nature of humanity a personal view. darwin matters because evolution matters. evolution matters...
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Nature of Humanity
A Personal View
Darwin matters because evolution matters. Evolution matters because science matters. Science matters because it is the preeminent story of our age, an epic saga about who we are, where we came from, and where we are going.
Michael Shermer (2006)
Mt-DNA Primate Tree
Our Living Sisters
Pan
Gorilla
http://www.mnh.si.edu/anthro/humanorigins/ha/a_tree.html
http://www.wsu.edu:8001/vwsu/gened/learn-modules/top_longfor/timeline/afarensis/afarensis-a.html
Australopithecus species
Genus now designated
Paranthropushttp://www.mnh.si.edu/anthro/humanorigins/ha/a_tree.html
Homo species
http://www.wsu.edu:8001/vwsu/gened/learn-modules/top_longfor/timeline/timeline.html
http://www.mnh.si.edu/anthro/humanorigins/ha/a_tree.html
http://www.wsu.edu:8001/vwsu/gened/learn-modules/top_longfor/timeline/africanus/africanus-a.htmlhttp://www.mnh.si.edu/anthro/humanorigins/ha/a_tree.html
Features that distinguish our species from other apes
• Bipedal Locomotion
Figure 1 from Richmond, B. G., D. R. Begun, and D. S. Strait. 2001. Origin of human bipedalism: The knuckle-walking hypothesis revisited. Yearbook of Physical Anthropology. 44:70-105.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/species.html
Features that distinguish our species from other apes
• Neoteny– Nakedness– Large Brain Size– Reduced Dentition
The Neotenic Ape
Features that distinguish our species from other apes
• Vocal Communication
http://www.voice.northwestern.edu/VOICEBOX/Larynx.htm
Humans are not proud of their ancestors and never invite them ‘round to dinner.Hitchhiker’s Guideto the Galaxy.
42
Paintings of Lascaux
http://www.culture.fr/culture/arcnat/lascaux/en/
http://mexplaza.udg.mx/wm/paint/auth/vinci/joconde/
http://www.artchive.com/artchive/G/greek/venus_de_milo.jpg.html
Nikos Kasantzakis
Zorba the
Greek
http://www.ffolio.com/abarchive/film/zorba.html
Agincourt Song
http://battlefieldvacations.com/france/aginco.htm
God Save the Queen
God save our gracious Queen,Long live our noble Queen,
God save the Queen!Send her victorious,Happy and glorious,
Long to reign over us,God save the Queen!
http://www.emulateme.com/anthems/unitedkingtexte.htm
Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro(Premiered May 1, 1786 in Vienna)
http://w3.rz-berlin.mpg.de/cmp/mozart.html
Sgt. Pepper
Richard Dawkins
A meme is … anything that infects itself from brain to brain.
Dawkins. 1998. Unweaving the Rainbow.
Written Language
http://www.gutenberg.de/english/erfindun.htm
Then the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.
-Genesis 2:7
http://prodigi.bl.uk/gutenbg/background.asp
Rig-Veda
http://phoenicia.org/rigveda.html
Ovid’s Metamorphoses
http://larryavisbrown.homestead.com/files/xeno.ovid1.htm
Assyro-Babylonian cuneiform >7,000 years ago
http://www.upenn.edu/museum/Games/cuneiform.html
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
http://www.okonlife.com/pics/index.htm
The moving finger writes;and having writ,
Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancelhalf a Line,
Nor all your Tears washout a Word of it.
-LXXI
http://www.twainquotes.com/
Stephen Jay Gould
http://www.annonline.com/interviews/961009/biography.html
Humans are not the end result of predictable evolutionary progress, but rather a fortuitous cosmic afterthought, a tiny little twig on the enormously arborescent bush of life, which if replanted from seed, would almost surely not grow this twig again.
What a
piece of
work is
man.
http://www.chemicool.com/Shakespeare/
Tycho's Supernova Remnant in X-ray
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap960623.html
Footprints at Laetoli
http://www.humanevolution.f2s.com/laetolifoot.html
Loren Eiseley
If I remember the sunflower forest it is because from its hidden reaches man arose. The green world is his sacred center. In moments of sanity he must still seek refuge there. — Loren Eiseley
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/4189/
E. O. Wilson
The human species can change its own nature. What will it choose?
Wilson. 1978. On Human Nature.
H. G. Wells
http://www.rdg.ac.uk/~lhsjamse/wells/wells.htm
A day will come, one day in the unending succession of days, when beings, beings who are latent in our thoughts and hidden in our loins, shall stand upon this earth as one stands upon a footstool, and shall laugh and reach out their hands amidst the stars.Wells. 1902. The Discovery of the
Future. Nature 65 (326).
Man is a small thing, but the night is large and full of wonders. -The Laughter of the Gods.
Man thinks and God laughs.
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