Reposted from Pi-Alpha
A subversive and highly imaginative theory developed by the American Professor of Ecology, Ellis Silver, ponders that human beings seem to have too many misfitting characteristics to be truly a native of Planet Earth. As examples, Silver offers that Man has problems with his back and often suffers from pain because our species descended from a planet with less gravity than on Earth. [The conventional explanation is we pay the price of back pain is the evolutionary one about having opted to wander around on two feet.] However, according to Silver, we also face problems when we are exposed to direct sunlight for a relatively short time because we were not designed to come in so close contact with such a sun.
An additional argument offered by the Professor concerns parturition difficulties and especially those resulting from the fact that the size of the head of a newborn child is disproportionately large. We are the only species on the planet with such high rates of complications and mortality during pregnancy and childbirth, emphasises the scientist. Finally, he notes the fact that humans seem poorly equipped to deal with the natural environment, for example, such basic things as cold or heat.
The theory also considers the paradox that human shows strong dislike for many types of foods that nature provides. Silver says that humans often become ill because, amongst other things, our biological clock is tailored for a day of 25 hours, not the solar day we live under! Silver says that this has been confirmed by certain studies.
So, his conclusion is that, anatomically, modern human is a hybrid resulting from the crossing of the Neanderthals with another kind of humans who came to Earth from 60,000 to 200,000 years ago from a planet in Alpha Centauri, the closest star system to us.
Silver's explanation for our arrival on Earth is that the aliens we once lived with could not stand our indiscipline and aggression and sent us here as a punishment, i.e. we were ‘imprisoned’ here to become… human, and that one day (who knows?) maybe we will be allowed to return to our real celestial home…
The theory is bizarre and requires the suspension of many normal scientific assumptions and principles, but ecologically it has one thing in favour of it: why otherwise would nature have created a species quite as destructive to the rest of the natural world as Man?
I was reminded, as I re-edited this just for the site, of the old philosophical (Stoic?) view of the human body as a prison... And of course something like that view was carried into Christianity with the idea that our souls are trapped on this world... But here's certainly a new perspective!
ReplyDeleteRegardless of whether Ellis Silver intended the hypothesis as figurative, allegorical, or literal, one still has to wonder whether and how the hypothesis, which refers to ‘misfitting characteristics’, aligns with the so-called ‘anthropic principle’ — the Goldilocks balancing of multiple, fine-grained conditions on Earth, in the solar system, and in the cosmos, their necessarily being ‘just right’ for humankind’s genesis from the early goopy mess and our sustained existence.
ReplyDeleteAs to the question ‘why . . . would nature have created a species quite as destructive to the rest of the natural world as [humankind]?’, at least three thoughts pop to mind: By what laws of the natural cosmos would such an outcome have ever been precluded, anyway? How much intentionality (design) would such decision-making by nature have been required to create humankind? And critically, as well as to be fair, what is the real net effect of humankind’s presence in the natural world?
I suppose one test of the hypothesis will be if humankind extinguishes itself - thus proving that it 'really' is a poor fit with the Earth. But surely, you're right, Keith, the hypothesis works best as a thought-provoker, not an actual factual claim. And yet, it has a certain psychological appeal too!
DeleteMakes me think of Søren Kierkegaard in Either/Or: 'People of experience maintain that it is very sensible to start from a principle ...' One might choose any principle at all. Say, 'boredom'. This could as well explain everything as anything else – beginning with the boredom of the gods, who in their boredom were driven to create the world. And if anyone should wish to dispute him over this, it would merely serve to demonstrate their boredom ... But then again, based on the higher principle that we come from another place, boredom would further prove that we don't belong here.
ReplyDeleteI think this is right.. clearly we were created somwhere much more intereesting!
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