Why were the first anthropologists creationists?

Anthropologists in every generation have been tarred as creationists by radical Darwinians. In only the very first generation of scholarly anthropology, however, does the charge really stick; that is, in the founding tradition of liberal German humanistic anthropology from about 1860–1890. This paper explores the ideas that may have motivated their rejection of evolution.     

Stop ‘blaming the man’: perceptions of inequality and opportunities for success in the Obama era among middle-class African Americans

Abstract

This paper builds upon work that has shown that African Americans exhibit a dual consciousness when explaining persistent inequality. We draw upon 45 in-depth interviews with middle-class African Americans following the 2008 election to explore how they explain persistent disadvantage for African Americans, the destigmatization strategies they employ, and the impact they believe the election of Barack Obama will have on opportunities for African Americans. Consistent with dual consciousness theory, we find that respondents explain persistent disadvantage for African Americans by citing structural and motivational factors. We also extend previous work to show that for the majority of respondents the use of individualistic de-stigmatization strategies reinforces their dual consciousness. These respondents are optimistic about Obama's election because it supports their belief that African Americans should assume responsibility for improving their circumstances. A minority of respondents express more concern about the persistence of racial inequality, and consequentially are less optimistic about changes that Obama's election may bring about.     

Stochasticity or the fatal ‘imperfection’ of cloning

The concept of clone is analysed with the aim of exploring the limits to which a phenotype can be said to be determined geneticaly. First of all, mutations that result from the replication, topological manipulation or lesion of DNA introduce a source of heritable variation in an otherwise identical genetic background. But more important, stochastic effects in many biological processes may superimpose a phenotypic variation which is not encoded in the genome. The source of stochasticity ranges from the random selection of alleles or whole chromosomes to be expressed in small cell populations, to fluctuations in processes such as gene expression, due to limiting amounts of the players involved. The picture emerging is that the term clone is a statistical over-simplification representing a series of individuals having essentially the same genome but capable of exhibiting wide phenotypic variation. Finally, to what extent fluctuations in biological processes, usually thought of as noise, are in fact signal is also discussed.     

Mind the gap: how open were European primeval forests?

There are two competing hypotheses about the structure and dynamics of primeval forests in lowland Europe: the high-forest and the wood-pasture hypotheses, both of which influence current European forest conservation policies. In a recent study using pollen-analytical data from across lowland Europe, Mitchell provides support for rejecting the wood-pasture hypothesis. His study is important for future forest management planning and for showing how hypotheses about large herbivores as biotic factors can be tested using palaeoecological data.     

Human evolution: how recent were the Y chromosome ancestors?

Recent findings of low sequence variability of Y chromosome genes has led to suggestions that the most recent ancestor of human Y chromosomes existed around 50,000 years ago and human population size expanded about 28,000 years ago. But what level of confidence can we have in these estimates?     

Separating ‘Inquiry Questions’ and ‘Techniques’ to Help Learners Move between the How and the Why of Biology Practical Work

School science practical activities have been criticised for exposing learners to a series of phenomena disconnected from the conceptual frameworks needed to understand them. Such activities are successful in the ‘domain of observables’ but not the ‘domain of ideas’. Few resources exist for classroom teachers wishing to improve the effectiveness of practical activities in the domain of ideas. This report describes an action research project to develop a scaffold for biology practical lessons. This scaffold separates inquiry questions and the techniques needed to address them, and thus combines two approaches to scaffolding in a single tool (‘problematising’ and ‘reducing the degrees of freedom’). Analysis of the speech of 16–17 year olds in the study class (n = 23) was used to assess their engagement in the domain of ideas. Following the scaffold’s introduction, the learners were found to speak more about relevant ideas and concepts during practical activities. When the scaffold was partially faded, the learners continued to demonstrate engagement with the domain of ideas. The approach reported here would seem to have much potential for supporting learning from ‘minds-on’ biology practical work in a variety of contexts.     

Why is the number of pregnancies among teenagers decreasing?

The issue of pregnancy among adolescent women has received considerable attention from the media. Contrary to common belief, both the numbers and the rates of such pregnancies, even when data on abortion are included, have been declining. Patterns of contraception may account for some of the decrease; however, more study is required. In the past, unmarried teenagers who became pregnant either got married or put the baby up for adoption. Now they can either have an abortion or keep the baby. Solutions to the problems of pregnancy among teenagers must therefore be addressed to these altered social consequences rather than to misleading comments about "epidemics", with their suggestion of increased rates of pregnancy.     

Studies on uptake of heavy metals by the Scandinavian ‘Kisplanten’Lychnis alpina andSilene dioica

Pot trials onLychnis alpina, L. alpina var. serpentinicola, andSilene dioica were carried out on these ‘kisplanten’ (pyrite plants) to determine their uptake and tolerance of copper, lead, nickel and zinc. The tolerance and uptake of all four heavy metals was far greater for both varieties ofL. alpina than forS. dioica thus casting doubt onS. dioica being a true ‘kisplante’. There were no detectable differences between both varieties ofL. alpina indicating that var. serpentinicola may only be a stunted form ofL. alpina possibly not warranting varietal ranking. Uptake of copper, lead and nickel was very great in the case ofL. alpina. Plant-soil correlations for nickel were very highly significant in the case of both varieties ofL. alpina so that this taxon has an obvious role in biogeochemical prospecting. To describeL. alpina as a ‘copper flower’ is an oversimplification of a complex situation. The species is probably a true pyrite plant with tolerance to all of the major components of sulphide ore deposits.     

Meal sharing among the Ye’kwana

In this study meal sharing is used as a way of quantifying food transfers between households. Traditional food-sharing studies measure the flow of resources between households. Meal sharing, in contrast, measures food consumption acts according to whether one is a host or a guest in the household as well as the movement of people between households in the context of food consumption. Our goal is to test a number of evolutionary models of food transfers, but first we argue that before one tests models of who should receive food one must understand the adaptiveness of food transfers. For the Ye’kwana, economies of scale in food processing and preparation appear to set the stage for the utility of meal sharing. Evolutionary models of meal sharing, such as kin selection and reciprocal altruism, are evaluated along with non-evolutionary models, such as egalitarian exchange and residential propinquity. In addition, a modified measure of exchange balance—proportional balance—is developed. Reciprocal altruism is shown to be the strongest predictor of exchange intensity and balance.     

Who were the ancient Egyptians? Dental affinities among Neolithic through postdynastic peoples

Qualitative and quantitative methods are employed to describe and compare up to 36 dental morphological variants in 15 Neolithic through Roman-period Egyptian samples. Trait frequencies are determined, and phenetic affinities are calculated using the mean measure of divergence and Mahalanobis D2 statistics for discrete traits; the most important traits in generating this intersample variation are identified with correspondence analysis. Assuming that the samples are representative of the populations from which they derive, and that phenetic similarity provides an estimate of genetic relatedness, these affinities are suggestive of overall population continuity. That is, other than a few outliers exhibiting extreme frequencies of nine influential traits, the dental samples appear to be largely homogenous and can be characterized as having morphologically simple, mass-reduced teeth. These findings are contrasted with those resulting from previous skeletal and other studies, and are used to appraise the viability of five Egyptian peopling scenarios. Specifically, affinities among the 15 time-successive samples suggest that: 1) there may be a connection between Neolithic and subsequent predynastic Egyptians, 2) predynastic Badarian and Naqada peoples may be closely related, 3) the dynastic period is likely an indigenous continuation of the Naqada culture, 4) there is support for overall biological uniformity through the dynastic period, and 5) this uniformity may continue into postdynastic times.     

‘It's not how it was’: the Chilean diaspora's changing landscape of belonging

Abstract

The increasingly diverse character of London's multicultural landscape has shaped how migrants interact with(in) the different spaces of the city. This process entails both settled and incoming migrants' participation in place-making; a mutual imbrication that might promote the long-settled migrants' evocation of a lost terrain. This article unpacks that process by looking at the Latin American social football scene of South London, specifically a space known as la cancha (the pitch). This was founded by Chilean political refugees during the 1970s and it has incorporated Latin American ‘economic’ migrants and ‘local’ Britons through time. Starting from the evocation of a lost ‘golden age’ of la cancha, the paper unpacks this space's contested, complex and changing nature. It presents diaspora space, community and belonging as lived processes. Through this depiction, the assumptions of homogeneous and isolated migrant communities are challenged, as are the diaspora's nostalgic claims that also emerge from them.     

‘Always been Christian’: Mythic Conflation among the Oksapmin of Papua New Guinea

Across the world and throughout history, people have negotiated religious and social change by marshalling the mythological resources at their disposal. In cases of conversion to Christianity, this dynamic has often taken the form of constructing an isomorphism between traditional mythical narratives and those learned from the Bible, a manifestation of the process I here call ‘mythic conflation’. In this article I explore how the Oksapmin of the West Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea, have conflated aspects of Bible stories with two of their traditional narratives in an attempt to overcome cosmological contradiction. From the etic perspective, this has partially collapsed difference in the construction of syncretic religious forms. From the emic perspective, by constructing for themselves an ancestral precedent of this kind, the Oksapmin support a claim of having revealed the mystery of Christianity's local origin.     

Further characterization of light and heavy sarcoplasmic reticulum vesicles. Identification of the ‘sarcoplasmic reticulum feet’ associated with heavy sarcoplasmic reticulum vesicles

Light and heavy sarcoplasmic reticulum vesicles were isolated from rabbit leg muscle using a combination of differential centrifugation and isophycnic zonal ultracentrifugation. Light sarcoplasmic reticulum vesicles obtained from the 30–32.5% and heavy sarcoplasmic reticulum vesicles obtained from the 38.5–42% sucrose regions of the linear sucrose gradient were determined to be free of surface and mitochondrial membrane contamination by marker enzyme analysis and electron microscopy. Thin sections of the light vesicles revealed empty vesicles of various sizes and shapes. Freeze-fracture replicas of the light vesicles showed an asymmetric distribution of intramembranous particles with the same orientation and distribution as the longitudinal sarcoplasmic reticulum in vivo. Heavy vesicles appeared as rounded vesicles of uniform size filled with electron dense material, similar to that seen in the terminal cisternae of the sarcoplasmic reticulum. The cytoplasmic surface of the membrane was decorated by membrane projections, closely resembling the ‘feet’ which join the sarcoplasmic reticulum to the transverse tubules in the intact muscle fiber. Freeze-fracture replicas of the heavy vesicles revealed an asymmetric distribution of particles which in some areas of the vesicle's surface are larger and less densely aggregated than those of the light vesicles. In the best quality replicas, some regions of the luminal leaflet were not smooth but showed evidence of pits. These structural details are characteristic of the area of sarcoplasmic reticulum membrane which is covered by the ‘feet’ in the intact muscle.Heavy vesicles contained greater than six times the calcium content of light vesicles, 54 vs. 9 nmol Ca²⁺/μl of water space. After KCl washing both contained less than 4 nmol Ca²⁺/μl of water space. Although they transported at the same rate and the same total amount of calcium, the rate of passive Ca²⁺ efflux from the heavy vesicles was double that of light vesicles. The higher rate of calcium efflux from the heavy vesicles was inhibited by dantrolene, an inhibitor of Ca²⁺ release. High resolution sodium dodecyl sulfate gel electrophoresis showed that the light vesicles contained predominantly Ca²⁺-ATPase along with several approx. 55 000-dalton proteins and a 5000-dalton proteolipid, while the heavy vesicles contained Ca²⁺-ATPase and calsequestrin along with several approx. 55 000-dalton proteins, extrinsic 34 000- and 38 000-dalton proteins, intrinsic 30 000- and 33 000-dalton proteins and two proteolipids of 5000 and 9000 daltons. KCl washing of the heavy vesicles removed both the approx. 34 000- and 38 000-dalton proteins, and the ‘sarcoplasmic reticulum feet’ were no longer seen on the heavy vesicles. The KCl supernatant was enriched in the 34 000- and 38 000-dalton proteins, indicating that these proteins are possible components of the sarcoplasmic reticulum feet. The biochemical and morphological data strongly support the view that the light vesicles are derived from the longitudinal sarcoplasmic reticulum and that the heavy vesicles are derived from the terminal cisternae containing junctional sarcoplasmic reticulum membrane with the intact ‘sarcoplasmic reticulum feet’.     

‘Genomics’: Buzzword or reality?

Genomics has become a widely used term, covering a range of approaches that make use of the newly acquired wealth of genome data (both on man and on a number of model organisms) to gain new insights and accelerate research. This review attempts to present a clear and balanced view of developments in this field, to describe the four major approaches that contribute to genomics (bioinformatics, genetic analysis of extended populations, large-scale expression studies, functional approaches), and to indicate applications in basic and pharmaceutical research.     

Rethinking the ‘everyday’ in ‘ethnicity and everyday life’

While ‘ethnicity and everyday life’ is a familiar collocation, sociologists concerned with racism and ethnicity have not engaged very much with the extensive body of social theory that takes the ‘everyday’ as its central problematic. In this essay, I consider some of the ways in which the sociology of the everyday might be of use to those concerned with investigating ethnicity and racism. For its part, however, the sociology of the everyday has tended to be remarkably blind to the role played by racism and racialization in the modern world. It is thus no less crucial to consider how the experiences of racialized groups might help us rethink influential accounts of the everyday. To this end, I provide a discussion of pioneering texts by C. L. R. James and W. E. B. du Bois, both of whom were driven by their reflections on racism and resistance to recognize the everyday not as an unremarked context, but as, precisely, a problematic one.     

Aliens or natives: who are the ‘thugs’ in British woods?

The invasion of native habitats by exotic, or alien, plant species has received considerable attention recently from policy, research, and practical conservation management perspectives. However, a new hypothesis for species dynamics in Britain suggests that a small number of aggressive native plant species (termed ‘thugs’) may have an equal, or greater, impact on native species and habitats than exotic species. Here, we examine this hypothesis using multivariate techniques with field-layer cover data collected during a country-wide survey of British woodlands. Multivariate analysis of these data identified a north-south gradient on the first axis, and that 20 of the 25 National Vegetation Classification woodland types were sampled within the study. The most abundant field-layer species included three of the proposed native ‘thugs’, i.e. Rubus fruticosus, Pteridium aquilinum and Hedera helix in addition to the native woodland indicator species Mercurialis perennis. Variation partitioning was used to compare the relative importance of native field-layer ‘thug’ species with invading alien shrub and tree species relative to other environmental drivers. The variation in the field-layer data-set explained by the three native ‘thug’ species was significant, but they explained a relatively small proportion of the variation relative to other environmental variables (climate, soil, management factors etc.). They did, however, explain almost four times as much variation as the three alien species that were significantly correlated with field-layer species composition (Acer pseudoplatanus, Impatiens glandulifera, Rhododendron ponticum). The results of this analysis suggest that the field-layer of British woodlands is impacted as much by native ‘thug’ species, as it is from ‘aliens’. Concern about the impact of these native ‘thug’ species has been reported previously, but their impact has not previously been compared to the impact of invading aliens. It is hoped that this analysis will do two things, first to act as a sound baseline for assessing any changing balance that should occur in the future, and second, to prompt both ecologists and conservationists to develop woodland management policies based on sound science.