Recently I had a chance to interview Alice Roberts, British anatomist, author, and television producer, whose book The Incredible Unlikeliness of Being: Evolution and the Making of Us was my pick last December for best science book of the year.
The book is being released by Heron Books in the U.S. this coming week. Unlikeliness was obviously inspired by Roberts' earlier shows like Origins of Us and The Incredible Journey which aired on BBC2. So I asked her if she is working on a new series now, and does she expect it will be the foundation for a new book?
Alice Roberts, British scientist and author and producer, whose book is now out in the U.S. (image... [+]
"As an academic, I’ve always been interested in the structure, function, development and evolution of the human body," she told me in an email. "I'm also involved in studying human remains - usually skeletal, and so I work closely with archaeologists. As a broadcaster, I’ve tended to focus very broadly on these subjects - anatomy, anthropology and archaeology. When I was writing Incredible Unlikeliness, I included descriptions of particular sites and key researchers that I’d met during the course of filming various programmes and series for the BBC."
But the backbone of the book, and the original inspiration for it, she said, was her fascination with embryology - and the way it is so closely intertwined with evolution.
"I've taught embryology to medical students at university for years - and thought that it was a shame that the wonderful stories I was sharing with them weren’t accessible to a wider audience. So that’s why I wanted to write the book. Having a baby gave me further impetus - and the mental space to settle down to write it!"
I was curious as to whether she has toured in the U.S. at all, either to promote her books or her programs, or just to attend conferences? Has she had any interaction with anti-evolutionists--who tend to be more populous here than in the U.K.?
"I've visited the States many times, in the course of filming. But I’ve never done a lecture tour. I’m very open to invitations! Because I do talk about and write about evolution, I have occasionally come up against creationist objections - sometimes even from university students. But I lay out the evidence for evolution - which is overwhelming, and which comes from so many different areas of science - comparative anatomy, embryology, genetics and paleontology - and ask people to make up their own minds."
From a purely research perspective, what is she working on? Any papers soon to appear in the science journals, for example, or other projects?
"I'm just starting out on research for another book, having just finished a TV tie-in for the recent series on The Celts for BBC2, which aired in the U.K. in October. In the next book, I’ll be returning to evolutionary themes, and it’s not just about humans, but I don’t want to spill any more beans than that!"
In a more academic vein, she said, one of her PhD student is studying links between the anatomy and movement of gorillas, in an attempt to understand better how locomotion - or “moving around” - is constrained by the structure of an animal’s body.
Roberts is also hoping to start work on a large collection of skeletons which were dug up in the nineteenth century from a site in Dorset, England, and which range from the Neolithic through to the Anglo-Saxon period.
"Together with colleagues from a range of U.K. universities, we’re hoping to use osteology, together with sophisticated isotope and DNA analyses, in an attempt to understand how much people were moving around in the past, and just how close-knit those communities were. It’s an exciting project, but it’s just in the planning stages at the moment."
With all the recent reports, it seems clearer and clearer that humans are, as fellow scientist Chris Stringer puts it, 'lone survivors'--the one species of human that now exists out of many that interacted with us in the past. I asked Roberts if she believes our days are also numbered--or are the long term prospects for Sapiens better than our lost cousins?
"I think our prospects are excellent. First of all, there’s an enormous number of us on the planet, which increases the odds of our species surviving. We’re also able, through our cultural and technological adaptations, to survive in a great range of environments. But - and this is a big but - we are changing the planet in a way that’s potentially quite dangerous - not just for other organisms, but for us too."
Changing climate and ecosystems, and sea level rise, she said, will probably have a huge impact on our economies and our civilizations, even in this century.
"We're likely to see a lot of migration and political instability, and we need to work together, towards global solutions, as well as looking hard at mitigating further climate change. I don’t think we’re doing nearly enough right now."
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