Dear One and All

You are very welcome to (virtually) attend the next in the WHAT Talks series, which will start at 8pm (West Australian Time) / 3pm (UK).

Please feel free to share this invite with anyone you know (especially students of biological anthropology/primatology) who might be interested in why we are so different from the other great apes.


The Zoom Link is at the bottom of this e-mail.


This month's guest speaker is Emeritus Professor Simon Bearder.


His talk is entitled...

Student feedback on Elaine's books and the value of open debate.



Simon Bearder graduated in Zoology from Aberystwyth University in 1967 and then spent 10 years in the savannas of southern Africa studying the behaviour and ecology of nocturnal primates (bushbabies) and carnivores (spotted hyaenas).


On returning to the UK, he spent a year at London Zoo before joining the staff of Biological Anthropology at Oxford Brookes University (then Oxford Polytechnic) where he helped establish the Nocturnal Primate Research Group.


Fieldwork in 22 African countries helped to increase the number of bushbaby species recognised from six to more than twenty, with more waiting in the wings. Over the last 50 years the group have built up a Sound Library of more than 300 hours of
recordings of African Wildlife, using species-specific patterns of calling to help identify otherwise 'cryptic' species.


Simon taught courses in primatology and human evolution for 32 years before retiring as a Professor Emeritus at Oxford Brookes. He is now working with a group of colleagues to help disentangle the taxonomy of a second group of highly vocal African
mammals, the hyraxes (Order: Hyracoidea).


Simon's talk will focus on the question of why his colleagues in Anthropology, more often than not, refuse to pay any attention to waterside hypotheses of human evolution and refuse to include any mention of them in their courses or research programmes.
Added to the fact that student textbooks on human evolution, without exception, omit any mention of words associated with these hypotheses (e.g. naked, subcutaneous fat, wading, swimming etc.), as well as the complete absence of reference to prominent
authors in this field, the result is that generations of anthropology students are denied the opportunity for open discussion of these ideas and are fearful that they will be ridiculed or penalised if they break rank. He will explore what happens when
students are freed from these constraints and ask how we can set about reversing the trend and establishing a more balanced appraisal of how we became different from our closest living relatives.

The talk will be recorded and then posted on the WHAT Talks YouTube channel and on the www.whattalks.com web site.



HOME
www.whattalks.com


If someone could let me know that you received the link (or, heaven forbid, that it contains an error!) that would be very helpful!


ZOOM Meeting Link


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