Радио Овсянка - Простая Наука. Александр Марков - текст песни, слова, перевод, видео

Alexander Markov is a Russian biologist, paleontologist, and popularizer of science. He received the Enlightener Prize for his book “Human Evolution.” I'll read you an excerpt

“So, if humans evolved from apes… sorry, from ancient non-human apes, then why didn’t all the other non-human apes turn into humans?

It seems to me that this question is often asked simply because they think: well, it’s more fun to be a human than to jump on branches without pants. The question is based on at least two errors. First, it assumes that evolution has some goal toward which it persistently strives, or at least some "main direction." Some people think that evolution always moves from simple to complex. The movement from simple to complex in biology is called progress. But evolutionary progress is not a general rule; it is not characteristic of all living beings, but only of a small part of them. Many animals and plants do not become more complex during evolution, but, on the contrary, become simpler - and at the same time they feel great. In addition, in the history of the development of life on earth, it happened much more often that a new species did not replace old ones, but was added to them. As a result, the total number of species on the planet gradually increased. Many species became extinct, but even more new ones appeared. So man is added to primates, to other monkeys, and did not replace them.

Secondly, many people mistakenly believe that man is precisely the goal to which evolution has always strived. But biologists have not found any evidence for this assumption."

Alexander Markov is also one of the authors of the popular science website “Elements.ru”, chairman of the board of the Evolution Foundation.

This foundation publishes popular science books, provides them to teachers, supports scientific schools and events, and organizes the training of lecturers in the field of science. And, of course, he fights pseudoscience.