The Human Condition is a collection of papers by leading evolutionary biologists and philosophers of science that reflect on the Darwinian Revolution as it relates to the human condition at levels ranging from the molecular to the theological. The book focuses on understanding the evolutionary origin of humans and their biological and cultural traits. The Human Condition is organized into three parts: Human Phylogenetic History and the Paleontological Record; Structure and Function of the Human Genome; and Cultural Evolution and the Uniqueness of Being Human.

This fourth volume from the In the Light of Evolution (ILE) series, based on a series of Arthur M. Sackler colloquia, was designed to promote the evolutionary sciences. Each volume explores evolutionary perspectives on a particular biological topic that is scientifically intriguing but also has special relevance to contemporary societal issues or challenges. Individually and collectively, the ILE series interprets phenomena in various areas of biology through the lens of evolution, addresses some of the most intellectually engaging as well as pragmatically important societal issues of our times, and fosters a greater appreciation of evolutionary biology as a consolidating foundation for the life sciences.

Contents

• THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES
• Arthur M. Sackler, M.D. 1913–1987
• Preface to the In the Light of Evolution Series
• Preface to In the Light of Evolution, Volume IV: The Human Condition
• Part I. HUMAN PHYLOGENETIC HISTORY AND THE PALEONTOLOGICAL RECORD
  • 1. Reconstructing Human Evolution: Achievements, Challenges, and Opportunities
    • ACHIEVEMENTS
    • CHALLENGES
    • OPPORTUNITIES
    • CONCLUSIONS
    • ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  • 2. Terrestrial Apes and Phylogenetic Trees
    • HUMAN ORIGINS AND QUANTUM EVOLUTION
    • HEADS AND BODIES
    • PALEONTOLOGICAL SPECIES
    • ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  • 3. Phylogenomic Evidence of Adaptive Evolution in the Ancestry of Humans
    • DARWIN’S VIEWS
    • USE OF MOLECULAR METHODS TO INFER OUR PLACE IN NATURE
    • PHYLOGENOMIC ASSESSMENT OF BEING HUMAN
    • PHYLOGENOMIC ASSESSMENT OF HUMAN BRAIN EVOLUTION REVEALS ADAPTIVE EVOLUTION IN MULTIPLE STAGES OF HUMAN ANCESTRY
    • AEROBIC ENERGY METABOLISM GENES AND BRAIN EVOLUTION
    • THE HUMAN BRAIN, DIFFERENT BY DEGREE AND NOT KIND
    • A MODERN VOYAGE
    • ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  • 4. Human Adaptations to Diet, Subsistence, and Ecoregion Are Due to Subtle Shifts in Allele Frequency
    • RESULTS
    • DISCUSSION
    • MATERIALS AND METHODS
    • ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  • 5. Working Toward a Synthesis of Archaeological, Linguistic, and Genetic Data for Inferring African Population History
    • AFRICAN LANGUAGE FAMILY CLASSIFICATION
    • MODERN HUMAN ORIGINS AND MIGRATION OUT OF AFRICA
    • MIDDLE STONE AGE IN AFRICA
    • NEOLITHIC IN AFRICA
    • CONTEMPORARY AFRICAN GENETIC AND LINGUISTIC VARIATION
    • CONCLUSIONS
    • ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• Part II. STRUCTURE AND FUNCTION OF THE HUMAN GENOME
  • 6. Uniquely Human Evolution of Sialic Acid Genetics and Biology
    • SIALIC ACIDS DECORATE THE CANOPY OF THE CELL-SURFACE GLYCAN FOREST AND HAVE MULTIPLE BIOLOGICAL ROLES
    • “SERUM SICKNESS” AS A CLUE TO HUMAN UNIQUENESS
    • A SIA DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HUMANS AND NHHS
    • HUMAN-SPECIFIC Neu5Gc LOSS AFFECTS PATHOGEN REGIMES
    • DIFFERENTIAL EXPRESSION OF α2–6-LINKED SIAS BETWEEN HUMANS AND NHHS
    • SIGLECS DIFFERENCES BETWEEN HUMANS AND NONHUMAN HOMINIDS
    • HUMAN-SPECIFIC ADJUSTMENTS IN SIA RECOGNITION BY SIGLECS
    • MANY HUMAN PATHOGENS EXPRESS Neu5Ac, POTENTIALLY ENGAGING CD33rSIGLECS AND ATTENUATING INNATE IMMUNE RESPONSES
    • HUMAN-SPECIFIC CHANGES IN SIALOADHESIN ON MACROPHAGES
    • HUMAN-SPECIFIC CHANGES IN A CONSERVED ARGININE RESIDUE REQUIRED FOR SIGLEC RECOGNITION OF SIAS
    • HUMAN-SPECIFIC GENE CONVERSION INVOLVING SIGLEC-11
    • HUMAN-SPECIFIC EXPRESSION OF SIGLEC-6 IN THE PLACENTAL TROPHOBLAST WITH UP-REGULATION IN PREECLAMPSIA
    • CD33rSIGLECS ARE EXPRESSED AT LOW LEVELS ON HUMAN T CELLS ASSOCIATED WITH OVERREACTIVE RESPONSES TO ACTIVATION
    • HUMAN-SPECIFIC PSEUDOGENIZATION OF ACTIVATORY SIGLECS
    • WAS SIA-RELATED BIOLOGY A “HOTSPOT” OF GENETIC AND PHYSIOLOGICAL CHANGES IN HUMAN EVOLUTION?
    • METABOLIC INCORPORATION OF Neu5Gc INTO HUMAN CELLS AND A DIETARY SOURCE OF Neu5Gc IN HUMAN TISSUES
    • ANTI-Neu5Gc ANTIBODIES IN HUMANS ARE OF BROAD AND HIGHLY VARIABLE SPECIFICITIES
    • LIMITED DISTRIBUTION OF Neu5Gc IN FOODS AND DISEASE RISKS ASSOCIATED WITH RED MEAT
    • ANTI-Neu5Gc ANTIBODIES ENHANCE GROWTH OF Neu5Gc-POSITIVE TUMORS IN Neu5Gc-NULL MICE
    • SURPRISING DIFFERENCES BETWEEN HUMAN AND CHIMPANZEE HEART DISEASE
    • HUMAN-SPECIFIC XENO-AUTOANTIBODY REACTION AGAINST ENDOTHELIUM: A CONTRIBUTING ROLE IN ATHEROSCLEROSIS?
    • A ROLE FOR Neu5Gc IN RED MEAT-RELATED FOOD POISONING?
    • WAS THE Neu5Gc XENO-AUTOANTIGEN PHENOMENON SIGNIFICANT IN HUMAN EVOLUTION?
    • POTENTIAL ROLES OF SIA-RELATED CHANGES IN UNIQUELY HUMAN DISEASE PROPENSITIES
    • FUTURE DIRECTIONS
    • CONCLUSIONS AND PERSPECTIVES
    • ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  • 7. Bioenergetics, the Origins of Complexity, and the Ascent of Man
    • BIOENERGETICS AND THE ORIGIN OF BIOLOGICAL COMPLEXITY
    • ENERGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT: THREE LEVELS OF BIOENERGETICS
    • ENERGY RESERVOIRS AND SPECIATION
    • ENERGY ENVIRONMENTS AND SUBPOPULATION RADIATION
    • ENERGY FLUCTUATION AND CYCLIC ADAPTATION
    • BIOENERGETICS AND THE ASCENT OF MAN
    • MATHEMATICAL FORMULATIONS
    • ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  • 8. Genome-wide Patterns of Population Structure and Admixture Among Hispanic/Latino Populations
    • RESULTS
    • DISCUSSION
    • MATERIALS AND METHODS
    • ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  • 9. Human Skin Pigmentation as an Adaptation to UV Radiation
    • GEOGRAPHIC VARIATION IN UV RADIATION
    • UV RADIATION AS A SELECTIVE FORCE IN THE EVOLUTION OF PIGMENTATION
    • UV RADIATION AND THE EVOLUTION OF TANNING
    • CONCLUSIONS
    • METHODS
  • 10. Footprints of Nonsentient Design Inside the Human Genome
    • THUMBNAIL HISTORIES OF THREE ANCIENT WORLD VIEWS
    • THE HUMAN GENOME
    • FALLIBLE DESIGN: PROTEIN-CODING DNA SEQUENCES
    • BAROQUE DESIGN: GRATUITOUS GENOME COMPLEXITIES
    • WASTEFUL DESIGN: REPETITIVE DNA ELEMENTS
    • A RECONCILIATION: EVOLUTION AS A SALVATION FOR THEOLOGY
• Part III. CULTURAL EVOLUTION AND THE UNIQUENESS OF BEING HUMAN
  • 11. How Grandmother Effects Plus Individual Variation in Frailty Shape Fertility and Mortality: Guidance from Human-Chimpanzee Comparisons
    • A GRANDMOTHER HYPOTHESIS
    • AGE STRUCTURES
    • DEMOGRAPHIC AGING RATES BETWEEN AND WITHIN SPECIES
    • A HETEROGENEITY HYPOTHESIS
    • HETEROGENEITY AND FERTILITY
    • ORIGINS OF HETEROGENEITY IN EARLY LIFE
    • BACK TO GRANDMOTHERS
    • ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  • 12. Gene–Culture Coevolution in the Age of Genomics
    • CULTURAL EVOLUTION AND GENE–CULTURE COEVOLUTION
    • GENE–CULTURE COEVOLUTION IN HOMININ HISTORY
    • NEW GENOMIC TOOLS
    • THE EXTERNAL SELECTIVE ENVIRONMENT
    • CURRENT EVIDENCE AND PROBLEMS TO SOLVE
    • CONCLUSIONS
    • ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  • 13. The Cognitive Niche: Coevolution of Intelligence, Sociality, and Language
    • THE COGNITIVE NICHE
    • EVALUATING THE THEORY OF THE COGNITIVE NICHE
    • EMERGENCE OF SCIENCE AND OTHER ABSTRACT ENDEAVORS
    • CONCLUSION
  • 14. A Role for Relaxed Selection in the Evolution of the Language Capacity
    • EVOLUTION-LIKE PROCESSES IN DEVELOPMENT
    • CASE 1. INTERNAL REDUNDANCY
    • CASE 2. EXTERNAL REDUNDANCY
    • CASE 3. GLOBAL EXTERNAL REDUNDANCY (E.G., DOMESTICATION)
    • PUTTING HUMPTY DUMPTY TOGETHER AGAIN
  • 15. Adaptive Specializations, Social Exchange, and the Evolution of Human Intelligence
    • INTELLIGENCE AND EVOLVED SPECIALIZATIONS
    • EXCHANGE AS A COMPUTATIONAL PROBLEM
    • EXPERIMENTAL TESTS OF SOCIAL CONTRACT THEORY
    • PERMISSION RULES WITHOUT BENEFITS
    • INTENTIONAL VIOLATIONS VERSUS INNOCENT MISTAKES
    • DISCUSSION
    • CONCLUSIONS
    • ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  • 16. The Difference of Being Human: Morality
    • HUMAN UNIQUENESS
    • MORAL BEHAVIOR
    • THEORIES OF MORALITY
    • DARWIN AND THE MORAL SENSE
    • MORAL JUDGMENT VS. MORAL NORMS
    • MORAL BEHAVIOR AS RATIONAL BEHAVIOR
    • ADAPTATION VS. EXAPTATION
    • GROUP SELECTION IN HUMAN POPULATIONS
    • MIND TO MORALITY
    • MORAL CODES
    • MORAL NORMS AND NATURAL SELECTION
• References

This volume is based on the Arthur M. Sackler Colloquium of the National Academy of Sciences, “The Human Condition,” held December 11-12, 2009, at the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Center of the National Academies of Sciences and Engineering in Irvine, California. The articles appearing in these pages were contributed by speakers at the colloquium and have been anonymously reviewed. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this volume are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the view of the National Academy of Sciences.