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Planet Of The Humans
“Just because some of us can read and write and do a little math, that doesn’t mean we deserve to conquer the Universe” – Kurt Vonnegut, Hocus Pocus 1990
In 1940 in Lascaux, France, four schoolchildren accidentally stumbled upon the hidden entrance of a cave system when, apocryphally, their dog got stuck in a hole. These children became the first humans in 17,000 years to set eyes upon the cave paintings that were discovered within, depicting prehistoric beasts and hunting frescos. The paintings, it is estimated, had been produced sometime between 13,000 – 15,000 BC. This, I probably don’t need to emphasise, is a very long time ago.
The paintings had survived so long because the caves had provided a perfectly balanced natural conservation area. The local council decided the caves could be opened to the public as a tourist attraction, and it was thought more modern conservation methods might be necessary if they were to accommodate the change in environment the visitors would cause. The walls of the cave were treated with modern chemicals manufactured to kill fungi.
Twenty years later it was observed that the colour of the frescos had began to visibly alter, and moss begun to grow there. So in 1963 the caves were closed to the public, and only scientists were allowed access from then on. In 1968 a state of the art air conditioning system was installed. To continue the tourist trade, a replica of the frescos was installed nearby.
After closing the caves to the public, the frescos continued to deteriorate further. In 2001, soon after installation of an updated air-conditioning system, scientists reported a ’snow’ of white mould on the floor and walls. It was originally claimed that it was the increased carbon dioxide levels caused by the visitors that was damaging the walls, but it has since become apparent that it was the scientists that had caused the most damage, not the public.
It seemed the fungi suppressing chemicals applied in the name of conservation had seriously unbalanced the ecosystem. They had successfully killed off weaker fungi, but in doing so they had created an environment which was more accommodating to the most robust varieties of fungi, which could now dominate the environment and thrive.
Drawings that had been conserved by natural means for 20,000 years had been destroyed in less than 40 by a few meddling ‘conservationists’. It was a mundane, but colossal, cock-up of science, rooted in the misassumption that modern science could improve on nature’s methods.
Sheesh.
Humankind (yes I’m talking about YOU) has a serious arrogance issue. We really think we’ve conquered the natural world, that we’re smarter, more resourceful and more deserving that the rest of the inhabitants of our planet. We think we’re pretty damn special. It is not enough for us to obey the same rules as the rest of the biosphere; we are the masters of our environment. We’ve tamed it. It is ours.
It’s not of course. It only takes a hurricane, epidemic or any other type of “natural disaster’ to prove that. If you live in Britain you’ll know it often only takes is a light snowfall to bring us all to our knees.
I despair at the sheer arrogance of Man and his scientific theories. But you also have to laugh at a self-delusion of this magnitude (what else can you do?). So, for your delight, here are the top three most arrogant Man-made theories of all time (in reverse order):
In the beginning God created the world and everything in it, then created Mankind and ordered us to “be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.”
In short, God made everything, and then he made us to be the boss of it all. So, by divine order, we can do whatever we damn-well please to our environment because we’ve got more right to be here than everything else on the planet. This is all fine, because God says so.
This proved an immensely popular theory for a few thousand years. Not surprising, because it’s a brilliant bit of logic – we invented God, so he could invent everything, and then give it to us. Thanks God.
Later, we invented the telescope and the science of astronomy and in doing so discovered a magnificent universe, infinite in its wonder, 45 billion years old. Obviously, faced with such a phenomenon, we decided it was only logical that the whole thing revolved around us.
This was another hugely popular theory. Galileo spent the last days of him life in prison for daring to suggest otherwise. Fortunately this theory has been satisfactorily disproved now and Galileo got an apology from the Pope, in … um … 1992. Unfortunately he’d been dead 350 years.
So how do you top Genesis for a human-centric explanation for life? How about the current most popular theory of creation. Imagine a system whereby all the species on earth have been in competition with each other for 4.5 billion years, where a process of ’survival of the fittest’ has wheedled out all the lesser, weaker species, leaving only the finest specimens, the most perfectly adapted. And who is the pinnacle of this billion year long process of incremental perfection? Who are the most perfectly adapted creatures at the end of this esteemed lineage?
Oh, that’d be us.
Top that.
tags: bad science, evolution, creationism, lascaux caves
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May 17th, 2007 at 5:31 pm
The #1 problem of your list is that there is only one scientific theory listed: evolution by natural selection. The other two are not supported by any evidence and cannot be considered scientific theories.
There is no pinnacle of evolution by natural selection. Read current literature in the Evolutionary scientific journals and you’ll see that it is not centered around H. sapiens. We pale in numbers to many species of insects and microbes. If you want a “perfectly adapted” organism, look at the cockroach. Humans are a mere blip on the map in the grand scheme of things. Humans can make evolution by natural selection seem centered around themselves, like you have in this post. The theory says nothing of the sort.
It takes an extraordinary combination of arrogance and ignorance to come up with this list.
May 17th, 2007 at 9:01 pm
Thanks Fred, my combination of arrogance and ignorance clearly makes me a fine example of the species I am deriding. Good comment.
I didn’t suggest the theories were ’scientific’, only ‘man-made’. But, even so, there is a lot of question over whether evolution can be regarded as science, simply because it is inherently unprovable. Also, the only ‘evidence’ for the theory we have to date is the fossil record, which contains such a large margin of error it has to be regarded as, at best, questionable.
Similarly, the Geocentric model would definitely have been regarded as ’science’ in its time, in the absence of better evidence. It certainly wasn’t ‘religion’ anyway.
And, yes, I’m aware of the more sophisticated interpretations of evolutionary theory, but that’s not really my point. It’s what people believe that bothers me. Rational minds know that we’re not descended from two nudists and a talking snake, but that doesn’t stop it still being the most widely held Western belief system. The common interpretation of evolution is that it occurs on the anthropological level, and that it places Mankind at the top of the hierarchy – which is wrong, but is much more satisfying than whatever the real story might be.
May 17th, 2007 at 9:57 pm
Ah, that was my mistake for insinuating these were all scientific ideas. Apologies.
I guess I showed my ignorance in the geocentric model
Admittedly, I have not studied Galileo or Copernicus, but I believed that these men brought scientific thought into the study of the “heavens” and disproved the explanation of geocentrism.
I wasn’t aware that you were more or less addressing natural selection on that basis. I read it as an attack on natural selection in its entirety. I am in complete agreement that the common interpretation leads to placing human beings at the top. The misconception that natural selection has bred this super species (humans) doesn’t seem much different than the idea of special creation in His image. Either way you look at it, it is human arrogance and centrism that leads to this line of thinking.
In the end, it appears that we agree.
February 23rd, 2008 at 10:22 am
Your forgetting the epedemics spread to local native populations, as we tried to give the savages civilization. When most were already in a symbiotic relationship with thier enviroment. Somthing it seems that we are not able to achive! I think it’s time we took a good long hard look at our civilization with some humility and said wow we really commited genocide on thousands of years of life and cultural development.
January 4th, 2009 at 9:54 pm
a response toplanet of the humans
It seems to an observor of our efforts to get off the earth that the environment around it(gravity, atmosphere to name a few) are a design to keep us on the planet. we just can’t get off. while anyone would think this absurd- just what if those who created our race (or helped in the making of a cognitive species as we know ourselves to be ) knew it was an ideal place to leave an ordered array of entities to
see just what would happen over a few million years. We are after all still ruining this place and trying to figure a way off of it for future colonization elsewhere.
June 23rd, 2009 at 6:45 am
You started changing all our stories 3000 years ago, so now we are changing them back:
In 1940 four schoolchildren accidentally stumbled upon the hidden entrance of a cave system when, apocryphally, their dog got stuck in a hole. These children became the first humans in 17,000 years to set eyes upon the cave paintings that were depicting prehistoric beautiful paintings of animals. The paintings are estimated between 13,000 – 15,000 BC.
These caves are located southwestern part of France holding one of the oldest womens shamanic cave art called “Lascaux” with walls and ceilings decorated with approximately 1,500 engravings and 600 paintings of horses, stag, deer, goats and bison. On one wall of this gallery the early art consists of a series of markings along the apparent path of a horse, Thirteen circles, like moons, representing the Lunar Moontime calendar of womens bleeding cycle with the 13 moons of the natural earth year.
Another wall has a roaring red deer (Cervus elapus) that walks on a row of the lunar women’s path of 13 moons followed by a rectangle. Markings totaling the number 13 are seen with other animals at Lascaux and its amazing that archeologist’s are just not familiar or schooled about women’s studies of the lunar goddess, the thirteen moon cycles and the shamanic nature of her relationship to animals. Its as if women must rewrite all current study into a more correct origin from her remembrance. Another set of 13 moons flanks an engraved 6-½ foot high red deer, called “The Major Stag” with Stag being one of the main animals totems of the female shamans ancestor line and the rituals that went on in caves that the elder grandmothers would call their ancient ancestoral grandmother spirits. As a shamans I know such wisdom for a fact from experience.
Most texts suggest the works were a mixture of magic, ceremonial art, rituals and trances. A common belief is that the Ice-age women painted the animals so as to harness the spirit of her totem and to also communicate with the animals as women seers for the men in the clan who would hunt, giving them information from both spirit of the animal and the goddess in which they would have had to ask permission and then done ceremony to thank the goddess.
Blood or Moon Time provides evidence that these large mammals are timed by the rhythms of light and darkness, as cued by the movements of the sun and moon, and that these and other works at Lascaux are Ice-age lunar calendar that was in perfect alignment to woman’s menses cycles would inform the men where to hunt. Tribes in North America count the lunar cycle in this manner as well when grandmothers were chiefs, hunt to the phases of the moon.