Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Foreword: Evolution and the Human Condition
- Acknowledgments
- Preface
- Earth’s Climate
- The Evolution of the Homo Species
- Climate and Human Migration
- Climate and Agriculture
- The Dominant Paradigm
- 9 Dominance Destabilized
- 10 Fitness Folly
- 11 Darwin the Selector
- 12 Hunting Down Woody
- 13 Kammerer’s Suicide
- 14 Giants and Pygmies
- 15 Dutch Hunger Winter Babies
- Today and Tomorrow
- The Economic Connection
- Dangerous Attitudes
- Living in Dangerous Times
- Glossary
- Notes
- Index
14 - Giants and Pygmies
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Foreword: Evolution and the Human Condition
- Acknowledgments
- Preface
- Earth’s Climate
- The Evolution of the Homo Species
- Climate and Human Migration
- Climate and Agriculture
- The Dominant Paradigm
- 9 Dominance Destabilized
- 10 Fitness Folly
- 11 Darwin the Selector
- 12 Hunting Down Woody
- 13 Kammerer’s Suicide
- 14 Giants and Pygmies
- 15 Dutch Hunger Winter Babies
- Today and Tomorrow
- The Economic Connection
- Dangerous Attitudes
- Living in Dangerous Times
- Glossary
- Notes
- Index
Summary
Under domestication monstrosities sometimes occur which resemble normal structures in widely different animals.
Charles Darwin, On the Origin of SpeciesLike Paul Kammerer, Richard Benedict Goldschmidt was discredited because his novel ideas ran counter to the received wisdom of the scientific establishment. Born in Frankfurt in 1878, Goldschmidt studied morphology and embryology and later became director of genetics at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Biology in Berlin. Twice his career was interrupted by war and politics. He was placed in an internment camp in the United States as he traveled from Japan back to Germany during the First World War, and after resuming his position at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, Nazi persecution forced his departure. He resurfaced at the University of California Berkeley in 1936. However, his unorthodox views cast him in direct opposition to neo-Darwinists.
There are three basic tenets of neo-Darwinistic evolution:
Random genetic variation provides the raw material on which natural selection acts as a directing force.
Evolution is a slow, gradual, continuous process made up of small micro-evolutionary changes.
The accumulation of small micro-evolutionary changes over a sufficiently long period of time can result in the large-scale macro-evolutionary changes that are necessary for the development of new species.
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- Chapter
- Information
- Living in a Dangerous ClimateClimate Change and Human Evolution, pp. 123 - 126Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2012