Üner Tan
Uner Tan (Turkish: Üner Tan) (born May 1, 1937) is a Turkish neuroscientist and evolutionary biologist. He is best known for his discovery and study of the human quadrupedal condition he named the Uner Tan syndrome. He taught at Cukurova University until his retirement in 2004 and had previously taught at several other institutions.
[edit] Biography
Tan was born in Ünye, Turkey. He graduated from secondary school in Corum and started college at Ege University, at the Faculty of Medicine, in 1956. He continued at Göttingen University and graduated from there and the Max-Planck Institute in 1966. He returned to Turkey at 1969 and worked at Hacettepe University in Ankara, and Ataturk University in Erzurum, Black Sea Technical University in Trabzon and Cukurova University in Adana. He retired in 2004.
[edit] Uner Tan syndrome
Tan is best known for his proposal of the Uner Tan syndrome, a condition in which subjects walk quadrupedal gait and primitive cognition including speech and intelligence with no conscious experience. He proposed the syndrome after his discovery of the Ulas family of rural southern Turkey, five of whom have these symptoms. He also put forward the theory of "backward evolution" as a reflection of the qaudrupedal gait, which was used by our ancestors before Homo erectus. Since his study of the Ulas family, Tan has studied the Uner Tan syndrome in several other families.
