I Am Evolution

Last updated June 24, 2020

I am Holly Dunsworth and I am a biological anthropologist at the University of Rhode Island. My research and teaching are primarily concerned with scientific narratives of human evolutionary history, how those narratives are formed, interpreted, and employed, and how they impact culture and society. I help to refute narratives of, and myths about, human evolution that support sexist and racist views of human nature...so that everyone can claim human origins and evolution for themselves and so that no one can rely on it to oppress others. Here are some of the topics I have worked on... 

1. Human races are not like dog breeds, and to claim that they are is to employ a racist strategy for perpetuating inequity.
2. Human babies are not born when they’re born because of limitations to gestation length and fetal development imposed by the bipedal pelvis (a,k.a. the ‘obstetrical dilemma’); gestation and fetal growth are limited by metabolism and energetics as they are across primates and mammals (EGG hypothesis). There is no ‘obstetrical dilemma.’
3. Human babies do need care but it’s not because they evolved to be born early or prematurely; they’re born relatively and absolutely larger than all primates, after a longer than expected pregnancy. Early birth/truncated gestation cannot be a “solution” to the so-called “obstetrical dilemma” because humans are not born early and gestation is not truncated. Without this solution, there is no dilemma to solve.
4. Women’s hips are not a compromise between bipedalism and childbirth; they are adapted to multiple functions. Childbirth interventions are not evolutionary imperatives due to the so-called ‘obstetrical dilemma’ which doesn’t exist.
5. Women’s hips are not genetically programmed to be more capacious than men’s; they develop differently because they contain the virile and active gonads and genitals that take up space inside the pelves of females and the soft tissues of the female pelvic floor are replete with estrogen receptors which likely affect pelvic bone development and remodeling throughout life (VAGGINA hypothesis).
6. Women are, on average, shorter than men because of menstruation’s effects on bone growth.
7. Men are not taller than women because their tall masculine male ancestors won the competition for mates and produced tall male offspring; continued male growth at puberty, past the point when females stop, is a by-product of estrogen’s effects on all human long bone growth and growth plate fusion.  Estrogen is biphasic, causing long bone growth until its levels increase enough to cause long bone fusion, which ends growth. Different levels of estrogen expression and exposure, causing sex differences in the timing of long bone growth cessation, are due to sex differences in evolved reproductive physiologies. In all human bodies ,fertility depends on a delicate balance of estrogen. Without ovaries pumping out the high levels of estrogen involved in monthly cycling,  bodies without ovaries have no choice but to continue growing past the point that bodies with ovaries stop.
8. All biology is evolution. To categories growth and development as merely "proximate" and to elevate behavior to "ultimate" is not merely an unnecessary convention, but it is contributing to the persistence of unscientific and harmful just-so stories about human nature.
9. Nobody on Earth but Homo sapiens knows that sex makes babies or has a concept of paternity, not even Koko, the famous “talking” gorilla. This makes us different from other animals in profound ways and must have impacted humanity for as long as we've made the connection between intercourse and procreation.

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Below is a list of some of my favorite Mermaid's Tale posts and otherwise. Many of them are resources for the points I've made above. I've organized these links according to the morphology of the folktale (via Landau via Propp) which is the structure of my current book project--a biographical human evolutionary tale called I Am Evolution. Thanks to Anne and Ken for bringing me on to the MT in 2009! Thanks to everybody for all the good times and here's to many more,
Holly

Initial Situation (evolutionary thinking)

• I am evolution (NPR)
• Evolution is the only natural explanation. And it's all we need.

Hero (introducing [your name here])

• Surprise! Semen is required (Sapiens)
• When did sex become fun? (Discover Mag)
• Kissing the lipless 
• Do animals know where babies come from? (Scientific American)
• later re-published in the e Book Amazing Animals
• Sex Makes Babies (Aeon)
• Holly and Anne Tell Us Where Babies Come From (Penn's Sunday School)

Change (life in utero)

• Relatedness is relative: How can I be 85% genetically similar to my mom, but only related to her by half?
• If mutations go viral, adaptationism is less pitiful (Evolution Institute)
• Marshawn Lynch's extra placenta feeds the curiosity
• How do we know when our ancestors lost their tails? (PBS)
• Expedition Rusinga: Uncovering our adaptive origins (AMNH)
• The Ape in the Trees

Departure (birth)

• There is no 'obstetrical dilemma': Towards a braver medicine with fewer childbirth interventions (Perspectives in Biology and Medicine)
• Why is Childbirth Painful? (BBC World Service; CrowdScience)
• Why is the human vagina so big?
• The 'obstetric dilemma' hypothesis unraveled
• Thank your intelligent mother for your big brain (PNAS)
• Why is no one interested in vagina size? (NYMag)
• Metabolic hypothesis for human altriciality (PNAS)
• The evolution of difficult childbirth and helpless hominin infants (Annual Review of Anthropology)
• How to apply an evolutionary... (Scientific American guest blog)
• When evolutionary-minded medicine gets it (possibly) wrong about childbirth interventions

Test (childhood)

• Forget bipedalism. What about babyism?  (3QD charm quark!)
• Just-So Babies
• Homo erectus: The Winnie-the-Pooh of fossil hominins (Sapiens)
• We need another explanation for our big brains like we need a hole in the head 
• lolhumans
• Oh Koko!
• A prehistory of throwing things (linked here: http://what-if.xkcd.com/44/)
• Hurling words and turds, an evolutionary link
• Can you throw with half a brain?
• Talking Trash!  (826 National's Don't Forget to Write for Elementary Grades)
• Book review: Children of Time by Anne Weaver (Reports of the NCSE)
• The Evolution of Buttfaces Explained
• Take Your Pick (New Scientist's book)
• Dog eats book: A domestic application of the scientific method 
• Now a teacher resource "with a chuckle" on Berkeley's Understanding Science site

Donor (puberty and young adulthood)

• Expanding the evolutionary explanations for sex differences in the human skeleton
• How Donald Trump Got Human Evolution Wrong (Washington Post)
• Area Doctor Shatters Area Girl's Dream of Being Taller Than She Is. (A personal genomics parable)
• Are we removing the wisdom along with the teeth?

Transformation (adulthood, the joys)

• Evolution reduces the meaning of life to survival and reproduction... Is that bad?
• A case for replacing "having it all" with "having all the choices, within reason and means"
• 'Obstetric dilemma' skeptic has c-section and remains skeptical ... & ... Why my c-section was natural childbirth
• Ten scratches on two bone fragments distinguish vegetarians from carnivores 
• Does Mark Watney dream of red potatoes?
• Whooza good gurrrrrl? Whoozmai bayyyy-bee boy?
• Such a good boy, Elroy

Test Again (adulthood, the oys)

• Human races are not like dog breeds: Refuting a racist analogy
• A leash of hemp: Does our slow, overbearing consciousness mislead us about human nature? 
• We are not the boss of natural selection. It is unpwnable. (io9)
• Walk this way, talk this way, roll in the hay: Bringing life and humanity to extinct Neanderthals (The Winnower)
• Evolution's got a P.R. problem
• The f-words of evolution 
• Another f-word of evolution 
• The amazing story of Holly Dunsworth and her osteopathic doctor
• I'm still mad about the Google Memo 
• My sexed-up Jordan Peterson fantasy
• It is unethical to teach evolution, no matter the organism, without confronting racism and sexism

Triumph (aging, wisdom, reflection)

• Humans are master meaning generators
• Monkeys all the way down (Sapiens)
• The End of the Beginning (McSweeney's) 

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Where I appear in others' productions...

• Childbirth, explained (Vox)
• Males Are the Taller Sex. Estrogen, Not Fights for Mates, May Be Why. (Quanta)
• How Do We Know When Our Ancestors Lost Their Tails? (PBS)
• Labor of love: Flipping the scientific thinking on our species’ “difficult childbirth” (Knowable)
• The Babyland Diaries (Topic)
• Is This Gorilla Mother Consciously Protecting Her Baby? (NPR)
• Women rate the strongest men as the most attractive, study finds (WaPo)
• Why Is Giving Birth So Hard? (The Atlantic)
• Of Evolution, Culture, and the Obstetrical Dilemma (Undark)
• How did humans figure out that sex makes babies? (Slate)
• Why the GOP should love duck penises (Mother Jones)
• Why does pregnancy last nine months? (NPR)
• Why pregnancy really lasts nine months (LiveScience)
• Why must childbirth be such hard labor? (The Guardian)
• The disturbing, shameful history of childbirth deaths (Slate)
• Why is human childbirth so painful? (American Scientist)
• Bill Nye's creationism debate not a total disaster, scientists say (LiveScience)
• Why Babies Cry At Night (NPR)
• Are Wide-Hipped Women Promiscuous? Study Births a Controversy (LiveScience)
• Finally paying attention to vagina size (NYMag)
• Can animals think abstractly? (NPR)
• Anthropomorphism: how much humans and animals share is still contested (The Guardian)
• Not All Critiques of Evolutionary Psychology Are Created Equal (NYMag)
• The GOP’s New Bill Would Seriously Disrupt Genetics Research (Atlantic)