Incredible human
Is anyone else watching The Incredible Human Journey? I'm finding it pretty interesting. Not about two dogs and a cat (or even a human) traipsing across North America, but about the early migrations of the human species. Paleoanthropology is a discipline that has been shaken up so radically in recent years, with the arrival of DNA analysis techniques, that I needed a catch-up to what is now the accepted view.
The presenter, Dr Alice Roberts, is excellent, and also has a lovely accent. (Close your eyes and it could almost be floralaetifica talking.) She mingles knowing her stuff with enthusiasm and clear explanation. The show has a bit too much "here I am, doing something only vaguely related to the subject but it looks exciting on camera", but that's modern documentaries for you I guess.
I just watched the Asia one, and was susprised and somewhat horrified by what I learnt about the Chinese ethnic origin modern-myth. I knew that the Chinese, according to the cliched image, traditionally viewed themselves as superior to other races, but I hadn't realized that they'd worked up and sanctioned an evolutionary backstory to it. According to the programme, the official line is that they evolved separately from local Chinese Homo erectus, rather than descending from the results of such evolution in the African Rift Valley like the rest of humanity. And this is actually taught in Chinese schools as being correct biology.
Dr Roberts examined the "evidence" for this theory warily but politely, and then went on to talk to an admirably open-minded Chinese researcher who'd recently done a DNA analysis that (to his surprise) rubbished the idea. But I wonder how long it will take before they change what they teach in schools? As politically-driven scientific absurdity goes, this must be up there with Lysenkoism, although at least nobody's starved because of it.
The presenter, Dr Alice Roberts, is excellent, and also has a lovely accent. (Close your eyes and it could almost be floralaetifica talking.) She mingles knowing her stuff with enthusiasm and clear explanation. The show has a bit too much "here I am, doing something only vaguely related to the subject but it looks exciting on camera", but that's modern documentaries for you I guess.
I just watched the Asia one, and was susprised and somewhat horrified by what I learnt about the Chinese ethnic origin modern-myth. I knew that the Chinese, according to the cliched image, traditionally viewed themselves as superior to other races, but I hadn't realized that they'd worked up and sanctioned an evolutionary backstory to it. According to the programme, the official line is that they evolved separately from local Chinese Homo erectus, rather than descending from the results of such evolution in the African Rift Valley like the rest of humanity. And this is actually taught in Chinese schools as being correct biology.
Dr Roberts examined the "evidence" for this theory warily but politely, and then went on to talk to an admirably open-minded Chinese researcher who'd recently done a DNA analysis that (to his surprise) rubbished the idea. But I wonder how long it will take before they change what they teach in schools? As politically-driven scientific absurdity goes, this must be up there with Lysenkoism, although at least nobody's starved because of it.