Jeremy Griffith (b.1945) is an Australian biologist and author on the subject of the human condition. He first gained notoriety for his comprehensive search for the Tasmanian Tiger or Thylacine conducted from 1967 to 1973.[1] His search is considered the most intensive ever carried out,[2] and included exhaustive surveys along Tasmania's west coast;[1] installation of automatic camera stations; prompt investigations of claimed sightings;[3] and in 1972 the creation of the Thylacine Expeditionary Research Team with Dr Bob Brown, which concluded without finding any evidence of the thylacine's existence.[2]
Griffith began writing on the human condition in 1975, publishing the first of his six books on the subject in 1988.[4] The best known of his publications, A Species In Denial (2003),[5] became a bestseller in Australia and New Zealand.[6] Each of Griffith’s published works is grounded in his grand narrative explanation of human nature. His work is multi-disciplinary, drawing from the physical sciences, biology, anthropology and primatology together with philosophy, psychology and psychiatry. He cites thinkers drawn from varied backgrounds and eras, from Socrates, Plato and Christ, through to more contemporary philosophers and scientists such as Charles Darwin, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Eugene Marais, Louis Leakey and R.D. Laing.[5][7]
His biological works on the origins of human nature have generated interest and debate in both scientific and general communities for more than two decades.[8] The Templeton Prize winner and biologist Charles Birch, the New Zealand zoologist Professor John Edward Morton, the former President of the Canadian Psychiatric Association Professor Harry Prosen and the Australian Everest mountaineer Tim Macartney-Snape have been among the long standing proponents of Griffith’s ideas. Professor John Edward Morton publicly defended Griffith when he and his ideas were attacked in the mid-1990s.[9]
In 1995, Griffith and his colleague Tim Macartney-Snape (both founders of the World Transformation Movement[10]) were the subject of an Australian Broadcasting Corporation Four Corners program and a Sydney Morning Herald newspaper article. The publications became the subject of long running defamation actions in the NSW Supreme Court and were found to be defamatory.[11][12] In 2007, the ABC was ordered to pay Macartney-Snape almost $500,000 in damages, and with costs the payout was expected to exceed $1 million.[12]The proceedings against the Herald were resolved when it published an apology in 2009.[13] Although Griffith was not awarded damages in relation to the Four Corners broadcast, on appeal in 2010 the NSW Court of Appeal found what was said of Griffith was untrue.[14]