evolution & the Future She makes a great point, yet again, about how young a species we are compared to our cousins the robust australopithicines which were around for about a million years & ultimately failed due to overspecialization. We don't know what evolutionary pressures we'll encounter &/or create. We're mixing our species at an unprecedented rate now, too. We're very dynamic & our history is only indicative of general behaviors.
Her timeline. (mya = millions of years ago)
70 mya - Age of Dinosaurs nears an end; no primates exist yet
65 mya - Age of Mammals begins; ancestral primates appear
55 mya - Earliest definite primate
55-6 mya - Numerous speciation events produce ancestors to today's prosimians, monkeys, & apes
8-7 mya - Common ancestor to African apes & hominids
approx. 7 mya - First hominid, perhaps Sahelanthropus tchadensis
4.2 mya - First australopithecines
3.2 mya - Time at which "Lucy" lived (Australopithecus afarensis)
2.5 mya - First hominid-modified stone tools
2.4 mya - First hominid in the Homo genus, Homo habilis
1.9 mya - First Homo erectus, in Africa
1.8 mya - Some populations of Homo erect us migrate out of Africa to Asia
130,000 ya - First Neandertals
125.000 ya - First Homo sapiens
30,000 ya - Disappearance of Neandertals; Homo sapiens is the only surviving hominid
Overall, it was OK. This might have worked better if the subject was entirely new to me. I mentioned a couple of other books in this review that were better in specific instances & perhaps overall. I'll toss in one more, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. These 3 make this lecture mostly superfluous.
October 12, 2017
This is a good introduction to a fascinating subject, and is probably equivalent to a first semester collegiate level lecture class on the subject. The lectures were recorded in 2002 so they may be getting a bit dated for a subject area that is frequently updated with new discoveries and new theories. The first seventeen lectures generally follow the evolution of Hominids from the early common ancestors with the Primates through to Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens. The final seven lectures explore language, race, cultural, and political issues that are part of the world of humans today. Biological anthropology has an odd time line, starting several million years ago and going up to about 30,000 years ago when Homo Sapiens became the lone surviving hominid. Then from there they skip to modern times. The intervening time between 30,000 years ago and the present is left to the historians and archaeologists.
The following are some examples discussed in the lectures where past evolutionary pressures may be working against our health today:
1. The propensity to become obese when cheap calories are readily available
2. Inheriting a single gene (not two) that causes sickle cell anemia affords protection from malaria
3. The interrelationship of skin pigmentation, vitamin D, and UV radiation
4. High blood pressure and its increased prevalence in African Americans
5. Morning sickness commonly experienced in early pregnancy
Most of these have previously appeared in the popular press. However, I hadn't heard the one about high blood pressure before.
Another interesting item is that analysis of the bones found in a 17th to 18th Century Manhattan cemetery for slaves determined that their infant mortality rate was about 50%, and the death rate for 15 to 25 year olds was higher than that of the rest of the population. These findings are indirect evidence regarding the quality of their living and working conditions.
One lecture was dedicated to making the point that race has no biological significance. That may be true based on her definitions. But the investigators on CSI would certainly be required to use more adjectives if they couldn't refer to race.
Early in the series there's a lecture on controversies regarding evolution. It's a shame that time needs to be spent dealing with that issue, but we need to remember that polls show that nearly half of the American population claim to not accept the theory evolution. I don't envy college lecturers who can expect to have a few students every year in their classes who have come from backgrounds that taught them that the theory of evolution was the work of the devil. The lecturer, Barbara J. King, admitted that her own mother was skeptical of the concept of evolution.
The following are some examples discussed in the lectures where past evolutionary pressures may be working against our health today:
1. The propensity to become obese when cheap calories are readily available
2. Inheriting a single gene (not two) that causes sickle cell anemia affords protection from malaria
3. The interrelationship of skin pigmentation, vitamin D, and UV radiation
4. High blood pressure and its increased prevalence in African Americans
5. Morning sickness commonly experienced in early pregnancy
Most of these have previously appeared in the popular press. However, I hadn't heard the one about high blood pressure before.
Another interesting item is that analysis of the bones found in a 17th to 18th Century Manhattan cemetery for slaves determined that their infant mortality rate was about 50%, and the death rate for 15 to 25 year olds was higher than that of the rest of the population. These findings are indirect evidence regarding the quality of their living and working conditions.
One lecture was dedicated to making the point that race has no biological significance. That may be true based on her definitions. But the investigators on CSI would certainly be required to use more adjectives if they couldn't refer to race.
Early in the series there's a lecture on controversies regarding evolution. It's a shame that time needs to be spent dealing with that issue, but we need to remember that polls show that nearly half of the American population claim to not accept the theory evolution. I don't envy college lecturers who can expect to have a few students every year in their classes who have come from backgrounds that taught them that the theory of evolution was the work of the devil. The lecturer, Barbara J. King, admitted that her own mother was skeptical of the concept of evolution.
August 6, 2009
There was a time, and a fairly recent time, when I listened to far too many of these Teaching Company programs. Fascinating stuff, of course. I think I would have found this one to be much more interesting if I’d never read anything on human evolution before. This really is an introduction to the topic, so if you know the difference between Lucy and Javaman then you might not find this worth much more than revision.
I was a little annoyed that there was quite so much space devoted to discussing religion in the early parts of this – particularly Creationism. I guess we can all hope (if not actually pray) for the day to finally come when such distractions are no longer necessary.
This is very much a Stephen J Gould view of evolution and many of the lectures pay direct and overt homage to his work. This is particularly true when she is discussing religion – she firmly comes down on the side of Gould, including his views of separate magisteria, which I’ve always been more than a little disappointed in, but also even his punctuated equilibrium. All the same, it was nice to see someone still quite so fond of Gould and someone prepared to speak quite so highly of him. So many things I’ve read lately on this and related topics mistreat him terribly – and his memory certainly does deserve better than that.
In some of the last lectures she discusses the problems that arise out of our evolutionary past and how these problems (like our fondness for sugar, salt and fats) are causing havoc now we have virtually endless access to these once scarce foods. Unfortunately, unless you have had your head in a bucket for the last decade or so you would have heard most of this before.
What I found most interesting about this was that there was hardly anyone quoted from the evolutionary psychologists. I was at least expecting to hear something from Pinker.
She talks about the discovery of the enslaved persons cemetery in Manhattan that was found a while ago and is the basis of Ani DiFranco’s Fuel - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgYvmS.... I hadn’t realised this was real, I must have missed it at the time. There were some interesting speculations about high blood pressure in Black Americans and how this may be influenced by the part of Africa enslaved persons were caught and the riggers (read, murderous passage) of getting to American in the first place.
Biological anthropology is a field that is in constant flux with new discoveries constantly presenting themselves and providing fascinating insights into our evolution. If I’d have been presenting the course I’d have put in a topic on why there is no such thing as a missing link and I would have spent much more time on why Lucy probably isn’t actually related to anyone alive today.
All the same, in many ways this gives as good an introduction to the topic that you could hope for – although, personally, I think that reading some of Gould’s books themselves is probably a much better and much more fun way to learn this stuff.
I was a little annoyed that there was quite so much space devoted to discussing religion in the early parts of this – particularly Creationism. I guess we can all hope (if not actually pray) for the day to finally come when such distractions are no longer necessary.
This is very much a Stephen J Gould view of evolution and many of the lectures pay direct and overt homage to his work. This is particularly true when she is discussing religion – she firmly comes down on the side of Gould, including his views of separate magisteria, which I’ve always been more than a little disappointed in, but also even his punctuated equilibrium. All the same, it was nice to see someone still quite so fond of Gould and someone prepared to speak quite so highly of him. So many things I’ve read lately on this and related topics mistreat him terribly – and his memory certainly does deserve better than that.
In some of the last lectures she discusses the problems that arise out of our evolutionary past and how these problems (like our fondness for sugar, salt and fats) are causing havoc now we have virtually endless access to these once scarce foods. Unfortunately, unless you have had your head in a bucket for the last decade or so you would have heard most of this before.
What I found most interesting about this was that there was hardly anyone quoted from the evolutionary psychologists. I was at least expecting to hear something from Pinker.
She talks about the discovery of the enslaved persons cemetery in Manhattan that was found a while ago and is the basis of Ani DiFranco’s Fuel - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgYvmS.... I hadn’t realised this was real, I must have missed it at the time. There were some interesting speculations about high blood pressure in Black Americans and how this may be influenced by the part of Africa enslaved persons were caught and the riggers (read, murderous passage) of getting to American in the first place.
Biological anthropology is a field that is in constant flux with new discoveries constantly presenting themselves and providing fascinating insights into our evolution. If I’d have been presenting the course I’d have put in a topic on why there is no such thing as a missing link and I would have spent much more time on why Lucy probably isn’t actually related to anyone alive today.
All the same, in many ways this gives as good an introduction to the topic that you could hope for – although, personally, I think that reading some of Gould’s books themselves is probably a much better and much more fun way to learn this stuff.
October 15, 2016
Fascinating. I wish I had learned more about evolution sooner, but in Texas, we weren't exposed to much evolutionary science. The lecturer is fascinating, with excitement and constant intellectual stimulation for her listeners.
March 9, 2018
Very basic and low level left leaning anthropology lecture series. Not really my first recommendation on this topic. 2 to 3 stars.
Pro:
I don't think there is anything great about it as such. She is easy to understand and she speaks fast enough to not bore me. She doesn't present all the controversial scientific results so maybe this lecture is also great for adults who want to give their children literature that is bland and does not offend any group of people. I can see some very religious parents or very left leaning parents finding a need for such a lecture series.
Con:
The only reason I finished this lecture series is because I am a bit stubborn and don't like things being unfinished. In reality this lecture was not deep at all and I spent hours only learning small things from it. Things I could have learned in 20 minutes in a well structured documentary. Even a short documentary to me would seem like a better option than this lecture. But not only does it feel basic for someone with a university degree, but it also is noticeably left leaning. I ask myself this question "do I need to read scientific books from one of the other sides political point of view?" It's hard to answer this question because most social science books out there are left leaning. So if you read social science maybe 80% of the things you read will have a lot of left leaning subjective opinions and politics mixed into them. At this point it's not a choice. This is just something people interested in this area read as the books never proclaim themselves to be biased. They all proclaim themselves to be neutral, which only a few are. That's how it is to be a modern social scientist. And feminists do have a right to present anthropology from their point of view as done here. But again, this makes it less recommended for beginners as they might think this lecture is the gospel on the topic and not at times a biased presentation. It feels like she has a great need to shew the food and season it in her preferred way before giving it to you. Personally I like my food/science un-shewed. And if I like it seasoned with opinions I can do it myself, even while I read it. No need to tell me what the morality is behind this or that result as some books do. I like science presented honestly and direct. This lecture series is presented with a huge veil over it.
Pro:
I don't think there is anything great about it as such. She is easy to understand and she speaks fast enough to not bore me. She doesn't present all the controversial scientific results so maybe this lecture is also great for adults who want to give their children literature that is bland and does not offend any group of people. I can see some very religious parents or very left leaning parents finding a need for such a lecture series.
Con:
The only reason I finished this lecture series is because I am a bit stubborn and don't like things being unfinished. In reality this lecture was not deep at all and I spent hours only learning small things from it. Things I could have learned in 20 minutes in a well structured documentary. Even a short documentary to me would seem like a better option than this lecture. But not only does it feel basic for someone with a university degree, but it also is noticeably left leaning. I ask myself this question "do I need to read scientific books from one of the other sides political point of view?" It's hard to answer this question because most social science books out there are left leaning. So if you read social science maybe 80% of the things you read will have a lot of left leaning subjective opinions and politics mixed into them. At this point it's not a choice. This is just something people interested in this area read as the books never proclaim themselves to be biased. They all proclaim themselves to be neutral, which only a few are. That's how it is to be a modern social scientist. And feminists do have a right to present anthropology from their point of view as done here. But again, this makes it less recommended for beginners as they might think this lecture is the gospel on the topic and not at times a biased presentation. It feels like she has a great need to shew the food and season it in her preferred way before giving it to you. Personally I like my food/science un-shewed. And if I like it seasoned with opinions I can do it myself, even while I read it. No need to tell me what the morality is behind this or that result as some books do. I like science presented honestly and direct. This lecture series is presented with a huge veil over it.
September 2, 2017
OMG. I have a HUGE crush on anthropology.
I am absolutely smitten.
My first love is psychology. But frankly speaking, after a long, troubled relationship, the thrill is starting to fade, and my eyes are beginning to wander to another library.
I am a psychotherapist, and an educator in the field of psychology, and a fucking nerd from hell about anything that sheds light on human development, attachment, emotions, thought processes, communication, motivation and behavior.
Anthropology fits that description really well.
Better than psychology in many ways.
I have a (very) unorthodox educational history. I didn't study psychology as an undergraduate. So when I was teaching psychology as a graduate student, I was learning much of what I was teaching on the fly as it were.
When I taught undergraduate courses in developmental psychology, social psychology, and affective psychology, I grounded all of it in evolutionary biology. I went WAY off script in so doing, but it was the only way I could organize and make sense of all of the disparate findings of these sub-fields of psychology.
Theodosius Dobzhansky said "nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution." I would add that nothing in psychology makes sense except in the light of evolution either.
And furthermore, just as chemistry is a subset of physics. I would (and often do) assert that psychology is a subset of biology (which is itself a subset of chemistry).
Anyway. I didn't realize it at the time but, by introducing an evolutionary orientation to these subjects, I was basically teaching anthropology, and actually doing a pretty poor job of it to boot.
They say, if you scratch a psychologist, a bad biologist bleeds. Well there's some real truth to that.
Part of me wishes I had simply studied anthropology in the first place. It would have been a REALLY good background for later study in psychology, and for clinical work as well.
Yeah, that's right, evolutionary psychology (i.e. psychology flavored anthropology in disguise) has a clinical application.
Some would disagree. In fact, lots of (uncreative) people claim evolutionary psychology doesn't have a clinical application. They are DEAD wrong.
I find an evolutionary/biological orientation to be REALLY useful in therapy. Particularly when it comes to working with addiction.
Giving addicted individuals just a little education about brains, neuro-chemistry and evolution can normalize this extremely stigmatized condition, and provide profound relief from the excruciating shame they nearly invariably feel.
I have found that framing addiction in this way is the most effective antidepressant and anxiolytic available, with the only (not actually negative) side effect being increased atheistic tendencies in some (very special) cases.
Most of my therapist colleagues have precisely ZERO training, and even less interest in evolutionary biology, but they would absolutely benefit from it.
It's just so profoundly powerfully explanatory. And providing clients with a really satisfying explanation for their otherwise puzzling behavior is so frickin' useful and soothing and healing for them.
So biological anthropology is just perfect. It's perfect for me, and my interests, and my work. I just wish I had happened on to it sooner.
Oh. And as for the thing I'm supposed to be reviewing.
This Great Course is a wonderful introduction to this fascinating field. Barbra J. King is an amazing lecturer. And now I want to be a primatologist when I grow up.
I am absolutely smitten.
My first love is psychology. But frankly speaking, after a long, troubled relationship, the thrill is starting to fade, and my eyes are beginning to wander to another library.
I am a psychotherapist, and an educator in the field of psychology, and a fucking nerd from hell about anything that sheds light on human development, attachment, emotions, thought processes, communication, motivation and behavior.
Anthropology fits that description really well.
Better than psychology in many ways.
I have a (very) unorthodox educational history. I didn't study psychology as an undergraduate. So when I was teaching psychology as a graduate student, I was learning much of what I was teaching on the fly as it were.
When I taught undergraduate courses in developmental psychology, social psychology, and affective psychology, I grounded all of it in evolutionary biology. I went WAY off script in so doing, but it was the only way I could organize and make sense of all of the disparate findings of these sub-fields of psychology.
Theodosius Dobzhansky said "nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution." I would add that nothing in psychology makes sense except in the light of evolution either.
And furthermore, just as chemistry is a subset of physics. I would (and often do) assert that psychology is a subset of biology (which is itself a subset of chemistry).
Anyway. I didn't realize it at the time but, by introducing an evolutionary orientation to these subjects, I was basically teaching anthropology, and actually doing a pretty poor job of it to boot.
They say, if you scratch a psychologist, a bad biologist bleeds. Well there's some real truth to that.
Part of me wishes I had simply studied anthropology in the first place. It would have been a REALLY good background for later study in psychology, and for clinical work as well.
Yeah, that's right, evolutionary psychology (i.e. psychology flavored anthropology in disguise) has a clinical application.
Some would disagree. In fact, lots of (uncreative) people claim evolutionary psychology doesn't have a clinical application. They are DEAD wrong.
I find an evolutionary/biological orientation to be REALLY useful in therapy. Particularly when it comes to working with addiction.
Giving addicted individuals just a little education about brains, neuro-chemistry and evolution can normalize this extremely stigmatized condition, and provide profound relief from the excruciating shame they nearly invariably feel.
I have found that framing addiction in this way is the most effective antidepressant and anxiolytic available, with the only (not actually negative) side effect being increased atheistic tendencies in some (very special) cases.
Most of my therapist colleagues have precisely ZERO training, and even less interest in evolutionary biology, but they would absolutely benefit from it.
It's just so profoundly powerfully explanatory. And providing clients with a really satisfying explanation for their otherwise puzzling behavior is so frickin' useful and soothing and healing for them.
So biological anthropology is just perfect. It's perfect for me, and my interests, and my work. I just wish I had happened on to it sooner.
Oh. And as for the thing I'm supposed to be reviewing.
This Great Course is a wonderful introduction to this fascinating field. Barbra J. King is an amazing lecturer. And now I want to be a primatologist when I grow up.
May 22, 2021
This was a bit of a mixed bag for me. The course contained some interesting information and perspectives, but it was not without its flaws.
Course professor Barbara J. King is professor emerita, retired from the Department of Anthropology at the College of William & Mary where she taught from 1988 to 2015.
Barbara J. King:
The presentation of this course is fairly typical of offerings from The Great Courses. This one is 24 lectures; each ~30mins.
There is an accompanying PDF Course Guidebook as well, which clocked in at 108 pages.
The course covers the scope of human evolution, back a few million years, to the numerous early hominids. Fossil evidence is presented, as King takes the viewer through the history of early man.
Some warning bells went off for me early-on in this one, when King cautions viewers away from using the term "race", nudging them towards the PC-friendly term "populations" instead. I strongly dislike when books and courses about science see the author/presenter inject their personal political biases into the material. King does this a few times through the course.
Professor King's lecture style also left much to be desired for me. I found that she tends to drone on in a somewhat monotonous tone that has the viewer struggling to pay attention at times; a common problem associated with many teachers and professors. The material she goes over here could have been dealt with in a more enthusiastic and engaging manner. She also has an incredibly nasally voice, that managed to thoroughly grate on my nerves for the duration.
Lecture 3 presents creation theory. Creation theory is an empirically invalid pseudoscientific postulate. I don't know why it was even included in this lecture series -other than King mentioning near the start that roughly half of Americans believe in some form of creation theory, instead of Darwinian evolutionary theory. So I guess this lecture was added with that in mind, but it felt like a superfluous addition to this course, and this time could have been better spent fielding other relevant topics, IMHO.
She also mentions that skepticism of evolution is "an exclusively American thing." Say what now?
In lecture 13: Who Were the Neandertals? King mentions that she strongly opposes the idea that modern homo sapiens interbred with the Neandertals. Modern DNA analysis has proved her oppositions to this incorrect. Neanderthal-inherited genetic material is found in all non-African populations and was initially reported to comprise 1 to 4 percent of the genome. This fraction was later refined to 1.5 to 2.1 percent. It is estimated that 20 percent of Neanderthal DNA currently survives in modern humans.
However, this course is from 2002, and probably does not reflect this newer genetic analysis.
Lecture 14: Did Hunting Make Us Human? Brings the political debate back into this science, for some reason... King talks about how it was assumed that a majority of the calories consumed by ancient hominids were from men hunting. Then she mentions a differing view; that the majority of calories consumed were from females gathering. Good lord, this is exhausting...
Why does everything have to be a male vs female competition in the views of the ideologically motivated?? I would assume that historically speaking; both hunting and gathering have provided needed calories. Sometimes meat is not available. Other times, fruits, nuts and other foods gathered by foraging will not be available. I'm pretty sure that ancient hominids ate just about everything they could get their hands on, and that both hunting and gathering have played their parts. I disliked the way this whole topic was fielded here.
In lecture 15: The Prehistory of Gender; The PC tendencies of King reemerge, as she mentions that she is sympathetic to "feminist interpretations" of anthropology, whatever that means... To her credit, she does end up presenting a more nuanced and balanced interpretation of this issue as the lecture progresses.
Lecture 19 is titled Do Human Races Exist? No, says King. "The concept of race has no biological validity."
Professor King talks at great length in many previous lectures about the causal drivers of genetic diversity amongst populations; ie - differing environmental selection pressures over time positively and negatively select for traits on a population-wide scale. She tells the viewer how different environmental selection pressures have affected the group-level morphology of different hominids; producing some that are more "gracile," and others that are more "robust."
She also mentions evolutionary adaptation in group-level differences between Africans & Inuits, saying that on average - Africans are taller and thinner; an adaptation to a hot climate, while Inuit peoples are shorter and stockier; an adaptation that allows them to retain heat more efficiently. This has to do with the surface area to volume ratio.
She also mentions that forensic pathologists are able to determine the racial identity of someone from their skeletal remains with about 80% accuracy.
After all this, she then announces that the concept of race has "no biological validity..."
Imagine being so confused...
Lecture 20 continues on about group differences. I had typed up a long rebuttal to lecture 19, to refute her assertion that race "has no biological validity, but lecture 20 cleared things up for me a bit. So, it turns out that there (gasp) are average differences between groups of people, but here's the kicker: those groups can't be referred to as "races", for a few reasons (mainly to do with political correctness). Instead, we should use the term "populations"...
She then proceeds to go on describing average group-level differences in these "populations" that are rooted in biology. LMAO.
In lecture 22, she mentions the prevalence of high blood pressure in African American "populations". She posits that this could be due to their trans-Atlantic voyage - a period of time when they were excessively thirsty. This assertion sounded questionable to me. A dramatic population-wide enduring change in genetics from a ~6-week voyage? Hmmm...
In conclusion, this was a somewhat interesting course, but King's delivery of the material left much to be desired for me, as well as the other issues mentioned above.
2.5 stars for this one.
Course professor Barbara J. King is professor emerita, retired from the Department of Anthropology at the College of William & Mary where she taught from 1988 to 2015.
Barbara J. King:
The presentation of this course is fairly typical of offerings from The Great Courses. This one is 24 lectures; each ~30mins.
There is an accompanying PDF Course Guidebook as well, which clocked in at 108 pages.
The course covers the scope of human evolution, back a few million years, to the numerous early hominids. Fossil evidence is presented, as King takes the viewer through the history of early man.
Some warning bells went off for me early-on in this one, when King cautions viewers away from using the term "race", nudging them towards the PC-friendly term "populations" instead. I strongly dislike when books and courses about science see the author/presenter inject their personal political biases into the material. King does this a few times through the course.
Professor King's lecture style also left much to be desired for me. I found that she tends to drone on in a somewhat monotonous tone that has the viewer struggling to pay attention at times; a common problem associated with many teachers and professors. The material she goes over here could have been dealt with in a more enthusiastic and engaging manner. She also has an incredibly nasally voice, that managed to thoroughly grate on my nerves for the duration.
Lecture 3 presents creation theory. Creation theory is an empirically invalid pseudoscientific postulate. I don't know why it was even included in this lecture series -other than King mentioning near the start that roughly half of Americans believe in some form of creation theory, instead of Darwinian evolutionary theory. So I guess this lecture was added with that in mind, but it felt like a superfluous addition to this course, and this time could have been better spent fielding other relevant topics, IMHO.
She also mentions that skepticism of evolution is "an exclusively American thing." Say what now?
In lecture 13: Who Were the Neandertals? King mentions that she strongly opposes the idea that modern homo sapiens interbred with the Neandertals. Modern DNA analysis has proved her oppositions to this incorrect. Neanderthal-inherited genetic material is found in all non-African populations and was initially reported to comprise 1 to 4 percent of the genome. This fraction was later refined to 1.5 to 2.1 percent. It is estimated that 20 percent of Neanderthal DNA currently survives in modern humans.
However, this course is from 2002, and probably does not reflect this newer genetic analysis.
Lecture 14: Did Hunting Make Us Human? Brings the political debate back into this science, for some reason... King talks about how it was assumed that a majority of the calories consumed by ancient hominids were from men hunting. Then she mentions a differing view; that the majority of calories consumed were from females gathering. Good lord, this is exhausting...
Why does everything have to be a male vs female competition in the views of the ideologically motivated?? I would assume that historically speaking; both hunting and gathering have provided needed calories. Sometimes meat is not available. Other times, fruits, nuts and other foods gathered by foraging will not be available. I'm pretty sure that ancient hominids ate just about everything they could get their hands on, and that both hunting and gathering have played their parts. I disliked the way this whole topic was fielded here.
In lecture 15: The Prehistory of Gender; The PC tendencies of King reemerge, as she mentions that she is sympathetic to "feminist interpretations" of anthropology, whatever that means... To her credit, she does end up presenting a more nuanced and balanced interpretation of this issue as the lecture progresses.
Lecture 19 is titled Do Human Races Exist? No, says King. "The concept of race has no biological validity."
Professor King talks at great length in many previous lectures about the causal drivers of genetic diversity amongst populations; ie - differing environmental selection pressures over time positively and negatively select for traits on a population-wide scale. She tells the viewer how different environmental selection pressures have affected the group-level morphology of different hominids; producing some that are more "gracile," and others that are more "robust."
She also mentions evolutionary adaptation in group-level differences between Africans & Inuits, saying that on average - Africans are taller and thinner; an adaptation to a hot climate, while Inuit peoples are shorter and stockier; an adaptation that allows them to retain heat more efficiently. This has to do with the surface area to volume ratio.
She also mentions that forensic pathologists are able to determine the racial identity of someone from their skeletal remains with about 80% accuracy.
After all this, she then announces that the concept of race has "no biological validity..."
Imagine being so confused...
Lecture 20 continues on about group differences. I had typed up a long rebuttal to lecture 19, to refute her assertion that race "has no biological validity, but lecture 20 cleared things up for me a bit. So, it turns out that there (gasp) are average differences between groups of people, but here's the kicker: those groups can't be referred to as "races", for a few reasons (mainly to do with political correctness). Instead, we should use the term "populations"...
She then proceeds to go on describing average group-level differences in these "populations" that are rooted in biology. LMAO.
In lecture 22, she mentions the prevalence of high blood pressure in African American "populations". She posits that this could be due to their trans-Atlantic voyage - a period of time when they were excessively thirsty. This assertion sounded questionable to me. A dramatic population-wide enduring change in genetics from a ~6-week voyage? Hmmm...
In conclusion, this was a somewhat interesting course, but King's delivery of the material left much to be desired for me, as well as the other issues mentioned above.
2.5 stars for this one.
July 27, 2018
Decent, but not terribly informative if you have even a cursory knowledge of the field.
I had a few structural issues with the lecture series.
King makes many references about how science should not have biases, and that science should only be concerned with the facts. However, she then, apparently unknowingly, retreats to some rather ideological positions. I’ll give a few examples.
She dedicates a good portion of the course to gender. This, for a biological anthropology course, should be expected. She covers various theories from the 1950s and 60s that were informed by implicit value systems of the anthropologists and how that can make for “bad science.” She talks about how various (older) anthropologists assumed that early hominids always hunted, and such hunting was conducted exclusively by the males since the females would be looking after the young. King points out that anthropologists have since realized that chimps are the only great apes that are active hunters, so assuming that our early hominid ancestors had to have been hunters, is just that - an assumption. It’s also an assumption that only the males would be hunting; there could be mixed group hunting parties, the females could be exclusive hunters, etc, etc. Anyways, her basic point was that these anthropologists were importing cultural assumptions from the 1960s occidental culture and mapping it onto early hominids. This makes for sloppy science. And on that point, I fully agree. King then mentioned the push-back this created in the 1970s, with some anthropologists flipping the older models by 180 degrees and claiming that females were dominant, that they were the ones responsible for tool making, language development, etc. To her credit, King points out that this is the same flaw in scientific thinking. But then she adds something that I found very peculiar. She says that she has a certain sympathy for feminist (paleo)anthropology. At first, this sounds perfectly innocuous, but the more I thought about it, the more incoherent it sounded. King mentions her sympathy for this feminist anthropology when discussing paleoanthropology and how anthropologists deal with hominid fossils that are literally millions of years old. So what does it mean to be apply feminist principles to fossils of creatures that lived millions of years ago? Feminism makes sense when applied to our current time. It is an ideology of what OUGHT to be or what SHOULD be. We as a society create and maintain social norms. Feminism informs how we should structure ourselves and our society. That makes sense. But how do you apply that to fossils? (Again, King isn’t talking about hiring enough female anthropologists or something like that) How do you apply feminism to archaic fossils that aren’t even our species?
Another example of how this logic made for “bad science.” King was talking about male jealousy as a result of paternity ignorance (i.e. males cannot know for certainty that they are the fathers of their offspring) and possible ramifications from that. She brings up the example of domestic violence rates to substantiate this. She says that the overwhelming majority of females that are murdered are murdered by males with whom they have an intimate relationship. She then cites the fact that only a fraction of males that are murdered are murdered by females with whom they have an intimate relationship. From this, she claims this shows that males are more likely to kill their partners. Think about this for a minute. This is such a bad understanding of statistics, that it was cringe-worthy to hear her conclusion from this, especially after how much of the course she dedicated to discussing how (male) anthropologists’ gender biases compromised their scientific analysis. (Disclaimer - King is correct about males being overwhelmingly more likely to kill their intimate partners than vice-versa. However, it was alarming how she stumbled into a correct fact via faulty logic). How could her statistics be hiding something? A disproportionate amount of men murdering...other men! Let’s take a random number and say males commit 90% of murders in a society. Let’s assume that men mostly kill other men. Combine those two, and now King’s assumptions are invalid (or at least there are other obvious explanations and you don't have enough evidence to confidently prefer one over the other.)
Overall, a very mediocre course, involving King making a big deal about being an impartial science, while littering her lectures with normative assumptions and ideology. But to be fair, I think such a criticism generally applies to the entire field.
I had a few structural issues with the lecture series.
King makes many references about how science should not have biases, and that science should only be concerned with the facts. However, she then, apparently unknowingly, retreats to some rather ideological positions. I’ll give a few examples.
She dedicates a good portion of the course to gender. This, for a biological anthropology course, should be expected. She covers various theories from the 1950s and 60s that were informed by implicit value systems of the anthropologists and how that can make for “bad science.” She talks about how various (older) anthropologists assumed that early hominids always hunted, and such hunting was conducted exclusively by the males since the females would be looking after the young. King points out that anthropologists have since realized that chimps are the only great apes that are active hunters, so assuming that our early hominid ancestors had to have been hunters, is just that - an assumption. It’s also an assumption that only the males would be hunting; there could be mixed group hunting parties, the females could be exclusive hunters, etc, etc. Anyways, her basic point was that these anthropologists were importing cultural assumptions from the 1960s occidental culture and mapping it onto early hominids. This makes for sloppy science. And on that point, I fully agree. King then mentioned the push-back this created in the 1970s, with some anthropologists flipping the older models by 180 degrees and claiming that females were dominant, that they were the ones responsible for tool making, language development, etc. To her credit, King points out that this is the same flaw in scientific thinking. But then she adds something that I found very peculiar. She says that she has a certain sympathy for feminist (paleo)anthropology. At first, this sounds perfectly innocuous, but the more I thought about it, the more incoherent it sounded. King mentions her sympathy for this feminist anthropology when discussing paleoanthropology and how anthropologists deal with hominid fossils that are literally millions of years old. So what does it mean to be apply feminist principles to fossils of creatures that lived millions of years ago? Feminism makes sense when applied to our current time. It is an ideology of what OUGHT to be or what SHOULD be. We as a society create and maintain social norms. Feminism informs how we should structure ourselves and our society. That makes sense. But how do you apply that to fossils? (Again, King isn’t talking about hiring enough female anthropologists or something like that) How do you apply feminism to archaic fossils that aren’t even our species?
Another example of how this logic made for “bad science.” King was talking about male jealousy as a result of paternity ignorance (i.e. males cannot know for certainty that they are the fathers of their offspring) and possible ramifications from that. She brings up the example of domestic violence rates to substantiate this. She says that the overwhelming majority of females that are murdered are murdered by males with whom they have an intimate relationship. She then cites the fact that only a fraction of males that are murdered are murdered by females with whom they have an intimate relationship. From this, she claims this shows that males are more likely to kill their partners. Think about this for a minute. This is such a bad understanding of statistics, that it was cringe-worthy to hear her conclusion from this, especially after how much of the course she dedicated to discussing how (male) anthropologists’ gender biases compromised their scientific analysis. (Disclaimer - King is correct about males being overwhelmingly more likely to kill their intimate partners than vice-versa. However, it was alarming how she stumbled into a correct fact via faulty logic). How could her statistics be hiding something? A disproportionate amount of men murdering...other men! Let’s take a random number and say males commit 90% of murders in a society. Let’s assume that men mostly kill other men. Combine those two, and now King’s assumptions are invalid (or at least there are other obvious explanations and you don't have enough evidence to confidently prefer one over the other.)
Overall, a very mediocre course, involving King making a big deal about being an impartial science, while littering her lectures with normative assumptions and ideology. But to be fair, I think such a criticism generally applies to the entire field.
June 3, 2022
For anyone interested in this subject, it's a very good overview. I got a degree in anthro in '85 and this was published in 2002, so it's already 20 years old and yet there were still new developments I learned about in the 20 year gap between my schooling and this publication. King is a good speaker the material clearly presented. Much to think about in the development of the human species.
March 12, 2019
Muito introdutório.
November 1, 2022
Dated by now - this is definitely before recent genetic research on Neanderthals - but a good introductory overview.
April 7, 2020
2019.03.06–2019.03.08
Contents
King BJ (2002) (12:03) Biological Anthropology - An Evolutionary Perspective
01. What is Biological Anthropology?
02. How Evolution Works
03. The Debate Over Evolution
04. Matter Arising—New Species
05. Prosimians, Monkeys, and Apes
06. Monkey and Ape Social Behavior
07. The Mind of the Great Ape
08. Models for Human Ancestors?
09. Introducing the Hominids
10. Lucy and Company
11. Stones and Bones
12. Out of Africa
13. Who Were the Neandertals?
14. Did Hunting Make Us Human?
15. The Prehistory of Gender
16. Modern Human Anatomy and Behavior
17. On the Origins of Homo sapiens
18. Language
19. Do Human Races Exist?
20. Modern Human Variation
21. Body Fat, Diet, and Obesity
22. The Body and Mind Evolving
23. Tyranny of the Gene?
24. Evolution and Our Future
Contents
King BJ (2002) (12:03) Biological Anthropology - An Evolutionary Perspective
01. What is Biological Anthropology?
02. How Evolution Works
03. The Debate Over Evolution
04. Matter Arising—New Species
05. Prosimians, Monkeys, and Apes
06. Monkey and Ape Social Behavior
07. The Mind of the Great Ape
08. Models for Human Ancestors?
09. Introducing the Hominids
10. Lucy and Company
11. Stones and Bones
12. Out of Africa
13. Who Were the Neandertals?
14. Did Hunting Make Us Human?
15. The Prehistory of Gender
16. Modern Human Anatomy and Behavior
17. On the Origins of Homo sapiens
18. Language
19. Do Human Races Exist?
20. Modern Human Variation
21. Body Fat, Diet, and Obesity
22. The Body and Mind Evolving
23. Tyranny of the Gene?
24. Evolution and Our Future
April 13, 2017
This lecture is super interesting, and very easy to follow. It's not exactly new, so you'll want to give yourself a quick up-to-the-minute once you finish, or as you go along. For example, whether it's homo neanderthalensis or homo sapiens neanderthalensis is now an answered question. But the fundamentals are beautifully clear, and the information is presented in an interesting manner.
Merged review:
The lecturer took some getting used to, as her sentences involve a lot of clauses, but once I managed to catch her groove, I came to like her very much. And the subject matter, of course, was fascinating.
The course materials are nicely fleshed out and provide many references for further reading.
Merged review:
The lecturer took some getting used to, as her sentences involve a lot of clauses, but once I managed to catch her groove, I came to like her very much. And the subject matter, of course, was fascinating.
The course materials are nicely fleshed out and provide many references for further reading.
August 24, 2020
(Another entry that I at least began in the time of lockdowns. Date finished is a wild guess)
These lectures provide what seemed like a decent overview of the subject matter, but it didn't really stick with me for a few reasons. One is that I have previously listened to better, more insightful lecture series on similar matters, the other is that it is somewhat outdated and inaccurate.
For similar lecture series, The Rise of Humans: Great Scientific Debates in my opinion did a better job of exploring human evolution, and my framing the subject as debates, also provided a broader insight into the development of new theories and better understanding of the issues. And Dr. King's own Roots of Human Behavior-- though I didn't rate it any higher than this series-- provided a more concise and useful insight into human's relationship to monkeys and apes and how qualities that we may assume are uniquely human have deeper origins.
As to being outdated, it is a simple fact that there have been lots of new discoveries in human evolution in the nearly two decades since this work was produced. This is most clearly obvious in Dr. King's stance that Neanderthals were definitely not human. I can't blame her for being wrong on this, since I can remember when the earliest attempts to compare Neanderthal genomes with those of modern humans seemed to indicate no interbreeding; but refinements of the techniques have lead to the conviction that there very definitely was interbreeding and estimates that anyone without pure African heritage has 1 to 2% Neanderthal genes in them. And then there are the Denisovans and possible other near-modern human species or subspecies that are hinted at by paleontological and genetic studies. Definitely room for some updates.
But more than being wrong about Neanderthal's relationship to modern humans, I was struck by Dr. King's insistence that the distinction between species is the ability or inability to interbreed. That is a good starting point, but it has never been the whole story when it comes to defining species since there are plenty of examples of organisms that seem like they are distinct species but can still produce viable offspring. Staking so much of her argument on such a week definition undercut my confidence in her a bit.
These lectures provide what seemed like a decent overview of the subject matter, but it didn't really stick with me for a few reasons. One is that I have previously listened to better, more insightful lecture series on similar matters, the other is that it is somewhat outdated and inaccurate.
For similar lecture series, The Rise of Humans: Great Scientific Debates in my opinion did a better job of exploring human evolution, and my framing the subject as debates, also provided a broader insight into the development of new theories and better understanding of the issues. And Dr. King's own Roots of Human Behavior-- though I didn't rate it any higher than this series-- provided a more concise and useful insight into human's relationship to monkeys and apes and how qualities that we may assume are uniquely human have deeper origins.
As to being outdated, it is a simple fact that there have been lots of new discoveries in human evolution in the nearly two decades since this work was produced. This is most clearly obvious in Dr. King's stance that Neanderthals were definitely not human. I can't blame her for being wrong on this, since I can remember when the earliest attempts to compare Neanderthal genomes with those of modern humans seemed to indicate no interbreeding; but refinements of the techniques have lead to the conviction that there very definitely was interbreeding and estimates that anyone without pure African heritage has 1 to 2% Neanderthal genes in them. And then there are the Denisovans and possible other near-modern human species or subspecies that are hinted at by paleontological and genetic studies. Definitely room for some updates.
But more than being wrong about Neanderthal's relationship to modern humans, I was struck by Dr. King's insistence that the distinction between species is the ability or inability to interbreed. That is a good starting point, but it has never been the whole story when it comes to defining species since there are plenty of examples of organisms that seem like they are distinct species but can still produce viable offspring. Staking so much of her argument on such a week definition undercut my confidence in her a bit.
January 16, 2022
"I really liked it." - 4 out of 5 stars.
I was pretty skeptical/hesitant about this one, but I am so glad I gave it a chance and was open minded. Super fun course with a very well spoken presenter.
Key topics you'll be exposed to within this:
- How evolution of the past impacts us today
- Study of primates
- Study of the origin of humanity
- Study of variations of humans today (races and more)
- Study of human remains aka Forensics
- Lucy
- Hunting (yay!)
- Adaptation of humanity (altitude, temperatures, predators/food sources, etc)
- And much much more
Again, super fun course. Really enjoyed it and definitely deservers a 4 out 5.
I was pretty skeptical/hesitant about this one, but I am so glad I gave it a chance and was open minded. Super fun course with a very well spoken presenter.
Key topics you'll be exposed to within this:
- How evolution of the past impacts us today
- Study of primates
- Study of the origin of humanity
- Study of variations of humans today (races and more)
- Study of human remains aka Forensics
- Lucy
- Hunting (yay!)
- Adaptation of humanity (altitude, temperatures, predators/food sources, etc)
- And much much more
Again, super fun course. Really enjoyed it and definitely deservers a 4 out 5.
July 14, 2017
Some of this is just a repeat of The Roots of Human Behaviour, which was pretty disappointing. And it takes several lectures to get to hominids, since before that there are many chapters about modern apes.
November 19, 2020
Nice synopsis for an enormous field. Unfortunately, also severely outdated (which is typical in biological anth) The history of findings and the beliefs held by those researchers are held in context- and so should the beliefs held by Barbara King at the time this was published.
March 25, 2022
Good topic, but disappointing to find a scientist who spends so much time apologizing to readers who may be (my word) by evolution.
As a lecturer, I am sure Ms. King has earned the right to present her research and work however she pleases, but not to my taste.
As a lecturer, I am sure Ms. King has earned the right to present her research and work however she pleases, but not to my taste.
June 11, 2017
Outdated and oversimplified, but well organized.
December 1, 2019
2002. V. Great Courses
May 3, 2022
Too old to make this worthwhile. She believed Neanderthal was a separate species i.e., with which we could not interbreed. Obviously that has been proven false since 2002. Find something newer.
September 12, 2025
A great overview of biological anthropology. I did not learn much new information but found the course useful as a refresher in the subject.
October 29, 2012
King begins on a basic note by telling us who Charles Darwan is. Substantively, her lectures start with our ape ancestors and end with the humans of today. Along the way, she references Gould's theory of punctuated equilibrium without noting the controversies associated with it. As with many others, she refers to the Theory of Mind (the capacity of humans to see the world from another's perspective), which strikes the listener as an ambitious terminology that seems to have captured the field, leaving one to wonder whether the perspectives of philosophical thinkers throughout history and the neuroscientists of today have no theory of mind. Inexplicably, King says that science and religion are compatable, differing as two systems of knowledge (evidence and faith). The strongest part of King's lectures are on gender (she gives examples of how the preconceptions of male scientists skew the way they view evidence); her emphasis on inherent variation of key behavioral traits (in what sense is there one human nature?); her description of our break from iconic gesturing (breaking the link between sign and referent with arbitrary, abstract signals); and her discussion of Eurocentrism, which views the beginning of the modern era occuring with European cave art (King says there's evidence that it occurred far earlier in Africa).
In these lectures, King attempts to define the boundary of "biological anthropology" as an academic discipline. In the end, she is not convincing. Her views are that the twin pillars of humanity are our learning and flexibility. In other words, our genetic heritage is not relevant to our health and happiness. If we are shy, we don't have to be. If we are risk-takers, we shouldn't be. Those who have parents die early of cardiac disease need not worry. This is too much. Her concerns about biological determinism are valid, but that's a dated view. Even hard core evolutionary psychologists see biology's influence primarily in terms of strong predispositions as opposed to pure, strict determinism. Yes, we have flexibility to respond but that flexibility serves some very deep bioogical goals common to all, along with some very deep, in born traits that are unique to individuals. But King sets this aside. She would have us be anything we want to be, and sometimes it seems that there's a hint of political correctness in what she puts forward. Other than the fact that we emerged from apedom, and suffer from a few biological afflictions and tendencies, the biological part of her anthropological presentation seems not particularly relevant.
In these lectures, King attempts to define the boundary of "biological anthropology" as an academic discipline. In the end, she is not convincing. Her views are that the twin pillars of humanity are our learning and flexibility. In other words, our genetic heritage is not relevant to our health and happiness. If we are shy, we don't have to be. If we are risk-takers, we shouldn't be. Those who have parents die early of cardiac disease need not worry. This is too much. Her concerns about biological determinism are valid, but that's a dated view. Even hard core evolutionary psychologists see biology's influence primarily in terms of strong predispositions as opposed to pure, strict determinism. Yes, we have flexibility to respond but that flexibility serves some very deep bioogical goals common to all, along with some very deep, in born traits that are unique to individuals. But King sets this aside. She would have us be anything we want to be, and sometimes it seems that there's a hint of political correctness in what she puts forward. Other than the fact that we emerged from apedom, and suffer from a few biological afflictions and tendencies, the biological part of her anthropological presentation seems not particularly relevant.
August 17, 2014
(Audio download) I purchased this course (deeply discounted with a coupon...I try to keep costs to less than $1/lecture) hoping to understand a little more about the evolutionary transitions in Homo sapiens...and just what the heck is 'biological anthropology'. I was not disappointed. Yes, as other reviewers have noted, the course needs updating, particularly the role of neanderthal-sapien interactions. But the fundamentals are still there, like the outline of the transitions from great apes to Australopithecus/hominids to homo. I find that the concepts presented are fascinating (like what has happened to our species in just 125,000 short years!!) and leave me hungry to learn more. Isn't that what it's all about? Dr King's presentation style was pleasant and clear, albeit a bit dry. I followed the lectures (mostly) in front of a laptop with the ability to augment the lectures with specific topics that provided more depth than the lousy notes provided...not one picture, photo, or map...so that helped a great deal. She does emphasize that the listener should read the reference material as if it were part of the course work...kind of like when we were in college, eh?
So, if you are considering buying this series, be warned that it is not the final word in biological anthropology, it is merely the first. Get it cheap!
So, if you are considering buying this series, be warned that it is not the final word in biological anthropology, it is merely the first. Get it cheap!
June 15, 2017
I chose Biological Anthropology by Barbara J. King because many of the non-fiction books that I read referenced anthropological concepts or used words from that discipline with which I was unfamiliar. Professor King makes the concepts of biological anthropology concepts simple to understand through clear explanation and the use of relevant illustrations. Her enthusiasm for her subject is infectious. The thirty minute lectures offer just the right amount of content to digest at a single session. For those who cannot tell the difference among hominids, Neanderthals, and homosapians, but like to be knowledgable will be rewarded by listening to the 24 sessions of this audio course.
September 15, 2015
Good grounding in the field of biological anthropology. Suffers a little, in my opinion, for overly privileging the evolutionary work of Stephen Jay Gould. This was made right after he suddenly died, at a time when his regular articles had recently appeared, and it makes you realize how much more prevalent his ideas once were that they are taken so seriously by Dr. King here. Nobody talks about 'punctuated equilibrium' any more, except to scoff at the fact that there was a time it seemed important to many people, so there is a bit of that going on here. But this is mostly a very good intro to the field.
September 1, 2016
Some of the material is a little dated at this point, but it's an excellent course.
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