The
Smithsonian is presenting a traveling exhibit in 19 libraries across the
country, asking What Does It Mean to Be
Human? Fortunately, one of them is located nearby, and a friend and I
visited it this past week.
The
primary subject of the exhibit is, of course, human evolution, and timelines
illustrating skeletal changes, social gatherings, tool use, art, etc. are abundantly
displayed.
But
I was more interested in just how the scientists have arrived at today’s body
of knowledge on the subject. And I was not disappointed; explanations were
plentifully supplied. For example:
Early African Homo erectus fossils (sometimes called Homo ergaster) are the oldest
known early humans to have possessed modern human-like body
proportions with relatively elongated legs and shorter arms compared to the
size of the torso. These features are considered adaptations to a life lived on
the ground, indicating the loss of earlier tree-climbing adaptations, with the
ability to walk and possibly run long distances.
Similar
explanations accompany each of the various categories comparing “modern” human
characteristics to those of earlier primates.
Naturally
this exhibit is prime fodder for the Bible-thumpers. Letters vilifying the “fiction”
of Darwin and the atheism of science have appeared in the newspaper, and there is
a web site proclaiming that the exhibit is a propaganda vehicle for atheism.
The
following is a quote from The Story of
Philosophy by Will Durant. It concerns the tools available 2,000 years ago
to the man attempting to make sense of the world around him:
He was compelled to fix time without a watch, to
compare degrees of heat without a thermometer, to observe the heavens without a
telescope and the weather without a barometer . . . Of all our mathematical,
optical, and physical instruments he possessed only the rule and the compass,
together with the most imperfect substitutes for some few others. Chemical
analysis, correct measurement and weights, and a thorough application of
mathematics to physics were unknown. The attractive force of matter; the law of
gravitation; electrical phenomena; the conditions of chemical combination;
pressure of air and its effects; the nature of light, heat, combustion; etc.-in
short, all the facts on which the physical theories of modern science are based
were wholly, or almost wholly, undiscovered.
I realize why that man might attribute the buzzing activity around him to
the activities of gods, but I have a hard time understanding why a man with
today’s tools would do so. Couldn’t evolution be a part of God’s plan?
******
My books, “There Are Only Seven Jokes” and “The Spirit Runs Through
It” are available in paperback
or Kindle at Amazon.
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