WHAT THE #%@!

Imagine; 40,000 years ago, coming out of Africa, two hunter-gatherer Homo sapiens look up at the stars, ponder the same big questions that modern philosophers still struggle with; Where did we come from, why are we here? In a split second, a meteor streaks across the sky and burns out. The Dude asks his Amigo, ”What the #%@! was that?” Amigo doesn’t know but falls back on a story. “That” he said, “was moon dust. The reason the moon gets smaller from one night to the next is that moon dust blows away. But when it’s all gone, it starts blowing back, little by little until we see a thin crescent of the next new moon. That was moon dust and seeing it is a good omen.”  Dude says, “Wow, but how do you know?” Amigo replies, “My dad told me.” That was thousands of years ago. My mom told me it was made of cheese and that a mouse nibbled at it until it was all gone. After all, imagination and story are truly what sets people apart from other animals; we conceptualize experience, transform it into language and create stories.

The more I learn about human history the better the story gets. My purpose here is to share some of that story with a minimum of ‘Teacher Talk.’ Regrettably, this kind of story requires some technical language/academic vocabulary but if I can endure that, so should the reader. My need to share this story was prompted in January, 2017, at a RV rendezvous in Arizona. I was in an otherwise cordial conversation with a lady who was more comfortable with myth and magic than with the nature of scientific inquiry. Our conversation spilled over onto how much time had lapsed since the mountain we were standing on was uplifted from a dried up sea bed and to humans evolving from lower forms. Her take on the whole thing was an enthusiastic affirmation of her evangelical, Faith based commitment to Creationism. The ‘Gong’ factor, as with the gong in a Buddhist temple, was her dismissal of evolution. She concluded, “It’s just a theory anyway.” Without a thought, my reaction lept out of my mouth like a frog’s tongue on a bug; “If evolution is just a theory” I replied, “then Algebra is just a theory, algorithms that generate accurate nightly weather forecasts are just theories, the earth’s magnetic field is just a theory . . .” Her mouth and eyes went full-open and from that moment we could not find common ground to continue a conversation. I don’t think she knew what an algorithm was and she didn’t want to ask. If it wasn’t explained in the bible, she didn’t need to know. 

Evolution doesn’t need to be defended, it works. In our case the story picks up maybe two million years ago with primitive, chimpanzee-like apes, getting along very well in African rain forests. Today, their descendants network on social media, in cities and rural settings on every habitable corner of the planet. From Danny DeVito to Arnold Schwarzenegger, humans display vast diversity of anatomical traits and mental capabilities. Like Danny and Arnold, we all employ the same alphabet but flesh out as very different stories. The mystery of how we be so different and alike at the same time and why we behave like we do; mysterious as it may seem, it is a better story than, ‘In the beginning. . .’ 

Traditional myth has great appeal to people who need the assurance of a universal, absolute truth, right now. Unlike supernatural beings, Scientific inquiry does not employ a  crystal ball or deal in revelations. Scientific inquiry depends on patient process, discovery, critical, unbiased examination and time consuming review that moves at its own pace. So I lump those traditionalists together in a category that I call; ‘Don’t confuse me with data, math and probability, I know what makes me feel good and I’ll stick with that.’ I have no axe to grind with them but my purpose is to stretch the comfort zone to a carefully calculated probability that may or may not please me. I remember telling someone once that “I would rather know and be disappointed than go on in the comfort of not knowing.” At the time, I didn’t know how deeply that observation was rooted in my psyche. I’m not finished with "What The #@%!". I’ll have to collect my thoughts on where I want to go with it. The only difference between Dude & Amigo and the rest of us here and now is a very long, shallow learning curve and more accumulated knowledge than one can imagine.