Godina je 2009. I dvjestota je godišnjica rođenja Charlesa Darwina. I po cijelom svijetu, poznati evolucionisti je uzbuđeno obilježavaju. I namjeravaju osvijetliti gotovo svaki aspekt Darwina i njegovog života i kako je promijenio način na koji razmišljamo. Kažem gotovo svaki aspekt, jer postoji jedan aspekt ove priče koji nisu osvijetlili. I čini se da ga stalno preskaču i obilaze kako bi pričali o nečem drugom. Zato ću ja pričati o tome. Pitanje je, zašto smo toliko drukčiji od čimpanzi?
Well, this is 2009. And it's the Bicentenary of Charles Darwin. And all over the world, eminent evolutionists are anxious to celebrate this. And what they're planning to do is to enlighten us on almost every aspect of Darwin and his life, and how he changed our thinking. I say almost every aspect, because there is one aspect of this story which they have thrown no light on. And they seem anxious to skirt around it and step over it and to talk about something else. So I'm going to talk about it. It's the question of, why are we so different from the chimpanzees?
Genetičari nam stalno govore kako smo izuzetno bliski, skoro bez razlike u genima, vrlo vrlo blisko srodni. Opet, kada se pogledaju fenotipovi imamo čimpanzu, imamo čovjeka, zapanjujuče su različiti, bez ikakvih sličnosti. Ne govorim o nevidljivim stvarima o kulturi, psihologiji ili ponašanju. Govorim o temeljnim, suštinskim, mjerljivim fizičkim razlikama. Onaj je dlakav i hoda na četiri noge. Ovaj je goli dvonožac. Zašto? Mislim -- (Smijeh) Ako sam dobar darvinist, moram vjerovati da za to postoji razlog. Ako smo se toliko promijenili, nešto se moralo dogoditi. Šta se dogodilo?
We get the geneticists keeping on telling us how extremely closely we are related -- hardly any genes of difference, very, very closely related. And yet, when you look at the phenotypes, there's a chimp, there's a man; they're astoundingly different, no resemblance at all. I'm not talking about airy-fairy stuff about culture or psychology, or behavior. I'm talking about ground-base, nitty-gritty, measurable physical differences. They, that one, is hairy and walking on four legs. That one is a naked biped. Why? I mean -- (Laughter) if I'm a good Darwinist, I've got to believe there's a reason for that. If we changed so much, something must have happened. What happened?
Prije 50 godina, to je bilo smiješno jednostavno pitanje. Svi su znali odgovor. Znali su što se dogodilo. Preci majmuna ostali su u drveću. Naši preci prešli su na ravnicu. To je sve objašnjavalo. Morali smo se dići na noge da bi vidjeli preko visoke trave, ili da bi hvatali životinje, ili da bi oslobodili ruke za oružje. I toliko bi se pregrijavali loveći da smo morali odbaciti svoje krzno. To su svi znali, generacijama.
Now 50 years ago, that was a laughably simple question. Everybody knew the answer. They knew what happened. The ancestor of the apes stayed in the trees; our ancestors went out onto the plain. That explained everything. We had to get up on our legs to peer over the tall grass, or to chase after animals, or to free our hands for weapons. And we got so overheated in the chase that we had to take off that fur coat and throw it away. Everybody knew that, for generations.
Ali onda, devedesetih, nešto se počelo otkrivati. Paleontolozi su malo pomnije pregledali popratnu mikrofaunu koja je živjela u isto vrijeme i na istom mjestu kao i hominidi. I to nisu bila bića savane. I pregledali su biljojede. I to nisu bili biljojedi savane. I bili su toliko pametni, da su našli način analiziranja fosilizovanog polena. Šok, nevjerica. Fosilizovani polen nije dio vegetacije savane. Dio je čak bio od lijana, onih koje vise svuda po džungli.
But then, in the '90s, something began to unravel. The paleontologists themselves looked a bit more closely at the accompanying microfauna that lived in the same time and place as the hominids. And they weren't savanna species. And they looked at the herbivores. And they weren't savanna herbivores. And then they were so clever, they found a way to analyze fossilized pollen. Shock, horror. The fossilized pollen was not of savanna vegetation. Some of it even came from lianas, those things that dangle in the middle of the jungle.
I tako smo došli u situaciju da znamo kako su se naši najraniji preci kretali na četiri noge po drveću, prije nego što je ekosisitem savane uopšte nastao. Ovo nisam ja izmislila Ovo nije manjinska teorija. Sa time se svi slažu.
So we're left with a situation where we know that our earliest ancestors were moving around on four legs in the trees, before the savanna ecosystem even came into existence. This is not something I've made up. It's not a minority theory. Everybody agrees with it.
Profesor Tobias je došao iz Južne Afrike i govorio na University College-u u Londonu. Rekao je, sve što sam vam govorio zadnjih 20 godina, zanemarite. Pogriješio sam. Moramo se vratiti na početak i početi od početka. To ga je učinilo nepopularnim. Nisu se htjeli vratiti na početak.
Professor Tobias came over from South Africa and spoke to University College London. He said, "Everything I've been telling you for the last 20 years, forget about it. It was wrong. We've got to go back to square one and start again." It made him very unpopular. They didn't want to go back to square one.
Mislim, to što se dogodilo je grozno. Imate jednu dobru paradigmu. Vjerujete u nju generacijama. Nitko ju ne dovodi u pitanje. Nadograđivao si je zgodnim stvarima, oslanjajući se na nju kao na stijenu. I sad ju izvuku pod tobom. I šta napraviš? Šta naučnik u tom slučaju napravi?
I mean, it's a terrible thing to happen. You've got this beautiful paradigm. You've believed it through generations. Nobody has questioned it. You've been constructing fanciful things on top of it, relying on it to be as solid as a rock. And now it's whipped away from under you. What do you do? What does a scientist do in that case?
Pa znamo odgovor, jer je Thomas S. Kuhn napisao poticajnu tezu o tome 1962. Rekao je da kada paradigma propadne, naučnici nastavljaju kao da se ništa nije dogodilo. (Smijeh) Ako nemaju paradigmu ne mogu postavljati pitanja. Pa kažu, "Da, paradigma je kriva, ali da nije ..." (Smijeh) I jedini izbor koji imaju jest da prestanu pitati pitanja. I to su i napravili i ovaj put. Zato ne pričaju o tome. To je prošlo pitanje.
Well, we know the answer because Thomas S. Kuhn wrote a seminal treatise about this back in 1962. He said what scientists do when a paradigm fails is, guess what -- they carry on as if nothing had happened. (Laughter) If they haven't got a paradigm they can't ask the question. So they say, "Yes it's wrong, but supposing it was right ..." (Laughter) And the only other option open to them is to stop asking the questions. So that is what they have done now. That's why you don't hear them talking about it. It's yesterday's question.
Neki su čak iz toga napravili i princip. Time se moramo baviti. Aaron Filler sa Harvarda je rekao, "Nije li vrijeme da prestanemo pričati o selekcijskom pritisku? Zašto ne bismo pričali o hromozomima i genima. Pa da bilježimo ono što vidimo." Charles Darwin se okreće u grobu! On je znao sve o takvoj vrsti nauke. On je zvao, nauka bez hipoteza. I prezirao je iz dna duše. I ako kažete, "Neću više pričati o selekcijskim pritiscima," možete uzeti "Porijeklo vrsta" i baciti ga kroz prozor. Jer u njima piše jedino o selektivnim pritiscima.
Some of them have even elevated it into a principle. It's what we ought to be doing. Aaron Filler from Harvard said, "Isn't it time we stopped talking about selective pressures? I mean, why don't we talk about, well, there's chromosomes, and there's genes. And we just record what we see." Charles Darwin must be spinning in his grave! He knew all about that kind of science. And he called it hypothesis-free science. And he despised it from the bottom of his heart. And if you're going to say, "I'm going to stop talking about selective pressures," you can take "The Origin of Species" and throw it out of the window, for it's about nothing else but selective pressures.
A ironija jest u tome, da je ovo rijedak slučaj pada paradigme kada ne trebamo čekati pojavu nove paradigme. Postoji jedna i čeka na svoj red. Čeka u pozadini od 1960. kad je Alister Hardy, morski biolog, rekao, "Mislim da su možda, naši preci dio vremena provodili u vodenom okolišu." Držao je to za sebe 30 godina. Ali onda su to saznale novine i nastao je haos. Sve njegove kolege rekli su, "Ovo je nečuveno. Izložio si nas javnom ismijavanju! Nikada više to ne smiješ uraditi." I od tada je uklesano u kamenu vodena teorija se mora odbaciti zajedno sa NLO-ima i jetijima, kao dio ludih teorija u nauci.
And the irony of it is, that this is one occasion of a paradigm collapse where we didn't have to wait for a new paradigm to come up. There was one waiting in the wings. It had been waiting there since 1960 when Alister Hardy, a marine biologist, said, "I think what happened, perhaps our ancestors had a more aquatic existence for some of the time." He kept it to himself for 30 years. But then the press got hold of it and all hell broke loose. All his colleagues said, "This is outrageous. You've exposed us to public ridicule! You must never do that again." And at that time, it became set in stone: the aquatic theory should be dumped with the UFOs and the yetis, as part of the lunatic fringe of science.
Ja nisam tako mislila. Mislim da je puno išlo u prilog Hardyevoj tezi. Željela bih vam pričati o nekoliko, što bi se reklo, znakova čovječanstva. Stvari koje nas razlikuju od svih drugih, i od svih naših predaka. Pogledajmo našu golu kožu. Očito je da većina bića koja su izgubila dlake na tijelu, sisavci bez tjelesnih dlaka, su vodena bića, kao gugong, morž, delfin, nilski konj, morska krava. I nekoliko onih koji se valjaju u blatu, kao babyrousa. I vuče vas da pomislite, možda su zato goli?
Well I don't think that. I think that Hardy had a lot going for him. I'd like to talk about just a handful of what have been called the hallmarks of mankind, the things that made us different from everybody else, and all our relatives. Let's look at our naked skin. It's obvious that most of the things we think about that have lost their body hair, mammals without body hair, are aquatic ones, like the dugong, the walrus, the dolphin, the hippopotamus, the manatee. And a couple of wallowers-in-mud like the babirusa. And you're tempted to think, well perhaps, could that be why we are naked?
To bih predložila, i ljudi bi rekli, "Ne ne ne. Pogledaj slona. Zaboravila si na slona, zar ne?" Još 1982. sam rekla, "Pa možda slon ima vodenog pretka." Svi su se smijali! "Ta luda žena. Opet ona po svome." Ali sada se svi slažu da je slon imao vodenog pretka. I sve se vratilo na to da svi goli debelokošci imaju vodenog pretka. Zadnji izuzetak je bio nosorog.
I suggested it and people said, "No no no. I mean, look at the elephant. You've forgotten all about the elephant haven't you?" So back in 1982 I said, "Well perhaps the elephant had an aquatic ancestor." Peals of merry laughter! "That crazy woman. She's off again. She'll say anything won't she?" But by now, everybody agrees that the elephant had an aquatic ancestor. This has come 'round to be that all those naked pachyderms have aquatic ancestors. The last exception was supposed to be the rhinoceros.
Lani su na Floridi našli izumrlog pretka nosoroga i rekli, "Čini se da je većinu vremena provodio u vodi." Znači postoji bliska veza između golosti i vode. Ali kao apsolutna veza; radi samo u jednom smjeru. Nisu sve vodene životinje gole. Jer imamo morsku vidru. Ali može se reći da je svaka životinja koja je postala gola bila uvjetovana vodom, u svojem životnom vijeku ili životnom vjeku svojih predaka. Mislim da je ovo značajno. Jedina iznimka je gola Somalijska krtica. Koja nikada ne izlazi na površinu.
Last year in Florida they found extinct ancestor of a rhinoceros and said, "Seems to have spent most of its time in the water." So this is a close connection between nakedness and water. As an absolute connection, it only works one way. You can't say all aquatic animals are naked, because look at the sea otter. But you can say that every animal that has become naked has been conditioned by water, in its own lifetime, or the lifetime of its ancestors. I think this is significant. The only exception is the naked Somalian mole-rat, which never puts its nose above the surface of the ground.
Pogledajmo dvonožnost. To ne možemo uporediti sa bilo kojom životinjom. Jer smo jedina životinja koja hoda uspravno na dvije noge. Ali možemo reći i ovo, svi majmuni imaju sposobnost hodati na dvije noge, ako žele, na kratko vrijeme. Postoji samo jedan slučaj u kojem oni, uvijek, svi, hodaju na dvije noge, a to je kad gaze kroz vodu. Mislite li da je to značajno? David Attenborough misli da je značajno. Kao mogući začetak dvonožnosti.
And take bipedality. Here you can't find anybody to compare it with, because we're the only animal that walks upright on two legs. But you can say this: all the apes and all the monkeys are capable of walking on two legs, if they want to, for a short time. There is only one circumstance in which they always, all of them, walk on two legs, and that is when they are wading through water. Do you think that's significant? David Attenborough thinks it's significant, as the possible beginning of our bipedalism.
Pogledajmo sloj sala. Pod kožom imamo sloj sala, posvuda. Ništa kao bilo koji drugi primat. Zašto ga imamo? Znaju, da ako pogledamo druge vodene sisavce, salo koje je kod kopnenih sisavaca naslagano unutar tijela, oko bubrega, crijeva i slično, se počelo kretati prema van, te se nataložilo u sloju pod kožom. Kod kita je prešlo do kraja. Nema sala unutra, svo je vani pod kožom. Ne možemo zaobići pretpostavku da se to kod nas počelo događati. Imamo sloj koji leži pod kožom. To je jedino moguće objašnjenje zašto ljudi, ako nemaju sreće, mogu postati pretjerano gojazni, na način koji je fizički nemoguć kod bilo kojeg drugog primata. To je nešto vrlo čudno, i nikad objašnjeno.
Look at the fat layer. We have got, under our skin, a layer of fat, all over: nothing in the least like that in any other primate. Why should it be there? Well they do know, that if you look at other aquatic mammals, the fat that in most land mammals is deposited inside the body wall, around the kidneys and the intestines and so on, has started to migrate to the outside, and spread out in a layer inside the skin. In the whale it's complete: no fat inside at all, all in blubber outside. We cannot avoid the suspicion that in our case it's started to happen. We have got skin lined with this layer. It's the only possible explanation of why humans, if they're very unlucky, can become grossly obese, in a way that would be totally impossible for any other primate, physically impossible. Something very odd, matter-of-factly, never explained.
Pitanje zašto mi možemo govoriti. Možemo govoriti. A gorila ne može. Zašto? To nema veze sa njezinim zubima, jezikom, plućima ili tako nečim. To ima veze sa svjesnim kontroliranjem disanja. Gorilu se ne može naučiti niti da kaže "Ah" na komandu. Jedina bića koja imaju svjesnu kontrolu disanja su životinje i ptice koje rone. To je apsolutni preduslov za mogućnost govora.
The question of why we can speak. We can speak. And the gorilla can't speak. Why? Nothing to do with his teeth or his tongue or his lungs or anything like that -- purely has to do with its conscious control of its breath. You can't even train a gorilla to say "Ah" on request. The only creatures that have got conscious control of their breath are the diving animals and the diving birds. It was an absolute precondition for our being able to speak.
Postoji i činjenica da smo aerodinamični. Pokušajte zamisliti skakača u vodi koji kod ulaska u vodu jedva zapljusne. Pokušajte zamisliti gorilu da to isto napravi. Možete vidjeti da je naša građa, u porđenju sa gorilom, na pola puta da smo građeni kao riba. Pokušavam reći da je već 40tak godina, ova vodena teorija pogrešno kategorizirana kao luda ideja, a nije luda ideja.
And then again, there is the fact that we are streamlined. Trying to imagine a diver diving into water -- hardly makes a splash. Try to imagine a gorilla performing the same maneuver, and you can see that, compared with gorilla, we are halfway to being shaped like a fish. I am trying to suggest that, for 40-odd years, this aquatic idea has been miscategorized as lunatic fringe, and it is not lunatic fringe.
A ironija je u tome da oni ne sprječavaju vodenu teoriju da bi zaštitili svoju teoriju, s kojom se svi slažu i svi vole. Te teorije nema. Oni sprječavaju vodenu teoriju kako bi zaštitili vakuum. (Smijeh) (Pljesak)
And the ironic thing about it is that they are not staving off the aquatic theory to protect a theory of their own, which they've all agreed on, and they love. There is nothing there. They are staving off the aquatic theory to protect a vacuum. (Laughter) (Applause)
Kako reaguju kad kažem ove stvari? Česta reakcija koju sam čula dvadesetak puta je, "Ali to je istraženo. Provodili su ozbiljne studije o ovome na početku, kad je Hardy izdao svoj članak." Ne vjerujem u to. 35 godina sam tražila dokaze o takvom slučaju i zaključila sam, da je to urbani mit. To se nikad nije dogodilo.
How do they react when I say these things? One very common reaction I've heard about 20 times is, "But it was investigated. They conducted a serious investigation of this at the beginning, when Hardy put forward his article." I don't believe it. For 35 years I've been looking for any evidence of any incident of that kind, and I've concluded that that's one of the urban myths. It's never been done.
Ponekad pitam ljude, i oni kažu, "Sviđa mi se vodena teorija! Svima se sviđa vodena teorija. Naravno da ne vjeruju u nju, ali im se sviđa." Onda ih pitam, "Zašto misliš da je pogrešna?" Oni kažu "Pa ... svi sa kojima pričam kažu da je pogrešna. A ne mogu svi biti u krivu, zar ne?" Odgovor na to, jasan i glasan, je, "Da! Mogu svi biti u krivu." Historija je prepuna slučajeva kad su svi u krivu. (Pljesak) I kada imate naučni problem poput ovoga, ne možete ga riješiti brojeći glasove, i zaključivanjem, "Više nas kaže da nego ne."
I ask people sometimes, and they say, "I like the aquatic theory! Everybody likes the aquatic theory. Of course they don't believe it, but they like it." Well I say, "Why do you think it's rubbish?" They say "Well ... everybody I talk to says it's rubbish. And they can't all be wrong, can they?" The answer to that, loud and clear, is, "Yes! They can all be wrong." History is strewn with the cases when they've all got it wrong. (Applause) And if you've got a scientific problem like that, you can't solve it by holding a head count, and saying, "More of us say yes than say no."
(Smijeh)
(Laughter)
Osim toga, neki glasovi znače više od drugih. Neki su promjenili stranu. Kao Profesor Tobias. On je promjenio stranu. Daniel Dennett, on je promjenio stranu. Sir David Attenborough, on je promjenio stranu. Još neko? Slobodno uđite. Voda je ugodna.
Apart from that, some of the heads count more than others. Some of them have come over. There was Professor Tobias. He's come over. Daniel Dennett, he's come over. Sir David Attenborough, he's come over. Anybody else out there? Come on in. The water is lovely.
(Pljesak)
(Applause)
Sad moramo pogledati prema budućnosti. Na kraju će se dogoditi jedna od tri stvari. Nastaviti će ovako slijedećih 40, 50, 60 godina. "Nećemo pričati o tome. Pričajmo o nečemu zanimljivom." To bi bilo jako tužno. Druga stvar koja bi se mogla dogoditi jest da dođe kakav mladi genije, i kaže, "Našao sam. Nije bila savana, nije bila voda, bilo je ovo!" Nema naznake da će se to dogoditi. Mislim da nema treće opcije.
And now we've got to look to the future. Ultimately one of three things is going to happen. Either they will go on for the next 40 years, 50 years, 60 years. "Yeah well we don't talk about that. Let's talk about something interesting." That would be very sad. The second thing that could happen is that some young genius will arrive, and say, "I've found it. It was not the savanna, it was not the water, it was this!" No sign of that happening either. I don't think there is a third option.
Pa bi treća stvar koja bi se dogodila mogla biti jedna jako lijepa stvar. Ako pogledamo unazad na rane godine prošlog stoljeća, imali smo svađe i nerazumjevanje između pobornika Mendela, i pobornika Darwina. Završilo je novom sintezom. Darwinove i Mendelove ideje stopile su se u jednu. I mislim da će se isto dogoditi ovdje. Dobit ćemo novu sintezu. Hardyeve i Darwinove ideje stopit će se u jednu.
So the third thing that might happen is a very beautiful thing. If you look back at the early years of the last century, there was a stand-off, a lot of bickering and bad feeling between the believers in Mendel, and the believers in Darwin. It ended with a new synthesis: Darwin's ideas and Mendel's ideas blending together. And I think the same thing will happen here. You'll get a new synthesis. Hardy's ideas and Darwin's ideas will be blended together.
I onda možemo krenuti dalje, i stvarno doći nekuda. To bi bilo jako lijepo. Meni bi bilo drago da se to desi uskoro. (Smijeh) Jer sam starija od George Burnsa kad je rekao, "U mojim godinama, više ne kupujem ni zelene banane."
And we can move forward from there, and really get somewhere. That would be a beautiful thing. It would be very nice for me if it happened soon. (Laughter) Because I'm older now than George Burns was when he said, "At my age, I don't even buy green bananas."
(Smijeh)
(Laughter)
Zato ako će se to desiti, šta ga zadržava? Mogu vam to reći u tri riječi. Akademija kaže ne. Odlučili su 1960., "To spada sa NLO-ima i jetijima." A nije lako promijeniti njihovo mišljenje. Naučni časopisi neće to dirnuti ni štapom. Udžbenici to ne spominju. U nastavnom planu se ne spominje niti to da smo goli, a kamoli da traže razlog za to. TV emisijia "Horizon", koja sluša samo akademiju, to ne želi dirati ni štapom. Zato nikada ne čujemo za taj slučaj, osim u šaljivim referencama na račun ljudi na granici ludila.
So if it's going to come and it's going to happen, what's holding it up? I can tell you that in three words. Academia says no. They decided in 1960, "That belongs with the UFOs and the yetis." And it's not easy to change their minds. The professional journals won't touch it with a barge pole. The textbooks don't mention it. The syllabus doesn't mention even the fact that we're naked, let alone look for a reason to it. "Horizon," which takes its cue from the academics, won't touch it with a barge pole. So we never hear the case put for it, except in jocular references to people on the lunatic fringe.
Ne znam otkuda dolazi ovaj diktat. Neko odozgo daje naredbe, "Ne smiješ vjerovati u vodenu teoriju." I ako se nadaš napretku u ovom zanimanju, i vjeruješ u to, bolje da držiš to za sebe. Jer će ti to smetati u napretku.
I don't know quite where this diktat comes from. Somebody up there is issuing the commandment, "Thou shalt not believe in the aquatic theory. And if you hope to make progress in this profession, and you do believe it, you'd better keep it to yourself, because it will get in your way."
Zato imam osjećaj da se neki dijelovi naučnog establišmenta pretvaraju u neku vrstu sveštenstva. Ali znate, to me čini sretnom. Jer Richard Dawkins je rekao kako se odnosi prema sveštenstvu. (Smjeh) Rekao je, "Prvo im moraš uskratiti svo strahopoštovanje na koje su naučeni." Dobro. To ću napraviti. I drugo, kaže, "Nikada se ne smiješ bojati dići prašinu." I to ću napraviti. Puno vam hvala.
So I get the impression that some parts of the scientific establishment are morphing into a kind of priesthood. But you know, that makes me feel good, because Richard Dawkins has told us how to treat a priesthood. (Laughter) He says, "Firstly, you've got to refuse to give it all the excessive awe and reverence it's been trained to receive." Right. I'll go ahead with that. And secondly, he says, "You must never be afraid to rock the boat." I'll go along with that too. Thank you very much.
(Pljesak)
(Applause)