NEW YORK (AP) - Richard Leakey predicts skepticism over evolution will soon be history. Not that the avowed atheist has any doubts himself.
Sometime
in the next 15 to 30 years, the Kenyan-born paleoanthropologist expects
scientific discoveries will have accelerated to the point that "even
the skeptics can accept it."
"If
you get to the stage where you can persuade people on the evidence,
that it's solid, that we are all African, that color is superficial,
that stages of development of culture are all interactive," Leakey says,
"then I think we have a chance of a world that will respond better to
global challenges."
Leakey, a professor at Stony Brook University on Long Island, recently spent several weeks in New York promoting the Turkana Basin Institute in Kenya.
The institute, where Leakey spends most of his time, welcomes
researchers and scientists from around the world dedicated to unearthing
the origins of mankind in an area rich with fossils.
His friend, Paul Simon,
performed at a May 2 fundraiser for the institute in Manhattan that
collected more than $2 million. A National Geographic documentary on his
work at Turkana aired this month on public television.
Now 67, Leakey is the son of the late Louis and Mary Leakey
and conducts research with his wife, Meave, and daughter, Louise. The
family claims to have unearthed "much of the existing fossil evidence
for human evolution."
On the
eve of his return to Africa earlier this week, Leakey spoke to The
Associated Press in New York City about the past and the future. More
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