A conversation with John Hawks: a life in paleoanthropology
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John Hawks is a paleoanthropologist who has been a researcher and commentator in the fields of human evolutionary biology and paleoanthropology for over two decades. With a widely-read weblog, a book on Homo naledi, and highly cited scientific papers, Hawks’ voice is essential to understanding the origin of our species.
In this episode, Hawks talks about how he stumbled onto paleoanthropology, and his work in the 2000’s, where he was at the center of debates between various camps within the field. Then we discuss his shift into genetics as a tool for exploring the big questions in human evolution.
Finally, Hawks and I also address his recent foray into the controversies in the field of ancient DNA, where he has taken a stand against some of the prominent laboratories he believes are destroying specimens needlessly.
Related: My discussion with Hawk’s Ph.D. advisor, Milford Wolpoff, from the spring of 2018.
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An interesting presentation. I would wish that we who are more laymen in this field could get some sort of listing of names (if you guys will be name dropping crazy like in this episode) so that we could get at least the proper spelling of names to follow up on. If I had more wishes, I would wish for links for more information, but I can make the search function work on the internet.
A thought on the later part of the presentation - I do bristle at the idea that there is some sort of pass given to research that upsets or angers Euro-descent Christians, while research that upsets people of other ethnicities or religions is verboten. I also wish that more acknowledgement was given to the fact that Euro-descent Christians *started* archeology on their own (geographic) ancestors, in their own backyards, and have spread those lessons around the world, to the enrichment of knowledge for all humanity. (Also that just because I'm living here now doesn't mean my great-greats are buried in this zipcode, much less ancestors from thousands or hundreds of thousands of years ago.)
Thank you for the informative, reader, subscription. I can now follow John Hawks weblog.