The 'shock of the new

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Yes, you are a'swinger' Johannes Baargeld, 1920 MORE ON evolution this week, following a couple of articles in New Scientist by Jeremy Cherpas and John Gribbins, who are usually interesting, and often challenging writers.

It concerns the origin of humans and their degree of relatedness with apes. This has been a touchy subject since Darwin's days when his supporter T.H. Huxley told a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science that he would prefer an ape to Bishop Wilberforce for an ancestor.

Humans like to feel that they are unique and. this may explain why. though we recognise that we are related to apes, palaeontologists (people who study fossils) generally agree that our line split off from the ape line between 14 and 20 million years ago (mya).

The available fossils however give little support to this idea and comparison of the anatomy of modern apes and humans reveals a different story.

All modern apes are brachiators, that is, they can get around by hanging from tree branches and their arms and shoulders have a different development of bones and muscles from nonbrachiators.

But modern humans (and all extinct hominids means "human like"| so far dug up) have similarly constructed arms and shoulders - we are brachiators and, as readers will know from watching gymnasts or trapeze artists, we can get pretty good at it.

This suggests either an amazing coincidence or that our common ancestor with the apes was also a brachiator.

Now there are no fossils Andrew Macdonald reports on "futurism', past and present ROCK 'culture' is one vast spectrum, a world of tangled up contrasts, like the ecstatically good Au Pairs and The Beat, and the vomit-retching, indescribably bad Nolans and Starsound.

Then there are the household names like the oneband-multi-million-multinational-corporations, Abba and The Jacksons.

Or the unobtrusively obscure who for a laugh and something to do make their own music and records (people like myself). of brachiating apes before about 10 million years ago, and Rampithecus (14mya), often claimed as a forerunner of humans, was not a "swinger' Unfortunately the fossi record is very patchy and we must turn to biochemistry for further evidence.

Ancestor

Related creatures have similar proteins and DNA and the degree of similarity can be used to calculate how far back. their common ancestor is.

For proteins, this is done by making antibodies to a protein from one species and seeing how much the antibody reacts with the same protein from another species. The difference in the amount of the reaction is called the "immunological distance"

But what it boils down to is that basically there are two brands of rock which have evolved over the last 25 years or so. It's just like realism and abstract art.

On the one hand we have the pro-status quo, pro-capitalist rockers, and on the other we have the cultural rebels, the avant-garde.

Vogue

for the former, it's more or less a question of bourgeois economics. For the latter, the 'shock of the new' is as much in philosophical vogue as it was in the roaring twenties' and the 'swinging thirties' with the abstract art movements:

In place of surrealism, dada, constructivism and cubism, today's youth have heavy metal. rockabilly, For blood albumin, the distance between Old World monkeys and apes for albumin is 2.3 units. From the fossil record, we know that apes and Old World monkeys split from each other 30 mya.

The distance between humans and African apes (gorilla and chimpanzee) is 1.12 units. This corresponds to a split some 5 mya (the scale is not a linear one).

This explains why we and the modern apes are brachiators - it is not a coincidence but the result of our having a common, brachiating, ancestor a mere 5 mya.

Identical

Using a different technique to compare DNA, it is found that chimp DNA is 997 identical to human DNA.

By similar argument punk and ska. So, instead of oil paints, sculptures and canvass, today's youth take up drum kits, synthesisers and saxes.

I think the parallel is quite remarkable. A lot of groups sing about identical subjects to those which the cubists painted and made collages of.

Record sleeves have often incorporated the same art styles.

The punk fanzines had the same idealistic calls for a "cultural revolution' (not the Maoist sort, incidentally) as the Dada Manifestos of the '20s did.

A couple of groups have even made the link directly and have gone so far as to adopt the name of their cultural forebears lock, stock and barrel Bauhaus, Cabaret Voltaire, Futurists.

Science this points to a split between human and chip ancestors some 4½ mya.

What's more, we are as closely related to chimps and gorillas as they are to each other: and more closely related to both than orangutans or gibbons (the other branch of the apes).

Humbling though it may be to some of our number, we are apes and there is no justification whatsoever for classifying ourselves as Hominidae and the apes as Pongidae.

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Modigliani, the Italian artist who painted people with the long necks, drank too much and took too many drugs, and Killed himself at an early age. Jim Morrison of the Doors, Jimi Hendrix, and many other 'rock stars' did exactly the same thing half a century later and were subsequently immortalised by an obsessive cult following.

Anyway, early last year a new cultish fad emerged from trendy London nightclubs. It was chiefly characterised by loud: dressing, synthesisers and indulgent hair-styles.

It was spearheaded by the now very respectable Spandau Ballet and Duran Duran. It was to be known as futurism.

Trendy

Previously, around 1910, a new artistic circle emerged from trendy cafes and studios -in Paris and Rome. It was chiefly characterised by loud colours, and indulgent abstractions on canvas. It was led by Filippo Marinetti and Umberto Boccioni. It was known as Grace Jones, 1981 futurism, too.

The futurists (the first bunch) had a strange fate. Many renounced their old beliefs and jumped onto something a bit more popular. Others were killed in the First World War.

Worst of all, Marinetti joined the Fascist Party. spoke on the same platform as Mussolini and ended up as a Minister in the fascist state.

Straight

To put the record straight, I'm not insinuating that Spandau Ballet, Duran Duran, etc are neo-falangists. They're not. Instead they appear almost consciously non-political, if there is such a thing.

Searching through the lyrics printed on the sleeve of Duran Duran's album, I couldn't find a single social or political remark.

Mind you, I still think it's ? palatable album even quite tuneful - maybe a bit pretentious, but OK on the ears.

Not like much of the so-called futurist records which are either souped-up disco junk or whining space invader machines.

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Socialist Organiser, 17 September 198/ Puge