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The Evolution of Race Class and Culture from Australopithecus to the Present Day

Professor Darlington's topic, "The Evolution of Race, Class and Culture from Australopithecus to the Present day", was a resume of his book entitled "The Evolution of Man and Society". Professor Darlington is a geneticist turned historian and sociologist. His concern now is to encompass and bring together as many branches of know ledge as is possible and his book is an attempt to present a complete history of man, sociologically and biologically. This is an attempt to put into practice his own idea that man must reverse evolution, that man should cease segmenting into new branches of learning and should re-examine the entirety of human development to see where we are and what we are.

Darlington's lecture began with a few analogies — for ex-same reasons a horse's legs enlarged, the way a giraffe's neck has lengthened, as the whole body of the Moa grew large, so the brain of man developed to enable him to cope better with his environment. He pointed out that although the size of the brain is not directly correlated to intelligence, brain size has some relevance in that through history man's brain has enlarged and man has also developed an increasingly complex civilisation. The discoveries resulting from brain change and ecological adaptation have favoured the inventor, his family and his decendents. Man has changed by changing his own environment, and the cause of this is man's brain cell superiority.

Professor Darlington laid emphasis on races being ecologically adapted rather than just environmentally adapted. This difference became clearer as he tripped through fourteen civilisation eras, seventeen and a half empires, one hundred and three centuries, and across no less than two hundred and sixteen continents — lots of time and space in less than one hour.

The Sumerians by domesticating crops, themselves became domesticated by the crop. A symbiosis or joint evolution was set going between man and the crop. The Sumerians were forced to settle in one place in order to tend their crops and the ultimate result of this was a centralisation of populations into towns. Specialised craftsmen came to rely on the farmer as did the farmer on them. The farmer had also followed another course similar to the one above in regard to domestic stock. Stock gained security by becoming domesticated and man gained economic security.

Man's changing brain can be related to his using his brain to change his environment. The process is circular and results in a continuing adaption of the brain cell itself.

Improvements in man's early brain meant that the human population increased until migration became a necessity. Crop domestication was one important factor and it resulted in increased population which eventually necessitated migration. Professor Darlington pointed out several such historical 'moments' and illustrated the resulting pattern with maps of Europe, each showing a westerly migration and demonstrating influence spreading cultural similarity throughout Europe.

When Darlington spoke concerning Jews and Africans he evoked a sour note from his audience and his unwillingness to elaborate on his earlier comments after the lecture further alienated his ideas from his audience.

Professor Darlington finished his lecture by saying that man conquered the world by destroying the soil, vegetation and animal life, and the same has occurred among all races without exception. Now for the first time we can see what we are doing and we must reverse the order of competition if we are to survive, for the world's smallness prohibits any further migrations, he said. He added that if we want to remain on this planet we must reverse evolution, whatever that means ........