“Is man just another animal?” the 2007 ZSL Stamford Raffles Lecture will be given by Professor Steve Jones

The annual Stamford Raffles Lecture will be given by eminent speaker Steve Jones, Professor of Genetics at University College London. “Is man just another animal?” will explore the similarities and differences between human DNA and that of our relatives and will examine Gilbert and Sullivan’s claim that “Darwinian man, though well behaved, at best is only a monkey shaved”.

The completion of the human and chimpanzee genome sequences was a triumph of comparative anatomy. It proved (as if any biologist doubted it) Darwin’s contention in The Descent of Man that “Man still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin”. I will talk about the similarities – and the differences – between our own DNA and that of our relatives and about what that tells us about our own taxonomic position as medium-sized mammals.

More importantly, I will try to go beyond comparative anatomy to ask whether that science helps us to understand what we are as human beings, rather than merely as rather unspecialised primates. Gilbert and Sullivan once claimed that “Darwinian man, though well behaved, at best is only a monkey shaved”. I will ask how right, or otherwise, they may have been.

Registration required:

Yes

Free:

No