Saturday, September 5, 2009

Eve and Lucy Reflection #4


America, or as I like to call it the United States, is a terrific place to live and the best country in the world. Of course if you are not from the United States you might find that a bit arrogant. But what is uniquely american is the fact that some people can say without a hint of irony that this is the best country in the world when they themselves have not visited any other country. That is essentially a part of the american dream. The fact that you can say whatever you want and as long as you believe it to be right then there is nothing or no one that is going to change your mind. Religion is one of the subjects that many americans hold as a plan for life. As such a cherished belief, many fundamentalist religious groups find that anything scientific that somehow contradicts with their religion is, in fact, wrong.

As I read the articles on Lucy and the mitochondrial Eve I could not help but think about all the people that would misinterpret the papers as an attack on their religious beliefs. Agreeing with the scientific findings made regarding our ancestry is in a way agreeing with evolution. Evolution is a big political issue in the US and although to foreigners there is not a question regarding the theory’s validity, it is considered a taboo in some parts of this country. I believe that as thinking man, we should be able to put aside all reliances on beliefs and always question our existence.

Religion should not be an effort to subdue the pursuit of knowledge and the understanding of the world. As the articles portrayed different eras of the evolution of man, I could not help but notice how the more advance or the more adaptive of the species would outlive the other species. That shows how adaptiveness and capability to learn from previous assumptions in the end wins the evolutionary race. As we look into the future we should begin to think outside of beliefs systems.

Any sane person is capable of imagining many things that are illogical but the true power of our imaginations is the power to put together ancient fossils to better understand where our path has led us and where it will take us.

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