Understanding
of humans’ earliest past often comes from studying fossils. They tell us much
of what we know about the people who lived before us. There is one thing
fossils cannot tell us; at what point did we stop living day-to-day and start
to think symbolically, to represent ideas about our environment and how we
could change it? At a dig in South Africa the discovery of a small piece of
ochre pigment, 70,000 years old, has raised some very interesting questions.
Anatomically
modern humans (Homo sapiens)
emerged in Africa roughly 100,000 years ago. We know from fossil evidence thatHomo sapiens replaced other hominids around them and
moved out of Africa into Asia and the Middle East, reaching Europe 40,000 years
ago.
Prof
Richard Klein believes art is a landmark in human evolution. Unquestionable art
that’s widespread and common suggests you’re dealing with people just like us.
No other animals, after all, are able to define a painting as anything other
than a collection of colours and shapes. This ability is unique to humans.
Other
scientists agree. They believe art defines humans as behaviourally modern, and
its beginning must coincide with the ability to speak and use language. If
someone has the imagination to devise a shared way to describe their
environment using art then it seems inconceivable that they could not possess
language and speech. The search for the moment our ancestors became
behaviourally just like us is also the hunt for the first evidence of art.
Oliver’s photographs shocked the world, and in the media frenzy that followed he became an international celebrity. In Japan his human-like behavior earned him cult status. In New York some journalists described him as the missing link. Others dubbed him Bigfoot. Oliver gradually faded from the spotlight and eventually disappeared.
Now 30 years later, he has been found still alive. And with the latest DNA profiling, we can finally solve the mystery of the humanzee.
The film attempts to determine who the real “dodos” are in a constantly evolving world: the scientists who are failing to effectively promote evolution as a scientifically accepted fact, the intelligent design advocates, or the American public who get fooled by the “salesmanship” of evolution critics. While Randy Olson ultimately sides with the scientists who accept evolution, he gives equal air time to both sides of the argument, including intelligent design proponent Michael Behe and several of his colleagues.
The film begins by going over the history of intelligent design thought from Plato and Paley to the present-day incarnation promoted by the Discovery Institute. Olson mixes in humorous cartoons of squawking dodos with commentary from his mother and interviews with proponents on both sides of the intelligent design/evolution debate.
On the intelligent design side, Olson interviews Behe, John Calvart (founder of the Access Research Network) and a member of the Kansas school board. Olson also unsuccessfully tries to interview school board member Connie Morris and members of the Discovery Institute.
Growing Up in the Universe was a series of lectures given by Richard Dawkins as part of the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, in which he discussed the evolution of life in the universe. The lectures were first broadcast in 1991, in the form of five one-hour episodes.
To start off part one, Dawkins discusses the amazing capabilities of the human body and contrasts these with the limited capabilities of computers and other man-made machines. He uses a small totem pole (which is used in ancestor worship) to illustrate the importance of studying our ancestors to understand how we’ve evolved.
Dawkins’ second lecture of the series examines the problem of design. He presents the audience with a number of simple objects, such as rocks and crystals, and notes that these objects have been formed by simple laws of physics and are therefore not designed.
Dawkins starts the third lecture coming in with a stick insect on his hand. He describes with how much details such a being imitates its environment, its almost like a key that fits a lock. He then shows another insect, namely a Leaf Insect, which basically looks exactly like a dead leaf.
Dawkins begins the fourth lecture by relating the story of asking a little girl “what she thought flowers were ‘for’.” Her response is anthropocentric, that flowers are there for our benefit. Dawkins points out that many people throughout history have thought that the natural world existed for our benefit, with examples from Genesis and other literature.
At the end of his journey in the Natural History Museum in London, David concludes that Darwin’s great insight revolutionized the way in which we see the world. We now understand why there are so many different species, and why they are distributed in the way they are. But above all, Darwin has shown us that we are not set apart from the natural world, and do not have dominion over it. We are subject to its laws and processes, as are all other animals on earth to which, indeed, we are related.
