Richard Wrangham

Richard Wrangham
Born 1948
Nationality British
Employer Harvard University

Richard Walter Wrangham (born 1948) is a British primatologist.

Biography

Following his years on the faculty of the University of Michigan, he became the Ruth Moore Professor of Biological Anthropology at Harvard University and his research group is now part of the newly established Department of Human Evolutionary Biology.

He is co-director of the Kibale Chimpanzee Project,[1] the long-term study of the Kanyawara chimpanzees in Kibale National Park, Uganda. His research culminates in the study of human evolution in which he draws conclusions based on the behavioural ecology of apes. As a graduate student, Wrangham studied under Robert Hinde and Jane Goodall.[2]

Demonic Males Apes and the Origins of Human Violence

Wrangham is known predominantly for his work in the ecology of primate social systems, the evolutionary history of human aggression (culminating in his book with Dale Peterson, Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence), and most recently his research in cooking (summarized in his book, Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human) and self-domestication. He is a vegetarian[3] and a MacArthur fellow.[4]

Wrangham has been instrumental in identifying behaviors considered "human-specific" in chimpanzees, including culture[5] and with Eloy Rodriguez, chimpanzee self-medication.[2][6]

Among the recent courses he teaches in the Human Evolutionary Biology (HEB) concentration at Harvard are HEB 1330 Primate Social Behaviour and HEB 1565 Theories of Sexual Coercion (co-taught with Professor Diane Rosenfeld from Harvard Law School). In March 2008, he was appointed House Master of Currier House at Harvard College.[7] He received an honorary degree in Doctor of Science from Oglethorpe University in 2011.[8]

Research

Wrangham began his career as a researcher at Jane Goodall's long-term common chimpanzee field study in Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania. He befriended fellow primatologist Dian Fossey and assisted her in setting up her nonprofit mountain gorilla conservation organization, the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund (originally the Digit Fund).[9]

Wrangham's latest work focuses on the role cooking has played in human evolution. He has argued that cooking food is obligatory for humans as a result of biological adaptations[10][11] and that cooking, in particular the consumption of cooked tubers, might explain the increase in hominid brain sizes, smaller teeth and jaws, and decrease in sexual dimorphism that occurred roughly 1.8 million years ago.[12] Many anthropologists disagree with Wrangham's ideas, pointing out that there is no solid evidence to support Wrangham's claims.[12][13] The mainstream explanation is that human ancestors, prior to the advent of cooking, turned to eating meats, which then caused the evolutionary shift to smaller guts and larger brains.[14]

Bibliography

References

  1. ↑ "About". Kibale Chimpanzee Project. Retrieved April 20, 2012.
  2. 1 2 Gerber, Suzanne (November 1998). "Not just monkeying around". Vegetarian Times.
  3. ↑ "Food For Thought: Meat-Based Diet Made Us Smarter". NPR. Retrieved May 2, 2012.
  4. ↑ http://www.macfound.org/fellows/class/july-1987/
  5. ↑ http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v399/n6737/abs/399682a0.html
  6. ↑ "Animal instinct for finding treatment". The New Zealand Herald. The Independent. August 6, 2005. Retrieved April 20, 2012.
  7. ↑ "Richard Wrangham and Elizabeth Ross Appointed Co-House Masters of Currier House". Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved May 2, 2012.
  8. ↑ "Honorary Degrees Awarded by Oglethorpe University". Oglethorpe University. Retrieved 2015-03-04.
  9. ↑ Mowat, Farley (1987). Woman in the Mists. New York: Warner Books. pp. 172–3. ISBN 0-356-17106-X.
  10. ↑ Wrangham, Richard; Conklin-Brittain, NancyLou (2003). "'Cooking as a biological trait'". Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology - Part A: Molecular & Integrative Physiology 136 (1): 35–46. doi:10.1016/S1095-6433(03)00020-5. PMID 14527628.
  11. ↑ Wrangham, Richard (2006). "The Cooking Enigma". In Ungar, Peter S. Evolution of the Human Diet: The Known, the Unknown, and the Unknowable. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 308–23. ISBN 978-0-19-518346-7.
  12. 1 2 Gorman, Rachael Moeller (2007-12-16). "Cooking Up Bigger Brain". Scientific American.
  13. ↑ Pennisi, Elizabeth (1999-03-26). "Did cooked tubers spur the evolution of big brains?". Science 283 (5410): 2004–2005. doi:10.1126/science.283.5410.2004. PMID 10206901.
  14. ↑ Aiello, L. C. (1997). "Brains and guts in human evolution: The Expensive Tissue Hypothesis". Brazilian Journal of Genetics 20. doi:10.1590/S0100-84551997000100023.

External links

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