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source: GreshamCollege 2013年1月31日
The transcript and downloadable versions of the lectures are available from the Gresham College website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and...
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1 1:07:13 Incest and Folk-Dancing: Two things to be avoided
How closely are we related to each other, and how recently do we all share an ancestor? The answer to those questions is: closer and more recently than you might think. Professor Jones discusses patterns of relatedness in ancient and modern populations and how they can be measured from the records, from surnames, and - more and more - from the DNA. The pedigree hidden in every genome reveals some quite unexpected patterns of kinship and suggests that some may be very relevant to the chances of disease. However, the evidence that close kinship is breaking down is, in this modern and mobile world, very persuasive and it may be that the most important event in human evolution, and even in human health, was the invention of the bicycle.
2 52:40 Is Man Just Another Animal?
Many people agree with Gilbert and Sullivan that Darwinian man, though well behaved is nothing but a monkey shaved. The recent discovery that we share around 95% of our DNA sequence with our closest relative suggests that there may be some truth in that statement. A closer look shows that almost all the physical changes that have taken place in our bodies since the split from our common ancestor seven million years ago involve loss - we are bald, with weak muscles, and lack characteristics found in our relatives. Most remarkable, we are the only creature unable to survive on raw food. Eatan uncooked diet and in the end you will die. Our guts have been so reduced and our digestive enzymes so enfeebled that we depend on an external stomach, a frying pan or microwave, to stay alive. In just one organ, the brain, we have gained in comparison to the chimpanzee; and its improvements are striking indeed.
This lecture will explore why mankind is much more than just another animal.
3 49:17 The Art of Snails and Snails in Art
Snails play a surprising part in art. Dali used them as images of impotence, while medieval painters included them in paintings of the Virgin Mary, due to the belief that their shells meant that their modesty was protected and they reproduced without sex. Gravestones are sometimes etched with snail images for they are seen as creatures that undergo resurrection when, after a long period of drought, it rains and thousands of snails that had been dried up start crawling around. Dutch flower paintings often include snails for the message behind those works was that, beautiful as the flowers are, they will soon be consumed, like human flesh, by worms, by insects - and by snails. Many other aspects of the biology of snails have an echo in art, and some art-works hint at the question why some species are so genetically variable in shell colour and pattern? Perhaps we can learn from the world of painting, as a hint that the two cultures may, at least in the world of molluscs, be uniting to form one.
4 53:07 Did God Evolve? An Evolutionist's Speculation about Religion
Ideas and beliefs evolve as much as do bodies and brains and in some ways the two processes are similar. A survey of world religions, both now and in the past, shows some interesting consistencies, with a clear fit between levels of belief and degrees of social inequality.
From the beginning, particular faiths have been - as Darwin showed for bodies - driven by demographic success, and Christianity at least is safe, since its believers reproduce far more effectively than do we atheists.
5 55:57 Is Human Evolution Over?
Humans have evolved from ape-like ancestors over millions of years, of course; but also over thousands, for there are several cases in which we can identify natural selection - genetic changes in response to an environmental shift - over just a few millennia.
Professor Jones has been criticised for saying that at least in the developed world, and at least for the time being, this process is over. But natural selection depends on differences in survival and reproduction and they have, more or less, gone away. Processes quite different from those of the past will shape our genetic future.
6 58:19 Nature, Nurture or Neither? The View from the Genes
Many people see gene and environment as separate entities and believe that height, weight, or personality type can be sliced, rather like a cake, in a section controlled by inherited factors or nature, while others are due to differences in the environment, or nurture.
In fact "heritability" (a measure much misunderstood by politicians and educationists) is more subtle than this and always involves an intimate interaction between the two, whether we are interested in height, weight, sport, or intelligence.
7 56:19 No Need for Geniuses
The French Revolution is famous for its political upheavals, but few know that it was also a time when Paris was the world centre of science in a way that has never been matched before or since. I will take a tour of the city from the Eiffel Tower to the Champs Elysees, taking in the Tour de France on the way, to show how a small group of talented men and women revolutionised science from physics to biology - and how some of them paid a heavy price.
8 1:01:30 Germs, Genes and Genesis: The History of Infectious Disease
Where do infectious diseases come from? Some come from animals, but we gave some back (as cattle picked up TB from farmers). Leviticus discusses the problem of leprosy at some length and even develops an early form of quarantine. Epidemics of various kinds began only when human populations and the first cities (Babylon included) were large enough to sustain the infectious agents responsible.
Now genetics, of humans and their enemies, is beginning to tell us more. And the news is not good.
9 49:15 Homo Sapiens, an Endangered Species
Mankind, now so abundant, has for long parts of its history been reduced to tiny numbers, and almost to extinction.
Discussed is the evidence for this, about how we reached our present enormous abundance, and what the future of the human population might be.
10 56:51 Cheats, Liars and Fornicators: The Hidden Face of Mother Nature
Professor Steve Jones (Department of Genetics, Evolution & Environment at University College London) will talk about the crafty ways of living creatures from orchids to ourselves, and about how, beneath every beauty, lies a beast.
11 52:14 Here Comes The Sun: Sunshine and its Effects on Health, Sleep and Memory
Professor Steve Jones will consider sunshine and its effects on health, on sleep, on memory and more: and why todays twilight world of tablets and smart-phones is taking us back to the middle ages.
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