Paige Madison gains encouragement from Nat’l Museum of Natural History Director Chris Stringer
Edward Tyson was a man of his time. Like Darwin, Huxley and Francis Galton, were he alive today, he would not pass a political correctness test.
Tyson was a celebrated Physician in England. He is widely viewed as the “father of modern anatomy.” He is best known, for coming up with the term “Orang outangs” which literally means “man of the jungle” in Indonesian, to describe the Asian species of ape found on island of Java and on Sumatra.
In 2015, Richard Sabin, Principal Curator of Natural Sciences at the Natural History Museum of London, (where Chris Stringer works), was interviewed on Edward Tyson on the BBC Science podcast:
“Edward Tyson is a hero of mine. He, probably without realizing it, was starting to establish the modern form, of the systematic approach to the study of natural history by classification… He made comparisons of animals… He also made comparisons of humans which was dangerous and controversial at the time.”
Excerpted from Flashbak, Aug. 18 2016,
Monkey, An Ape And A Man: The Anatomy of A Pygmy Race (1699)
In 1699 Edward Tyson (1651 – 1708), a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and a doctor at the Bedlam institute for the mentally ill, published Orang-Outang, sive Homo Sylvestris: or, the Anatomy of a Pygmie compared with that of a Monkey, an Ape, and a Man, in which he relayed his account of the dissection of a juvenile creature, later named a chimpanzee, brought to the UK from Angola in 1998…By comparing muscular and skeletal measurements of Pygmie (chimp) and man, Tyson aimed to prove that “the pygmies, the cynocephali, the satyrs and spinges of the ancients” were not human.
Sabin continues his praise noting that Tyson was particularly interested in “dissecting exotic animals brought back from overseas,” similar to Darwin who would follow in his footsteps on the Voyage of the Beagle, over 100 years later.
Sabin retells a story during the podcast that Tyson dissected a Porpoise that had died, washed up on the beach. He was the first to declare it a Mammal not a Fish as had been commonly believed.
CNN’s Chika Oduah not thrilled with British scientist Edward Tyson
In May of 2018, Nigerian-American occasional CNN contributor Chika Oduah wrote:
In 1751, British scientist and physician Edward Tyson published a book entitled, The Anatomy of a Pygmy Compared with that of an Ape and a Man. The text “effectively introduced the Western world to the Pygmies as a subhuman entity.”
It is unclear whether Chika Oduah realized Tyson was referring to Pan troglodytes, as in Chimpanzees when she sent out the Tweet. Such confusion might stem from the fact that as noted at bonobosworld.org the three African-pygmy tribes share the same regional biosphere in central Africa as the Bonobos.
Note – Tyson could very well have used a Bonobo instead of a Chimp for his comparative analysis. Some regard Bonobos as even closer in appearance than Chimps to human Mbuti, Twa and Mbaka tribes of central Africa.
Miguna Miguna doubles down on Chika Oduah’s remarks on Tyson and Chimp identity
Dr. Miguna Miguna, a celebrity African sociologist and a blue check on Twitter, with an astounding 1.7 million followers responded to his friend Chika:
“Let us say a firm NO to these kinds of retrogressive thoughts and behaviours. Healthy relationships (between men and women as well between human beings of all gender, age and ethnicities) should be FOUNDED and BUILT on TRANSPARENCY, ACCOUNTABILITY and INTEGRITY. Not deception.”
Young starlet paleo-anthropologist gushes over Tyson
From her bio, Paige Madison:
Paige Madison is a PhD candidate in the history and philosophy of science at Arizona State University. She is interested in the history of paleoanthropology, Neanderthals, Australopithecines and Homo floresiensis.
On August 1, 2019, Paige Madison Tweeted out a quote from Tyson, “In every animal there is a world of wonders.”
Ironic, in that Madison has even attacked Charles Darwin in the past as a racist, Tweeting: ” He also embraced race typology models. He saw Black Africans and our Indigenous People as primitive.”
Paige Madison now at the University of Copenhagen
UPDATED: Paige Madison was a PhD candidate at the time of the Tweet at Arizona State University. She has accepted a research position at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. She is a PostDoc affiliated with the Natural History Museum of Denmark, “examining human evolution in the Anthropocene.”
But in 2018/19 Madison she frequently praised old white male paleontologists and anthropologists on social media and on YouTube. This caught the attention of distinguished London Natural History Museum Director Chris Stringer.
Here is the Tweet on controversial 16th Century anatomist Edward Tyson. After she Tweeted it out to honor Tyson, it was re-Tweeted by Stringer. Stringer has over 13 thousand followers.
"In every Animal there is a world of wonders." Remembering Edward Tyson #OnThisDay, anatomist who first dissected a chimpanzee in 1698 and compared it to humans. #histsci (chimp skeleton is on display at @NHM_London)! https://t.co/cm7L0c6Ffr pic.twitter.com/MNLtuCouQP
— Paige Madison (@FossilHistory) August 1, 2019
UPDATE! Paige Madison has since deleted troublesome Tweets from her Twitter account, including an exchange with the editor of Subspecieist on Homo floresiensis. She accused this site’s editor of being a “racist” for suggesting the modern villagers on the Island of Flores have genetic links to the Hobbits.
Paige Madison was a guest on the Armen Show podcast on YouTube on August 21, 2021.
