But evolution does not take place as this

Lucy, Toumaï, Abel, Orrorin... the Paleoanthropology resembles a fight around rare fossils to find the human ancestor. Can you explain the meaning of your discipline

Basically, it seeks to respond to the universal question of the origin of man. In the strict sense, it is to understand biological evolution over millions of years to a single species, "Homo sapiens". More broadly, the Paleoanthropology took place in prehistory, encompassing all of the studies on the evolution of human and his family, the hominids. Beyond research on fossils, to sink in time, there is interest in genetics, a role more important for the classification between men and apes, and ethology, with the study of the behaviour of great apes in their natural environment.

By showing how the man left the forest to Savannah and became bipedal, the film "The Odyssey of this case" met with great success. Is it safe this scenario

No, he never was a big monkey who would be restated from the forest to Savannah. This story, already referred to Aristotle, is a myth inherited from Western thought: domination of the mind over the body, the natural scale of species since saint Thomas Aquinas, Leibniz, etc. But evolution does not take place as this. It is not the function that creates the body, what is known of the lamarckism. The environment creates nothing, there is that select. Why should it be bipedal in Savannah Baboons live very well as a four-legged. In "the Odyssey of this case, it is our putative ancestor Orrorin is recovering. Do you know that it was only 1.10 metre There is no more than the grasses of the Savannah! And he would be released stand up for what Predators They hunt at night!

In truth, the story is beautiful, but it is clear even if the play on words is easy that my discipline is eroded the "myths". As soon as there is interest in the origins, they take precedence over the science.

How do share between myths and science

How to query the world is everything. Through our education, our religion, our Humanities, we are fed to the idea of why. Why is human bipedal To see over the savanna But science must not deal with the why, but how. And if we go with the great apes, we see that they are also capable of bipedalism. Chimpanzees, bonobos, orangutans and gorillas, equipped with a broad chest, species have a similar to that of the human locomotor repertoire.

Can therefore imagine that for reasons related to the physical, but also social, environment suitability for the bipedalism was reinforced in our human lineage and, as recounts Yves Coppens, the passage of forested savannas dense forests played a role. Coppens and I differ on the origins of the bipedalism, but not on the selective role associated with the life in environments of forested savannas. Me, I note that the oldest fossil Orrorin, Toumaï and "Ardipithecus ramidus", as there, lived in forest environments, and I think that the bipedalism is a function, not a character in "Homo sapiens". It is older than the separation of our line with that of great apes and is therefore not constitutive of our humanity.

When dated this famous separation between man and monkey How far can you back in time

It is the great controversy. What is the last common ancestor Orrorin was 6 million years, Toumaï 7 million, and therefore if one or the other is the origin of the human line, this means that the last common ancestor with monkeys is older. Between 8 and 10 million years ago. But geneticists, who discovered that our genetic code was barely 1 of that of great apes, say us that this separation took place there are 5 to 7 million years, not more.

Would the discovery of a more ancient fossil close the debate Probably not. The fossil would have human and great ape characters. In any event, can never say that the last common ancestor is found. Indeed, it is not sure that should register Toumaï and Orrorin on the human lineage than that of great apes, but the Paleoanthropology is hung across species and refuses to include within its scope the monkeys.

That happened after the last common ancestor

Evolution is not linear, but mosaic. Yves Coppens thus speaks of the "bouquet of the ancestors". 2.5 To 1.5 million years ago, the first men appear in Africa. They walk two or three types, all better than Lucy, their ancestor australopithecines. They possess more large brains, with more marked asymmetries, which explains greater dexterity, the chipped stone, prehistoric... To 2 million years appears "Homo ergaster", the first that manages to live away from trees. He left Africa in the direction of Europe and Asia. Mystery: at the time where it is divided into three continents, all the other lines of the human race are extinguished!

1.5 Million to 500,000 years, it is not too known what happened, but then we discover that there are again several types of men on Earth: those in Europe will become "Homo neanderthalensis", those of Africa and the Middle East "Homo sapiens", while in Asia is "Homo erectus", men of Solo in Java and the

small man of Flores on Flores Island. 50,000 Years ago, there were at least four species of men! Until the arrival in Europe, to roughly 38,000 years, of "Homo sapiens sapiens" (our Cro-Magnon), who will invade territories, while once more, other species, Neandertal, Solo, "erectus", will disappear.

The query on our origins helps us to better respond to this another essential question: where are we

Yes. How not to be taken from Vertigo when it includes to glaciation, I would not be talking, but it would be my cousin Mr. Neandertal or my cousin Ms. Flores... Or perhaps there could not man at all. The Paleoanthropology shows that evolution is not directed towards us. We are part of an ecological community, hence the importance to protect.

Moreover, my discipline is concerned about the other big question: what is human For a long time characterized by the bipedalism, tool, language, social life, food sharing, the ability of a thoughtful and symbolic thinking. However the ethology shows us that all these characteristics are also found in apes. Chimpanzees use for example to 70 tools.

We are 6 billion, the apes barely 400,000. Midnight less for them, as stated in the UN

Yes, we are witnessing the direct destruction of the history of our origins. At the rate things are going, orangutans will be gone in ten years, gorillas and chimpanzees in fifty maximum. 90 of gorillas in the region of Odzala, in central Congo, have been eliminated by the Ebola virus, while movements of population and poverty in Rwanda and Burundi have raised chimpanzees hunting.

Too long, the protection of the monkeys suffered derogatory image that is attached to them. Yves Coppens likes to tell his grandmother told him: "You, you descends surely monkey, but certainly not me.". In France, ethology is unfortunately not regarded as a serious discipline, but it's starting to change. Yet, how admit to eliminate those who are closest to us It is an ethical and ontological issue.

There is a protection programme, the Great Apes Survival Project, led by the United Nations agencies, and for two years the France finally began to get involved. But is a terribly difficult task, because it is necessary to tackle the causes: deforestation, hunting, trafficking of species... Should develop real programmes of education and participation of local populations for the preservation of their ecosystems. With different Zoological Parks, we reflect on the possibility of mounting a foundation.

You belong to the Committee of ecological watch of the Fondation Nicolas Hulot. Do you want to, it arises in the presidential election

He is right to threaten to report if environmental issues are being neglected. Must be taking a stand to stop as left to right, ecology is neither edge nor the other. But, from my point of view, popularity does not necessarily turn into ballots.

To the degradation of the environment, has the scientific community not too quick to mobilize

Some institutions such as the Academy of sciences, have been slow to manifest itself to ecology, as hope that science and technology solve the future problems remains deeply rooted. But, for twenty years, there are also scientists who sound the alarm.

The idea of human dominant nature is in any case not mine. We are in a great adventure called the history of life, which we do not leave without which surrounds us. It is better to take the risk of too alarm than not enough.

The man is doing since millions of years, as shown in your fossils. Why it does not continue

Attention, there are 50,000 years, there existed several species of men, and there remains only one... To climate change, are we able to understand and implement strategies for survival the so-called adaptation It seems to me that today ' hui neither our Governments nor our societies are ready. Unable to get out of the paradigm inherited from the Renaissance that man must order in the nature. But the development never stops! More we delay change of paradigm, it will be difficult to adapt.

One you titled your books "in the beginning was the man". That you reply to those who think that "in the beginning was God"

The American creationists, that the text of the Bible is faith and who want to prohibit the teaching of evolution in public schools, was deny by the courts on the question of epistemology. "Biblical science", they want to impose, is not a science, but a discourse of truth, because it rejects any notion of Testability. But science is concerned with search for data that support or contradict models.

That said, there was a resurgence of creationism outside the United States. The need to find a purpose for the existence of human alive even of famous linguists. I think that the secular parenthesis is closed. The sciences have inflicted on human three narcissistic injuries, said Freud: Galileo and Copernicus showed that he is not at the centre of the universe, Darwin that he has not been the subject of a special creation, and the famous psychoanalyst that the unconscious questioned our free-referee. If Freud was now on Earth, I think that he would be surprised, he lived at a time when secularism dominated all Western countries.

The renewed opposition to Darwin you are concerned about it

Our time doubt its future, which may explain this upsurge of creationism. A development which is not favourable to the awareness of the ecological problems of the planet. Because, in this vision, where is our share of responsibility