The Fifth Step

Among the things about humans that I find annoying, and there are many such things, is that so many people claim that there was a Golden Age in North and South America before the European conquests of the continents. They envision a world where Indians[i] lived in harmony with the planet and treated the earth on which they lived with the respect due a deity or deities. What utter nonsense. The Indians of that period were human like us, which means that they trashed the land as much as we seem to be so fond of doing today. Is it merely coincidence that all large mammals and predators in North America became extinct at precisely the time that humans began wandering over North America? How very convenient they made it for humans that after thriving for hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of years in the verdant lands of North America these beasts should choose to go extinct just when humans appeared[ii]. Is it possible, however, that humans might have had just a tiny bit to do with the poor creatures’ demise? Is the Pope Catholic? The Noble Savage? A Golden age? “Native Americans were living in balance with Nature – but they had their hands on the scale[iii].”

[i] I refuse to use the politically correct phrase Native Americans. It is awkward and self-conscious. Additionally, and perhaps more importantly, it is inaccurate. Aboriginal peoples, Mohawks, Sioux, Iroquois, Klamath, and Shinnecock, Montaukett or any of a multitude of tribal names would be more appropriate. These people first started arriving on the continent thousands of years before anyone in Europe even knew that there was a place that could be named America. Actually, my referring to Indians as Indians actually only compounds an error made in the 15th century, when an Italian itinerant captain and navigator was hired by a couple of Spanish monarchs to find a quick way for their boats to get to India so they could take abuse and take advantage of those Indians. Columbus left Spain and sailed west certain in his belief that that was the best way to get there. When he accidently bumped into North America (By this time the land had been named America in a bit of self-promotion by cartographer Amerigo Vespucci.), he was certain that he had reached India and that all the people that he found there had to be Indians, right? It all is getting very complicated here, so maybe we should just call the people in North America by their tribal names. Even better, let’s just call the lot of them Phil.

[ii] I have recently discovered that recent analyses of paleo-Indian sites have tended to show that little more than 20% of the sites contain evidence of any big game hunting and that the hunting was exclusively of mastodon and bison, only one of which is extinct (Guess which one.). Apparently, the Indians were not responsible for the wave of extinctions that fit so nicely into this section. I am however going to leave the statement as it is because to take it out would be awkward and not in keeping with the tone that I want to achieve. Is that irresponsible of me? Yes, highly so. Does that bother me? Not really.

[iii] 1491 - New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus, Charles C. Mann, Vintage Books, 2006

The Fourth Step

Among the things about humans that I find annoying, and there are many such things, is that so many people claim that there was a Golden Age in North and South America before the European conquests of the continents. They envision a world where Indians[i] lived in harmony with the planet and treated the earth on which they lived with the respect due a deity or deities. What utter nonsense. The Indians of that period were humans like us, which means that they trashed the land as much as we seem to be so fond of doing today. Is it merely coincidence that all large mammals and predators in North America became extinct at precisely the time that humans began wandering over North America? How very convenient they made it for humans that after thriving for hundreds of thousands of years in the verdant lands of North America these beasts should choose to go extinct just when humans appeared[ii]. Is it possible, however, that humans might have had just a tiny bit to do with the poor creatures’ demise? Is the Pope Catholic? The Noble Savage? A Golden age? “Native Americans were living in balance with Nature – but they had their hands on the scale[iii].”
[i] I refuse to use the politically correct phrase Native Americans. It is awkward and self-conscious. Additionally, and perhaps more importantly, it is inaccurate. Aboriginal peoples, Mohawks, Sioux, Iroquois, Klamath, and Shinnecock, Montaukett or any of a multitude of tribal names would be more appropriate. These people first started arriving on the continent thousands of years before anyone in Europe even knew that there was a place that could be named America. Actually, my referring to Indians as Indians actually only compounds an error made in the 15th century, when an Italian itinerant captain and navigator was hired by a couple of Spanish monarchs to find a quick way for their boats to get to India so they could take abuse and take advantage of those Indians. Columbus left Spain and sailed west certain in his belief that that was the best way to get there. When he accidently bumped into North America (By this time the land had been named America in a bit of self-promotion by cartographer Amerigo Vespucci.), he was certain that he had reached India and that all the people that he found there had to be Indians, right? It all is getting very complicated here, so maybe we should just call the people in North America by their tribal names. Even better, let’s just call the lot of them Phil.

[ii] I have recently discovered that recent analyses of paleo-Indian sites have tended to show that little more than 20% of the sites contain evidence of any big game hunting and that the hunting was exclusively of mastodon and bison, only one of which is extinct (Guess which one.). Apparently, the Indians were not responsible for the wave of extinctions that fit so nicely into this section. I am however going to leave the statement as it is because to take it out would be awkward and not in keeping with the tone that I want to achieve. Is that irresponsible of me? Yes, highly so. Does that bother me? Not really.

[iii] 1491 - New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus, Charles C. Mann, Vintage Books, 2006

The Third Step

From the very moment our ancestors climbed down from the trees and walked upright across the savannahs of Africa, humans have left their mark wherever they went. At times, those marks have not been either terribly attractive or even pleasant. From the time humans invented the wheel, assuming, of course, that we invented it, each new advance in technology has proven to be less than beneficial to the planet than might be hoped for. Shortly after the domestication of the horse, humans (with the same proviso as given for the wheel.) invented the saddle. This made the pace of things going from bad to worse that much faster. Now instead of having to walk all the way to your neighbors’ village to beat the hell out of them you could ride there in relative comfort. In addition, if you put a box on top of a couple of the wheels that you made, you could then lug all of his stuff back to your village and not have to go back again and again and again. I believe that is what is referred to as effective time management.

Considering our track record, Mankind’s entry into the nuclear age certainly does not hold the promise that it once did for us as a species or, for that matter, any species that is not us. I do believe that all the other species share my concern about the future. As Bill Bryson has pointed out, “life, in short just wants to be. …for the most part it doesn’t want to be much.” How else can you explain the lichens that grow in Antarctica? They can’t be terribly ambitious can they? Another concern ,this one raised by Jared Diamond, is a new one for me. At what point will the human population, with its ceaseless need for food, begin farming to the point where the planet reaches and exceeds its photosynthetic capacity? Isn’t that neat? Aren’t you happy, now you have something brand new to worry about, just when you were thought that you were running out of things to worry about. In his book, A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson made an observation of humans that bears repeating:

Of the small portion of the planets surface that is dry enough to stand on, a surprisingly large amount is too hot or cold or dry or steep or lofty to be of much use to us. Partly, it must be conceded, this is our fault. In terms of adaptability, humans are pretty amazingly useless.

The second step

Time is nothing more than a convenient convention that humans have adopted so that everyone can keep track of stuff. It really makes no difference at all what method one uses to keep an eye on things, so long as everyone agrees. Andrew Dickson White, in his book A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom (1896) improves on the work started by James Ussher in the seventeenth century. White comments on John Lightfoot’s use of the James Ussher’s chronology by informing a waiting world that “in the seventeenth century, in his great work, Dr. John Lightfoot, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, and one of the most eminent Hebrew scholars of his time, declared, as the result of his most profound and exhaustive study of the Scriptures, that "heaven and earth, centre and circumference, were created all together, in the same instant, and clouds full of water," and that "this work took place and man was created by the Trinity on October 23, 4004 B.C., at nine of the clock in the morning.[i]” How remarkable that God finished His creation just in time for a bit of breakfast[ii]. Now you can go about your day with confidence that God is in his Heaven and all is right with the world. Sorta, kinda.

Dinosaurs roamed the earth for a long time, from the Triassic Period to the Cretaceous. They were a successful bunch of critters; they were around for almost 200 million years so I guess it would be appropriate to say that they roamed the earth for a very, very, very long time. The reasons for their rather abrupt departure to take up residence in museums[iii] around the planet are subject to a lot of debate. Some say that an enormous object hit the planet in the Yucatan peninsula (That has to hurt!), changing the earth’s climate; others say that the dinosaurs simply ate themselves out of their homes. Whatever the reason or reasons for their disappearance, you have to admit that they had a decent run. Humans on the other hand first appeared maybe 200,000 years ago. It appears that humans will have to wait a while before contacting the editors at Guinness World Records so that the human name could be included in their book. That assumes, of course, that we do not kill ourselves off in the not-too-distant future.

[i] Lightfoot took liberties with Ussher’s work however. Ussher’s cosmology had the same date, but nowhere did he specify 9 a.m.

[ii] In a statement that must have infuriated some Creationists, Edward P. Tryon, of Columbia University, said of its creation that, “I offer the modest proposal that our Universe is simply one of those things that happen from time to time.”

[iii] The man credited with changing the primary role of a museum from a purely academic one to a recreational one to which ordinary people would be allowed access is Englishman Richard Owen. Owen achieved this distinction by virtue of the fact that he was given the job of directing London’s Natural History Museum. What makes Owen unique is that he got this position in spite of his extremely well documented, career-long fondness for stealing other people’s work. In 1846, the Royal Society gave Owen a medal. It was for a paper that he had presented on an extinct mollusk. Granted, it was a brilliant paper. Nevertheless, Channing Pierce had presented the same paper to the same society in 1840.