The Manchurian Candidate (1962), starring Frank Sinatra and Laurence Harvey.

6:30pm: pizza and lively discussion promised!

Free!

Missing Links and the Politics of Paleoneurology

Discoveries of new hominin species that challenge religious and scientific dogma have traditionally been greeted with skepticism from both laymen and scientists who claim that the remains are aberrant apes or pathological humans. Casts from braincases (endocasts) that reproduce details of external neuroanatomy have been a particular focus of these controversies. Perhaps this is because our brains are the physical locus of the cognitive, neurological, and emotional traits that make us human. This talk explores the impact of scientific controversy on the direction that research took/is taking by comparing the reactions to two important type specimens that were announced almost 80 years apart: Taung (Australopithecus africanus, 1925) and LB1 (or Hobbit, Homo floresiensis, 2004). The discussion will be grounded historically and will focus on the brain. Much of the information about Taung is from unpublished papers of Raymond Dart, which are in the Archives of the University of Witwatersrand, in Johannesburg, South Africa. Revelations about Taung are surprising, and may be significant for interpreting the evolutionary history of Homo floresiensis.