Jeremy Griffith

Griffith was raised on a sheep property in central New South Wales. He was educated at Tudor House School, in New South Wales, and the Geelong Grammar School in Victoria and completed the NSW schools Leaving Certificate with first class honours in biology.{{cite news|title=Leaving Certificate Results |work=The Sydney Morning Herald|publisher=Fairfax Media|location=Sydney, NSW, Australia|author=|date=14 January 1965|url=|accessdate=|page=16}} He subsequently began a science degree at the University of New England, in northern New South Wales. Finally, Griffith completed his Bachelor of Science in zoology at the University of Sydney in 1971.{{cite book|author= Griffith, Jeremy| title= A Species in Denial| year= 2003|pages= 528|publisher= WTM Publishing & Communications Pty Ltd|isbn=978-1-74129-001-1}}[https://www.jeremygriffith.com/biography/ Biographical Profile] - website of Jeremy Griffith

He first became known for his search for surviving Tasmanian tigers, or thylacines,{{Cite journal| author= Park, Andy|title= Tasmanian Tiger- Extinct or merely elusive?|journal= Australian Geographic |volume= 1|issue=3 |pages= 66–83| date=July 1986}} the last known specimen of which died in captivity in 1936. The search was conducted from 1967 to 1973{{Cite journal| last= Griffith| first= Jeremy|title= The Search for the Tasmanian Tiger|journal= Natural History|date=December 1972| issue= 81| publisher= American Museum of Natural History |pages= 70–77}} and is considered the most intensive search to that point, and included exhaustive surveys along Tasmania's west coast, installation of automatic camera stations, prompt investigations of claimed sightings,{{cite book|title=The Last Tasmanian Tiger: The History and Extinction of the Thylacine|author=Robert Paddle|year=2000|publisher=Cambridge University Press|page=197|isbn=0-521-53154-3}} and in 1972 the creation of the Thylacine Expeditionary Research Team with Bob Brown. It concluded without finding any evidence of the animal's continuing existence despite numerous claimed ongoing sightings. Griffith’s search was the subject of an episode of ABC TV’s A Big Country;Tiger Country, A Big Country, ABC TV, 1973.{{Cite book |last=Downes |first=Jim |title=A Big Country: Stories of Australia & its people from the ABC-TV series |publisher=Angus & Robertson; ABC Enterprises |year=1988 |isbn=9780207158964 |pages=31-36}} and his report of the search was published in Natural History.{{cite book |last1=Smith |first1=M. |editor1-last=Archer |editor1-first=Michael |title=Carnivorous Marsupials |date=Feb 1982 |publisher=Royal Zoological Society of NSW |isbn=9780959995138 |pages=237-253 |chapter=Review of the Thylacine (Marsupialia, Thylacinidae)}}

The thylacine was declared extinct by the International Union for Conservation of Nature in 1982{{cite iucn | author = Burbidge, A. A. | author2 = Woinarski, J. | title = Thylacinus cynocephalus | journal = IUCN Red List of Threatened Species | volume = 2016 | page = e.T21866A21949291 | year = 2016 | url = https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/21866/21949291 | doi = 10.2305/IUCN.UK.2016-2.RLTS.T21866A21949291.en | access-date = 16 December 2019}} and by the Tasmanian government in 1986.

Griffith began writing on the human condition in 1975 and published the first of his six books on the subject in 1988.{{cite book| author=Griffith, Jeremy| title= Free: The End of the Human Condition| year= 1988|publisher= WTM Publishing & Communications Pty Ltd|pages=228|isbn=0-7316-0495-4}} A Species In Denial (2003) became a bestseller in Australia and New Zealand.{{cite news|title=Bestsellers books|work=The Newcastle Herald|publisher=The Newcastle Herald|location=Newcastle, NSW, Australia|author=Sprogis, Elvira|date=21 June 2003| page=15}} His books seek to give a biological and rational explanation of human behaviour and include references to philosophical and religious sources.

His biological works on the origins of human nature assert that "humans act angrily because of a battle between instinct and intellect". An article by Griffith published in The Irish Times summarised the thesis presented in Freedom: The End of The Human Condition (2016) as "Adam & Eve without the guilt: explaining our battle between instinct and intellect."{{cite news|title=Adam & Eve without the guilt: explaining our battle between instinct and intellect|url=http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/adam-eve-without-the-guilt-explaining-our-battle-between-instinct-and-intellect-1.2665827 |newspaper=The Irish Times |publisher=The Irish Times |date=30 May 2016 |accessdate=31 October 2016}} Kirkus Reviews wrote, "Griffith offers a treatise about the true nature of humanity and about overcoming anxieties about the world".{{cite news |date=17 May 2016 |title=Freedom: The End of The Human Condition |url=https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/jeremy-griffith/freedom-the-end-of-the-human-condition/ |magazine=Kirkus Reviews |publisher=Kirkus |access-date=31 October 2016}}

Griffith analyzes the scientific literature in human evolution; rejects claims that human ancestors were brutal and aggressive; and instead points to fossil evidence such as that of Ardipithecus ramidus in support of his thesis that ancient humans were a gentle, loving and co-operative species. His ideas have been criticised based on perceived problems with the empirical veracity of his anthropological writings, an objection that highlights his reliance on the writings of the South African novelist Sir Laurens van der Post and the work of the anthropologist Elizabeth Marshall Thomas.

The Templeton Prize winner and biologist Charles Birch, the New Zealand zoologist John Morton, the former president of the Canadian Psychiatric Association Harry Prosen, and Australian Everest mountaineer Tim Macartney-Snape{{Cite magazine|issn=1030-469X |magazine=Wild Australia |issue=3 #177, Spring 2020 |date=10 September 2020 |title=Profile: Tim Macartney-Snape}}{{Cite web |date=2025-03-08 |title=Finally, the ‘truly superior moral justification for selfishness’ |author=Tim Macartney-Snape |url=https://www.spectator.com.au/2025/03/finally-the-truly-superior-moral-justification-for-selfishness/ |access-date=2025-03-11 |website=The Spectator Australia |language=en-US}}{{Cite web |last=Macartney-Snape |first=Tim |date=2025-03-22 |title=Instinct’s Dreadful Gravity - Quadrant |url=https://quadrant.org.au/news-opinions/philosophy-ideas/instincts-dreadful-gravity/ |access-date=2025-04-06 |language=en-US}} have been long-standing proponents of Griffith’s ideas. Birch wrote the Foreword to Griffith’s 2004 book A Species In Denial.{{Cite book |last=Griffith |first=Jeremy |title=A Species In Denial |publisher=WTM Publishing and Communications |year=2004 |isbn=978-1741290011}} Morton publicly defended Griffith when he and his ideas were attacked in the mid-1990s.{{cite web |last=Fray |first=Peter |date=17 April 1995 |title=7 Days: Religion |url=http://newsstore.smh.com.au/apps/viewDocument.ac?page=1&sy=smh&kw=john+morton+and+peter+fray&pb=smh&dt=selectRange&dr=entire&so=relevance&sf=text&sf=author&sf=headline&rc=20&rm=200&sp=nrm&clsPage=1&docID=news950416_0104_3319 |work=The Sydney Morning Herald |publisher=The Sydney Morning Herald |accessdate=10 October 2011}} In 2021 Prosen wrote, "Griffith puts forward a wide-ranging induction-derived synthesis. As Professor Scott Churchill, former Chair of Psychology at the University of Dallas, said in his review of Freedom, 'Griffith's perspective comes to us not as a simple opinion of one man, but rather as an inductive conclusion drawn from sifting through volumes of data representing what scientists have discovered.'... I have no doubt Griffith’s explanation of the human condition is the holy grail of insight we have sought for the psychological rehabilitation of the human race".{{Cite web |title=The Psychological Rehabilitation of the Human Race |author=Harry Prosen |url=https://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-psychological-rehabilitation-of-the-human-race.php |access-date=2021-07-23 |website=www.themontrealreview.com}}

In a 2020 article "The fury of the left, explained," published in The Spectator Australia, Griffith argues that the ideology of the Left is regressive and might lead to extinction: "the Left has given in to the temptation of relief-hunting and abandoned that all-important search [for understanding of the human condition]".{{Cite web |url=https://www.spectator.com.au/2020/02/the-fury-of-the-left-explained/ |title=The fury of the left, explained |date=2020-02-05 |website=The Spectator Australia |language=en-us |access-date=2020-02-10}} When interviewed by Alan Jones and Graham Richardson on their Richo & Jones Sky News Australia television programme, Griffith said that "my article in The Spectator last week was all about how we can bring rationale, understanding to the danger of the Left, reason versus dogma".{{Cite web |url=https://play.acast.com/s/richo/0b097923-496c-4e63-b0f9-f0d609b522f8 |title=Richo & Jones, Wednesday 12th February |website=a cast |language=en |access-date=2020-02-15}}

Dutch actor Pierre Bokma discussed Griffith’s work on the VPRO Zomergasten television program in 2024, saying Griffith’s explanation allowed him to understand why humans are ultimately good despite being angry, guilty, alienated, selfish, egotistic and power hungry.{{Cite web |date=2024-08-28 |title=Pierre Bokma - Zomergasten Podcast |url=https://www.vpro.nl/speel~WO_VPRO_20213921~pierre-bokma-zomergasten-podcast~.html |access-date=2025-03-11 |website=VPRO |language=nl}}

In 2025 Macartney-Snape wrote that Griffith had answered what John Kenneth Galbraith referred to as "the search for a truly superior moral justification for selfishness".

The World Transformation Movement was founded by Griffith in 1983 as the Centre for Humanity’s Adulthood, an organisation dedicated to developing and promoting understanding of the human condition. It was incorporated in 1990 with Griffith and his colleague, mountaineer Tim Macartney-Snape, among its founding directors and became a registered charity in New South Wales in 1990, known as the Foundation for Humanity’s Adulthood. In 2009, its name changed to the World Transformation Movement.{{cite web|title=Description of the WTM|url=http://www.humancondition.com/about-the-wtm/description/|publisher=World Transformation Movement|accessdate=10 October 2011}}

In 1995, Griffith, Macartney-Snape and the Foundation for Humanity's Adulthood (the World Transformation Movement's name at the time) were the subject of a defamatory Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) Four Corners program and a defamatory Sydney Morning Herald newspaper article in which it was falsely alleged that Macartney-Snape used speaking appearances at schools to promote the foundation, and falsely alleged that Griffith "publishes work of such a poor standard that it has no support at all from the scientific community".{{Cite web|url=https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/nsw/NSWSC/2008/764.html|title=Griffith & Macartney-Snape v Australian Broadcasting Corporation [2008] NSWSC 764 (1 August 2008)|website=Australasian Legal Information Institute|language=en|access-date=2022-06-18}}

In 1998, following a complaint by Griffith and Macartney-Snape, the Australian Broadcasting Authority censured the ABC for unbalanced and inaccurate reporting and breaching the ABC code of practice, with The Bulletin describing the Four Corners program as a "hatchet job". Griffith objected to being described as a "prophet of the posh" and portrayed as a form of deity as he was during the media controversy, but he was comfortable being referred to as a prophet in a secular sense, and he regards many thinkers as prophets, including James Darling, Charles Darwin, Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Thomas Huxley, Stephen Hawking and Laurens van der Post.

Griffith, Macartney-Snape and the World Transformation Movement sued the ABC and the Sydney Morning Herald in the NSW Supreme Court and both publications were found to be defamatory.{{cite journal|last=Kux|first=Y.C.|title=Jeremy Griffith & Ors v John Fairfax Publications Pty Ltd and David Millikan|journal=Gazette of Law & Journalism|date=29 September 2005}}{{cite news|last=Drummond|first=Andrew|title=Half-million payout for ABC defamation|url=http://news.smh.com.au/national/halfmillion-payout-for-abc-defamation-20080801-3ogo.html|accessdate=10 October 2011|newspaper=The Sydney Morning Herald|date=1 August 2008}} In 2008, the ABC was ordered to pay Macartney-Snape almost $500,000 in damages, and with costs, the payout was expected to exceed $1 million. While the jury found that what the ABC said about Griffith was defamatory, the judge dismissed the case after the defences of truth, qualified privilege and comment were considered.{{Cite web|url=https://advance.lexis.com/document/?pdmfid=1505209&crid=9cb55d54-f3f2-48eb-9354-192a2de0a74f&pddocfullpath=%2Fshared%2Fdocument%2Fcases-au%2Furn%3AcontentItem%3A58RJ-NTD1-FBN1-252M-00000-00&pdcontentcomponentid=267716&pdshepid=urn%3AcontentItem%3A58RJ-NTD1-FBN1-252M-00000-00&pdteaserkey=sr1&pdicsfeatureid=1517127&pditab=allpods&ecomp=qbkyk&earg=sr1&prid=f68c03ed-beab-456a-a56d-cccae589d573 |title=Griffith and Macartney-Snape v Australian Broadcasting Corporation, [2008] NSWSC 764|website=Lexis Advance Quicklaw|language=en|access-date=2022-04-04|url-access=subscription}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/nsw/NSWSC/2008/764.html|title=Griffith & Macartney-Snape v Australian Broadcasting Corporation [2008] NSWSC 764 (1 August 2008)|website=Australasian Legal Information Institute|language=en|access-date=2022-06-18}} Griffith appealed that decision to the NSW Court of Appeal, which dismissed the appeal{{Cite web|url=https://advance.lexis.com/document/casebase/?pdmfid=1505209&crid=6dc9e76f-1d37-46d3-867e-44ea24252def&pddocfullpath=%2Fshared%2Fdocument%2Fcases-au%2Furn%3AcontentItem%3A58RJ-NCF1-JSJC-X4XH-00000-00&pdcontentcomponentid=267716&pdshepid=urn%3AcontentItem%3A58RJ-NCF1-JSJC-X4XH-00000-00&pdteaserkey=sr0&pdicsfeatureid=1517127&pditab=allpods&ecomp=qbkyk&earg=sr0&prid=f68c03ed-beab-456a-a56d-cccae589d573|title=Griffith v Australian Broadcasting Corporation [2010] NSWCA 257 |website=Lexis Advance Quicklaw|language=en|access-date=2022-04-04|url-access=subscription}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/nsw/NSWCA/2010/257.html|title=Griffith v Australian Broadcasting Corporation [2010] NSWCA 257|website=Australasian Legal Information Institute|language=en|access-date=2022-04-04}} on the basis of qualified privilege and comment being upheld, but found that the defamatory allegation about Griffith was not justified.{{Cite journal |last1=Tobin |first1=T K |last2=Sexton |first2=M G |last3=Gibson |first3=Judge JC |date=March 2011 |title=Griffith v Australian Broadcasting Corporation [2010] NSWCA 257 |url=https://advance.lexis.com/document/?pdmfid=1201008&crid=866a9e46-952b-4266-90c7-4ebaae6b6702&pddocfullpath=%2Fshared%2Fdocument%2Fanalytical-materials-au%2Furn%3AcontentItem%3A60BM-RYF1-JYYX-60TH-00000-00&pdcontentcomponentid=267723&pdteaserkey=sr8&pdicsfeatureid=1517127&pditab=allpods&ecomp=qbfrk&earg=sr8&prid=1723dacc-f73b-4709-8c29-0fdaf240c726 |journal=Australian Defamation Law and Practice Bulletin |volume=March 2011 |via=LexisNexis|url-access=subscription}} The court case against the Sydney Morning Herald was resolved in 2009 when it published an apology to the World Transformation Movement for the harm caused by the publication.{{cite news|title=Apology|newspaper=The Sydney Morning Herald|date=6 June 2009}}

In 2020, an article by Griffith published in The Spectator Australia under the heading 'The science of bushfires'{{cite journal|last1=Griffith|first1=Jeremy|date=18 January 2020|title=The science of bushfires is settled (part 2)|url=https://www.spectator.com.au/2020/01/the-science-of-bushfires-is-settled-part-2/|journal=The Spectator|accessdate=22 January 2020}} about his biological analysis of the dangers of eucalypts in light of the 2019–20 Australian bushfire season resulted in him appearing on Alan Jones's 2GB radio program,{{Cite web|url=https://www.2gb.com/the-extremely-sinister-beasts-fueling-bushfires/|title=The 'extremely sinister beasts' fueling bushfires|last=|first=|date=2020-01-29|website=2GB|language=en|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=2020-01-29}} and on the Richo & Jones Sky News Australia television program.{{Cite web|url=https://www.skynews.com.au/details/_6127612888001|title=Eucalypts 'are incinerators from hell dressed up as trees'|website=Sky News Australia|language=|access-date=2020-01-29}} Griffith's analysis also generated interest in the United Kingdom.{{Cite web|url=https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-science-of-bushfires-is-settled-part-2-|title=The science of bushfires is settled (part 2)|website=The Spectator|language=English|access-date=2020-07-09}}

• {{cite book |author=Griffith, Jeremy |title=Death by Dogma: The Biological Reason Why the Left Is Leading Us to Extinction, and the Solution |year=2021 |publisher=WTM Publishing & Communications Pty Ltd |isbn=9781741290660 |pages=134 |url=http://www.humancondition.com/death-by-dogma/}}
• {{cite book |author=Griffith, Jeremy |title=THE Interview |year=2020|publisher=WTM Publishing & Communications Pty Ltd |isbn=9781741290561 |pages=56 |url=http://www.humancondition.com/the-interview-book/}}
• {{cite book |author=Griffith, Jeremy |title=Transform Your Life And Save The World: Through Living In Support Of The Biological Truth About The Human Condition |year=2016 |publisher=WTM Publishing & Communications Pty Ltd |isbn=9781741290356 |pages=82 |url=http://www.humancondition.com/transform-your-life-and-save-the-world/}}
• {{cite book |author=Griffith, Jeremy |title=Freedom: The End of The Human Condition |year=2016 |publisher=WTM Publishing & Communications Pty Ltd |isbn=9781741290288 |pages=798 |url=http://www.humancondition.com/freedom-the-end-of-the-human-condition/}}
• {{cite book |author=Griffith, Jeremy |title=The Book of Real Answers to Everything! |year=2011 |publisher=WTM Publishing & Communications Pty Ltd |isbn=9781741290073 |pages=651 |url=http://www.humancondition.com/book-of-real-answers/}}
• {{cite book|author= Griffith, Jeremy| title= A Species in Denial| year= 2003|pages= 528|publisher= WTM Publishing & Communications Pty Ltd|isbn=978-1-74129-001-1 | url = http://www.humancondition.com/a-species-in-denial/}}
• {{cite book| author= Griffith, Jeremy| title=Beyond the Human Condition | year= 1991|publisher= WTM Publishing & Communications Pty Ltd|isbn=978-0-646-03994-7|pages=203 | url = http://www.humancondition.com/beyond/}}
• {{cite book| author=Griffith, Jeremy| title= Free: The End of the Human Condition| year= 1988|publisher= WTM Publishing & Communications Pty Ltd|pages=228|isbn=0-7316-0495-4 | url = http://www.humancondition.com/free-the-end-of-the-human-condition/}}

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Category:Living people

Category:1945 births

Category:Australian biologists

Category:People educated at Geelong Grammar School