International Balzan Foundation Luigi Luca Cavalli

International Balzan Foundation 

Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza 

1999 Balzan Prize 

for Science of Human Origins 

Excerpts from the publications: 

Balzan Prizes 1999 (enlarged and revised edition, 2009) 

Meeting the Challenges of the Future. 

A Discussion between “The Two Cultures” 

(Leo S. Olschki Editore, 2003)

Revised and enlarged excerpt published on the occasion 

of Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza’s lectio magistralis 

held on 7 September 2009, 

at the Fondazione Corriere della Sera, Milano. 

© 2009, Fondazione Internazionale Balzan, Milano [www.balzan.org]

INDEX 

Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, 

1999 Balzan Prize for Science of Human Origins 

Motivation for the Prize and laudatio 5 

Acceptance Speech 6 

A Comprehensive Outline of My Research 11 

The Developments of My Research after the Balzan Prize (1999-2009) 25 

Are there Limits to Knowledge? 29 

Biographical and bibliographical data 36 

International Balzan Foundation 41

Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, 


Motivation of the Prize and laudatio 


For his comprehensive work on human evolution by integrating genetic and 

cultural features. 

Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza is the world’s expert on human genetic diversity and 

what it tells us about the phylogenetic tree of human populations. 

He realised that an understanding of the evolution of mankind requires the 

knowledge of both genetic mechanisms and cultural, especially linguistic, features. 

By collecting genes from a great number of different populations and testing 

more than a hundred different alleles, as well as by analysing historical, demographic, 

linguistic, etc. data, he was able to reconstruct the origin of ancient 

migration, creating a model of diffusion of culture in the Neolithic Age. 

In his comprehensive works, his genetic investigations of primitive populations, 

especially pygmies of Africa (one of the few remaining groups of hunters-gatherers), 

played an important role. 

Also, the studies of the genetic consequences of technological development, 

particularly the spread of agriculture from its area of origin, the Middle-East, to 

Europe, were exemplary. All this, in combination with archaeological data, allowed 

the reconstruction of a complete tree of human descent, in which genes 

and languages go hand in hand, demonstrating that genetic and cultural data 

converge in furnishing a convincing explanation of human evolution. 

In summing up, Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza has created a most comprehensive 

synthesis on the differentiation of populations by integrating various fields of research 

and providing convincing evidence for genetic and cultural co-evolution. 

5


Acceptance Speech 

Berne - 16 November, 1999 

Mrs. President of the Swiss Confederation, 

Members of the Balzan Foundation, 

Ladies and Gentlemen, 

I would like to begin by thanking all my friends, and other people I do not 

know, for proposing my name for the Balzan Prize; the Prize Committee, for 

their decision to act on the nomination; and above all, Eugenio Balzan and his 

daughter Angela Lina Balzan for their great generosity to science and culture. 

For about the last thirty years I have been living in the United States where I frequently 

have cause to admire the large-scale sponsorship that exists there - particularly 

in the scientific field - and from which universities and cultural institutions 

benefit to a substantial extent. And I often think what a pity it is that there 

is so little sponsorship in Italy. One of the reasons, of course, is that Italian legislation 

does not particularly encourage generosity of this type, except in special 

cases, and then only recently. For this reason, the way of thinking that would encourage 

very wealthy people in Italy to donate part of their money to the country’s 

scientific, cultural and intellectual progress has never been able to establish 

itself there. However, I hope that the generosity of the Balzans will stimulate 

more people in Italy to act in a similar manner. Based on what I know of the life 

and work of Eugenio Balzan and his daughter I feel enormous admiration for 

them, and I am sure their memory will be held in great respect by the many others 

who have benefited from their generosity in the same way as I have. I would 

like, once again, to express my deepest gratitude to those who decided to make 

the award to myself and my field of learning. 

The Balzan Prize has been awarded to me for my research into the origins of 

man. The first ten years of my work as a researcher were devoted to the genetics 

of bacteria. However, in 1952, in Italy, I remembered the original teachings 

of my great mentor in the field of genetics, Professor Adriano Buzzati-Traverso. 

I owe to him my interest in the genetics of population and evolution, and I 

decided to turn to this interest, and to concentrate it on humans. I feel the 

choice of humans was dictated by my university studies, which I completed in 

medicine. 

6


The study of evolution received a solid framework with the introduction of a 

mathematical theory which was developed between 1918 and 1950 by three 

great scientists, Sir Ronald A. Fisher, J. B. S. Haldane and Sewall Wright. From 

1948 to 1950 I had the good fortune to work with Sir Ronald Fisher in Cambridge 

and derived great benefit from the relationship. Soon after this, I found 

myself asking the question as to whether it would be possible to reconstruct the 

evolutionary history of man by analysing the genetic differences between humans 

living today. At that time there were not yet sufficient genetic population 

data. Knowledge was limited to the frequency distributions of certain blood 

groups, including the so-called ABO system used for blood transfusions, and 

the famous rhesus system, as well as a few others. So until enough additional scientific 

knowledge could be collected to form a critical mass, the time could be 

devoted to studying the theory of evolution. At that time, there were two fundamentally 

different views as to the significance of the two major evolutionary 

factors: natural selection, on the one hand, and on the other, the effects of 

chance due to the limited size of populations. This inevitably leads to fluctuations 

in the statistical frequency of occurrence of genetic characteristics, and 

their effects would accumulate over generations. 

There was absolutely no doubt that natural selection played a central role. The 

influence of chance had already been especially investigated by one of the fathers 

of the mathematical theory of evolution, Sewall Wright, but there were still 

no usable empirical data. In passing, I am pleased to be able to remind you that 

Sewall Wright was awarded the Balzan Prize in 1984, having outlived the other 

two great scientists by a good many years. The other geneticist who has so far 

had the honour of receiving this prize was John Maynard Smith, who was one of 

the most brilliant students of J. B. S. Haldane. So we have the interesting coincidence 

that of the three geneticists who have been awarded the Balzan Prize 

until now, Sewall Wright was the last of the three great names who was still alive, 

and the other two were students of Haldane and Fisher. 

I set out to solve the problem of how to measure the effects of chance on genetic 

variation by studying a population group in the neighbourhood of the University 

of Parma where I was teaching in the nineteen-fifties. The idea was that 

it should be easy to predict the effects of chance on the genetic differences between 

the various villages, by using demographic data reconstructed on the basis 

of church records of births, marriages and deaths going back to the year 

7


1500. This would permit us to calculate the genetic variation due to chance predicted 

theoretically, and compare it with actual observations. This work turned 

out successfully thanks to the assistance of two young students: the priest Antonio 

Moroni, and Franco Conterio, who are both now professors at Parma, the 

former of ecology and the latter of anthropology. 

By 1961 enough genetic data and observations from numerous populations in 

the world had been collected, and it was possible to make a first analysis of the 

evolutionary tree of human populations. Anthony Edwards of Cambridge University 

helped me to develop and use methods of reconstructing evolutionary 

trees. We performed the necessary heavy calculations with the Olivetti Elea 

computer recently purchased by the University of Pavia, to which I had moved 

and where I was continuing my research work. We could thus reconstruct the 

first evolutionary tree of human populations, whose basic structure is still valid 

today. Another working relationship very fruitful for me was with Sir Walter 

Bodmer, also a student of R. A. Fisher, with whom we published two books on 

human population genetics. One of these, The Genetics of Human Populations, 

was re-printed only a few months ago by Dover Publications, almost thirty years 

after it was first published. 

In the second half of the nineteen-sixties I extended the model of genetic research 

I had developed on the population of Parma – as far as this was possible 

– to a group of hunters and gatherers in the African bush: the pygmies. This is 

one of the few population groups still alive today with a pre-agricultural economy 

similar to that of the Palaeolithic period. Professor Marcello Siniscalco, at 

that time Professor at Leiden, was very helpful to me in carrying out in his laboratory 

the genetic analysis of countless blood samples I had collected in Africa. 

The contact with such a totally different culture stimulated me to embark on research 

into cultural evolution which I pursued after I moved to Stanford University 

in 1971. I began by analysing archaeological data on the spread of agriculture 

in Europe in the Neolithic period in collaboration with the archaeologist 

Albert Ammerman. Thanks to a mathematical theory developed by R. A. Fisher 

in 1937 we were able to measure the rate at which agriculture spread, and show 

that it was consistent with the hypothesis that it was the people themselves that 

spread, and not the knowledge of agriculture. In other words, it was a diffusion 

of farmers, which we called demic, and not of farming. In the second half of the 

nineteen-seventies we carried out with Alberto Piazza and Paolo Menozzi, now 

8


Professors of Human Genetics in Turin, and Ecology in Parma, an analysis of 

data on gene frequencies in Europe. This work enabled us to confirm that genetic 

and archaeological data are closely correlated and consistent with the idea 

that agriculture spread from the Middle East. This was the start of a 14-yearlong 

working relationship with Menozzi and Piazza. Thanks to it we extended 

these studies of genetic geography and history to the rest of the world, in the 

way they are described in the book The History and Geography of Human Genes 

published in 1994. 

In the nineteen-eighties the first methods of genetic analysis were used which 

made it possible to carry out direct investigations on DNA. This revolutionary 

development expanded the bandwidth of genetic variation from a few hundred 

genes to several tens of thousands, and genetic analysis could be shifted down to 

the smallest unit of DNA, the individual nucleotide. It also became possible to 

use new methods of collecting genetic data on significant factors in human evolutionary 

history, particularly on the spread of modern man beyond the area 

from which he originates: Africa. Four years ago, a researcher from my laboratory, 

Peter Underhill, together with Peter Oefner, a colleague from Ron Davis’ 

laboratory, invented a new and particularly efficient method of investigating 

DNA differences. This made it possible to find many genetic variations in the Ychromosome. 

For a number of reasons this chromosome turned out to be extremely 

valuable, even though it had made practically no contribution to evolutionary 

research up to that time. Since then, however, we have entered a phase 

of great activity and fascinating discoveries. 

The explosive growth in knowledge in the last few years has also had an effect 

on certain socio-cultural fields of study such as linguistics and onomastics - the 

study of names. In connection with my studies of onomastics and blood relationships 

I would like to acknowledge the valuable support of Professor Gianna 

Zei of Pavia. We have observed a significant similarity between the development 

of language and of genes, which is in part due to common evolutionary 

mechanisms and historical expansionary processes of populations. With the 

studies of the development of language I have had the assistance of Joseph 

Greenberg and Merritt Ruhlen of Stanford, and Bill Wang of Berkeley. These 

latest studies result in part from thirty years of collaboration with Professor 

Marc Feldman of Stanford, with whom we developed a mathematical theory of 

cultural heredity. Until now the studies of cultural evolution have not aroused 

9


much interest among cultural anthropologists, with one important exception: 

the joint research on the pygmies with Professor Barry Hewlett of Washington 

University. The studies have, however, proved interesting to economists who 

find the mathematical approach more appealing. 

My research work has frequently led me into areas normally out of bounds to 

the natural sciences, and it can therefore promote a greater interchange between 

the “Two Cultures”. Multidisciplinarity is central to fields such as mine. On the 

other hand, science demands ever-increasing specialisation, because otherwise 

there is the danger of superficiality. However, it is always possible to become 

multidisciplinary by seeking out good co-workers in other disciplines. I am 

pleased I have had the opportunity to mention the most important ones and to 

thank them. My research work would not have been possible without them. 

10 

LUIGI LUCA CAVALLI-SFORZA

A Comprehensive Outline of My Research 

(1999 – revised July 2009) 


by Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza 

Professor Emeritus at the School of Medicine, Stanford University 

In my thanks I have given a very preliminary history of my research on human 

origins, taking the pleasure of naming all the main collaborators who have 

helped me. I now wish to give a summary of the main results. 

Drift vs. natural selection as factors of evolution and the importance of demography 

Jacques Monod published a great book called Chance and Necessity which, given 

its contents, could also have been named with the less attractive, but more 

descriptive title of “Mutation and Natural Selection”. In the book, chance was 

held partly responsible for evolution because of the randomness of mutation, 

but in reality it plays an even greater role, because of random genetic drift, that 

is the effect of statistical fluctuations of the frequencies of genes, due to population 

size, isolation and poverty of migratory exchanges. At the time I started my 

research, enthusiasts of selection tended to downplay the importance of drift. 

My early research proved that you can predict the extent and importance of 

drift by using demographic information of populations, especially their geographic 

structure and reciprocal migrations, and that drift is far from negligible. 

It is clear that human evolution is extremely favorable for the study of drift, because 

demography, which can predict it quantitatively, is especially easy to study 

in humans. But demography is also the basis of natural selection, which is the 

outcome of differential survival and reproduction. It is not surprising that Darwin 

was greatly influenced by Malthus’ insight on the manner of demographic 

growth of human populations. It is now clear that the understanding of evolution 

is largely based on the study of demography. In his famous book The Genetic 

Theory of Natural Selection, R.A. Fisher adopted Lotka’s equation expressing 

the rate of population growth to define the method of measurement of 

“Darwinian fitness” in natural selection, that is, the hereditary capacity for individual 

adaptation in natural selection, and to use its individual variation to predict 

the main aspects of evolution by natural selection. 

11


Thanks to the Japanese population geneticist Motoo Kimura, molecular genetics 

has played a key role for understanding the major influence of drift in general 

evolution. Drift is important also when there is natural selection, but in its absence 

– that is for “selectively neutral” traits – it is almost the only factor, with 

mutation and migration, of evolutionary change. Many genetic variants discovered 

at DNA level are selectively neutral or nearly so. Kimura introduced the 

idea of “survival of the luckiest” to emphasize the role of chance as a counterpoint 

to natural selection, as defined by “survival of the fittest”. 

Population structure and migratory exchanges between populations are extremely 

important for understanding human evolution. They are also beginning 

to play a major role in medical genetics, for a simple reason: it is becoming clear 

that human population “isolates” are very common. These are populations who 

have gone through a demographic bottleneck at some stage in their lifetime and 

have had limited migratory exchange with their neighbors. They are strongly 

subject to drift, and the result is that their genetic epidemiology is quite different 

from that of the general human population as a whole. Many hereditary diseases 

common elsewhere are rare or absent in some of these isolates, while other 

genetic diseases rare or absent in the general population are common. 

Text-book examples of such population isolates are French Canadians, Afrikaners, 

Ashkenazi Jews, Sardinians and many other smaller populations like that of 

the island of Tristan da Cunha, and others. Most hereditary diseases like schizophrenia 

or allergies are due to many different genetic causes and are therefore 

difficult to study in the general population, but responsible genes are easier to 

identify in these isolates. In fact it is likely that a single gene is responsible for all 

of a given disease found in an isolated population, or at least it is much easier to 

dissect, through the study of an isolated one, a complex causal genetic system of 

diseases or other rare traits. 

Evolutionary trees 

The first approach I tried for reconstructing the history of human evolution was 

the use of evolutionary trees. Their application relies on the principle that the 

further the separation of two populations, the greater is, in probability, the magnitude 

of the genetic difference between them. This requires measurement of a 

quantity we have called “genetic distance”. When one examines the genetic distance 

between species which have been separated for very long times, tens or 

hundreds of millions of years, one usually examines one individual per species, 

12


and finds that species differ for many single genetic differences. The percentage 

of DNA units which happen to be different in two species is related, in a very 

simple way, to their evolutionary time separation. But human populations living 

today have been separated for a relatively short time. Archaeology shows that 

modern humans appeared only a little over one hundred thousand years ago, in 

Africa, and spread first to Asia, between 100,000 and 50,000 years ago, and 

from South East Asia to Oceania between 60,000 and 40,000 years ago. Europe 

was reached about 40,000 years ago from both West Asia and North Africa, and 

America from Siberia beginning 15,000 years ago. 

Mutation first appears in one individual, and then it spreads to other individuals 

only in successive generations, when the individual carrying the mutated type 

has several progeny carrying the mutation, either because mutants are favored 

by selection and survive easily or have more children, or they are favored by 

chance. It usually takes a great number of generations before the mutation is 

found in many individuals, and even more for it to replace completely the original 

type. Thus between the first appearance of a mutation and the replacement 

of the original type there will usually elapse a very long time. During that period 

the mutant type is “polymorphic”, i.e. there coexist in the population both the 

original (ancestral) type and the mutant one. There are extremely few mutations 

that have reached the whole of the human species after its origin in Africa. 

In fact, we established that, although the human population has enormous genetic 

variation between individuals, 85% of the total human variation is within 

single populations, and only 15% between them. We therefore cannot use for 

the comparison of different human populations the same measure of genetic 

distance useful for comparing different living species, for which an individual 

from each species would suffice. For instance, we find that the RH negative type 

has a frequency of 50% in some populations, e.g. in the Basque country, a lower 

one in England (40%), and 0% in East Asia. Genetic replacement means 

transition from 0% to 100%. The difference between Basques and English people 

is only 50%-40% = 10% of a complete replacement, and that between 

Basques and East Asians 50% . We actually employ slightly more sophisticated 

formulas to calculate the genetic distance between two populations, which is, on 

average, proportional to the time since the two were separated. It is also essential 

to calculate the averages of many genes for these measurements to be valid. 

When chance is one of the main factors responsible for change, the only way to 

eliminate the uncertainty it causes is to apply the law of large numbers, that is, 

use a large number of genetic differences. However, even if we could confine 

13


ourselves to studying the differences due to natural selection, we must always 

take the averages of many characteristics. The populations of which we can most 

usefully study separation by means of evolutionary trees are those which are 

most widely separated, and genetic separation is strictly proportional to geographical 

separation. Geographically close populations are very similar to each 

other, generally speaking, because migration is more frequent between neighbors. 

Husband and wife tend to be born at short distance from each other. Migration 

acts as a genetic homogenizer and tends to suppress genetic differences 

caused by natural selection or drift. But when two groups are located at a great 

distance, enough to repress genetic exchange between the original population 

and the new colony, differentiation will begin and will continue at a more or less 

constant rate, largely dictated by drift, and, if there are important environmental 

differences, by natural selection. For this reason, evolutionary trees of populations 

enable us to reconstruct their history, and are in reasonable agreement 

with archaeological observations. 

More recently, we reconstructed genetic trees of individuals, especially for genetic 

traits which are inherited through one parent only. These are based on mitochondrial 

DNA, which is transmitted through mothers only to all children, 

or on Y chromosomes DNA, transmitted only from fathers to sons. DNA sequencences 

make it possible to reconstruct the genealogies of mutations that 

took place over very long periods, and beautifully confirm the evolutionary 

trees made on populations, while being much more detailed and significant. In 

practice, they reconstruct the individual genealogy starting from a single “Eve” 

(through mitochondrial DNA), or from a single “Adam” (through a Y chromosome) 

respectively, who lived between one hundred and two hundred thousand 

years ago, but not because there was ever a moment in which only one 

couple or only one ancestor was alive. At the beginning of our species, there 

was probably one tribe of about a thousand people who lived at some place in 

Eastern Africa, but for statistical reasons, both for mitochondria and for Y 

chromosomes, there is only one ancestor common to all of the mitochondria 

and to all of the Y chromosomes present today: it is the only one that has been 

reproduced to this day; all the others have not had children, grandchildren or 

great-grandchildren who have survived until the present day. For those who 

think that there was actually a time when only one pair of individuals lived, as 

the Bible says, we must say that our genetic Adam and Eve lived in very separate 

times and perhaps places. 

14

Genetics and culture 


I find it useful to call Culture the heritage of knowledge accumulating over generations, 

or, we may also say, culture is what we learn from others and affects our 

behavior: it is a much more general definition than the one normally used for the 

word “culture” by daily newspapers, which seems to concern only films and 

novels. Most animals have culture, though it is clear that humans are the most 

cultural animals of all. Culture evolves according to rules which are similar to 

those of biology, but the substrate is clearly very different, relying on neuronal 

states and relationships, rather than on DNA structure. There are cultural 

changes which are equivalent to genetic mutations, such as inventions or innovations, 

but they are not as random as biological mutations. On the contrary, 

they are often directed toward a specific aim. This is a major difference with biological 

evolution. Another great difference is that transmission is not confined 

to transmission from parents to children, but can take place, and does more often 

take place, between unrelated individuals. This makes cultural change much 

faster than biological change. However, there are also cultural traits which are, 

in evolutionary terms, much more stable. They are often transmitted from parents 

to children (what we call “vertical” transmission), and therefore imitate to 

some extent biological transmission, that is known to be very stable. Children 

are, to a certain extent malleable, but they also go through critical periods in 

which they are especially susceptible to learning specific things, e.g. their own 

language must be learned within the first three or four years of life. And the majority 

of people have difficulty in learning foreign languages after adolescence. 

Most cultural transmission is, however, “horizontal”, i.e. not necessarily influenced 

by kinship or age difference between transmitter and transmittee. This 

makes the acquisition of cultural novelties potentially very fast, and thus fast 

cultural evolution favors assimilation. 

What is learnt is not always necessarily favorable to survival or reproduction. 

Nevertheless, one can consider culture as an adaptive mechanism that developed 

out of the combined use of communication, observation of others, and 

learning skills. It obviously relies on the presence of neural structures which 

make this possible. Cultural change is not necessarily good or bad, though it 

contributes in a significant way to determining our behavior, and, therefore, is 

subject to natural selection. One can expect that this will continue to keep cultural 

change adaptive, on average, even though maladaptive cultural aberrations 

like crime, drugs and the like are to some extent inevitable. 

15


There has been a tendency in some sociobiological circles and their descendants 

to consider cultural traits as dominated by biology, but the reverse is becoming 

the rule. There is unquestionably a range of new genetic traits which have been 

introduced as an answer to cultural changes. Most of them have to do with acquired 

cultural traits introduced by new diets or customs, like getting dressed. 

The expansion toward northern Asia would have been impossible without 

clothing. Whether clothing was determined by the previous loss of hairiness, or 

whether it helped loss of hair is difficult to say, but it is likely that hair loss took 

place earliert and made clothing necessary. One may also venture that hair was 

lost because fire had become a major presence in human life, and hairiness is 

dangerous in proximity to fire. Another genetic change having specific racial 

consequences is paleness of the skin. That skin became pale was largely a consequence 

of a cereal-based diet, which, in dark-skinned people, causes rickets at 

northern latitudes. Wheat does not contain vitamin D, but a chemical substance 

that is its precursor, which can be converted into vitamin D only by an enzyme 

present in the lower layers of the skin. This enzyme, however, must be activated 

by ultraviolet rays, which are too scarce in Europe because of its high latitude. 

The melanin responsible for the dark color of the skin stops ultraviolet rays, 

whereas pale skin allows the formation of vitamin D in a diet based on cereals 

and cancels out the highly harmful consequences of rickets. 

Another example of the biological consequences of cultural evolution is intolerance 

to milk (and tolerance to it). Practically all mammals lose the ability to use 

lactose after being weaned, but among many herding peoples, the custom of 

drinking milk among adults became widespread, even though this may give rise 

to serious cases of lactose intolerance. A mutation that arose among herders in 

the Ural Mountains around 6000 years ago abolished the disappearance after 

weaning of the enzyme that makes it possible to use lactose, and the carriers of 

this mutation are totally lactose tolerant. Today this mutation is found in 90- 

95% of Scandinavians, is very frequent in northern Europe, a little less in central 

Europe and present in 20-40% of southern Italy. 

The heredity of acquired behavioral characteristics through cultural evolution is 

a reality that enables characteristics transmitted via cultural routes to overcome 

the great slowness with which normally favorable biological characteristics 

spread through populations: thanks to biological heredity alone. The spread of 

lactose tolerance is an example of one of the most rapid biological evolutions in 

humans, though it was undoubtedly helped enormously by the spread of milk 

16


consumption, especially among adults, which came about through a Lamarckian 

type of heredity (of acquired characteristics during lifetime). The genetic study of 

human evolution has shown with extreme clarity that the genetic success of a 

population, as proved by its expansion in numbers and across vast regions, was 

largely the result of major technological innovations in relatively recent times: 

food production (agriculture, stockbreeding and their various developments) or 

transportation (cattle, horses, camels, lamas, boats, oceanic navigation), or military 

power (bronze, iron, cattle and horses, camels) and, in more recent times, 

communication (roads, and again the horse, the telephone, radio, television, and 

so on), mathematics (agronomy, geography, astronomy, computers), the experimental 

method (engineering, chemistry, modern physics). 

With the modern triumph of communication cultural evolution is becoming 

more and more the directional force of human evolution, and genetic evolution 

may well end up be completely under its control. Even the evolution of animals 

and plants is undergoing intense acceleration as a result of cultural evolution in 

humans. The remote origins of the success of humans as a species lie in two innovations 

which are partly biological, but perhaps in part also cultural. The first 

is language, which certainly required a strong development of the essential 

parts of our brain, and which was hence largely a biological evolution. However, 

once it became possible to use it, it developed enormous driving force. The 

other was human ingeniousness, which brought about many cultural innovations, 

the usefulness – if not necessity – of which has been proved beyond a 

doubt. Unlike genetic innovations due to mutation, which are by chance, cultural 

innovations are responses to a necessity. However, they are not always 

wholly appropriate, and like all innovations, they may also have costs that are 

heavier than their benefits. 

Racism 

I do not like the word “race” because it corresponds to old subdivisions that are 

inconsistent with genetic reality and unjustifiable by a rational classification. 

Moreover, there is no real use for such classifications and, what is worse, there 

is always an associated racist flavor. Darwin had already recognized the difficulty 

of a rational classification of races in what is an almost perfect continuum, and 

noted the enormous variety of numbers and definitions of races, from two to almost 

one hundred. The current trend toward increased admixture can only 

make the idea of race even less clear. 

17


It is important, however, to note that current classifications depend on external 

appearance, which is due to very few genes (hereditary factors) affecting skin, 

hair and eye color. Body and face size and shape may involve a few more genes 

but, like the former, are the result of an adaptation to climate (including diet and 

clothing, which obviously also depend to a large extent on climate and also on 

culture). Common belief in the “existence” of races must depend on uniformity 

of skin color in different environments: definitely dark in tropical climates, 

brown at some distance from the equator, light brown in southern Europe, 

reaching the highest degree of paleness in the southern Baltic. To a very superficial 

examination, races do exist, in the sense that some groups of individuals 

are distinguishable and relatively uniform in terms of a few superficial traits. 

However, the existence of “pure” races is pure myth, generated by the fact that 

most Europeans are pale, sub-Saharan Africans black, many Asians brown, and 

a few other traits may help to distinguish more finely the geographic origin of individuals. 

There is no equal uniformity beneath the skin: genetic differences 

among populations or races, however defined, are small or trivial compared to 

those few perspicuous characteristics that inevitably attract our attention. Below 

the superficially uniform veneer created mainly by the color of the skin, there 

are no “pure races”. Moreover, cultural differences among ethnic groups have 

often been held to be of genetic origin, though the reality is that most of them 

disappear after two or three generations of assimilation into another culture, 

and if some last longer it is because some cultural traits are more highly conserved 

than others. Distinguishing nature from culture is extremely difficult for 

most behavioral traits, but cultural differences are often strong in appearance 

though only skin-deep when put to the test of time. Some who have studied 

twins have, I think, been betrayed by their enthusiasm for genetics, beginning 

with the classical example of Sir Cyril Burt, whose aberrations have been exposed. 

I am not pressing for a blanket condemnation of all students of twins, but 

I think the marvel that some of them have expressed at the fact that a few identical 

twins reared apart prefer the same brand of cigarettes should not be taken 

very seriously – and in any event, even if there is something genetic about it, 

there are many cultural differences that we do not see in twins who grew up together 

(and there are very few cases of twins separated at birth). Another myth 

which dominated nineteenth century Europe and continues in the present century 

is that interracial hybrids are inferior, and that race admixture is to be 

avoided at all costs. The degree of genetic differentiation in the human species 

is so small that it is impossible for racial admixture to be genetically dangerous. 

18


On the contrary, the exact opposite, the vigor of hybrids may be deemed probable. 

There are, in fact, a few recent examples of very successful interracial hybrids. 

They cannot be too many, because there still is a real social handicap confronting 

interracial hybrids in most societies, which limits their numbers and 

success. Revisiting the Italian translation of this text at a distance of ten years, in 

2009, I cannot refrain from making an addition: to note the great satisfaction at 

the recent election of a North American who is a hybrid of the two most different 

races, and how important that can be for the future of mankind. 

I consider racism one of the scourges of humanity. There are very few social environments 

from which it is absent, and racism is certainly not only a European 

or white social disease. My beloved African Pygmies are considered animals by 

most of their Bantu neighbors, who think themselves superior because of the superiority 

of an agricultural economy, however primitive, compared with that of 

hunter-gatherers. The Saami should not be called Lapps, as they usually are, because 

the name “Lapps” means “no good” and they are thus called by their 

proximate neighbors because they do not practice agriculture. I find that culture, 

not genetics, is more useful in distinguishing people. And every culture has 

merits, but these give very different chances of economic and educational success. 

Is racism innate in humanity ? I do not know, but I believe a strong educational 

effort to eradicate racism is one of the most urgent needs. It may be impossible 

to totally eliminate it, but it should be possible the reduce the 

criminality with which it is constantly associated. 

Political difficulties encountered by genetics 

There is today great disagreement on the practical applications of molecular genetics 

to plants and animals. It is a good thing that these discussions take place. 

Every innovation is associated with potential benefits and costs. The latter are 

more difficult to evaluate in advance, leaving room for pessimists to overworry, 

and for optimists to be careless. It is a good thing that different countries take 

different strategies, so that the overcautious can wait as long as they like, and the 

overconfident take the loss, if there is one and teach others in the process. 

The study of human evolution has had its share of political difficulties. This has 

come from the religious attitudes of primitive cultures and from some political 

arenas. At the beginning the Human Genome Project in Washington avoided 

the study of variation, mostly, I believe, because it was felt that dealing with one 

19


single genome was already ambitious enough. The international branch of the 

Human Genome Project (the Human Genome Organization, HUGO) helped 

me to study human genetic variation. The Human Genetic Diversity Project 

(HGDP) – unrelated to the Human Genome project – has been the outcome. 

Its aim is that of accumulating samples of DNA from the human world population, 

make them available to research workers in human population genetics, 

and put their results into a data bank available to the research community. 

(Writing ten years later, in 2009, I can say that coordinated effort has brought 

substantial advantages). It is a fact that new developments in medical genetics 

make this type of research very useful. Pharmaceutical and biotechnologies 

firms have promptly understood their interest in genetic variation and have 

started working on genetic isolates and patenting polymorphisms. Our work has 

been made particularly difficult by totally unjustified attacks full of lies by a special-interest 

group, a Canadian NGO, which has an established network among 

some indigenous populations of America and Oceania. It accused the Human 

Genome Diversity Project of being behind totally unrelated patenting efforts of 

cell lines by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, of being interested in profit 

and consorting with pharmaceutical industries, and various other lies. The truth 

is that the HGDP is a non-profit institution, and has always been against patenting 

DNA. 

Fortunately several countries and regions, including the European Union, China, 

some Moslem countries and Israel have started efforts in the systematic 

study of human variation. The Human Genome Project has begun to reverse its 

policy of avoiding the study of human variation. 

One of the unsolved problems is that a few indigenous populations that are politically 

organized are asking for a share in the possible profits from research in 

ethnic variation. This may be a reasonable request, especially considering the 

poverty of indigenous peoples, but these profits are difficult to predict and ascertain, 

and can only come on a very long term basis from medical research, 

which is very expensive. Rumours have been spread by some journalists that 

knowledge of ethnic variation could be used for new forms of biological warfare 

directed against special ethnic groups. This is a hypothetical form of warfare 

very unlikely to be ever possible or effective, given the extremely mixed and 

complex structure of human populations. We witness daily heinous examples of 

ethnic warfare very effectively delivered with conventional or even traditional 

weapons, between peoples among whom there cannot exist any, or almost any 

genetic difference, but only political or religious ones. Unfortunately there ex- 

20


ists already a very dangerous biological arsenal, but the weapons developed so 

far have fortunately no connection whatsoever with ethnic differences. 

The future of human genetics 

There are a few signs of directions which human evolution may take. There has 

been, especially in the last five hundred years, an increasing migration across 

countries and continents, which has already had some effects in increasing overall 

admixture. Le Comte de Gobineau, who feared that admixture would ruin 

the qualities of human races (especially of the white race, of course), could be 

reassured today. There is absolutely no danger, and possibly even some advantage, 

from increased admixture. Human individual variation is the best insurance 

against future challenges from parasites or other environmental dangers, 

and the genetic structure of populations guarantees that this will not change. 

Global variation will not change, but the distribution of variation between and 

within continents or “races” may change, with a decrease in the variation between, 

and an increase in that within populations. Today there is, however, a 

major difference between the net reproductive rates of different countries and 

continents. Europeans grew in numbers in the last millennium but went 

through a demographic transition in the last two centuries, which is almost completed, 

and are practically not increasing any more in numbers, except through 

immigration. The rest of the world, with the exception of northern America and 

part of Oceania is increasing at maximum rate. This is the result of the arrival in 

the developing countries of Western hygiene and medicine, even if still very limited. 

Unaccompanied by birth limitation, it is causing a very worrying jump in 

population numbers. With white people of European origin being demographically 

stationary and the rest of the world with an average darker skin multiplying 

actively, the consequence will be an average darkening of the skin at a world 

level. This change may chagrin white racists, but is really not worrying from a 

genetic point of view. 

What is more worrying is that medicine has a dysgenic effect, because it has become 

successful in curing diseases which have a genetic component, and therefore 

these diseases will increase in frequency in the future. In truth, there has 

been very little progress in curing hardcore hereditary diseases. The main hope 

seems to be mostly gene therapy, which is due in a not necessarily close future. 

Progress of medicine has been more common in surgical treatment of many diseases, 

and in that of infectious ones, where the genetic component is less dra- 

21


matic, though not absent. As diseases which will increase in frequency are those 

which are curable, there will be no worsening of general health, but there will be 

an increase in the global cost of medical treatment, which will be compounded 

with the increase due to the greater expense of modern medical treatment, independently 

of the augmented frequency of disease. This cost increase is already 

wrecking current systems of social medicine. A third cause of increase is the extension 

of medical treatment to developing countries, which however is very 

slow and in any event to be desired. 

In the last century and in the first part of the present one there was great confidence 

in eugenics, a movement which recommended improvement of the human 

species by encouraging the multiplication of people endowed with successful 

characters (positive eugenics), and discouraging that of antisocial and 

medically unfit individuals (negative eugenics). Basically this was inspired by the 

practice of animal and plant breeders, who try to improve breeds by artificial selection, 

i.e. the choice of the best reproducers. However, there are serious traps 

in eugenic policies: it is very difficult to tell “good genes” from “bad genes”, or 

even good people from bad people – even if, of course, some cases are clear. It 

has been noted that selecting against serious psychiatric diseases like schizophrenia 

and manic depressive psychosis might destroy major sources of entertainment 

and pleasure like the theater, literature, and the arts, given that there is 

a significant association between these diseases and artistic creativity. A very 

good geneticist, H.J.Muller, gave involuntarily another famous example. He was 

in favor of conserving sperm from famous people for insemination of female 

volunteers, and gave a list of examples of men whose sperm should be conserved 

for propagation of their genes. He was a communist and went to the 

USSR before World War II in the hope of convincing the Soviet authorities to 

try his program. But he was not successful and, on his return to the free world, 

he decided to cancel Lenin and Stalin from his list of great men who should donate 

their sperm for his eugenic program. 

We can now predict the birth of children with major genetic diseases in time for 

early and safe pregnancy interruption. This practice, which avoids many pains 

and expenses to families and potential patients of very serious diseases, has met 

with considerable success even in traditionally Roman Catholic countries, where 

religious views are still contrary to it. There is often confusion between it and 

eugenics, but this practice is neither eugenic nor dysgenic. It does almost exactly 

what natural selection does, by removing from reproduction individuals who 

22


would not ordinarily reproduce. With very few exceptions, it simply removes 

them before they are born, usually avoiding extreme pains to them and to their 

relatives. It therefore does not, in practice, change the genetic incidence of the 

disease, but kills it before it appears, in the unborn. 

Multidisciplinarity and historical studies 

The research of human origins has made it useful or necessary to study parallel 

events and phenomena in a number of related disciplines, ranging from genetics 

to paleoanthropology, archaeology, ecology, history, demography, sociology, cultural 

and physical anthropology, linguistics, toponomastics and anthroponymy, 

and this list will probably increase in the future. This has been made possible by 

many collaborators whom I have tried to thank in my acceptance speech. There 

are definite advantages in this multidisciplinarity. A major one is the intellectual 

pleasure of finding so many similarities between disparate fields of study, some 

of which belong traditionally to the two opposite sides of culture: science and 

the humanities. The unity of scientific method comes out very clearly from such 

an exercise. It is also clear that many basic paradigms, especially mathematical 

ones, are extremely useful in many different disciplines, including both sciences 

and humanities, and are sufficiently few and simple that they can be easily exported 

from one field to the other. The book The Two Cultures by C.P. Snow already 

gave reasons for not maintaining the gap existing between the two cultures, 

but little has happened since it was published. 

There is also a specific advantage in multidisciplinarity when studying evolution. 

Evolution, like all history, suffers from a major handicap: one cannot use 

the experimental method, because one cannot hope to replicate history with the 

aim of verifying the causes. For this reason, some philosophers of science have 

denied that the study of evolution is a science. But historical events have rarely 

had restricted meaning or influence. One finds again and again the same consequences 

of the same events in profoundly different things. To give an example, 

the history of the settlement of geographical areas by populations expanding demographically 

has often similar consequences in genetics and in linguistics, so 

much so that their evolutionary trees are similar, in spite of the profound difference 

of the physical substrate evolving in biology and language. There is much 

fear among some scientists of the possible superficiality of conclusions drawn on 

the basis of analogies between different sciences. But one of the great scientists, 

Darwin, noted, in chapter 14 of the Origin of Species (second edition), that if we 

23


knew the genealogical tree of humanity we could predict that of languages. We 

are now very close to this aim. In reality, we have seen that he was right, even if 

he may have had too much faith in the idea. Many researchers have noted independently 

the similarities between the evolution of genes, of languages, and, 

more generally, of culture. Without the study of demography, the study of genetic 

evolution, especially of the human species, would be fruitless. One could 

continue with these parallels, reciprocal interactions, and cross-fertilizations of 

different disciplines, but naturally, no two cases where the same model can apply 

are truly identical. Analogies, metaphors, and models are powerful instruments 

for novel ideas, but critical thinking remains our best protection against 

possible superficiality of conclusions derived from them. 

Increase in knowledge demands today extreme specialization, but in my experience 

the cooperation of scientists from different disciplines can give that degree 

of generality without which research would be penalized. Multidisciplinarity is 

a major enrichment, especially in those sciences in which, as in history, repetition 

of the experiment is impossible, and may provide a sort of analogue of it. 

24


The Developments of My Research after the Balzan Prize (1999-2009) 


Professor Emeritus at the School of Medicine, Stanford University 

The Balzan Foundation has taken the kind initiative of republishing in English 

and Italian writings I had prepared for the Foundation on the occasion of receiving 

the Balzan Prize (1999). My scientific activity has since continued and I 

thought it useful to prepare a short update. 

In 1999 I was, (and had been since 1992, according to the rules then in force), a 

professor emeritus in the Department of Genetics at Stanford University Medical 

School, though I officially remained “active”, meaning that I kept the right 

to maintain my laboratory so long as I had the necessary research funds. In the 

USA the best known universities expect professors to finance their own research 

with funds from external foundations, which are much more numerous 

and active than in Italy. 

In 1992 I began to spend half of my year in Italy to continue research I had never 

fully abandoned, and also started some new projects. In the first of these I 

began a collaboration with my son Francesco to write science textbooks for 

Italian secondary schools, which continues. Three scientific projects were effectively 

started after the year 2000, even though they had been conceived of 

and partly begun long before. One of these, called the Human Genome Diversity 

Panel (HGDP) is a collection of lymphocyte cell lines from more than a total 

of 1000 individuals, belonging to 52 ethnic groups from the five continents, 

for obtaining DNA to distribute to non- commercial research laboratories – to 

avoid DNA patenting which would have ruined research. These laboratories 

made an undertaking to make their results public in detail before publications 

using them, in order to favor further research by laboratories of human population 

genetics, which are now numerous, from all over the world. This research 

needs a large number of data. The cell lines were collected with the help 

of several researchers, mostly personal friends, and are housed in the Paris 

CEPH (Centre d’Etudes des Polymorphismes Humains) founded by Jean 

Dausset, under the direction of Professor Howard Cann. The distribution of 

DNAs to laboratories interested in analyzing them was begun in 2002, and to- 

25


day over 130 laboratories have received the DNA collection. The richest series 

of results was generated, on my proposal, by a group of Stanford researchers 

mostly from the Department of Genetics and made available on the Internet in 

September 2007. The article analyzing them was published in “Science” in 

February 2008 (J.Li et al.). The 948 unrelated individuals of the HGDP collection 

were analyzed for 650,000 DNA nucleotides known to be most variable in 

humans, with Illumina Microarray, and they are at the moment the largest set 

of data available on the genetic variation of any species. Its full statistical analysis 

of it will probably take several years. Apart from this experimental work, 

collaboration with Stanford is maintained especially with Professor Marcus 

Feldman from the Department of Biology at Stanford on cultural evolution, my 

other major field of interest. 

New activity in Italy includes two major projects, one of which is close to giving 

its first results: the Italian Genome Project (PGI), which follows closely the 

HGDP model. We already have over 1000 samples of lymphocytes coming 

from a province for each Italian region, selected as representative of the 

province by anthroponymic methods, and some hundreds of cell lines prepared 

from them, designed to get a first analysis of the Italian population 

genome. The PGI samples come from blood donors of AVIS, the Italian Association 

of Voluntary Blood Donors (more than a million members), naturally all 

consenting and informed. BGT (Bio-Genomic Technology) is producing cell 

lines. DNA analysis with over one million nucleotides (Illumina) is beginning 

now. Results will be used for research on the genetics of the Italian human population, 

but its major application will be in terms of the collaboration we can 

offer to Italian medical geneticists who have started or are about to start investigations 

in the genetic determination of diseases they are researching. Once 

this was done by comparing patients with their close and not so close healthy 

relatives. Today it is believed that a more efficient method is that of comparing 

statistically the DNA (today we say the genome) of a group of patients with a 

group of “controls”, healthy people of the same ethnic origin. In spite of the 

very scarce support offered in Italy by the government or wealthy people and 

foundations there are a number of active medical geneticists. Perhaps it is relatively 

easier to find financial help for medical research: once this type of humanitarian 

investment went exclusively for increasing the chances of a donor to 

go to Paradise. Today medicine is clearly more efficient than it used to be and 

this investment is split between a desire to go to Paradise and that which allows 

to go there as late as possible. 

26


These projects are all slow: a second project had begun earlier, around 1995, 

and has therefore almost reached its conclusion. It is an encyclopedia called 

“Italian Culture”. I use the word “Culture” in the widest possible sense: everything 

that we learn at any age and from anybody. It is, in substance, the contribution 

to our personality that does not come from our genetic constitution 

(what we inherit with DNA), but that which comes from the environment in 

which we grew and continue to live, our socialization. From the maternal womb 

to what we learn from parents and relatives, teachers, schoolfellows, colleagues, 

friends and enemies, all those we encountered in our lives and who taught us 

something about real life, in writing, through words or examples, and via many 

other modes. Today we can study our genetic constitution in depth, even though 

things are not as simple as we hoped at first, and genetics can be more than plain 

DNA. And perhaps the contribution of genes and culture can be equally important, 

or vary a lot in individual cases. 

I have tried to learn more about how we Italians are made, and why. I paid a lot 

of attention to history, which is always a great teacher (at the beginning, the idea 

was to call the opus “History of Italian Culture”). Perhaps my curiosity was 

sharpened by having spent much time in other cultures, American, English, 

French and a little bit German. One of the reasons that impelled me was the disagreeable 

discovery that Italian-Americans are the Americans least interested in 

their origin, at least in the US, and have perhaps the least national pride. One 

understands the reasons, remembering that they needed much courage to face 

enormous difficulties in a new culture, in order to get away from a country that 

had condemned them to hopeless poverty, leaving 80% of them illiterate. 

But also Italians who remained in Italy know little about their countrypeople. 

Superficially at least, they seem to be divided into two groups: a large one believing 

they are better than everybody else, and an equally large one, also equally 

wrong, believing we are worse than everybody else. This work tries to tell us 

objectively who we were and who we became, with highs and lows, and tries to 

answer many questions that one may ask oneself. It was possible to do it because 

after many unsatisfactory trials I came across Vittorio Bo, who at the time was a 

director at Einaudi publishing house and later founded Codice Edizioni, and he 

was willing to take on himself a good share of the directing load. He also convinced 

UTET of Turin, a major publishing house with a great tradition, to accept 

the challenge. When the work is finished it will consist of twelve large size 

volumes, the last two of which are a very detailed index. The contents of the ten 

volumes of the text are: 1. Land and People, 2. Tongues and Languages, 3. City, 

27


Home, Landscape, 4. Economy and Communications, 5. Structure of society, 6. 

Food, Games, Holidays, Fashion, 7. Humanistic Culture, 8. Science and Technology, 

9. Music, Shows, Photography, Design, 10. Art and the Visual. Five volumes 

are already out and the remaining five should come out next year. The volumes 

are in large size, with paper of excellent quality that allows to enjoy 

entirely the great colors that only some Italian publishers can produce. As scientific 

director I am already fairly familiar with the contents, but I must confess 

that this reading, the first in its final form, gives me extraordinary pleasure, 

which almost worries me because I am indulging in it so much that I am getting 

late with various urgent commitments. 

28

Are there Limits to Knowledge? 


ForMem RS, Geneticist, Stanford University 

Balzan Symposium 2002 

MEETING THE CHALLENGES OF THE FUTURE 

A Discussion between “The Two Cultures” 

Royal Society, London; 13 May 2002 


On one hand, I resent even this question being asked. It looks like an attempt at 

trying to limit my freedom of inquiry. It reminds me of the Great Inquisition, the 

condemnation of Galileo. Is someone trying to decide what I am allowed to 

learn and what I should not even try to learn? In a totally different perspective, 

it reminds me of the irrepressible impression of ignorance which every honest 

scientist feels when comparing the extent of what we know and what we don’t 

know in our own field of knowledge. On a less emotional footing, there is, of 

course, Heisenberg’s principle of indetermination. But all the innumerable attempts 

at applying it out of context are probably unacceptable. Nevertheless, 

we might wonder how many other comparable principles exist in other fields, 

ones that we have violated out of ignorance. I find it more interesting, however, 

to take a wholly pragmatic approach, and ask: what are the practical limits to 

knowledge? Here I find many real limitations. 

I find at least three important limits to knowledge. The first and most serious 

one is the ambiguity of language. Almost every word has, in most languages, an 

enormous variety of meanings. English probably has the greatest number of 

words of all languages. This would seem to guarantee that it is closer to an ideal 

situation, that there is only one meaning for each word, but the opposite is true. 

I know of no statistics, but I suspect that English also has the greatest number 

of meanings for each word. We think we are clear when we explain things, and 

that we understand what other people tell us. The expectation is usually correct 

in most real instances, but I suspect that it loses meaning when we approach 

philosophy, where the use of words of a high degree of abstraction is common 

and probably increasing. Examples are the verbs ’to be’, ’to exist’, ’to cause’, 

and substantives derived from them. It may be because of personal limitations 

29


that I often feel that I cannot comprehend what philosophers say, but it may also 

be that they often use words they do not define, which can be understood in 

a great number of different ways. The admiring listener or reader is prepared to 

understand, or thinks he understands. By contrast, the sceptic may have a mental 

block. Probably both are wrong, and we are all victims of ambiguity, which is 

very difficult to avoid. 

The failure of most automatic translations is notoriously the consequence of ambiguity, 

which can be resolved (when that is possible) only by appropriate consideration 

of the context. There are many entertaining examples. A famous one 

is the sentence ’Out of sight, out of mind’ which when translated from English 

into Chinese and back from Chinese into English became ’invisible idiot’. A 

probable therapy for the frequent failure of machine translation will be the use 

of an intermediate language completely devoid of ambiguity. This may reduce 

errors, especially for translation from this artificial language into a natural one, 

but translation into it from a natural language may always involve errors. A complete 

catalogue of idiomatic expressions in the language of origin could probably 

help to avoid most mistakes, but it remains very likely that a translation freed 

of ambiguity will always be horrible. It is said that translations are like women: 

if they are faithful they cannot be beautiful, and if they are beautiful they cannot 

be faithful. I apologize for an inexcusable macho joke. 

I would not have brought up the problems of automatic translation if I did not 

think that lack of understanding, or the frequency of misunderstanding, are 

among the major causes of unhappiness among people and even among nations. 

Communication is the greatest asset of humans compared with other species, 

but even in our species it is far from complete. Because of the great multiplicity 

of languages, the chance that two random individuals can understand each other 

is very small. And the chance of real understanding, implying a good knowledge 

of a common language by both individuals, is much lower. However, mutual 

understanding is increasing on one hand, and on the other, automatic 

translation of simple sentences is more and more able to be done. The cessation 

of misunderstanding at the higher levels of philosophical discussion is less likely 

to occur, but is also less necessary. Now I must ask the philosophers for forgiveness. 

One limit to our knowledge which is most distressing, especially for my work, is 

the impossibility of repeating history. I began my research as an experimenter, 

and I used to be convinced that science can lead to truth, because you can al- 

30


ways repeat an experiment and convince yourself, and others, that it is correct. 

But when I shifted to the study of human evolution, I was clearly trying to reconstruct 

past history, and there is no chance of repeating it when we would like 

to do so to solve problems that seem insoluble. There are, however, as Vico said, 

courses and recourses of history, so that there is a little room for using analogy, 

but it requires great caution. Another resource is more useful: interdisciplinary 

research. By and large, for major historical events history must be only one approach, 

and the same events may be traced by different routes from different 

disciplines, though there is always some shared ground, and synthesis is more 

persuasive than any single story. Thus it has been very productive for the history 

of human expansions of the last 100,000 years to put together information 

from many different disciplines: the genetics of living human populations, archaeology, 

and a hybrid between them, archaeogenetics – an important part of 

which is the study of fossil DNA – and even linguistics. It has been very gratifying 

to see how pieces from the various disciplines seem to be interwoven together 

in a single mosaic. There is a mutual complementarity that makes interdisciplinary 

research particularly useful. The same general picture of evolution 

is obtained for the last 100,000 years from different sources of information. In 

the last few years, we have seen some aspects of cultural evolution, especially the 

most conservative traits like family and social structure, joining the band-wagon. 

Even the evolution of some bacteria and viruses common in modern humans 

seems to follow the routes of their long expansion from their place of origin in 

East Africa some 100,000 years ago, first through all of Africa, and then, between 

40,000 and 60,000, to Asia by both a southern and a northern route, and 

finally from Asia to the other three continents. Why is there this concordance? 

The explanation is simple: many of these traits, be they cultural like language, or 

many of those familiar to cultural anthropologists, or parasitic diseases, are most 

probably transmitted not only by contact imitation, as in the accredited cultural 

route, but also, and sometimes predominantly, from parent to child, or more 

generally within the family. This is expected especially for traits acquired in the 

earliest years, a pattern well known to be true for mother tongues. As transmission 

from parent to child (also called vertical) is the only way by which genes are 

transmitted, it is not at all surprising that patterns of evolution determined by 

expansions, followed by divisions and periods of independent evolution in different 

territories, will be similar for elements that may have no mutual causal relations, 

like genes and languages or other cultural traits, but simply correlations 

due to a common general history of resettlement. 

31


Whether it is called inter-, multi-, or trans-disciplinary, collaboration, especially 

that between the two cultures, is contributing in an important way to our present 

understanding of modern human evolution. Each discipline can generate 

knowledge of different aspects of this process: archaeology can generate especially 

information on dates, but also on demographic processes. Genetics has also 

contributed to understanding the routes and mechanisms of expansions, including 

dates, even if so far with large intervals of error. It will be possible to 

decrease error substantially in the future by a more organized approach to studies 

of ethnic groups, especially if the numbers of individuals and of genes studied 

are very substantially increased. A more systematic analysis of cultural and 

linguistic diversity can help us to understand better the sometimes truly surprising 

vagaries of cultural evolution. It is only a matter of adequate investment, 

which so far has been very modest. It is clear that this analysis also has the promise 

of helping us to fight racist prejudice effectively. The mosaic of information 

formed with pieces coming from different sciences, which usually fit together in 

remarkable ways, shows a multidisciplinary agreement that is perhaps the most 

pleasant aspect of this research, and also generates the strongest support for 

conclusions. It supplies an alternative to the desirable, but impossible, experimental 

repetition of history. 

Nevertheless, there are examples of spontaneous repetitions of history which do 

contain some useful common information. In the past I have been especially interested 

in the mechanism of the spread of agriculture from its places of origin. 

About 10,000 years ago, Palaeolithic life came to a crisis in the areas with temperate 

climates where it had been most successful, like the Middle East and 

Turkey, China, and Mexico. The crisis may have been stimulated by a change of 

climate or by the foraging population (hunting, gathering, fishing) having come 

too close to saturation. Successful attempts were made in all these areas, probably 

independently, to cultivate local crops, mostly cereals, and to domesticate local 

animals where possible. These innovations generated a new, food-producing 

economy which allowed new population growth and favoured expansion from 

the place of origin to neighbouring areas where this agropastoral economy could 

flourish. A causal nexus may not be excluded, either: the idea may have travelled 

from one place to another on the back of some courageous traveller. After 

all, someone able to face the perils of the journey and of misunderstanding may 

make on foot the tour of the world in a few years. Once, after I had lost my way, 

I came across a tent in which lived an Iranian family, a husband with his wife and 

two small children, and two goats, who had started out from Iran a year earlier 

32


and wanted to get to see the Atlantic Ocean. I did not ask why, but I can understand 

them: I, too, am motivated by very strong curiosity. However, the move 

from food gathering to food production, which started in very distant places at 

around the same times, about ten thousand years ago, brought about an almost 

exponential growth in population to a thousandfold increase which is now nearing 

its limits. Are we ready for a new crisis: expansion outside Earth, self-destruction? 

The spread of agriculture from its place of origin was very slow. P. Menozzi, A. 

Piazza and I have been able to calculate its rate fairly exactly in Europe, and it 

was possible to explain it by the combination of two demographic phenomena, 

growth and emigration, to generate population expansion from the area of origin. 

Population growth was made possible by the increased availability of food, 

and as soon as it reached a new level of saturation it caused geographic expansion 

by migration, mostly of family groups or small social nuclei, to neighbouring 

areas offering potentially fertile soil. In research in collaboration with archaeologist 

Albert Ammerman, we suggested the name of demic diffusion for 

this process. It took some time to have this hypothesis accepted by archaeologists, 

especially in northern Europe and the USA, because it was totally opposite 

to the trend of thought that had developed there, in opposition to ideas popular 

in the nineteen-twenties. Clarke, who was mostly responsible for these ideas, explained 

every archaeological variation by the movement of people. When, after 

the war, the pendulum swung to the opposite pole, the hypothesis of migration 

disappeared. Only traders moved, carrying with them products that have been 

found and used by archaeologists to describe such expansions : a fashion now 

called indigenism. But the idea that it was really the growth and migration of 

farmers who brought farming around the nuclear area has been tested by showing 

that there are gradients of genes of Middle Eastern origin across Europe, 

which follow rather precisely the archaeological paths of the penetration of 

farming. Dates and rates of expansion are also in agreement with genetic and 

demographic calculations. The observed genetic gradient could have formed 

only if, in addition to the demic diffusion of farmers, there was adoption of 

farming by local hunter-gatherers, either by marriage or by acculturation. 

Cosmologists and astronomers are also afflicted by the problem of the history of 

the world being unable to be repeated. One advantage they have is that they can 

make much more precise measurements of their observations, and theoretical 

predictions to test their hypotheses. Biology is beginning to follow this example. 

33


Genetics is a quantitative science, though errors in measurements and predictions 

are usually much greater. But in the study of human evolution we are beginning 

to have reasonable measurements, for instance, of the rates of expansions. 

[Ten years on, reading this after it was published and translated into 

Italian, genome analysis has led to the complete sequencing of DNA, resulting 

in a level of precision which is one thousand times greater, and precision is increasing.] 

In Europe, the average rate of the advance of farming was of the order 

of one kilometre a year, somewhat faster in the expansion from its area of 

origin in the Middle East westwards, via the Mediterranean, than towards the 

north-west, to Turkey, Greece, the Balkans, and Central Europe. We have approximate 

measurements of other rates. That of the Bantus , which started in 

Cameroon about 3,000 years ago and ended around 300 years ago in South 

Africa, where they met Boer farmers, was 50% faster on average (they were able 

to make use of iron). The Malayo-Polynesian expansion originated in South-east 

Asia – the precise area of origin is debated – and crossed the Pacific Ocean. It 

reached Easter Island about 1,500 years ago, in many jumps from island to island, 

and was about five to six times faster. It also expanded towards the west, 

reaching Madagascar only slightly later. For earlier expansions we have only one 

estimate of some precision: during the last glaciation, between 29,000 and 

13,000 years ago, the ice covered most of northern Europe and the population 

retired into two non-communicating refuges: south-western France, and the 

Balkans and the Ukraine. At the end of the glaciation Palaeolithic hunters began 

resettling the north, at a rate of about 0.7 kilometres a year. This rate must have 

been to some extent controlled by the rate at which ice withdrew. In general, 

rates of expansion are determined by an average (a geometric mean) of the rate 

of population growth and that of individual migration. The first extension of 

Homo Sapiens from East Africa to South America took approximately 50,000 

years to cover 25,000 kilometers (0.5 km on average per year), though it is possible 

that the settlement of South America by hunter-gatherers from Alaska to 

Chile was much faster. The limit to the quality of such estimates is set by the 

quantity and quality of archaeological findings. 

Thinking of the genetics of the future, a very serious limit is set by ethical and 

practical considerations. Today we know about 10,000 genetic diseases. They 

are all Mendelian, that is, they follow Mendel’s laws for characters determined 

by single genes; fortunately, they are very rare, as almost all are very serious. The 

most important and common diseases, like arthritis, diabetes, hypertension, 

34


many immunological diseases, schizophrenia, manic-depressive syndrome, are 

very poorly known. We are sure there is a genetic component, but there is potentially 

a multitude of genes involved in each one, as well as external factors 

that are difficult to pin down. Knowledge of the human genome will help, but 

there is still much work to do. This ’polygenic or multifactorial inheritance’ can 

be studied in animals, in which controlled crosses and experimental treatments 

unthinkable in humans are possible, so there is hope, and there has already been 

some success in getting help from animals for solving human genetic problems. 

But there are serious ethical limits to understanding human physiology and 

pathology, caused by the unacceptability of almost all experimentation. 

Even so, when I try to imagine what science and technology can do in the remote 

future, I find it very difficult to foresee serious limits to our knowledge. All 

the imaginations of Jules Verne have come true, plus many more. Perhaps whatever 

limits we picture today will be food for laughter among our descendants. 

The most serious limit to growth is of another kind: will the world survive the 

machinations of a technologically very knowledgeable, very depressed Luddite? 

There is a finite probability, fortunately very small for the time being, that this 

may cause the end of the only part of the universe where, as far as we know, science 

is being practised. 

35


Biographical and bibliographical data 

LUIGI LUCA CAVALLI-SFORZA, born on 25 January 1922 in Genoa, is a 

dual citizen of Italy and the United States. MD in Medicine and Surgery (1944) 

from the University of Pavia, and MA (1950) from the University of Cambridge, 

UK. Director of Research in Microbiology, Istituto Sieroterapico Milanese, 

Milan (1950-1957); Lecturer in Genetics and in Statistics, Faculty of 

Sciences, University of Parma and University of Pavia (1957-1960); Professor 

of Genetics, University of Parma (1960-1962); Professor of Genetics and Director 

of the Institute of Genetics, University of Pavia (1962-1970); at Stanford 

University: Professor of Genetics (1970-1992), Chairman of the Department of 

Genetics (1986-1990), and, at present, Professor Emeritus at the School of 

Medicine (since 1992). He returned to settle permanently in Milan in September 

2008. 

From among his many honours: 

– Cavaliere di Gran Croce della Repubblica italiana (2000) 

– Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Huxley Lecture 

in Anthropology, Londra (1972) 

– R.A. Fisher Memorial Lecture, Londra (1974) 

– Premio Ibico Reggino, Reggio Calabria (1976) 

– Weldon Medal in Biometry, University of Oxford (1978) 

– Premio Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Roma (1982) 

– Fifth International San Remo Prize for Human Genetics, Berlin (1986) 

– Allen Award in Human Genetics (American Society of Human Genetics, 

1987) 

– Medaglia d’oro del Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche Italiano (1990) 

– International Catalonia Award (1992) 

– Fyssen International Award (1994) 

– Premio Nonino (1996) 

– Premio Chiron, Accademia Italiana di Medicina (1998) 

– President of the Biometric Society (1967-1968) 

– Vice President of the International Congress of Genetics, Tokyo (1968) 

– Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 

(1973) and of the Japanese Society of Human Genetics (1977) 

36


– Foreign Associate of the US National Academy of Sciences (1978) 

– Honorary Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge UK (1982) 

– President of the American Society of Human Genetics (1989) 

– Membre associé du Musée d’Histoire Naturelle de Paris (1990) 

– Socio Nazionale dell’Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei (1991) 

– Foreign Member of the Royal Society, Londra (1992) 

– Doctor Honoris Causa of Columbia University, University of Cambridge and 

of the Italian universities of Calabria, Bologna, Cagliari, Roma and Sassari. 

Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza is the author and co-author of many scientific books 

and articles, as well as Popular Science publications. 

Scientific books: 

– La teoria dell’Urto e le Unità Biologiche Elementari (con A. Buzzati-Traverso), 

1948, Milano: Longanesi; 

– Analisi Statistica per Medici e Biologi, 1961, prima edizione; 1993, terza edizione, 

Torino: Boringhieri; 

– The Genetics of Human Populations (with W. Bodmer), 1971, San Francisco: 

Freeman, 1999, Mineola, N.Y., Dover Publications; 

– Genetics, Evolution, and Man (with W. Bodmer), 1976, San Francisco: Freeman; 

edizione italiana Mondatori 1977; 

– Cultural Transmission and Evolution: A Quantitative Approach (with M.W. 

Feldman), 1981, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press; 

– The Neolithic Transition and the Genetics of Populations in Europe (with A. 

Ammerman), 1984, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press; edizione italiana 

Bollati Boringhieri; 

– African Pygmies (ed.), 1986, Orlando, Florida: Academic Press; 

– History and Geography of Human Genes (with P. Menozzi e A. Piazza), 1994, 

Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press; edizione italiana Adelphi 1997, 

2000; 

– L’evoluzione della cultura, 2004, Milano: Codice edizioni. 

– Consanguinity, Inbreeding, and Genetic Drift in Italy (with Antonio Moroni 

and Gianna Zei), 2004, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. 

37


Scientific articles: 

Among his over 500 scientific articles, some of the most recent are: 

– Cavalli-Sforza LL et al., 1988, Reconstruction of Human Evolution: Bringing 

Together Genetic Archeologic and Linguistic Data. PNAS. 85:6002-6006; 

– Cavalli-Sforza LL et al., 1992, Coevolution of Genes and Languages Revisited. 

PNAS. 89:5620-4; 

Mountain JL et al., 1992, Evolution of Modern Humans: Evidence from Nuclear 

DNA Polymorphisms. Philos Trans R Soc Lond Biol Sci. 337 

(1280):159-65; 

– Cavalli-Sforza LL et al., 1993, Demic Expansions and Human Evolution. Science. 

259:639-46; 

Zei et al., 1993, Barriers to Gene Flow Estimated by Surname Distribution in 

Italy. Ann Hum Genet. 57:123-40; 

– Bowcock AM et al., 1994, High Resolution of Human Evolutionary Trees with 

Polymorphic Microsatellites. Nature. 368:455-7; 

– Mountain JL e Cavalli-Sforza LL, 1994, Inference of Human Evolution 

through Cladistic Analysis of Nuclear DNA Restriction Polymorphisms. 

PNAS. 91:6515-9; 

– Piazza A et al., 1995, Genetics and the Origin of European Languages. PNAS. 

92:5836-40; 

– Seielstad M et al., 1994, Construction of Human Y-chromosomal Haplotypes 

Using a New Polymorphic A to G Transition. Hum Mol Genet. 3:2159-61; 

– Mountain JL et al., 1995, Demographic History of India and mtDNA-sequence 

Diversity. Am J Hum Genet. 56:979-92; 

Goldstein DB et al., 1995, Genetic Absolute Dating Based on Microsatellites 

and the Origin of Modern Humans. PNAS. 92:6723-7; 

– Underhill PA et al., 1996, A Pre-Columbian Y chromosome-specific Transition 

and its Implications for Human Evolutionary History. PNAS. 93:196-200; 

– Cavalli-Sforza LL, 1997, Genetic and Cultural Diversity in Europe. J Anthr 

Res. 53:383-404; 

– Cavalli-Sforza LL, 1997, Genes, Peoples, and Languages. Proc Natl Acad Sci 

USA. 94:7719-24; 

– Barbujani AE et al., 1997, Apportionment of Human DNA Diversity. Proc 

Natl Acad Sci USA. 94:4516-9; 

– Cavalli-Sforza LL e Minch E, 1997, Paleolithic and Neolithic Lineages in the 

European Mitochondrial Gene Pool [letter]. Am J Hum Genet. 61:247-54; 

38


– Underhill PA et al., 1997, Detection of Numerous Y chromosome Biallelic 

Polymorphisms by Denaturating High-performance Liquid Chromatography. 

Genome Res. 7:996-1005; 

– Cavalli-Sforza LL, 1998, The Chinese Human Genome Diversity Project. 

Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 95:111501-11503; 

– Cavalli-Sforza LL, 1998, The DNA Revolution in Population Genetics. 

Trends Genet. 14:60-65. 

– Cavalli-Sforza LL, 1998, Man and the diversity of his genome. An extraordinary 

phase in the history of population genetics. Pathol Biol, Paris. 46: 98-102 

– Risch N et al., 1999, A genomic screen of autism: evidence for a multilocus etiology.; 

Am J Hum Genet. 65:493-507 

– Jin L et al., 1999, Distribution of haplotypes from a chromosome 21 region 

distinguishes multiple prehistoric human migrations. Proc Natl Acad Sci 

USA. 96:3796-800 

– Shen P et al., 2000, Population genetic implications from sequence variation 

in four Y chromosome genes. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 97 :7354-9 

– Underhill PA et al., 2000, Y chromosome sequence variation and the history 

of human populations. Nat Genet. 26:358-61 

– Passarino G et al., 2000, Y chromosome binary markers to study the high 

prevalence of males in Sardinian centenarians and the genetic structure of the 

Sardinian population. Hum Hered. 52:136-9 

– Underhill PA et al., 2001, The phylogeography of Y chromosome binary haplotypes 

and the origins of modern human populations. Ann Hum Genet. 

65:43-62 

– Passarino G et al., 2001, The Werner syndrome gene and global sequence 

variation. Genomics. 71:118-22 

– Underhill PA et al., 2001, Maori origins, Y-chromosome haplotypes and implications 

for human history in the Pacific. Hum Mutat 17:271-80 

– Vlad MO et al., 2002, Neutrality condition and response law for nonlinear reaction-diffusion 

equations, with application to population genetics. Phys Rev 

E Stat Nonlin Soft Matter Phys. 65:061110 

– Cavalli-Sforza LL, Feldman MW, 2003, The application of molecular genetic 

approaches to the study of human evolution. Nat Genet. 33(Suppl):266-75 

– McIntire JJ et al., 2003, Immunology: hepatitis A virus link to atopic disease. 

Nature. 6958(425): 576 

– Cinniolu C et al., 2004, Excavating Y-chromosome haplotype strata in Anatolia. 

Hum Genet 114:127-48 

39


– Edmonds CA, Lillie AS, Cavalli-Sforza LL, 2004, Mutations arising in the 

wave front of an expanding population. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, 101:975-9 

– Vlad MO, Cavalli-Sforza LL, Ross J, 2004, Enhanced (hydrodynamic) transport 

induced by population growth in reaction-diffusion systems with application 

to population genetics. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 101:10249-53 

– Ramachandran S et al., 2005, Support from the relationship of genetic and geographic 

distance in human populations for a serial founder effect originating 

in Africa. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 

– Kivisild T et al., 2005, The role of selection in the evolution of human mitochondrial 

genomes. Genetics 2005 

– Cavalli-Sforza LL, 2005, Studying diversity. EMBO Rep. 6:713 

– Vlad MO et al., 2005 Fisher’s theorems for multivariable, time- and space-dependent 

systems, with applications in population genetics and chemical kinetics. 

Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 

– Cavalli-Sforza LL, 2005, The Human Genome Diversity Project: past, present 

and future. Nat Rev Genet. 6:333-40 

– Sengupta S et al., 2006, Polarity and temporality of high-resolution y-chromosome 

distributions in India identify both indigenous and exogenous expansions 

and reveal minor genetic influence of central asian pastoralists. Am J 

Hum Genet. 78:202-21 

Popular Science publications: 

– Chi Siamo - La Storia Della Diversità Umana (con F. Cavalli-Sforza), 1995, 

2007, Milano: Mondadori; 

– Geni, Popoli e Lingue, 1996, Milano: Adelphi; 

– La Scienza della Felicità (con F. Cavalli-Sforza); 1997, Milano: Mondadori. 

– Il caso e la necessità - Ragioni e limiti della diversità genetica, 2007, Roma: Di 

Renzo Editore. 

He has published many articles in Italian daily newspapers such as “La Stampa”, 

“Corriere della Sera”, “Il Sole 24 Ore” and “La Repubblica”. 

40

International Balzan Foundation 


The International Balzan Foundation was established in Lugano in 1956 thanks to 

the generosity of Lina Balzan, who had come into a considerable inheritance on the 

death of her father, Eugenio. She destined this wealth to honour her father’s memory. 

Eugenio Francesco Balzan was born in Badia Polesine, near Rovigo (Northern 

Italy), on 20 April 1874, to a family of landowners. He spent almost his entire working 

life at Milan’s leading daily paper Corriere della Sera. After joining the paper in 

1897, he worked his way through, from editorial assistant, to editor-in-chief and then 

special correspondent. In 1903 editor Luigi Albertini made him managing director of 

the paper’s publishing company; he then became a partner and share-holder in the 

company. He was not only a clever and skilful manager but also a leading personality 

in Milan. In 1933 he left Italy due to opposition from certain milieus hostile to an 

independent Corriere. He then moved to Switzerland, living in Zurich or Lugano, 

where for years he had invested his fortune with success. He also continued his charitable 

activities in favour of institutions and individuals. After returning to Italy in 

1950, Eugenio Balzan died in Lugano, Switzerland, on 15 July 1953*. 

Today, the Balzan Foundation, international in character and scope, acts jointly 

through two Foundations: one under Italian law and the other under Swiss law. 

In Milan, the International E. Balzan Prize Foundation – “Prize” has the aim to promote, 

throughout the world, culture, science, and the most meritorious initiatives in 

the cause of humanity, peace and brotherhood among peoples, regardless of nationality, 

race or creed. This aim is attained through the annual award of four prizes in 

two general fields: literature, the moral sciences and the arts; medicine and the physical, 

mathematical and natural sciences. Nominations for the prizes in the scientific 

and humanistic fields are received at the Foundation’s request from the world’s leading 

learned societies. Candidates are selected by the General Prize Committee, composed 

of eminent European scholars and scientists. Since 2001, each prize is worth 

one million Swiss francs (about 620,000 Euros), half of which the prizewinner must 

destine for research work, preferably involving young researchers. At intervals of 

not less than hree years, the Balzan Foundation also awards a Prize for Humanity, 

Peace and Brotherhood among Peoples, of varying amounts. 

In Zurich, the International E. Balzan Prize Foundation – “Fund” administers Eugenio 

Balzan’s estate. 

* Renata Broggini, Eugenio Balzan 1874-1953. Una vita per il “Corriere”, un progetto per l’umanità, Milano, 2001; 

Renata Broggini, Eugenio Balzan 1874-1953. A Biography, Milano, 2007. 

41


Members of the International Balzan Foundation 

(June 2009) 

Board of the “Prize” Foundation 

Bruno Bottai (Italy), Chairman 

Carlo Fontana (Italy), Vice-Chairman 

Marco Cameroni (Switzerland) 

Achille Casanova (Switzerland) 

Enrico Decleva (Italy) 

Paolo Matthiae (Italy) 

Alberto Quadrio Curzio (Italy) 

General Prize Committee 

Salvatore Veca (Italy), Chairman 

M.E.H. Nicolette Mout (Netherlands), Vice-Chairperson 

Werner Stauffacher (Switzerland), Vice-Chairman 

Enric Banda (Spain) 

Giovanni Busino (Italy/Switzerland) 

Nicola Cabibbo (Italy) 

Étienne Ghys (Francia) 

Bengt Gustafsson (Sweden) 

John Richard Krebs (United Kingdom) 

Nicole Le Douarin (France) 

Paolo Matthiae (Italy) 

Erwin Neher (Germany) 

Antonio Padoa Schioppa (Italy) 

Dominique Schnapper (France) 

Gottfried Scholz (Austria) 

Dmitry O. Shvidkovsky (Russia) 

Quentin Skinner (United Kingdom) 

Karlheinz Stierle (Germany) 

Marc Van Montagu (Belgium) 

Luzius Wildhaber (Switzerland) 

Suzanne Werder (Italy), Secretary General 

42

Board of the “Fund” Foundation 

Achille Casanova (Switzerland), Chairman 

Bruno Bottai (Italy) 

Luisa Bürkler-Giussani (Switzerland) 

Maria Casutt Dietrich (Switzerland) 

Carlo Fontana (Italy) 

Claudio Generali (Switzerland) 

Arina Kowner (Switzerland) 

43 

Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza


Balzan Prizewinners 

for literature, moral sciences, and the arts; 

for physical, mathematical and natural sciences, and medicine 

2008 WALLACE S. BROECKER (USA) The Science of Climate Change 

MAURIZIO CALVESI (Italy) The Visual Arts since 1700 

IAN H. FRAZER (Australia/UK) Preventive Medicine, 

including Vaccination 

THOMAS NAGEL (USA/Serbia) Moral Philosophy 

2007 ROSALYN HIGGINS (UK) International Law since 1945 

SUMIO IIJIMA (Japan) Nanoscience 

MICHEL ZINK (France) European Literature (1000-1500) 

JULES HOFFMANN (France) 

and BRUCE BEUTLER (USA) 

Innate Immunity 

2006 LUDWIG FINSCHER (Germany) History of Western Music 

since 1600 

QUENTIN SKINNER (UK) Political Thought; History and Theory 

PAOLO DE BERNARDIS (Italy) Observational Astronomy 

and ANDREW LANGE (USA) and Astrophysics 

ELLIOT MEYEROWITZ (USA) 

and CHRISTOPHER SOMERVILLE 

(USA/Canada) 

Plant Molecular Genetics 

2005 PETER HALL (UK) The Social and Cultural History 

of Cities since the Beginning 

of the 16th Century 

LOTHAR LEDDEROSE (Germany) The History of the Art of Asia 

45


PETER AND ROSEMARY GRANT Population Biology 

(USA/UK) 

RUSSELL HEMLEY (USA) Mineral Physics 

and HO-KWANG MAO (USA/China) 

2004 PIERRE DELIGNE (USA/Belgium) Mathematics 

NIKKI RAGOZIN KEDDIE (USA) The Islamic world from the end of 

the 19th to the end of the 20th century 

MICHAEL MARMOT (UK) Epidemiology 

COLIN RENFREW (UK) Prehistoric Archaeology 

REINHARD GENZEL (Germany) Infrared Astronomy 

ERIC HOBSBAWM (UK/Egypt) European History since 1900 

WEN-HSIUNG LI (USA/Taiwan) Genetics and Evolution 

SERGE MOSCOVICI 

(France/Romania) 

Social Psychology 

2002 WALTER JAKOB GEHRING Developmental Biology 

(Switzerland) 

ANTHONY THOMAS GRAFTON History of the Humanities 

(USA) 

XAVIER LE PICHON Geology 

(France/Vietnam) 

DOMINIQUE SCHNAPPER (France) Sociology 

2001 JAMES SLOSS ACKERMAN (USA) History of Architecture (including 

town planning and landscape design) 

JEAN-PIERRE CHANGEUX (France) Cognitive Neurosciences 

MARC FUMAROLI (France) Literary History and Criticism 

(post 1500) 

CLAUDE LORIUS (France) Climatology 

46

2000 ILKKA HANSKI (Finland) Ecological Sciences 

MICHEL MAYOR (Switzerland) Instrumentation and Techniques 

in Astronomy and Astrophysics 

MICHAEL STOLLEIS (Germany) Legal History since 1500 

MARTIN LITCHFIELD WEST (UK) Classical Antiquity 

1999 LUIGI LUCA CAVALLI-SFORZA Science of Human Origins 

(USA/Italy) 

JOHN ELLIOTT (UK) History, 1500-1800 

MIKHAEL GROMOV (France/Russia) Mathematics 

PAUL RICŒUR (France) Philosophy 

1998 HARMON CRAIG (USA) Geochemistry 

ROBERT MCCREDIE MAY 

(UK/Australia) 

Biodiversity 


ANDRZEJ WALICKI (USA/Poland) History: The cultural and social 

history of the Slavonic world 

from the reign of Catherine 

the Great to the Russian revolutions 

of 1917 

1997 CHARLES COULSTON GILLISPIE History and Philosophy of Science 

(USA) 

THOMAS WILSON MEADE (UK) Epidemiology 

STANLEY JEYARAJA TAMBIAH Social Sciences: Social Anthropology 

(USA/Sri Lanka) 

1996 ARNO BORST (Germany) History: Medieval Cultures 

ARNT ELIASSEN (Norway) Meteorology 

STANLEY HOFFMANN Political Sciences: Contemporary 

(France/USA/Austria) International Relations 

47


1995 YVES BONNEFOY (France) Art History and Art Criticism 

(as applied to European Art 

from the Middle Ages to our times) 

CARLO M. CIPOLLA (Italy) Economic History 

ALAN J. HEEGER (USA) Science of New Non-Biological 

Materials 

1994 NORBERTO BOBBIO (Italy) Law and Political Science 

(governments and democracy) 

RENÉ COUTEAUX (France) Biology (cell-structure with special 

reference to the nervous system) 

FRED HOYLE (UK) Astrophysics (evolution of stars) 

and MARTIN SCHWARZSCHILD 

(USA/Germany) 

1993 WOLFGANG H. BERGER Paleontology with special reference 

(USA/Germany) to Oceanography 

LOTHAR GALL (Germany) History: Societies of the 19th and 20th centuries 

JEAN LECLANT (France) Art and Archaeology 

of the Ancient World 

1992 ARMAND BOREL (USA/Switzerland) Mathematics 

GIOVANNI MACCHIA (Italy) History and Criticism of Literatures 

EBRAHIM M. SAMBA (Gambia) Preventive Medicine 

1991 GYÖRGY LIGETI Music 

(Austria/Hungary/Romania) 

VITORINO MAGALHÃES GODINHO History: The emergence of Europe 

(Portugal) in the 15th and 16th centuries 

JOHN MAYNARD SMITH (UK) Genetics and Evolution 

48

990 WALTER BURKERT (Germany) Study of the Ancient World 

(Mediterranean area) 

JAMES FREEMAN GILBERT (USA) Geophysics (solid earth) 

PIERRE LALIVE D’EPINAY 

(Switzerland) 

Private International Law 

1989 EMMANUEL LÉVINAS 

(France/Lithuania) 

Philosophy 

LEO PARDI (Italy) Ethology 

MARTIN JOHN REES (UK) High Energy Astrophysics 

1988 SHMUEL NOAH EISENSTADT Sociology 

(Israel/Poland) 

RENÉ ETIEMBLE (France) Comparative Literature 

MICHAEL EVENARI (Israel/France) Applied Botany 

and OTTO LUDWIG LANGE (including ecological aspects) 

(Germany) 

1987 JEROME SEYMOUR BRUNER (USA) Human Psychology 

RICHARD W. SOUTHERN (UK) Medieval History 

PHILLIP V. TOBIAS (South Africa) Physical Anthropology 

1986 OTTO NEUGEBAUER (USA/Austria) History of Science 

ROGER REVELLE (USA) Oceanography/Climatology 

JEAN RIVERO (France) Basic Human Rights 

1985 ERNST H.J. GOMBRICH 

(UK/Austria) 

History of Western Art 

JEAN-PIERRE SERRE (France) Mathematics 

1984 JAN HENDRIK OORT (Netherlands) Astrophysics 

49 



JEAN STAROBINSKI (Switzerland) History and Criticism of Literatures 

SEWALL WRIGHT (USA) Genetics 

1983 FRANCESCO GABRIELI (Italy) Oriental Studies 

ERNST MAYR (USA/Germany) Zoology 

EDWARD SHILS (USA) Sociology 

1982 JEAN-BAPTISTE DUROSELLE (France) Social Sciences 

MASSIMO PALLOTTINO (Italy) Sciences of Antiquity 

KENNETH VIVIAN THIMANN Pure and Applied Botany 

(USA/UK) 

1981 JOSEF PIEPER (Germany) Philosophy 

PAUL REUTER (France) International Public Law 

DAN PETER MCKENZIE, Geology and Geophysics 

DRUMMOND HOYLE MATTHEWS 

and FREDERICK JOHN VINE (UK) 

1980 ENRICO BOMBIERI (USA/Italy) Mathematics 

JORGE LUIS BORGES (Argentina) Philology, Linguistics 

and Literary Criticism 

HASSAN FATHY (Egypt) Architecture and Urban Planning 

1979 TORBJÖRN CASPERSSON (Sweden) Biology 

JEAN PIAGET (Switzerland) Social and Political Sciences 

ERNEST LABROUSSE (France) 

and GIUSEPPE TUCCI (Italy) 

History 

1962 PAUL HINDEMITH (Germany) Music 

ANDREJ KOLMOGOROV (Russia) Mathematics 

SAMUEL ELIOT MORISON (USA) History 

KARL VON FRISCH (Austria) Biology 

50

Balzan Prizewinners 

for Humanity, Peace and Brotherhood among peoples 

2007 KARLHEINZ BÖHM (Austria/Germany) 

2004 COMMUNITY OF SANT’EGIDIO 

2000 ABDUL SATTAR EDHI (Pakistan/India) 

1996 INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE OF THE RED CROSS 

1991 ABBÉ PIERRE (France) 

1986 UNITED NATIONS REFUGEE AGENCY (UNHCR) 

1978 MOTHER TERESA OF CALCUTTA (India/Macedonia) 

1962 H.H. JOHN XXIII (Vatican City/Italy) 

1961 NOBEL FOUNDATION 

51 


Finito di stampare 

nel mese di settembre 2009 

da Àncora Arti Grafiche - Milano 

Printed in Italy

International Balzan Foundation Luigi Luca Cavalli

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