The Arrival & Survival of Humans

Modern humans have existed for 300,000 years. We have large brains. We might want to make better use of it to preserve what is most valuable.

“Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”
—Charles Darwin, On the origin of species by means of natural selection: First Edition, 24 November 1859, p. 490.

I watched this documentary, First Life (2010) with David Attenborough, which looks at the origins of animal life on our Earth, or as much as we can ascertain from the geological and fossil record. In the documentary, Attenborough travels to places around the globe where important scientific findings were made, and in doing so, he goes back in time, Way, way back. It is, in the end, a fascinating look at us humans and how we evolved to what we are today. While doing so, I also read Charles Darwin’s On the origin of species by means of natural selection:, the text of the original first edition published in 1859.

Charles Robert Darwin was born on February 12, 1809 and died on April 19, 1882. Darwin was 50 when On the origin of species was published on November 24, 1859.¹

I had first read Darwin’s most well-known work while at college in the late 1970s, when I was studying pure and applied sciences, which included a course on biology. So when I was browsing at a bookstore a few weeks ago, it caught me eye and I purchased it. This combination of viewing and reading about origins—human and non-human animal—along with decades of thinking on this very question, informs my view, which I decided to share with you. I do so, knowing that not everyone will agree, but on such a subject, I am not surprised that there is a variety of opinions. Neither was Darwin after he published his seminal work; he knew he would be changing the status quo. I quote the following from the original first edition On the origin of species by means of natural selection:

Although I am fully convinced of the truth of the views given in this volume under the form of an abstract,I by no means expect to convince experienced naturalists whose minds are stocked with a multitude of facts all viewed, during a long course of years, from a point of view directly opposite to mine. It is so easy to hide our ignorance under such expressions as “the plan of creation.” “unity of design,” &c, and to think that we give an explanation when we only restate a fact. Any one whose disposition leads him to attach more weight to unexplained difficulties than to the explanation of a certain number of facts will certainly reject my theory. A few naturalists, endowed with much flexibility of mind, and who have already begun to doubt on the immutability of species, may be influenced by this volume; but I look with confidence to the future, to young and rising naturalists, who will be able to view both sides of the question with impartiality. Whoever is led to believe that species are mutable will do good service by conscientiously expressing his conviction; for only thus can the load of prejudice by which this subject is overwhelmed be removed. (p. 481-2)

I thus consciously express my own conviction, knowing full well that it will be met with disapproval in some quarters. While I do not wish to offend, I do find personal censorship a restriction to both free speech and to the sharing of ideas. We can disagree and argue, always with respect, but we must not censor ideas or speech, chiefly because we are fearful of words. Or of the ideas that form as a result.

Now that this is clear, let’s return to the documentary. In the above documentary, one of the important places Attenborough visits is right here in Canada: Mistaken, Point, Newfoundland, out on Canada’s eastern coast. It is an United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Heritage site, a rather important one for science and to trace the origins of multi-cellular life, of biologically complex life, of the first animals to come out of Snowball Earth glaciation. These would be called proto-animals. UNESCO writes about Mistaken Point:²

This fossil site is located at the south-eastern tip of the island of Newfoundland, in eastern Canada. It consists of a narrow, 17 km-long strip of rugged coastal cliffs. Of deep marine origin, these cliffs date to the Ediacaran Period (580-560 million years ago), representing the oldest known assemblages of large fossils anywhere. These fossils illustrate a watershed in the history of life on earth: the appearance of large, biologically complex organisms, after almost three billion years of micro-dominated evolution.  

This was an important discovery, of an important event in Earth’s long history. “The first fossil at Mistaken Point was discovered in 1967 by Memorial University graduate student S.B. Misra, and the site was declared an ecological reserve in 1987, the CBC writes in a news story after Mistaken Point was named an UNESCO World Heritage site in 2016.³

Over 570 million years ago, this site was at the bottom of the ocean; and this forms a record of the origins of the first large animals to exist on our Earth. This is an astounding find, I would say. The oldest recorded fossil is from 579 million years ago (mya). These fossils were preserved by a covering of volcanic ash and then, over a period of millions of years, the ocean floor raised to what Mistaken Point is today.

These animals have no descendants, but this does not make it less important for scientists who are seeking our Earthly origins. Now, some reading this might think how can we be sure that this is what happened, that these fossils are from approx 570 mya; that they were proto animals living on the ocean floor, that a volcanic eruption spewed out a lot of ash, which found its way to the ocean bottom, thus covering these ocean-dwelling animals, and thus preserving them.

We can’t say with complete certainty, but it is one of many scientific explanations. What scientists are certain about is that all of these processes took a long, long time, where a million years is one-four thousandth the age of our Earth. It is like in a full day, 20 seconds have passed. It is a blip. And, yet, such blips are measured in millions of years. It is both difficult and awesome to think in such ways.

This is my way of thinking about it. A million years is a long time, but not when the age of the Earth is considered. And humans have existed for about two million years, and modern humans, or homo sapiens, for 300,000 years. Walking upright is one defining characteristic of being human, an evolutionary process that began about 4 million mya⁴ and was completed 2 mya, when humans became fully bipedal.

The evolutionary process continued for another 1.7 million years until modern humans, or homo sapiens, appeared. Despite our abilities, and these have increased over the time period, there is little reason for us homo sapiens, modern humans, to be so full of hubris and pride. It is not as if we are solely responsible for becoming who we are today. Environmental factors, natural selection and adaptation, have all played a major part in how modern humans look and even think. Speaking of which, why do we think we have a right to dominate the Earth and every species that live with us?

Well, we don’t. Here is another way of thinking. We are relative newcomers to Earth. There are species who have been here much longer than us humans. For example, birds are avian dinosaurs, dating to 150 mya. This is one reason that I view birds as highly intelligent and why I am so happy that Arya the Cockatiel is living with me and my family. I would always recommend spending time with non-human animals to get a better sense of our beautiful world. Another perception is added, an important one I would say.

I have come to see and believe that humans need to (and will) evolve further, that the human race in its current way of thinking, is not in harmony and in collaboration with Nature and with the Earth. It thus follows that it is us who has to change. It might take millions of years. But homo sapiens will either change with the best of good intentions or evolve out of necessity. It will likely involve both factors and out of these there might be a new form of hominins. We can’t say for certain one way or another.

But we can say, with utmost certainty, that our hubris and dominating spirit place us in a perilous position, one that might induce and accelerate our extinction. There is consensus among scientists that the effects of climate change are now irreversible, and that we are starting to see some of them already. We all read those stories. I do not have enough knowledge to know if this places humans (and many other species, as a result of our actions) on the path to extinction, but the status quo is without a doubt not a good position in which to be.

Bear in mind that Darwin never used the phrase, “survival of the fittest;” this was coined later by Herbert Spencer, who was a social Darwinist⁵, taking the theory of natural selection in another direction. Charles Darwin was all in on sympathy and cooperation. As am I and countless others. I will write about this in much more detail in another post.

It is important to note that human violence, particularly of the collective kind, was rare in hunter-gather societies. Such violence is quite modern; and we actually might be seeing its peak or coming very close to it. It is, in truth, an aberration, an outlier in our short human history, much like cancer is to the healthy human body.

All in all, I think that we can all agree that we humans need to do much better in how we view ourselves in relation to other species, our ecosystems, and the living organism we call Planet Earth. Let’s use our big brains in a positive way. Let’s move away from aggression, violence, war, destruction, and domination and let us embrace a spirit of cooperation, collaboration, peace and love toward all living beings and species. A spirit of wonder and humility.

I will end with a song that was popular in my youth, a warning of sorts. “In the Year 2525. (Exordium & Terminus),” by Denny Zager & Rick Evans, was released in 1969. It was popular at the time.

Now it's been ten thousand years
Man has cried a billion tears
For what, he never knew, now man's reign is through
But through eternal night, the twinkling of starlight
So very far away, maybe it's only yesterday

Merci et à bientôt
Born at 315 ppm
Now at 425 ppm

1. Darwin Online: Everything related to Charles Darwin can be found here. It is an extensive and exhaustive site, you can spend many hours learning about Darwin and what he thought and wrote. It is well worth a visit.

2. Canadian Encyclopedia: Mistaken Point is located on the Avalon Peninsula in Newfoundland, 150 km south of the capital city of St. John’s, near the communities of Cape Race and Portugal Cove South. The site gets its name from the fact that, in bad weather, sailors often confused Mistaken Point for Cape Race. They would turn north, expecting to find Cape Race Harbour, but would instead run into rocks. This repeated mistake led to 94 shipwrecks between 1864 and 1904.

3. UNESCO lists 1,223 World Heritage sites. Italy leads the list of nations with 60 sites; 22 sites are in Canada. You can find the complete list by clicking on the UNESCO link [here] or above.

4. Narure: By far the best known early hominin is Ardipithecus ramidus, a 4.4 million year old species from Ethiopia, which is known from a nearly complete skeleton as well as numerous other dental and skeletal remains (White et al. 2009). Ar. ramidus and an older, related species known from fragmentary remains,

5. Britannia: Social Darwinism, the theory that human groups and races are subject to the same laws of natural selection as Charles Darwin perceived in plants and animals in nature. According to the theory, which was popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the weak were diminished and their cultures delimited while the strong grew in power and cultural influence over the weak. Social Darwinists held that the life of humans in society was a struggle for existence ruled by “survival of the fittest,” a phrase proposed by the British philosopher and scientist Herbert Spencer.