Homage to Shua Dulah, or: What makes us human?
Speaker: Dr Armand Leroi
27th May
Seventy miles south-west of Islamabad, Pakistan, lies the small Punjabi town of Gujrat. Its most famous feature is a shrine to an 18th century Muslim saint by the name of Shua Dulah. For many centuries this shrine has been a depository for mentally retarded children known as the ‘chuas’ or ‘rats’ of Shua Dulah. Even today, they may be seen begging in its vicinity. Surprisingly, they – and others like them – may hold an answer to one of the oldest and deepest questions of philosophy and science: namely, what makes us human?
Dr. Armand Marie Leroi was born in Wellington, New Zealand. A Dutch citizen, his youth was spent in New Zealand, South Africa and Canada. He is currently Reader in Evolutionary Developmental Biology at Imperial College London where his research concerns the evolution and development of ageing and growth in flies and nematodes. In 2003 he published his first book, Mutants, which won the Guardian First Book Award 2004. In that same year he wrote and presented a TV series for Channel 4 based on this book.