William Durham: Surprising Implications of Evolution

Stanford Emeriti/ae Council Autobiographical Reflections

On April 20, with an introduction by Professor Emeritus David Abernethy, Professor Emeritus William

Durham presented a lively Abernethy Autobiographical Reflections lecture to Emeriti/ae at the Stanford

Faculty Club. Durham’s lecture highlighted three widely distinct aspects of evolution from the biological,

to the cultural, to the personal.

First, stemming from the blue-footed booby photo of Professor Emeritus Lubert Stryer’s recent

Abernethy lecture, Durham considered the origin of the iconic Blue-footed Boobies of Galapagos. Here

opportunistic mating and the elevated importance of blue feet evolved to an essential reproductive

strategy in both female and male blue-footed boobies. The seasonal shift in blue-footed booby foot

color to aqua is dependent on dietary carotenoids from sardines (in turn from phytoplankton) and

correlates with their ocular spectral sensitivity range and with cold mineral-rich marine upwellings

nearby. The foot-color shift to “sardine blue” points to a Galapagos origin for the species, counter to

orthodoxy in the field.

In the second, surprising example, Durham discussed a classic cultural anthropological study of the

Thongpa, a group of tax-paying serfs in traditional Tibet and Tibetan-speaking Nepal. Cultural

inheritance in this society resulted in an exceptional diversity of marriage practices tightly managed by

parents with the long-term goal of uniting all legal heirs of each generation into a single marriage with

inheritance, thus to hold on to the essential land. This cultural practice was maintained in the context of

extreme climate, low primary production in the steep agricultural valleys, and financial tolls exacted by

the local manorial landlords. Thongpa emigrants to India do not continue those diverse marriage

practices. There were clear adaptive advantages to the practice in the homeland, yet it’s a product of

cultural evolution—an important correction, says Durham, to the claims of sociobiology.

In keeping with the theme of Autobiographical Reflections, in his final example Durham credited his

childhood interest in finding fossils, from brachiopods to trilobites, during limestone treasure hunts near

his home in Northern Ohio. In his personal “evolution,” the enduring question remains: what are the

origins of the diversity of life?