By Dr. Robert Thorson
Biodiversity and cultural diversity are being measured from opposite directions. What are the consequences?
Very recently, geneticists proved what field biologists and anatomists have long since suspected. The so-called African elephant is really two distinct species.
Most iconic is the savannah elephant (Loxodonta africana). It’s larger and accounts for nearly three quarters of the estimated half-million population. Less well known is the African forest elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis), which looks and behaves quite differently. Based on nuclear DNA analyses, these species bifurcated from a common ancestor several million years ago.
That’s also when another pair of elephant species bifurcated from a common ancestor: the Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) and the now extinct woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius). Thus three of the four known elephant species are still with us.
On a practical level, this is good news. It’s a factual discovery that adds to our store of knowledge. It also gives conservationists more focus and political leverage. And, biologically, we can carve another notch on the stick of elephant diversity.
The taxonomic splitting of elephants got me thinking about the taxonomic lumping of human culture groups. In the days of 19th-century colonial racism and scientific eugenics, the dominant European powers were splitters, sorting human beings the way biologists do, into a hierarchy of supposedly biologically distinct groups based on visible differences. Today, we have largely abandoned a biologically based classification and have become lumpers, “creating a more inclusive community that recognizes and celebrates individual differences.” This quote is from the academic plan at the University of Connecticut, which wisely embeds diversity into its mission statement, as do many institutions and corporations.
Left unsaid is that the total diversity being safeguarded by institutions lies inside our single species, Homo sapiens. As recently as about 30,000 years ago, there were at least two other species within our same genus living in the Old World, Homo neanderthalensis in Europe and western Asia and Homo floresiensis in southeast Asia.
Archaeologists also suspect, but have not yet proved, that one or more additional species – descendants of Homo erectus – also coexisted with us. Unlike the case with elephants, on the stick of human biodiversity, several notches have recently been erased by extinctions.
And now, two related issues.
Within our species, the practice of lumping cultural diversity runs counter to the basic narrative of human history and prehistory, during which geographically separated, non-biological races, cultures and ethnicities arose spontaneously and naturally, and then made war on each other. We lump for reasons of equity, to minimize conflict and to advantage ourselves by having multiple cultural tools for solving problems shared by all.
Beyond our species, the practice of splitting discrete taxa into smaller units has no bearing on the inherent worth and dignity of every living thing, with or without an accurate, proper name. In this regard, I ask why we are so ambivalent toward our closest living relatives – the African chimpanzees, whose common ancestor bifurcated from the human line about the time African elephants divided.
While some members of our species work hard to ensure that chimps live unmolested in their natural habitat, others eat them, imprison them in zoos, exhibit them in circuses, confine them as pets and cage them for experiments as models for human disease.
Biological diversity and cultural diversity are outcomes of unplanned evolution. Biodiversity management is most effective when splitting dominates because we can target interventions more accurately. Bravo to the elephant geneticists.
Cultural diversity management is most effective when lumping dominates because it’s the only fair thing to do. An equal bravo to those who work within institutions to promote fairness.