Thursday, February 17, 2005

Homo Sapians

A couple archaeologists discover that the human species is several thousand years older than previously thought. According to them, humans are 195,000 years old. Hmm, interesting.

So here it is, the history of the world. 189,000 years go by (that's 97% of the lifespan of the human race), and humans live like a bunch of animals. After almost 189 milleniums go by, a bunch of groups get together on new year's day and say, "Enough of this, let's resolve to make millennium 190 a good one!." So a bunch of PARALLEL societies get together and build some of the most awesome architectural achievements ever: the pyramids of Egypt, the pyramids South America, and Stonehenge. Another thing they decided to do overnight was to invent writing. Then they invent forms of governments that were able to rule over tens of thousands of people. It's these same people that were previously running around touting fire as the pinnacle of human achievement that, almost overnight, were able to buil the pyramids! How the heck could that possibly happen? If humans were able to flaunt these magnificent achievements 6,000 years ago what was preventing them from doing the same thing 50,000, 100,000, or 175,000 years ago? What magically made them decide to make these shocking breakthroughs in architecture, literature, and government, and why did so many societies that were not even in contact with other developing societies somehow do it all at the same time?

Am I the only one who finds this new discovery to be odd?

If a bunch of people were simply dumped in an earth-like lab, how long would it take for them to produce a historically surviving culture? A few generations maybe? Certinaly not 200,000 years! Yet that's supposedly how long it took earth to produce one.

No comments: