June. 1937 



EVOLUTION 



Page Three 



Nature's Upstart: Homo Sapiens 



By WILLIAM KING GREGORY 



Curator of Department of Comparative Anatomy. American Museum of Natural Historv 

 Professor of Vertebrate Paleontology. Columbia University 



LEFTSIDE 



IF Homo sapiens had not had an aggravated superiority 

 complex he would never have applied the adjective 

 sapiens to himself in the face of overwhelming evidence 

 that he deserves rather to be called Homo inflatus. The 

 daily course of the sun as well as the rising and setting of 

 the stars suggested that man's home the earth was the 

 center around which the rest of the universe turned. Hence 

 it was but a short step to the idea that man himself was cor- 

 respondingly important in the cosmic plan. 



in the m>thology of the Greeks the gods were so in- 

 tensely interested in the affairs of men that they took 

 sides with the opposing heroes and heaven was more dis- 

 turbed by the disputes following the stealing of one woman 

 than it would normall>- have 

 been by the sacking of ten BASE 



cities. Not e\'en Zeus himself 

 disdained the charms of the 

 daughters of men and from 

 such crossings of gods and men 

 sprang various lines of half 

 divine kings. .As to the ancient 

 Teutonic deities, one hesitates 

 to dwell upon their all too 

 human frailties; but to people 

 beyond the pale of the magic 

 swastika it is apparent that 

 though some of these good 

 old German gods and god- 

 desses were not exactl\- all 

 that they should be, thev 

 were regarded as ideal com- 

 panions for the spirits of 

 warrior heroes. The unregen- 

 erate Homo sapiens, especially 

 in the allegedl\' civilized 



countries, has usually imagin- PREPRIMATE 



ed his race to be the hero of (TRet-SHRtwi 



the drama of creation. 



TOP 



MAN 



Deflation of Homo Sapiens 



For his soul's good, how- 

 e\er, I deem it my duty to 

 puncture the bubble of Homo 

 sapiens. For it is only after 

 we are all properlv deflated 

 and made to realize what mis- 

 erable sinners we are that we 

 can find the way of redemp- 

 tion from the follies of an- 

 thropocentrism. 



At this period in the his- 

 tory of science it is assured- 

 ly unnecessary to review the 

 evidence tending to show that 

 the earth, far from being in 

 any scientific sense the center 

 of the universe, is not even 

 the center of the solar system. 



From Science S3 :41 & 69 

 Jan. 17 & 24. 1936 



<==-^ 



GENERALIZED REPTILE 



{ SPHtNOOON ) 



TAILED AMPHIBIAN 



(NtWT) 



*> PRIMITIVE FISH V 



(SHARK) 



RISE OF THE HUMAN BRAIN 



From fish (o man the forebrain iiicrea.ses in size and 

 comple.\it.v. In lower forms it functions chiefly with the 

 smelling nerves. In mummals the upper part of the fore- 

 hrain, dillerentiated as the neopallium or new brain, assumes 

 control and. fn-eatl.v infolded, largely conceals the older parts 

 of the liraiii. 



The foiins figured here all live today. Although not 

 ancestral their brains represent a progressive series. 



But in spite of the collapse of the geocentric system of as- 

 tronom}-, the anthropocentric view of cosmology has man- 

 aged to survive in many quarters. Vet in addressing 

 a scientific audience it is not necessary even to summarize 

 the evidence that man was not created specially and 

 apart from other living things but that he like them arose 

 b\- evolution from earlier and lower forms of animal life. 



If this be granted as a general proposition, we are in 

 a position to outline a number of conclusions with regard 

 to the evolution of man, which, if accepted, tend on the 

 one hand to clarify his relations to the rest of nature and 

 on the other hand to explain, at least in some measure, 

 his general pattern of behavior. 



Homo sapiens, like other 

 animals, is a sort of living 

 solar engine, which, unlike the 

 plants, is unable to appropriate 

 for himself the life-giving en- 

 ergy of the sun but must 

 take that energy, in the form 

 of food, from plants or 

 other animals or both. Hence. 

 b\' the primary law of his 

 nature, he tends to take what 

 he wants when he wants it 

 and, as we shall see later, it 

 is owing only to the beneficial 

 restraints of various social sys- 

 tems that man learns to re- 

 sist even in part these deep- 

 seated urges to pluck and 

 eat or to kill and eat. Since 

 neolithic times man has by co- 

 operative effort deliberately 

 multiplied his food supplies 

 by the raising of food plants 

 and by the breeding of ru- 

 minant animals. Before such a 

 cooperative stage was attain- 

 ed, the human animal had to 

 depend more directly upon 

 his individual equipment as 

 a vertebrate, as a mammal 

 and as an offshoot of the an- 

 thropoid division of the order 

 of Primates. Even now the 

 most advanced normal ex- 

 amples o f Homo sapiens 

 could hardl}' carry on the 

 daily business of life without 

 benefit of a long series of 

 "basic patents" which man 

 has inherited from earlier 

 \ertebrates, to some of which 

 we must refer e\en if very 

 briefly. 



The earliest chorda tes were 

 alread)- adjusted to the force 

 of gra\itation b\' a dorso- 



ANTHROPOID APE 



(SORILLA) 



PRIMITIVE ANTHROPOID 

 (eiSBON) 



LOWLV MAMMAL 



(OPOSSUM! 



