Hello fans and readers of World of Paleoanthropology!
Today I am thrilled to introduce you to our next guest!
Professor Desilva, from Dartmouth University is an expert in Bipedal Locomotion. I.E Walking on two legs. While we today know this mostly to be a human trait, it actually extends far into the distant past, all the way to the dinosaurs even!
While we are hardly related to dinosaurs, through his two recent books, “A Most Interesting Problem, What Darwin’s Descent of Man got Right and Wrong about Human Evolution?” Which he worked on will 11 other collaborators and experts in the field can be found and purchased here. His book which comes out on April 6th here in the United States titled “First Steps, How Upright Walking Made Us Human” shows us where bipedality comes from, and what role it had in our own evolution.
Explore deep time, and these exciting questions, hear some great tales about some of our favorites return guests such as Lee Berger, and have a good time with us!
This last month I had the pleasant experience of reading “A Most Interesting Problem, What Darwin Got Right and Wrong About Human Evolution” edited by Jeremy DeSilva and written by a variety of top professors on the subjects, this book gives an insightful, modern, and up to date views, hypotheses and thesis on Human Evolution, variation, sexual selection and so much more.
Published by Princeton Press 150 years after Darwin published “The Decent of Man” this book is an amazing and must read for any anthropologist or biologist.
This book goes into great detail on the basic foundations of Human evolution and explores the topics, both controversial and easily understood in a dynamic and easy way to read and understand.
From Agustin Fuentes (Check out our interview with him here.) to Ann Gibbons we hear from a wide variety of top scientists of their fields talking about things form skin color, to the human fossil record.
This book is one of, if not the most up to date book on the subject and is a must read for anyone interested in the subject. You will love this read!
We learn what Darwin got right 150 years ago, and we learn about a-lot of the things that he was misunderstanding or plainly wrong about. Such as race and biological skin colors and differences.
With glorious reviews from kings and queens in the scientific field such as Nina Jablonski and Daniel Lieberman, I too, for what it counts, add my review to their glowing ones.
If you are looking for the most up to date ideas about human biology, where these ideas come from, Darwinism and natural selection, than this is for you!
You cannot go wrong by getting and reading this book, we highly recommend it!
Coming up on the 25th of March we are hosting Jerry as our next guest to talk about this book, “A Most Interesting Problem” and his role in its creation, as well as his own book “First Steps: How Upright Walking Made us Human” which comes out April 6th 2021 which we are reading and getting ready to review as we speak, can be bought here.
You can grab this amazing book here, ebook or hardcover. Whats also awesome and goes with this, is a lecture put on by The Leakey Foundation which goes over many of the chapters with some of the authors on their contributions to the book. Its great! Dont miss it.
And there you go! So grab this book today! I give it 5 stars! Captivating and oh so very informative!
Stay tuned to our next interview with Jeremy DeSilva around the 25th of March, and then be sure to grab his own book on April 6th! We will review that one ASAP!
As for now, have a great time and Never Stop Exploring!
Be sure to check out our YouTube Channel and dont miss any of our other interviews and fun chats!
Hello there, fellow science enthusiasts, scientists, and any and all interested parties, I have a proposition for you.
As of now, you know that here are World of Paleoanthropology we try to do alot of things, and we think we do them pretty well. We do book reviews, blog posts, vlogs, and interviews with up and coming, famous, and well known to just breaking into the field, anthropologists, archaeologists and science communicators and teachers.
The thing that our community enjoys the most, is getting to see what these people do from the inside, and not from the out. When I do an interview I lead the person in conversation, and we have a wonderful chat. I just lead, and they unload the conversation.
It’s a great way to learn more about a person, what they think, and what they know.
As of now, I am using the poor webcam built into my MacBook, and my AirPods for the microphone. I also have to host the website, and I would like to start a podcast as well. All of this costs money.
Money that a poor college student such as myself cannot spare. But that will not stop me! I will continue doing everything that I do, and more, for as long as I can, as best I can regardless of my budget!
BUT! If you were to make a contribution of any size to sethchagi@icloud.com via PayPal it would go a long way in improving our videos, website, and so much more.
Even a dollar helps, so please take a moment to consider, and review all that we do here and our impact, and think, is it worth a few bucks?
Join us as we chat with Stephanie Baker, head of the Drimolen site where Paranthropus Robustus seem to have made a home, recovering almost a full cranium!
Be sure to check out the rest of our site, and watch all of our other interviews! We have met with some great people!
Wow our fifteenth interview! Its amazing how far we have come and seeing the amazing people on our show, and reading their written interviews!
Here is to a bright future!
Today we are releasing publicly (It was released early on our Patreon) our interview with Professor Agustin Fuentes of Princeton University!
We are very excited for this chat and we know that you will love it!
Please enjoy:
If you would like to have the chance to appear on the show, please email us at worldofpaleoanthropology@gmail.com. It can be about anything related to the field that you are qualified to speak about.
If you want to support what we do, like run this website, host all these interviews, book reviews etc. and want to see us expand and make better quality content, AND GAIN EARLY ACCESS to content, check out our Patreon,
I hope you enjoy it, and have a wonderful time everyone!
It is that time again, now that we have had a steady flow of guests, for another interview or chat as we like to call them (we dont want to scare anyone off after all).
This time we were delighted to host James Cole, a professor at the University of Brighton in the UK, and expert on early lithic tools.
We were delighted to have him, and you can catch that here!
Next week on Thursday we will be posting our interview with Dr. Agustin Fuentes of Princeton University and we are VERY excited about that!
If you are interested in helping support us and get new equipment and services, you can donate to sethchagi@icloud.com via paypal.
Well, this was a fun read for sure, no doubt about it. A book filled with big emotions, big opinions, and many technical details and facts. In Fossil Men by Kermit Pattison, we hear the story of Tim White, a professor of Paleoanthropology, and his work in the field over the last five decades.
A massive personality in the field, and arbiter of strict science and technical absoluteness. Most known for his work on the skeleton known as Ardi, an Ardipithecus ramidus that he named, he is a very controversial figure. And for many reasons. This book delves into not only the science behind Ardi, as so she is nicknamed, as well as the very powerfully compelling and controversial behaviors and personalities of those involved in the field.
From a different perspective than we usually get (that of the scientist), we get the view of Mr. Pattison, a friend, and colleague of Dr. White. To understand the place this book has, we must understand some of the dynamics in Paleoanthropology.
Traditionally, when a scientist makes a discovery, based on the country of origins laws, they are allowed exclusive access to the specimen, such as when Tim White and his team discovered Ardi in the Middle Awash in Ethiopia.
However, lately with recent discoveries, Open Access (which we fully support) is occurring where data and the fossils are being shared so scientists from all over the world can work on them, vs. a small team. The book goes over how Prof. White and his team explored this amazing skeleton, the challenges they had to go through, both from within the team and from the fossils themselves, to the pressures from the outside world to publish and to share what they had.
Who is to say which model is right? For so long we have done one thing, but perhaps it is time for a change.
In this book, bitter rivalries are highlighted, such as the one between renowned Paleoanthropologist Lee Berger, who was the head of the Sediba, Naledi, and 105 site teams, and Tim, as well as many other conflicts between Tim and Don Johansson, the Leakey Clan, and pretty much everyone else.
It seems the book is always trying to defend Tim White from his behavior. Tim burns bridges, he does not build them and this book makes that abundantly clear while at the same time trying to make him appear like the sociable one.
Tim White is an amazing scientist, and no one would doubt that he has strong opinions, some of which have good backing while others are more of his own forced opinions on the field.
As a senior in the field, he is looked up to, revered, but also loathed, and sometimes even hated by his colleagues and students.
While his contributions and the work he has done on Ardi, Lucy, and the First Family, Laetoli, and so much more cannot be doubted, it is, in the opinion of this student and anthropologist, that this book does nothing but highlight the fact that Tim White and the anthropologist that are on his side of the aisle represent and old, and dying version of anthropology. One that cannot work in this world, and one that stops the spread and speed of science.
We cannot hoard our discoveries, free and open science is the best way to do our science and answer the questions we have come to ask. To this day most anthropologists, even seniors in the field have not seen Ardi, and probably never will. This is wrong and is not how science should be done. But this is the current state of affairs.
Some call this “cut-throat anthropology” and maybe it is, there are a lot of big personalities working together and against each other here, but either way and wherever you find yourself on the isle, this books is a great look into Tim White’s world, and a look at Ardi like you probably will not get anywhere else.
I highly recommend this book, and suggest you add it to your reading list!
We are proud and excited to announce that we are now on Patreon!
We are doing this to raise money not only for equipment that we need to continue doing the work that we do, but to expand our project and do some pretty awesome things.
First off we need new equipment, a webcam, a mic, etc, We have web hosting fees etc. But we want to do things, and we want to support causes that are important to our community. So we are excited to announce our patreon!
This is going to be a big change for this website and blog, WE WILL NO LONGER BE POSTING NEW CONTENT HERE.
IT WILL ALL BE ON THE PATREON.
BUT, it will still all be 100% free and public, the only benefit of becoming a patron, at least on tier one, is getting early access to the content, for today we are posting our review of Fossil Men, it will be publicly available in three days.
So why pay for it? Well to support science and STEM of course! Getting three days early access may not seem like much, and it may not be but its for a good cause!
And the higher the tier you choose the more you get! So go check it out, and bookmark our new site!
After waiting a good long time, (John is a very busy man) I was finally able to (virtually) sit down with the man and get some good questions in.
John tells us his stories, and they are enthralling, one thing that you will find after watching, is that he found out how powerful the idea of storytelling is and what role it can play in education.
John is one of my personal heroes and is one of my motivations for my fight for open access education.
World of Paleoanthropology 