sign in sign up
<<
Home , Raymond Dart, Robert Broom

View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE

provided by University SUNScholar Repository

322 South African Journal of Science 101, July/August 2005 History of Science

Spirited evolutionist and Stellenbosch revisited on a zoological centenary*

P.V. Tobias

The Department of Zoology at the University of Stellenbosch, of which I’m proud to be an honorary member, has had a long and illustrious history. Here I celebrate the memory of its foundation professor, a man ‘sacredly devoted to the pursuit of science’.

Zoology in 1903 ogy, a tincture of cytochemistry and even What was the state of biology in 1903? a smudge of cytogenetics were estab- Robert Broom (1866–1951), the spirited evolutionist. Genetics, as a science, was just beginning. lished branches of study, although such (Courtesy Transvaal Museum.) Gregor Mendel’s laws of heredity had refinements as phase contrast micros- only two years earlier been re-discovered copy, electron microscopy, ultraviolet ab- Karoo fossil reptiles led to a D.Sc. thesis, by Hugo De Vries in the Netherlands, sorption spectrophotometry, radiation the degree being awarded by the Univer- K.E. Correns in Germany and Erich biology, and X-ray diffraction studies sity of Glasgow in 1905. Tschermak von Seysenegg in Austria. were not known. The discovery of Rönt- Broom seems to have been quite the Only 35 years earlier, Mendel, in the gen rays (or X-rays) had happened only most extraordinary of the early professors Augustinian monastery at Brno in what is eight years earlier, but their application in at the university. He defied the senate’s now the Czech Republic, had proposed biological research had hardly begun. wishes that he take a roll call at each these laws from his studies on pea plants. That, in sum, was the state of play lecture and enter the names of defaulters By 1905, it was found that Mendel’s laws when Robert Broom was appointed as the in an Absentee Book. He pointed out that applied to beings: the family foundation professor of zoology at the his lectures were extremely well-attended concerned showed brachydactyly inher- University of Stellenbosch. By an interest- and his students passed their examina- ited as a simple Mendelian dominant ing synchronicity, also in 1903, Arthur tions. He agreed to reconsider the matter trait. Each of the second to fifth fingers Dendy was appointed as the first professor only if any other senate member had a had only two phalanges, instead of three of zoology at the South African College, better record. Apparently no-one did. 1 as is the fashion ! forerunner of the University of Cape Of his lectures, Findlay states, ‘He was By 1903, no ancient hominid fossils had Town.2 As far as I have been able to trace, thoroughly versed in the subject matter of been brought to light in any part of Africa. Dendy at and Broom at his lectures and scarcely bothered much It was widely held that the cradle of Stellenbosch3 were the first two professors with preparing them. They had a sponta- humankind was in Asia. Java Man had of zoology in southern Africa. What of neous character which was made even been discovered in 1890/91 in Indonesia ? The South African School more lively when Broom strayed from the (then known as the Dutch East Indies), of Mines and Technology,the precursor of subject to express his views on topics whilst in China, in 1903, K.A. Haberer the University of the , did of wider concern such as religion and found in a Peking pharmacy a human not set up a department of zoology until politics’. While at Victoria College, tooth which was recognized as that of a 1917 when H.B. Fantham was appointed Broom’s students included such men as fossil man: thus began the unfolding 4 head, serving from 1917 to 1932. C.G. (‘Oom Coert’) Grobbelaar, who of the tale of . So informed became a pioneer in the study of the people 100 years ago were looking to the Khoisan peoples and human growth6; Far East as the original home of human- Robert Broom and Stellenbosch D.E. Malan, the zoologist; the surgeon, kind. Such was the zoological background to Tielman Roos Scholtz and Gilles de Kock, Experimental embryology was a product Robert Broom’s tenure as professor of the veterinary scientist. His favourite of the late 19th century. Wilhelm Roux’s zoology and geology at Victoria College pupils from Stellenbosch are reported to seminal works on Entwicklungsmechanik from August 1903 to 1909. By today’s appeared in 1888 and 1895. Ecology, too, standards, such a combination would be have been Christo Beyers, the surgeon, would have been a part of the thinking of decidedly odd. However, according to his and P.J. Du Toit, an exceptional South 5 biologists, for it had been formally de- biographer, George Findlay, it had been African veterinary scientist and one of a fined as a scientific discipline by Ernst the practice at Broom’s alma mater, rather small number of South African Haeckel as early as 1866 (the year in which Glasgow University, until 1902 to combine scholars to have been made a Fellow of Robert Broom was born). Histology, cytol- zoology and geology in one chair. the Royal Society of London. Apart from When Victoria College offered him the those busy years at Stellenbosch, Broom *This article is based on the John Ellerman Commemora- chair, Broom had obtained his M.D. was not blessed with many research stu- tive Lecture for 2003, given at the University of Stellenbosch on 30 October 2003. The author is in the degree and had some 65 publications to dents, because he became a rural medical School of Anatomical Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, . his name. He was 37 years of age. While practitioner and much later a member of E-mail: [email protected] he was at this university, his studies on the Transvaal Museum. History of Science South African Journal of Science 101, July/August 2005 323

In later years, his principal protégé was the University of Glasgow: his thesis was immediately wrote a couple of papers in John Talbot Robinson, who had a distin- devoted to the comparative anatomy of support of Dart’s claims. In his 1933 book, guished, albeit rather brief, career as a the organ of Jacobson, that enigmatic little The Coming of Man: Was it Accident or palaeo-anthropologist and as Broom’s structure on each side of the nasal septum.8 Design?,13 he went beyond what Dart had successor at the Transvaal Museum.7 Just imagine doing that in a small town, done and confidently assigned the genus Taralga, in the Blue Mountains of New to the family . Robert Broom’s career South Wales, far from library resources, Broom also offered a projected reconstruc- For those who would seek to know having to do all his own drawings freehand tion of how the adult might have looked; more about the life of Robert Broom, one in an era long before photocopying or the in remarkable detail it prognosticated of the most remarkable scientists to have computer had arrived. His father, John the form of the adult made South Africa his home, I can Broom, in Edinburgh laboriously copied specimens subsequently found at Sterk- warmly recommend the biography by scientific articles and even drawings, fontein. Findlay, published in 1972.5 Here let me sending them by sea to . As Broom was already sixty-seven years give a brief summary of his life. It is Leaving Australia in May 1896, the old and living in penury, Dart wrote to eminently worthwhile to ponder over the Brooms spent a year in the British Isles. General J.C. Smuts and J.H. Hofmeyr and lives of great men and to dissect what This enabled him to visit the Natural informed them how wasteful it was that a messages one can receive from them. It History Museum and make acquaintance scientist of Broom’s worldwide repute has been my experience that palaeo-an- with some Karoo fossils. He realized that should be languishing in the backwoods. thropologists are commonly every bit as great opportunities might await him He was unable even to finance the journey interesting as the fossils they recover. In- in South Africa, which seems to have to take up his presidency of the South deed, in 1951, J.B.S. Haldane stated that determined him to move to South Africa African Association for the Advancement ‘Broom is almost as worthy of study as the in 1897. Here he remained until his death of Science. In 1934, a year later,Broom was fossils he has collected. He did the work of in 1951. He initially worked as a rural offered a temporary post at the Transvaal a dozen ordinary lifetimes in his spare medical practitioner in Port Nolloth, Museum, Pretoria, where he remained for time. It is good to think that such a man Garies, Port Elizabeth and Pearston. He 17 years. He immediately set about has made the most important discoveries seemed to prefer life in isolated country searching for an adult Australopithecus. of our generation concerning human evo- districts where living vertebrates and This search carried him to the Skurweberg lution.’ (cited by Findlay5 in the Introduc- fossils were always to be had. and to Gladysvale. tion to his biography of Broom). His recognition of the probable ancestors In August 1936, one of Dart’s medical The palaeontologist, D.M.S. Watson, of the mammals led to his Croonian B.Sc. students, Harding Le Riche, and a according to Findlay,5 declared that he Lecture to the Royal Society of London in neuro-anatomist in Dart’s department, never knew a man more ‘sacredlydevoted 1913, devoted to the origin of mammals.9 G.W.H. Schepers, brought Broom some to the pursuit of science’ than Broom. Later, there followed two weighty volumes fossil baboon and monkey skulls and Broom ‘wanted to know’ so keenly that on The Origin of the Human Skeleton10 and endocranial casts, which they had recov- his opinion was never to be tossed lightly The Mammal-like Reptiles of South African ered from a dolomitic cave deposit known aside by any less dedicated scientific and the Origin of Mammals.11 His major as . Broom rushed out to competitor. With this fiery outlook Broom palaeontological contributions earned Sterkfontein with Schepers and Le Riche. pioneered mammalian and human origins him a Fellowship of the Royal Society Within nine days he had the first adult in the fossil record with the most naïve (London) in 1920 and its Royal Medal in specimen of the same kind of creature as equipment imaginable. Everything was 1928. Dart had called Australopithecus africanus.5 done with eyes, hands, brain, good health After leaving the University of Stellen- It was the start of a series of discoveries and a few simple tools.’ Watson was sure bosch in 1909, he carried on as a medical of australopithecine remains at Sterk- that Broom ‘showed himself possessed of practitioner, took postgraduate courses in fontein. That one site, at the hands of genius.’ surgery in the United Kingdom and in Broom, later helped by John T. Robinson, Broom was born in Paisley, Scotland, in 1916 settled in the village of Douglas, west and of myself, assisted by Alun R. Hughes 1866. At the University of Glasgow, he of Kimberley. It was there that Broom first and then by Ronald J. Clarke, has yielded graduated in science in 1887 and medicine learned of the skull, which the over 700 fossil hominid specimens, includ- in 1889. He spent the years 1892 to 1896 anatomist Raymond A. Dart (1893–1988) ing no fewer than four partial hominid in Australia, where his patients had to revealed to the scientific world in 1925.12 skeletons. These unique features played compete for his time with marsupials, Within weeks of the announcement, the primary role in persuading the World monotremes and their embryos, and with Broom hurried to Johannesburg and Heritage Centre of UNESCO to place fossils in the Wombeyan Caves of New spent a weekend studying the child’s Sterkfontein and eleven neighbouring South Wales. Even before he went to skull. When he entered Dart’s office at the fossil sites on the World Heritage List on 2 Australia, he had published seven articles Wits Medical School Anatomy Department, December 1999. on comparative anatomy, obstetrics (in he darted over to the desk on which the The Sterkfontein fossils were initially which he obtained the William Hunter skull was lying, knelt down to examine named by Broom Australopithecus trans- Medal at Glasgow), and teratology. The the specimen for a few moments, then vaalensis — a different species within the years in Australia were fruitful, yielding looked up to the professor of anatomy, genus to which Dart had assigned the another twenty publications — and a with a beatific expression on his face, and . Broom was a great ‘splitter’! wife, Mary Baird Baillie of Scotland. She declared, ‘Dart, I bend the knee before our When some seemingly diagnostic teeth remained at his side from 1893 until his common ancestor!’. Broom (like Dart) was came to light at Sterkfontein, Broom14 death in 1951. convinced that the Taung fossil was allied considered them to be so different as to Among his other attainments whilst in to the human, and not to the chimpanzee justify his erecting a new genus, Plesian- Australia, he obtained an M.D. degree of or gorilla as many claimed at the time. He thropus (the shortened form of which 324 South African Journal of Science 101, July/August 2005 History of Science

furnished the colloquialism Mrs Ples). some opponents of Dart and Broom to and have the right informed eyes and Still later, Broom’s assistant, John T. accept their claims for the ape-men. For fingertips. The country is crying out for Robinson (1923–2001), lumped the Sterk- instance, Broom’s 1946 monograph was your contributions!’ fontein species back into Australopithecus largely instrumental in leading the British Then he would look at his watch and africanus, but as a representative of a dis- anatomist and anthropologist, Sir Arthur declare, ‘Oh my fur and whiskers, it’s half tinct subspecies, A. africanus transvaal- Keith (1866–1955), to drop the vigorous past twelve. I have to get back to Pretoria. ensis.15 opposition he had maintained ever since I am nearly 79, most of my family have In 1938, Broom recovered fossil remains 1925.24 died at 80, and I’ve got a great deal of of a different kind of ape-man, with larger So Broom had not one but two distin- work to do before my time comes. Good cheek-teeth, smaller anterior teeth and a guished scientific careers: his work on the morning, gentlemen’. In the event he was flatter face14 at Kromdraai in the Bloubank Karoo mammal-like reptiles carried him far too busy to die at 80, going on for almost River Valley. He considered this also to be to the top, as marked by his FRS and his five more years in which he published a hominid, but he erected a new genus Royal Medal of the Royal Society. At another seventy works, including three and species to classify it, seventy years of age, he began a new books! robustus. Ten years later, another site career — on the study of South Africa’s So enthused were we by his lectures across the Bloubank River Valley, Swart- wonderful ape-man fossils and their that, in the April vacation of 1945, we krans, yielded more specimens of this bearings on human . This went to Sterkfontein and for a week robust ape-man to Broom and Robinson. second phase lasted from 1936 until the camped out not far from the fossil site. It Broom16 erected a new species of the same day on which he died, 6 April 1951. He was so thrilling an experience that we genus — Paranthropus crassidens —asits was then 84½ years old. decided to build on it. cheek-teeth appeared to be still larger In the July vacation we organized a than those of the Kromdraai hominid. A few personal memories of Robert multi-departmental expedition to Maka- The idea of generic distinctness for these Broom. pansgat in what is now the Limpopo forms did not gain much support, and I had the privilege of knowing Broom province. The most dramatic outcome most investigators of the period accommo- for the last six years of his life. Indeed, I was that, at the Limeworks, dated them in the species Australopithecus believe I am the only person living who we recovered several baboon and monkey robustus. I later17,18 proposed retaining the had the unique experience of working skulls. We showed them to our mentor, name but at subgeneric status as Austra- closely with all three of the scientists Broom, and he found that there were new lopithecus (Paranthropus) robustus. The whom called ‘The Three species and even a new genus among important contribution that flowed from Wild Men of Africa’ — , them. He rushed into print — I think it Broom’s discoveries was the demonstra- Robert Broom and of was the Sunday Express — with the story tion that not all of the early hominids Nairobi. Before he died, Ardrey (the under a banner headline, ‘Students make were ancestors of the later ones, suggest- author of ) gave me permis- 300 000 years old discovery’. As it happens, ing that the early hominids must have sion to use his memorable phrase as the the stratum from which the primate diversified and branched into different title of an envisaged book, The Three Wild fossils emanated was later dated just ten lineages. That realization proved a difficult Men of Africa, Dart, Broom and Leakey: the times as old, 3 million years before the pill to swallow. For decades afterward Men Behind the Discoveries. Whether I shall present. This gave us enormous encour- there were scholars who tried to place all live long enough to fulfil this wish (I am agement, but it had other significant of the hominid fossils on a single lineage now 78) I do not know. results. leading to modern . For most, I first fell under Broom’s spell when I First, as Dart (1959) describes in his however, Broom’s revelations at Krom- was nineteen years old and a member of autobiography, Adventures with the draai and at provided un- the third year medical B.Sc. class at Wits. Missing Link,25 these student discoveries equivocal evidence for a prior splitting Each week he would come across by train were directly responsible for bringing into at least two lineages. to Park Station from Pretoria, where he him (Dart) back into a field of research Not long before Broom died in 1951, was working in the Transvaal Museum, which he had long previously abandoned. Robinson made an historical find at walking up Hospital Hill to the old Medical Secondly, there followed a series of Swartkrans. He showed that, along with School. With a group of less than a dozen expeditions organized by students in the the robust ape-man, the cave held remains medical students, Broom fired us with the Anatomy Department over the next two of a more advanced form to which most enthralling lectures. He used the years, and the recovery of additional Broom and Robinson19 gave the name blackboard profusely, covering it with mammalian fossils. Thirdly, perhaps it Telanthropus capensis (later reclassified as freehand drawings of great reptiles and was these stirring events that played a Homo erectus). This was the first instance near-mammals of the Karoo, and of the major part in drawing me into the field of early Homo contemporary with late- australopithecine ape-men which had of palaeo-, although at surviving, small-brained, ape-man re- been recovered from Taung, Sterkfontein that time I was working mainly on the mains. Later, Clarke20 suggested that this and Kromdraai between 1924 and World chromosomes of rodents (the topic of my Swartkrans hominid might lie some- War II. He delineated freehand the subtle Ph.D.) and on the living peoples of Africa, where between H. habilis and H. erectus. differences between the different find- whilst simultaneously carrying on my During the course of his long career, ings. Now and again he would fumble in medical studies. Fourthly, two years after Broom published 456 articles and books. his waistcoat pocket and take out two or our first student expedition, James There were three detailed monographs three superbly preserved fossil hominid Kitching, whom Dart had sent to search on the Australopithecinae, which were teeth he had just recovered from Sterk- the limeworkers’ dumps, found the first published by the Transvaal Museum in fontein, displaying these to our eager and cranial part of an australopithecine. 1946, 1950 and (posthumously) 1952.21–23 impassioned eyes: ‘That’s the sort of thing ‘Makupane’ had become South Africa’s These played a crucial role in converting you can find if you know where to look fourth ancient hominid site. History of Science South African Journal of Science 101, July/August 2005 325

During my ‘science year’, Broom invited enough about Broom’s personality to very high percentage of the species in the our class over to have tea with him and show that he was spirited in the sense of fossil record did not survive. Evolution Mrs Mary Broom in their little suburban animated, lively, energetic. I turn now to was the exception; extinction was the home in Pretoria. His house was a collec- the other implication of spirited: occupied rule! So we may infer that most of the tor’s paradise including a few Rembrandt or possessed by a spirit. ‘spontaneously proffered variations’ sketches. How could he afford such From his earliest days in Scotland, he were not of any selective advantage. wondrous art works? Reading our minds, was a strong believer in the existence of In Broom’s view, the ‘unconscious he told us: at the sale he was the only spiritual forces in nature. In his 1933 work soul’ was responsible for the changes of person present who knew that they were he set out his belief that the Taung child structure and plan of all living things. But authentic, so he picked them up for a was a ‘missing link’ and provided irresist- human beings are distinguished by having song! ‘Always’,he told us, ‘make sure you ible evidence that the hominid family had a ‘conscious soul’ as well. It is the develop- know more than anyone else. That’s my arisen from such creatures. He showed ment of conscious souls that Broom held secret for success in art-collecting — and himself in that book, as in his earlier was the purpose of evolution. in science.’ He had one of the greatest writings, to be a staunch evolutionist who I want to put this question: was Broom private collections of Transvaal stamps, accepted the evolution of humanity. Yet not a very good scientist because he including a famous philatelic error in that important book of 1933 bore the title, allowed himself to speculate publicly on which the old ox-wagon stamp of the The Coming of Man: Was it Accident or such matters? This is part of a broader Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek was printed Design? question, that of science and ethics, and with two disselbome instead of one. I Only twelve years later, my anatomy and this in turn is a component of the riddle shall never forget the hand-written letter physical anthropology teacher,Alexander of the nature of science and its social he sent me after he had examined the (‘Sandy’) Galloway told us of Broom’s relations. primate skulls we recovered on our first almost uncanny knack of knowing where One of the greatest evolutionists of the expedition. ‘You and your colleagues to search and where to dig. Broom didn’t twentieth century was Julian Huxley. have made a discovery as important as, or consider it good luck, as Louis Leakey Like Teilhard de Chardin and like Theo- even more important than, Columbus’s in Kenya did when his efforts were dosius Dobzhansky, Huxley, one of the discovery of America.’ rewarded.26 He was convinced that he authors of the neo-Darwinian synthesis,27 In April 1951, Broom was lying in bed was being guided by the spiritual forces in was concerned about the mystery of struggling to breathe and to complete nature. consciousness. As he put it, ‘In modern his last book. In England, Sir Solly Broom went further. He said that the scientific man, evolution was at last be- Zuckerman (originally of Cape Town) whole trend in the evolution of mankind coming conscious of itself.’28 Huxley, like had late in 1950 attacked Broom’s work, had been towards a creature which could Teilhard, had a value system which re- claiming that the were commune with these spiritual agencies. lated to what he considered to be the pro- simply apes. Broom had not himself Lecturing to a crowded Harveian Lecture gressive trends in evolution. Throughout replied to Zuckerman’s attack. He did so Theatre in the Wits Medical School about my career, my mind has been preoccu- in the final section of his last monograph, 55 years ago, he went on to say that very pied with the nature of science and its on the Swartkrans ape-man.23 G.H.R. Von few humans had reached a stage where social relations. Today, more and more Koenigswald, discoverer of many Javanese they could commune with these spiritual people are looking at the interdigitated fossils of Homo erectus, told me how he agencies — persons like Moses, Confu- questions of Science and Ethics. There is had visited Broom during his last months: cius, Christ, Mohamed — and then slyly an interesting historical aspect to this there was the shrunken gnome-like little and naughtily added — and Robert question. man, his skin pale and cadaverous, but a Broom! Broom based his ideas on spiritual Until World War II, the scientific search fierce light smouldering in his eyes: he agencies and the soul in his interpretation for the truth was considered to be a was writing, writing that final chapter of of evolution and especially of the mecha- mission for the good of all, to be shared the monograph. When he became aware nisms propounded to explain it. whether there was a war on or not. As of Von Koenigswald in the doorway, he He had long held that genetic mutation Jacob Bronowski29 reminded us, the roots looked up and his opening remark was, and natural selection were unable to of this attitude went back to the 1660s ‘That damned Zuckerman’. account for all the facts of evolution The when the Royal Society (of London) and On Friday morning, 6 April, he made essence of the neo-Darwinian synthesis the Académie des Sciences (of Paris) the final corrections to his manuscript. was that changes occurred in the genetic were founded. Yet, during the 60-year His nephew Cecil Broom tells how Broom material and that these mutations were Napoleonic wars, scientists in France and put down his pen and was heard to say, then available to be operated upon by Britain freely exchanged information, ‘Now that’s finished and so am I.’ He died natural selection. According to Broom, visits, letters and awards. For example, that evening. this mechanism could not explain this when Edward Jenner discovered vaccina- No-one had thrown more light on the critical problem: how new structures tion against smallpox in 1798, the news origins of the mammals and on human could arise when their presence or absence circulated freely on both sides of the evolution. As Raymond Dart said of him, in the organism at first could have made Channel. As Jenner wrote, ‘The sciences he made medical practice merely a means no difference to survival. Broom saw in were never at war’.30 to live while he sought for facts bearing on the spontaneously proffered variations of Between the two world wars, most evolution Peter Medawar, the intervention of a scientists — if they thought of the matter spiritual agency, the unconscious soul. at all — believed fervently in the pursuit Broom and the spirit It’s fifty years since Broom died and of the truth, wherever it might lead. I should like now to take you back to the some of the problems that worried him Science shared with religion this respect first words of this lecture’s title: ‘Spirited are no longer quite so worrisome to for the truth. evolutionist Robert Broom’. I have said evolutionists today. We now know that a Even then, there were two schools of 326 South African Journal of Science 101, July/August 2005 History of Science

thought. Some people were of the opin- ecstasy which come upon the scientist as Honderd Jaar Hoër Onderwys. Nasionale Boek- handel Beperk, Cape Town. ion that the spirit of science was exclu- he finds a critical solution, makes a crucial 4. Murray B. (1982). Wits, the Early Years: a History of sively dispassionate, objective, cold, observation or lights upon a decisive the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg aloof. Questions of ethics and of aesthet- hypothesis. Snow cites Janos Bolyai’s and its Precursors 1896–1939. Witwatersrand Uni- ics, these scholars believed, resided in the great cry of triumph when he saw that versity Press, Johannesburg. 5. Findlay G. (1972). Dr. Robert Broom, Palaeontologist realm of philosophy, not of science. For he could construct a consistent, non- and Physician, 1866–1951. A.A. Balkema, Cape others, such a definition was a purist’s Euclidean geometry. All of these were Town. distillation of the essence of science, a voices of aesthetic bliss and it would be 6. Tobias P.V.(1976). Dr C.S. (Oom Coert) Grobbelaar (1886–1975). S. Afr. J. Sci. 72, 158–159. caricature that was too other-worldly, too folly to exclude them from the scientific 7. Tobias P.V. (2002). The South African early fossil absolutist, too essentialist. They pointed enterprise. hominids and John Talbot Robinson (1923–2001). out that science without an ethic might In the 58 years since I undertook my first J. Hum. Evol. 43, 563–576. produce such aberrations as racism (and a 8. Broom R. (1895). On the comparative anatomy of the research, I have had the good fortune to organ of Jacobson. M.D. thesis, University of Glas- supposed scientific underpinning for its experience such moments of aesthetic joy gow. political manifestations such as Nazism, accompanying scientific discoveries. I 9. Broom R. (1913). Origin of mammals. Croonian apartheid and the latest horror, ‘ethnic conclude that science does not exist in a Lecture, Royal Society, London. cleansing’). For this group of scientists, it 10. Broom R. (1930). The Origin of the Human Skeleton: social and intellectual vacuum. It has both an Introduction to Human Osteology. Witherby, was irresponsible to exempt or exonerate ethical and aesthetic dimensions. These London. science from the ethical consequences of help to integrate the creative agenda of 11. Broom R. (1932). The Mammal-like Reptiles of South its discoveries. science into its societal and philosophic Africa, and the Origin of Mammals. Witherby,London. 12. Dart R.A. (1925). Australopithecus africanus: the The view that scientific research should milieu. Our definitions of science must man-ape of South Africa. Nature 115, 195–199. be pursued wherever it might lead went encompass these facets. All of us should 13. Broom R. (1933). The Coming of Man: Was it up in smoke, once and for all, on 6 August rejoice that one can be a scientist and at Accident or Design? Witherby, London. 1945, when the atomic bomb was dropped the same time a human being steeped in 14. Broom R. (1938). The Pleistocene anthropoid apes of South Africa. Nature 142, 377–379. on Hiroshima. The Bomb raised in an the mores and ethos of society, and at one 15. Robinson J.T.(1954). The genera and species of the acute form the question of the interrela- with other creative purposes of mankind Australopithecinae. Am. J. Phys. Anthropol. 12, tionships of science, society and ethics. such as the arts, history, philosophy, 181–200. This was true, not only for the physical 16. Broom R. (1949). Another new type of fossil religion. ape-man. Nature 163, 57. sciences, but also for the biological sci- Let me conclude with an appeal for 17. Tobias P.V. (1967). , vol. II. Cranium ences. What of science and the aesthetic? universality. Societies which are not and Maxillary Dentition of Australopithecus I have myself cried out repeatedly that (Zinjanthropus) boisei. Cambridge University European provide alternative scientific Press, Cambridge. human evolutionary studies are beset models to that of a racially – and culturally 18. Tobias P.V. (1968). The taxonomy and phylogeny with far too many species names and too – narrow, European society. May our of the australopithecines. In Taxonomy and much taxonomic complexity to give one Phylogeny of Old World Primates, With References to eyes be opened to this broader vision of the Origin of Man, ed. B. Chiarelli. Supplement to confidence that this picture reflects nature. science. 1967 volume of Rivista di Antropologia, pp. 31 Sancta simplicitas! When Dobzhansky If this is true of science, I suggest it 277–315, Turin. wrote a foreword to my first book on 19. Broom R. and Robinson J.T.(1949). A new type of applies also to religion. This comment 164 chromosomes and evolution32 nearly fifty fossil man. Nature , 322–323. is part of a global problem: there is a 20. Clarke R.J. (1978). The cranium of the Swartkrans years ago, he included this sentence: ‘An desperate need for our world to resist hominid SK847 and its relevance to human origins. Ph.D. thesis, University of the Witwatersrand, extreme simplicity is characteristic of further atomization and disintegration. most of the really important conclusions Johannesburg. Would it be asking too much to propose a 21. Broom R. and Schepers G.W.H. (1946). The South in science!’ mission for the Third Millennium to strive African fossil ape-men, the Australopithecinae. The Parsimony Principle, which is ever more energetically towards synthe- Transvaal Museum Memoir 2, Pretoria. widely applied in modern phylogenetic 22. Broom R., Robinson J.T. and Schepers G.W.H. sis? Perhaps Robert Broom’s life and (1950). Sterkfontein ape-man, Plesianthropus. analyses, may be another example. The philosophy showed us the way. What we Transvaal Museum Memoir 4, Pretoria. same principle underlies Occam’s Razor, need is not a neo-Darwinian synthesis, 23. Broom R. and Robinson J.T. (1952). Swartkrans ape-man, Paranthropus crassidens. Transvaal promulgated in the 14th century by the but a neo-Broomian synthesis! Franciscan, William of Occam. With Museum Memoir 6, Pretoria. 24. Keith A. (1947). Australopithecine or Dartians. delightful simplicity he formulated the I am most indebted to Professors ‘Koot’ Reinecke and Terry Robinson of the Department of Zoology, Uni- Nature 159, 377. maxim: ‘It is vain to do with more what versity of Stellenbosch, for inviting me to deliver the 25. Dart R.A. and Craig D. (1959). Adventures with the can be done with fewer.’ These examples John Ellerman Commemorative Lecture for 2003 on Missing Link. Harper, New York. show that aesthetic criteria play a part in the occasion of the centenary of the Zoology Depart- 26. Cole S. (1975). Leakey’s Luck. Collins, London. ment. I acknowledge with appreciation my debt, so 27. Huxley J.S. (1945). Evolution the Modern Synthesis. the day-to-day practice of science. many years ago, to Dr Robert Broom, whose memory Allen and Unwin, London. Even scientists who do not theorize and whose spirit are still so alive. Words cannot 28. Huxley J.S. (1959). Introduction to The Phenomenon about the philosophy or philosophies of express appropriately how much I owe to Heather of Man by P. Teilhard de Chardin, pp. 11–28. science, nevertheless give expression, White for her help in the preparation of this manu- Collins, London. script and in so many other ways. Financial support 29. Bronowski J. (1951). The Common Sense of Science. almost unconsciously, to this idea. C.P. was received from the PAST Fund, the Ford Founda- William Heinemann, London. 33 Snow wrote that any practising scientist tion, the French Embassy of South Africa and the Uni- 30. De Beer Sir G. (1960). The Sciences Were Never at would confirm how frequently one hears versity of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. War. Thomas Nelson, London. such phrases as ‘A beautiful idea’ or ‘an 31. Dobzhansky T. (1956). Foreword to Chromosomes, 1. Farabee W.C.(1905). Inheritance of digital malfor- Sex-cells and Evolution in a Mammal by P.V. Tobias. elegant hypothesis’ — as though beauty, mations in man. Papersof Peabody Museum, Harvard Percy Lund, Humphries, London. elegance, prettiness, sweetness, were University 3, 65–78. 32. Tobias P.V. (1956). Chromosomes, Sex-cells and yardsticks with which to judge scientific 2. Louw J.H. (1969). In the Shadow of Table Mountain: a Evolution in a Mammal. Percy Lund, Humphries, History of the University of Cape TownMedical School. London. novelty or excellence. Struik, Cape Town. 33. Snow C.P. (1961). The moral un-neutrality of Then there are moments of aesthetic 3. Thom H.B. (ed.) (1966). Stellenbosch 1866–1966: science. Science 133, 256–259.