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Ember, issue 29, January 20, 1947
Page 4
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[hand-drawn image of a mutated man] Under the title, "Iteration and Afterthought", Alexander M. Phillips writes in the December, 1946, PSFS News of Homo recens Ancestry. Phillips worries that he may be beating a dead horse, but to the Fandom at large, who missed his talk on anthropology and science-fiction at the Nov.24th meeting of the Philadelphia group, his iteration and afterthought should be well received. Drastically cut, and dismembered in one spot, his article appears here: Man's Animal Ancestry...... "We found anthropologists in unanimous agreement that Homo recens had somehow evolved from a simpler, less complex Primate form, but in chaotic disagreement as to just what shape that form assumed. However, though there is disagreement and confusion concerning man's special, individual ancestor, there is unanimous agreement concerning his general ancestral type. Modern man is certainly descended from some primate animal, tangled, complex, and mysterious though that descent may be. I know of not a single biological scientist writing today who does not recognize this descent. The roster of anatomical characteristics which modern man exhibits, and which are peculiar to the primate line, is truly impressive. One tiny anatomical feature is so interesting and significant as to deserve brief exposition. There is a little bone in the wrists of all primates known as the os centrale. It is a separate, distinct bone in all but three primate forms. In these three groups the os centrale fuses during growth with another bone of the wrist, on which it forms a small process. And in which three primate forms does this fusion take place? In chimpanzee, gorilla --- and in man. Our psychological inheritance is considerably less obvious than the physical indications of our primate origin. Among these psychological relics of our animal ancestry I list gregariousness, and the almost universal human ego. Gregariousness is an animal characteristic not confined to the Primates -- witness the herding of many kinds of Ungulates. But the ego roots directly in the primate forms. To descend to personal observation -- I have found the human ego surprisingly mean and frequently ridiculous. It presents itself to me as tireless in its search for assurance, approval, and inflation; and this seems to apply equally to the intellectual and the dull. Astronomers I have known have been astonishingly avid of recognition and position, and who should be more abstract, more aloof from the smallness of the personal, than the astronomer ? Such a structure is not adapted to the 'artificial' and almost monstrously complex environment in which our wandering primate, Homo recens, now finds himself. Whether he will adapt is an interesting problem. And it is within range of possibility a vital one for this generation. But Homo recens was and remains a generalized animal, and in this lies a large part of his strength. For those who would like a fuller exposition I mention two books: "The Mind in the Making" and "This Simian World". Both throw light on the restless primate riding within us. Will your ego accept the revelation?" -4-
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[hand-drawn image of a mutated man] Under the title, "Iteration and Afterthought", Alexander M. Phillips writes in the December, 1946, PSFS News of Homo recens Ancestry. Phillips worries that he may be beating a dead horse, but to the Fandom at large, who missed his talk on anthropology and science-fiction at the Nov.24th meeting of the Philadelphia group, his iteration and afterthought should be well received. Drastically cut, and dismembered in one spot, his article appears here: Man's Animal Ancestry...... "We found anthropologists in unanimous agreement that Homo recens had somehow evolved from a simpler, less complex Primate form, but in chaotic disagreement as to just what shape that form assumed. However, though there is disagreement and confusion concerning man's special, individual ancestor, there is unanimous agreement concerning his general ancestral type. Modern man is certainly descended from some primate animal, tangled, complex, and mysterious though that descent may be. I know of not a single biological scientist writing today who does not recognize this descent. The roster of anatomical characteristics which modern man exhibits, and which are peculiar to the primate line, is truly impressive. One tiny anatomical feature is so interesting and significant as to deserve brief exposition. There is a little bone in the wrists of all primates known as the os centrale. It is a separate, distinct bone in all but three primate forms. In these three groups the os centrale fuses during growth with another bone of the wrist, on which it forms a small process. And in which three primate forms does this fusion take place? In chimpanzee, gorilla --- and in man. Our psychological inheritance is considerably less obvious than the physical indications of our primate origin. Among these psychological relics of our animal ancestry I list gregariousness, and the almost universal human ego. Gregariousness is an animal characteristic not confined to the Primates -- witness the herding of many kinds of Ungulates. But the ego roots directly in the primate forms. To descend to personal observation -- I have found the human ego surprisingly mean and frequently ridiculous. It presents itself to me as tireless in its search for assurance, approval, and inflation; and this seems to apply equally to the intellectual and the dull. Astronomers I have known have been astonishingly avid of recognition and position, and who should be more abstract, more aloof from the smallness of the personal, than the astronomer ? Such a structure is not adapted to the 'artificial' and almost monstrously complex environment in which our wandering primate, Homo recens, now finds himself. Whether he will adapt is an interesting problem. And it is within range of possibility a vital one for this generation. But Homo recens was and remains a generalized animal, and in this lies a large part of his strength. For those who would like a fuller exposition I mention two books: "The Mind in the Making" and "This Simian World". Both throw light on the restless primate riding within us. Will your ego accept the revelation?" -4-
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