10:02 pm
We are so mired culturally in the notion that humans are some kind of pinnacle of evolution that even scholars like Erik Trinkaus get to have public "aha!" (or maybe "doh!") moments, viz. a press release from Washington University in St. Louis entitled: Modern Humans, not Neandertals, may be evolution's "odd man out."
Really, I despair. Was I the only one who was paying attention during Sesame Street and "One of These Things Is Not Like The Others?" Observe our grouping of specimens: suspect #1 checks in with dense cranium:brow ridge:no chin; suspect #2 has dense cranium: brow ridge: no chin; suspect #3 has (wait for it) dense cranium: brow ridge: no chin; suspect #4 wanders in with thin cranium: no brow ridge: definite chin. Number 3 is not the one that stands out.
Perhaps being able to make important categorizations like this is why they felt the need to keep me out of the iSchool PhD program. /snark
Kudos to Trinkaus though, for being able to unstick himself enough to see the facts - I've been reading 70's SF that really really wants to be feminist but ain't quite making it, and that kind of period piece always reminds me of just how tough it is to catch your own enculturation. And thanks to Robert J. Sawyer for pointing out the press release.
|
