BEYOND BOUNDARIES:
INTERLACING EVOLUTION, EPIGENETICS,
CREATIVITY AND DIVERSITY IN
UNDERSTANDING BEING AND BECOMING
HUMAN
Agustin Fuentes
University of Notre Dame
THE ANTHROPOCENE…
• For hundreds of thousands of years humans have been shaping and
managing the world, and recently we’re doing it with increasing speed,
influence, and zeal.
• The human imprint on the global environment has now become so large
and active that it rivals some of the great forces of Nature in its impact on
the functioning of the Earth system” -Stefan et al. 2011
• “a kind of hybrid Earth, of nature injected with human will, however
responsibly or irresponsibly that will may have been exercised”
-Hamilton and Grinevald 2015
Photo:
Dhritman Das
SCIENCE VS HUMANITIES?
• CP Snow and the “two cultures”
• Ways of knowing, reductionism and complexities
• Universities and Institutional structures
• Disciplinary “boundaries”
• Publication processes and funding structures
• Serious conflicts real and ideological
• Places of non-overlap?
• Lack of imagination?
Ethics, Ignorance,
And Insecurity
HOW WE SEE (IMAGINE)
AND EXPERIENCE/EMBODY
THE WORLD MATTERS
The human umwelt
LOCALES/CONTEXTS FOR MOVING
TOWARDS ENHANCED ENGAGEMENT
• Being and Becoming Human in the Anthropocene and “seeing the
elephant”
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History
Environments and Ecologies
Race and Racism
Immigration and Identity
Inequality and Health
Human Nature(s) and Human Future(s)
THREE BRIEF EXAMPLES
• Contemporary Evolutionary Theory (EES) and understanding humans
• Race, racism and inequality
• From “genetics” to epigenetics and beyond
DISCARD “NATURE-NURTURE”
COMPLEXITY IN EVOLUTIONARY THEORY
HELPS THINK ABOUT HUMAN EVOLUTION
http://www.nhm.ac.u
k/visit-us/whatson/darwin/
MOVING AWAY FROM SINGLE EVENTS TO A SYSTEMS
APPROACH
THE EXTENDED EVOLUTIONARY
SYNTHESIS
• Mutation introduces genetic variation which in interaction with epigenetic and
developmental processes produces biological variation in organisms, which may
be passed from generation to generation
• Natural Selection shapes variation in response to specific constraints and pressures
in the environment (sensu lato) and Gene flow and Genetic Drift structure the
distribution and patterns (landscape) of that variation
• Dynamic organism-environment interaction can result in niche construction which
can change/shape the patterns, foci, and intensity of natural selection and
creates ecological inheritance
• Phenotypic plasticity, developmental plasticity/reactivity, & acquisition of nongenetically induced features (via Neo-Lamarckian processes) all can play
substantive roles in the patterns and production of variation
• Multiple pathways of inheritance (genetic, epigenetic, behavioral and symbolic)
can affect evolutionary processes
NATURAL SELECTION IS NOT THE ONLY ARCHITECT OF
FUNCTION… NOR IS EVOLUTIONARY CHANGE
NECESSARILY RANDOM
• Traditional (Neo-Darwinian)
• Natural Selection targeted to genes or individuals
• Gene flow
• Genetic Drift
• Contemporary (Extended Synthesis)
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Natural selection
Flow of variation
Drift of variation
Epigenetic inheritance
Behavioral and symbolic inheritance
Niche construction and ecological inheritance- restructuring the context in
which variance occurs
NICHE CONSTRUCTION
• http://lalandlab.standrews.ac.uk/niche/index.html
• Laland and O’Brien 2012
NICHE CONSTRUCTION
http://www.nicheconstruction.com/
HUMAN EVOLUTIONARY COMPLEXITY
THE WAY WE USE
RACE ≠BIOLOGY
BUT RACE MATTERS:
RACISM AND INEQUALITY ARE REAL
AND HAVE BIOLOGICAL IMPACTS
THE COMMON (MIS)CONCEPTION:
THE “BIG 3”, EUROPEAN
Race A
Race
C
Race
B
BLACK AND WHITE?
• Melanocytes, melanin and UV light
Skin “color” in indigenous
populations
Jablonski, N. G. and G. Chaplin. 2010. Human skin
pigmentation as an adaptation to UV radiation. Proc.
Nat. Acad. Sci. USA 107(supp.):8962-8968.
Skin
reflectance
distribution
Read
Nina Jablonski’s
UV light
“SKIN: a natural history”
intensity
Jablonski, N. G. and G. Chaplin. 2010. Human skin
pigmentation as an adaptation to UV radiation. Proc.
Nat. Acad. Sci. USA 107(supp.):8962-8968.
Genetic Ancestry???
HUMAN GENETICS DOES NOT LOOK LIKE THIS…
“European”
“African”
“Asian”
THIS IS WHAT HUMAN GENETIC
VARIATION LOOKS LIKE
Variation in populations
Outside of Africa
Variation w/in African populations
IS THERE ANY EVIDENCE THAT BIOLOGY DIVIDES
HUMANS INTO 3-5 MEASURABLE UNITS?
NO
• Africa, Asia and Europe?-nope
• Black, White, Yellow, Red?-nope
• Caucasoid, Mongoid and Negroid?-nope
• Causasian, Eurasian, Melanesian, Austronesian, Nilotic,
and on and on-
nope
BUT….:
• Humans do vary in biology and ability--we are not all the same
• We can tell populations apart based on some biological characteristics
• populations have variable assemblages of traits relative to other populationsmigration, mating, history, environmental variables, etc….
In our society “Race” is a shorthand for the interaction of a multitude of factors,
It is not a stand-alone category, unit, or entity, nor is it static… but it is very real
Experience
Bio-History
Social history
Political context
Ethnicity
RACE
Health
Physiology
Development
Education Economics
RACE MATTERS
• In tests of housing markets conducted by the US department of
Housing and Urban Development Black and Hispanic potential
renters and buyers are discriminated against (relative to whites)
nearly 25% of the time
• the median usual weekly earnings of full-time wage and salary
workers were $601 for blacks and $541 for Hispanics, compared with
$880 for Asians and $757 for whites.
• The 2011 infant mortality rate per 1000 births USA average 6.39, for
whites 5.29, for blacks 12.4, for hispanics 5.33
• Percentage of groups without health insurance pre 2013, USA
average 17.2%, whites 12.2%, blacks 20.9%, hispanics 33.5%, (other
primarily asian) 17.7%
• -The 2009 net worth of households in the USA:
white: $113,149, black: $5677, and hispanic: $6325
SO WHAT?
“Race” as we use the term and classification is not a reflection of biological
groups
Therefore
Patterned differences that occur between what we call “Races” are not
caused by inherent biological differences in these “Races”
They are due to social, historical, political, economic, and experiential
contexts and…
Are changeable
Salgado
EPIGENETICS AND THE MOVE
TOWARDS DEVELOPMENTAL SYSTEMS
Some epigenetic changes are induced
by the early environment and impact
on the regulation of gene expression
in the brain
the epigenetic mechanism of DNA
methylation is a crucial mediator of early-life
experiences, thereby maintaining life-long
neurobiological sequelae of Childhood
maltreatment, and strongly determining
psychopathological risk. –Lutz and Turecki 2013
EMBODIMENT IS REAL…LITERALLY
• Epigenetics and human evolution
• Epigenetics and Race/Inequality
• Epigenetics and why biosocial processes matter
ENTANGLING APPROACHES TO
UNDERSTANDING THE MOVING
TARGET THAT IS THE HUMAN
Let’s get creative and disregard boundaries
Image by Sarah Derememer
THANKS FOR YOUR ATTENTION