Review: [untitled]
Author(s): V. B. Smocovitis
Reviewed work(s):
Narratives of Human Evolution by Misia Landau
Source: Journal of the History of Biology, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Spring, 1993), pp. 149-153
Published by: Springer
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4331249
Accessed: 15/06/2009 13:08
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149
Misia Landau, Narratives of Human Evolution (New Haven and
London:Yale UniversityPress, 1991), xiii + 202 pp., $22.50.
Readersof this journalwill be attractedby the subjectof this
book, but they may be taken abackby the complicatedargument
and the initial use of literarytheory.For many of these readers,it
may be illuminatingto see Misia Landau'sultimategoal in light
of the age-old and rathersimple dreamof humaniststo invertthe
relationshipof science to art by demonstratingthat the grounding
for knowledge-claimsresides not in the deterministicframeworks
of the biological and other sciences, but in the humanistic and
literaryworlds of the narrative.
Narratives of Human Evolution resonates - initially at least
-
with this humanisticproject,in that Landauseeks to demonstrate
that science obeys the rules of art and not of science by making
transparentthe narrativestructureof science. To achieve this, she
chooses to analyzethe narrativepatternof the most "intimate"of
the narrativesciences (which include cosmology, geology, and
evolutionarybiology) - namely, paleoanthropology.Throughher
analysis she hopes to convince paleoanthropologiststhat stories
of humanevolution have been constrainedby the narrativestructuresthatundergirdtheirscience. To free themselvesin orderto tell
new stories,Landaucalls for themto "wrestlewith the story-telling
dragon"instead of ignoring it, and to admit a certain degree of
"looseplay"throughaccidentandcontingencyin constructingtheir
accounts.
Landau'sconvictionthatpaleoanthropology
obeys narrativerules
comes from her examinationof the scientific narrativesof human
evolution in the generationbeginningwith CharlesDarwin.These
include the narrativesof three well-knownfigures from the nineteenth century, T. H. Huxley, Ernst Haeckel, and Darwin; two
narrativesfrom the leading adversariesin early twentieth-century
anthropology,ArthurKeith and GraftonElliot Smith;and a selection of the recent narrativesthat followed in the wake of the
"modernsynthesis"of geneticsandselectiontheory,fromRaymond
Dart, J. T. Robinson, Philip Tobias, Donald Johanson, and Tim
White. While each of these narrativescontains a standardset of
"events" or "episodes" (including terrestriality, bipedalism,
encephalization, and civilization), the relative ordering of the
events, and thus their relative importanceto the story (and the
meaning of the story), varies from case to case. The relative
ordering of the events is summarizedin a memorablesequence
of diagrams(pp. 6-9) in the prologueso that all of the narratives
can be comparedeasily.
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The majorevents or episodes that Landausingles out form the
elements of a basic story line, and it is here that she makes her
narrativesapproximatethe
boldestargument:"paleoanthropological
structureof a herotale, alongthe lines proposedby VladimirPropp
in his classic Morphologyof the Folk Tale (1928)" (p. x). The
aim of Propp's book was to classify more than one hundred
examples of Russian fairy tales using methods of classification
not unlikethose used by biologists(hencethe biologicaltitle). Like
the biologicalformsof organisms,Proppthoughtthatliteraryforms
could be classified accordingto theircomponentparts,which were
seen in relation to the other parts and to the whole. While the
dramatispersonae and their actions in the fairy tale could vary
accordingto the location in the story, some of the actions were
invariantand created "slots" in the basic story line of the fairy
tale. These invariantelemental componentshe considered to be
the a priorifunctionsof the fairy tale.
The archetypicalstoryof Propp'shero tale goes somethinglike
this: the story begins with a humblehero who goes on a joumey,
receives special help or equipmentfrom a donor figure along the
way, goes throughtests that challengethe hero, and, throughthis
ordeal, is transformedto a higher state of being. In paleoanthropological variationson this theme,the hero is a nonhumanprimate
or some lowly apelikecreature,which as a resultof some change
departsits arborealenvironmentandbeginsits evolutionaryjourney.
In this journey it is tested and challengedrepeatedly,usually by
environmentalfactors or by other life-forms, but throughthe aid
of a "donorfigure" like naturalselection, which endows it with
special favors, the hero survives and triumphsduringits successive struggles.These strugglesin turnarepartof a transformational
process that leads to the emerging human as a creatureof civilization. In anothervariationon the theme of the hero folk-tale,
the "mysteriousbirth,"the herois an outcastbornin obscurity,who,
unawareof his parentage,engages in a searchfor his trueidentity.
The hero is oftentimes born with special powers, or born under
specialcircumstancesthatmarkhim and set him apartfromothers;
these powers or circumstancesbecome the aids or markersthat
guide him in discoveringhis own origins.
Landau demonstratesthese archetypical forms operating as
narrativestructuresespecially nicely in the stories of Keith and
Elliot Smith, but her goal is not to convince the reader of the
existence of such deep structures,nor to give an accountof how
each narrativedepartsfrom the archetype,but to give an account
of how the narrativesdepartfromeach other.In so doingshe comes
up with her second majorargument:that the narrativesof human
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151
evolution following Darwin depart from each other and from
Darwinbecause of differencesin the causal agent, guiding force,
or, in Landau'sscheme, the donorfigure - naturalselection.Thus
while Darwinfelt thatnaturalselectionwas the primarycausalagent
to accountfor all specieschange(includinghumans),his nineteenthcenturyfollowersHuxleyandHaeckeldepartedsomewhatfromthe
Darwinian scheme: Huxley aimed to convince his readers that
humansevolved fromapelikeancestorsbuthe neverfully discussed
the causal agent in his accountof humanevolution,while Haeckel
preferredhis own principleof recapitulation.Turn-of-the-century
accounts of humanevolution in the theories of Keith and Elliot
Smith also departed from Darwinian selectionism in that they
upheldsome internalguidingprincipleor orthogeneticmechanism
operatingin humanevolution. Only after the "modernsynthesis"
of genetics and selection theory, as manifested by Theodosius
Dobzhansky's Genetics and the Origin of Species (1937), was
Darwinian selectionism restored as the preferredmechanism to
account for human evolution. Subsequentpaleoanthropological
accounts uphold naturalselection as the donor figure of human
evolution, but with some limitationof power. Even strong advocates of Darwinian selectionism invoked some non-Darwinian
principlesin explaininglater stages of humanevolution.
Overall, Landau's arguments in Narratives of Human Evolution
are bold andoriginal,and they stimulatethe readerto thinkdeeply
aboutthe problemof knowledge.She writesin a lucid andengaging
style that is refreshinglyfree of literaryand technicaljargon.The
organizationof the book is somewhat complex and convoluted
for a shorterbook,but this is the inevitableoutcomeof compressing
a complex and convolutedsubject to this length of finished text.
The book itself has a pleasing design, and the diagramsof the
narrativesequences are both clever and helpful in demonstrating
Landau'sarguments.The transdisciplinaryfeaturesof the project
will make the book interestingto a wide audience that includes
not only her intendedaudience of paleoanthropologists,but also
historiansof biology,philosophers,andstudentsof science studies,
as well as an assortmentof thinkersin the humanities.But the book
also has seriousproblemsthat,for differentreasons,will disappoint
this very same wide audience.
For historians of evolution, Landau's argumentthat natural
selectionwas the primarypointof departurefor followersof Darwin
will catch no one by surprise.That naturalselection was problematicas a causalagentfor evolutionarychange,thatthe followers
of Darwin departedfrom the original Darwinianframework,and
that Darwinianselectionismwas restoredduringthe evolutionary
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synthesisarenow well-established"events"or episodesthemselves
in that"other"narrative,the historyof evolutionarythought.Apart
from reaffirmingthe suspicion that there is a kind of anthropomorphismandteleology thatcomes withDarwinianselection- this
she does throughherdepictionof selectionas donorfigure- Landau
does not offer much insight into the contemporaryunderstanding
of the history of evolution. The lack of a substantivehistorical
discussion of the reasons for departurewill also be unsatisfying
for more general historiansof biology and historiansof science,
who will see Narratives of Human Evolution as a missed op-
portunity for a rich contextualist history. Only the successive
embedding and reweaving of the scientific narrativesof human
evolution with other narratives,like the narrativeof the West or
the personal narrativesof the storytellers,would give the satisfying reasonsfor departurethat Landauseeks to find.
For philosophers,studentsof science studies, and paleoanthropologists,the role of fossil finds in the constructionof the narrative
will appearto be insufficiently discussed, given the importance
of the philosophicalissues at stake. While Landaudemonstrates
through
rathernicely the interpretivefeaturesof paleoanthropology
the controversiesover the meaningof fossil finds with the example
of the Piltdown skull and its varying signification for paleoanthropologists,she fails to discuss how knowledge-claimsare made
by the simultaneousconstraintsof narrativeand fossil evidence.
In classical philosophicalterms,thereis little in the way of a substantive discussion of how theory and available data work in
paleoanthropology.Nor is there much discussionof the extent to
whichsuchnarrativestructuresoperatein whatshe considersexperimental sciences like physics, which the readermust assume she
in nature.This is unfortunate,for what
thinksas being nonnarrative
comes across to the readeris not so much that there is a rich and
complex interplay between narrative pattern and the material
evidence for evolution, but that paleoanthropologyis much more
determinedby its narrativestructurethan by its fossil evidence.
Philosopherswill bristle at these conclusions,given the lack of a
sufficientlydeveloped argument.The very same failing will have
the even more unfortunateeffect of turning away her intended
few practitionerswill heed her
audienceof paleoanthropologists:
call to examinetheir narrativesif they mistakenlyinterprether to
mean that their factualscientific theoriesare nothingbut fictional
fairy tales.
But the most troublingfeatureof the book is Landau'schoice
of structuralist
literarytheoryto groundhertheoreticalandmethodological concerns. The choice of Propp, who groundedhis own
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153
knowledge-claimsabout literaturein the science of morphology,
has the devastatinglyself-subversiveeffect of reducingliteratureto
science. That this escaped Landauis perplexing,for she devotes
an entire subheading to "The Science of Literature and the
Literatureof Science" in her discussion on Propp (p. 3). The
damageto her ultimategoal by the choice of Proppis compounded
by her easy acceptanceof the notion of archetype,whose definition she borrows from the literary theorist and the text most
associatedwith the makingof a science of literature,NorthropFrye
and his Anatomyof Criticism(anotherbiological title). Failing to
problematizethe notion of archetype,Landauthus opens the door
to essentialisticandtypologicalthinking,andadoptsa methodology
that is strongly reductionistic.These currentsof thought would
hardlypass as humanisticby contemporarystandardsin the humanities. Then too, there also remains unanswered the ultimate
unanswerablequestion:Where do archetypescome from? If we
acceptherexplanationthattheremay be a biologicalbasis for these
deep structures(see p. 176 for the passing suggestion), then the
argumentfor biological determinismbecomes, not weakened,but
fortified.
For readersof this journal who are not sufficiently versed in
literary theory to understandthe severity of this criticism, the
problemwith Landau'sargument- to revertto a form of reductionism- can be pinpointedby the repeateduse of one word:rule.
If artandsciencearebothunquestionably
andequallyrule-governed
activities, as she assumes, then how is freedom from deterministic structuresto be attained?Landau'sappeal to accident and
contingencyis her only option here, for undergirdingher thought
is the belief that all forms of knowledgemust obey a priorirules.
But even with accidentand contingency,the humanisticwish for
freedomfails to be realized.So long as the belief is held that art
(andnarrative)obey rules,thereis littleroomfor humanisticexpression, let alone scientific practice.For these reasons,the book, as
it stands,will turnawaythose very samehumanistswho, otherwise,
would have been most sympatheticto Landau'sproject.The end
resultof Landau'sargumentis disappointing:whatcould have been
the fulfillmentof an age-old desire for humanisticliberationonly
results in enslaving the humanfurther.
V. B. Smocovitis
RobertJ. Richards,TheMeaningof Evolution:TheMorphological
Constructionand Ideological Reconstructionof Darwin's Theory