Professor Alan Mann will discuss “The Scars of Evolution”
Evolution results in function, not perfection. A good example is the evolution of human upright posture. We have evolved from four legged ancestors with the ability to move using our rear limbs only, leaving our front limbs free to carry and use objects. But our bipedality has also resulted in numerous problems associated with this evolu-tionary development, including lower back problems and difficulty in giving birth.
Alan Mann, Professor Emeritus, University of Pennsylvania, Ph.D. University of California, Berkeley 1968, cur-rently Professor of Anthropology at Princeton University, is a physical anthropologist whose interests include pa-leoanthropology and human evolution. He is the author of Some Paleodemographic Aspects of the South African Australopithecines and is the co-author (with Mark L. Weiss) of Human Biology and Behavior: An Anthropological Perspective. Professor Mann is also affiliated with Evolution at Princeton. Professor Mann teaches courses on hu-man adaptation and evolution and a summer field course on modern human origins in France.
*** Note: This lecture will take place in Room W2-$47 in the West Building on the southwest corner of 17th & Spring Garden Streets.