FWers might be interested in the back-cover blurb for my new book, A
Species in the Making. I might mention that further evidence for the
quickie route to speciation (see below) has accumulated since I wrote the
book a year ago.
Keith
"Mankind, like millions of other species in the past and the present, is
constantly evolving and faces the same fate as all the others. He will
either go extinct or he will speciate -- divide into two species.
Furthermore, as in almost all of the other 4,000 mammalian species, a
significant degree of evolutionary adaptation and consolidation of specific
attributes within the species is due to the female's selection of the
qualities she sees in the male she wishes to partner and have children with.
Whether a species divides by the slow accumulation of mutations or whether
by a sudden event -- perhaps the random incursion of a new gene or genes --
the possibility of the human species dividing, hitherto unthinkable, is now
being taken seriously by more than a few contemporary biologists. It could
happen via sociological divide or as a result, or opportunity, of
scientific research. Whichever the route, and whatever may be the
present-day religious, cultural or political attitudes to this possibility,
tolerance towards a new species will be irresistible sooner or later if we
are to retain our present high degree of scientific curiosity. This will be
especially so if a new hominim species promises to be more able than its
predecessor to survive in an increasingly complex age and fast-changing job
structure."
Keith Hudson, Saltford, England
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