The Ascent of Man

Abstract

Without evolutionary theory the facts of biology are sterile. Without the application of that theory to the peculiar case of man, one of the central questions of life has no rational answer. Julian Huxley was a biologist who knew that the description and elucidation of biological mechanisms, of behavioural patterns, of structure, of function and of inheritance was not the whole story of life on earth. There had to be more and it had to relate to man. He envisaged biological evolution and human evolution as two phases of a single process separated by a ‘critical point’ after which the properties of the evolving material underwent radical change with convergence showing dominance over divergence. This led to his concept of ‘Scientific Humanism’ published as an essay in which humanity was first described as a phenomenon to be studied and analysed by scientific means. It is for this reason that I will attempt to review two aspects of human evolutionary studies as a contribution to this symposium in his honour.