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William Durham: Surprising Implications of Evolution
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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?
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