Thursday, June 13, 2013

Our Evolutionary Past


What Matters Most….......Commentary by Jim High
When we think about our evolutionary past we must remember three things. First, the past in this instance is millions and billions of years.  The universe is 13.8 billion years old.  At least scientist figure that is its age based on observations of the motion of the galaxies and the age of individual stars within those galaxies.  But, none of that really matters to us here on planet Earth since our solar system didn’t form until about 4 billion years ago.  Very shortly after that our planet had single cell life in its oceans.  So life has been around in some form almost from the start after our planet cooled a bit, and that early life started out in the oceans.  I think that is why sitting quietly on the beach and looking at the ocean feels just like going home.
Of course, those early oceans were not as they are today, in fact even the continents were not where they are today, as they are constantly in motion on the surface of Earth, and they still are.  The Himalaya Mountains and Mount Everest, the tallest in the world, were formed as the Indian sub-continent continues to push into Asia.  And in the limestone bluffs right here in Lee County we find fossils of ocean life because this area was once the bottom of the sea.
The second thing we must remember is that evolution is a process that is still going on. It goes on all the time and has from the very beginning.  For example, evolution shows us that humans are not just kin to the great apes of Africa, but also to the cabbages in your garden.  All life on planet Earth is connected in the long string of evolutionary development.  The process is not visible to us because it takes so much time to happen.  The human animal is some 4 to 6 million years old and we continue to evolve.   We are certainly nothing like humans were a million years ago.  I do wonder what humans will evolve into in another million years.  We are sure to be a better more advanced form of us.  So over time our bodies will learn to not have cancer.  Again the phrase over time is maybe tens of thousands of years.
But it is the third thing about our evolutionary past that is most important.  For while we must always understand that we in one short lifetime can never see evolution happen, we can see cultural evolution happen, and that is what affects us most as individuals after all. And it is this cultural evolution that we do have some control over. 
I asked a discussion group one time what humans would look like in 1,000 years.  They didn’t even know what I was asking until I added, what would be the color of our skin, the shape of our eyes; would we have more or less hair, to say nothing of our body size.  Maybe being obese will be the normal thing in 1,000 years, maybe in only 100 years the way things are going.  Then I reminded them that our current president was half black and half white.  Then they understood what I was asking.  It is this cultural evolution over which we have some control and that we can see happening.  When I was a child I couldn’t go to the movies or play card games on Sunday.  And I remember the big fight in Tupelo over the Sunday Blue Laws that kept businesses closed on Sundays.  Cultural evolution changed all that and a lot of other things.  Right now we see a change happening very fast in the definition of marriage, just as cultural evolution changed inter-racial marriage, and even marriage between different religions.
So What Matters Most……..What is the purpose of our individual lives, as opposed to life in general?  We are meant to enjoy life.  Every minute, every day, all of life is meant to be enjoyed. We forget that sometimes, but it is the most important thing about our individual lives.  Because of our evolutionary past we are all members of the one great body of life.  And this means that within us all is mutual love for each other, which is the best enjoyment of all.

© 2013 #7  Jim High can be reached at P. O. Box 467, Tupelo, MS 38802-0467