The Evolution of Humans
Hominids first evolved out of ape-like creatures in the Rift Valley in Africa only 7 million years ago. There have been a multitude of species of subhuman apes. Modern man with his brain-size and thinking power only evolved a mere two hundred thousand years ago. That is the blink of an eye.
The sub-human hominids all died off but for much of our short history we shared the planet with another human species. The Neanderthals, wrongly represented as brutal cavemen, had bigger brains than ours and were probably more intelligent. They certainly had culture and made tools. They were wiped out quite recently. We don’t know if that was through disease, climate change, competition with us or differences over religion. Maybe they came up against an early form of ISIS and were just too kind and nice?
It is a great shame that there aren’t other species of intelligent humans surviving to this day. It would have taken the wind out of religion. It’s hard to be the chosen species when there are more than one intelligent hominid species. But then I suppose the religious manage to do just that on a tribal basis they would not have too much trouble finding blame with another species. They would proclaim that they were the true chosen species made in god’s image and start a crusade or jihad.
It is only sixty thousand years ago that we migrated out of Africa (and now we’re doing it again) but look at what we’ve done!! We’ve gone from a handful to 7 billion in no time at all.
That is scary.
We think we are here forever. We think we have removed selection and are immune. We are arrogant enough to think that we can do anything and survive.
But can we?