EVENTS

STOQ 2009 – THE STOQ INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON
«BIOLOGICAL EVOLUTION. Facts and Theories»

Abstracts of the Lectures:

Gianfranco Biondi, University of L'Aquila, Italy - Olga Rickards, University of Rome "Tor Vergata", Italy

The Origin of Man: Molecular Approach

The shift from a metaphysical to a scientific way of knowing our history began roughly around the middle of the 18th century when Carl Linneus classified the human species in the order Primates, assigning it a place of rank in the natural world. About a century later, in a bold move to relocate man’s history outside the realm of metaphysics, Charles Darwin set human evolution on a new time scale of the history of life, opening the perspective of thinking about humans as just one of many other animal species. This signalled the end to a creationist concept of the world, leaving the creation story a mere psychological support that sustains many in their metaphysical need of hope but as an explanation of life’s origins is irrelevant for science. In the late decades of the 20th century, researchers began investigating the origin and variability within the human species with the aid of molecular studies, specifically, genome analysis. Current theory has it that the origin of Homo sapiens dates back 200,000 years ago to an evolutionary event that occurred in Homo ergaster inhabiting Africa, whence the new species spread to the rest of the world. Adaptation to different habitats led to the morphological and genetic variability that characterizes diverse populations. But such populations did not become different races because of the young age of the species and because of the admixture processes that took place among them over the course of time. Hence, the taxonomic category of "race" is as inappropriate as it is incorrect when applied to humans. More recently, evidence from studies on DNA recovered from ancient remains has demonstrated that the Neanderthals are not our direct ancestors. Contrary to long-cherished beliefs, and despite resemblance in essential features, Homo sapiens is a species apart from and unrelated to the Neanderthals.

By molecular analysis it has been established that man’s evolutionary line separated from that of chimpanzees about 6 million years ago. And it is estimated that the degree of genetic similarity the human species shares with African man-like apes is relatively high: 98.5% with chimpanzees and 97.5% with gorillas. This affinity between us and our African relatives suggested classifying them within our taxonomic family: the Hominids. In turn, our evolutionary line was reduced a notch to that of the subfamily of the Hominins. In this connection, ethology, the area of biological science that studies animal behaviour, has gained fascinating insights into our altruistic behaviour. Initial results indicate that it may be purely evolutionary in origin.