Dec 08 2008
Skeptical Battlegrounds: Part II – Creationism
Last week I gave an overview of what I believe is one of the core missions of the skeptical movement – to fight the good fight against pseudoscience and mysticism. This week I will discuss what is perhaps our greatest victory to date – our vigilant campaign against creationist incursions.
This one issue nicely illustrates many of the points I made in Part I of this series any may even provide a road map forward for some of our other issues.
A Brief History of Creationism
The various forms of creationism, including its most recent incarnation in so-called Intelligent Design, are really just evolution denial. The theory of evolution has been culturally controversial since it was formally proposed by Darwin and Wallace in 1859. it is not hard to imagine why, it shattered one of the pillars of the human ego – that we are something more than animals, than the accidental products of nature.
Evolution also flew in the face of religious dogma, at a time when the institutions of science were very much in the ascendancy. While some religious sects accommodated the advance of science, others did not. In the US, certain fundamentalist Christian sects chose to draw their line in the sand at evolution. Evolution became “evilution” – the enemy, the cause of all evil in the world.
Meanwhile, the scientific controversy over evolution was rather brief, lasting a few decades at most. The fossil, genetic, developmental, geological and biological evidence quickly piled up in favor of the various aspects of Darwin’s theory: common descent, change over time, and natural selection acting on variation as the dominant mechanism (I will heretofore refer to these collectively simply as evolution).
But while scientists were quickly convinced by the evidence, the public was not. This disconnect continues to the present day. Greater than 98% of working scientists accept evolution as established fact, while less than 50% of the public does. Scientific understanding of the processes and history of evolution has advanced incredibly, and the modern synthesis of evolution is a rich, subtle, elegant, and beautiful theory. Meanwhile the public understanding of evolution is stuck on the 150 year-old basic concepts of survival of the fittest and branching descent. I doubt any significant portion of the public can give a cogent definition of punctuated equilibrium, coaptation, homology, or mechanisms of speciation.
Legal Strategies
Most skeptics are familiar with the litany of creationist assaults on the teaching of evolution in public schools – the primary battleground of this particular issue. The evolution-creationism conflict is all about what gets taught to students in school, and what goes into their textbooks.
The bad news for the US is that creationism has been a bigger problem here than in any other Western country. The good news, however, is that we also have a powerful weapon against it – the First Amendment to the Constitution, guaranteeing the separation of church and state.
It began with laws that flat-out banned the teaching of evolution and favored the teaching of biblical creationism. Creationists tried to simply legislate a victory that they could not have scientifically. Tennessee’s version of this law was the Butler Bill, which stated:
“unlawful for any teacher in any of the. . . public schools. . .to teach any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals.”
This law was challenged in the famous Scopes trial of 1926. John Scopes was found guilty of teaching evolution, but his conviction was thrown out on appeal on a technicality. This was a defeat, however, for the defenders of evolution because it meant that the law would not be challenged at the state or federal Supreme Court level.
Anti-evolution laws remained on the books for the next several decades, and generations of Americans were simply not taught about the central theory of biology. Anti-evolution laws were eventually declared unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court in the Epperson vs Arkansas case of 1962.
This led to the “creation science” movement. Creationism could not be taught in public schools because it is religious faith, so proponents simply renamed it “creation science” and lobbied for laws demanding equal time for creation science alongside evolution. They got 25 years out of this strategy, but then in 1987 equal time laws for creation science were declared unconstitutional in the Edwards vs Aguillard decision.
Time for another rebranding. “Creation science” became “Intelligent Design” with a literal cut and paste of these terms in creationist texts. Creationists wanted another go at the “equal time” argument, but this time with the words “God” and “creation” purged from their text. They also changed “equal time” to “teach the controversy.”
This strategy failed its first legal test in 2005 in the Kitzmiller vs Dover case. Judge John E. Jones III essentially concluded that the ID proponents were not fooling anyone. Even though their rhetoric may be more subtle and sophisticated than the blatant Butler Bill, their intent was exactly the same.
Now we are into the next phase of this apparently never-ending game. Creationists are now claiming that they are really for academic freedom – which is just another way of saying they want equal time to teach the controversy. It’s ironic that the creationist movement began by banning the teaching of an accepted scientific theory, and now are whining about being oppressed and all they ever really wanted was academic freedom. Right.
It also appears that the next phase will take the battle beyond evolution itself. ID proponents in particular have identified the enemy not just as evolution, but as materialism – the philosophical underpinnings of science itself (the stakes are indeed high). Next on the hit list of materialist science is neuroscience – the study of mind and consciousness.
The Battlegrounds
There are several battlegrounds in this debate. One is the textbook industry. After the Scopes trial, evolution became too controversial for science textbook publishers, so they removed the “E” word from their books. This battle was lost for almost the rest of the 20th century. While evolution started to creep back into textbooks after 1962, the quality was abysmal. It is only recently, perhaps the last 20 years, that most biology textbooks approach a decent treatment of evolution (at least compared to their treatment of science in general, which in my opinion is unacceptably poor).
Another battleground is the legislature. This battleground has seen one tactical loss in the Scope trial, but ever since then we have had a string of unmitigated victories. Whenever laws meddling in the teaching of science come before the higher courts, the First Amendment has prevailed.
It is for this reason, in fact, that creationists have tried to change the battleground to the local level. They started fighting at the level of the school board and at the state level with the science standards. In this arena there has been a mix of victory and defeat. Creationists can pack a school board or department of education committee, and get their anti-evolution agendas passed. Sometimes public attention reverses the trend and rational standards are reinstated. But this continues to be a raging battle with no definitive victory on either side. We are seeing this play out now in Texas over the state science standards.
And finally, perhaps the most important battleground – the mind of the public. The consensus of various surveys indicates that we are not doing well here. Less than half the public accepts evolution as an established scientific fact, and this number has not changed much over the last half century. It’s not clear exactly what to make of this. Perhaps this is a battle we cannot win – to the faithful, faith will always trump science. As long as fundamentalists are preaching lies about evolution from the pulpit, it may not matter what gets taught in the science classroom.
Or, perhaps there has simply not been enough time. Improved evolution teaching may take generations to have a significant effect, and we have not achieved that goal yet. Evolution is still not being taught adequately, if at all, in many school districts. Meanwhile, the science of evolution is steadily advancing. In the long run I think that will count for something.
The Evolution of Evolution Defenders
The story behind this story is that the skeptical movement had played, and continues to play, a central role in defending evolution from its deniers. The mainstream scientific community correctly perceived the threat from creationism, but they did not have the tools necessary to fight it.
This is perhaps best encapsulated by Duane Gish, a “creation scientist” who made a career going around the country debating biologists and evolutionary scientists in public. Most of the scientists who squared off against Gish got their clocks cleaned. They naively believed that because they were right – because they had science on their side – that they could easily win. They actually thought that being right was enough.
They were not sufficiently familiar with the specific claims of the creationists, the ways in which they distort science, the half-truths they tell about the findings of science, and the subtle (and not-so-subtle) logical fallacies they commit to throw doubt upon science. They also did not understand the nature and pitfalls of public debate itself. They got blind-sided. They became stooges for Gish’s traveling show.
(As a side note, many of you likely know that our own Michael Shermer debated Gish. He did as well as can be expected, but even he learned a few lessons from the experience – mainly that open debate is an inherently disadvantageous setting for the side of science. It falls victim to the infamous “Gish Gallop” – in which lies and misconceptions are thrown out in such great number that you can never deal with them all.)
Who came to the rescue and truly held the front lines of this battle, were skeptics and science popularizers. Those who spent their time explaining science to the public understood best how creationists were manipulating the public perception of evolution. Stephen J. Gould, for example, was key to the 1987 Edwards vs Aguillard victory. Since then other science popularizers, like Kenneth Miller, have played a central role. The most popular science blog is Pharyngula by PZ Myers – a developmental biologist who takes on the creationists at every opportunity.
And of course Eugenie Scott took up the banner of evolution full time with the National Center for Science Education. She has been an effective watch dog on creationist shenanigans – she is like a general, sending in troops whenever skirmishes break out at the local level. The NCSE performed a Herculean task, organizing the expert testimony for evolution during the Kitzmiller vs Dover trial.
It is important to recognize that these people and institutions are not simply extensions of mainstream science. They are skeptics, either all-purpose or specialists in the creation-evolution issue.
What’s more is that the skeptical community has done an outstanding job of dissecting every last creationist argument and pointing out in detail all misstatements of fact and logical fallacies. They have not only understood the tactics used by creationists, but even started anticipating their next moves.
Skeptics have also done a great job of educating mainstream scientists about creationism. I recently interviewed Steven Schafersman of Texans for Science and Reason for the Skeptics’s Guide podcast. He has been on the front line for decades, and he reports that 20 years ago he was the lone skeptical voice fighting in Texas. When scientists were called upon to give testimony before the school board, they generally did not understand the arguments of creationists, they often argued past them, and basically didn’t get it.
At the recent hearings for the Texas science standards, however, his experience has been totally different. Scientists and even students are making cogent on-target arguments. They have the creationist arguments nailed. And they understand how to explain this to non-scientists.
Perhaps the skeptical community has actually managed to educate the mainstream scientific community about creationism, how to combat it, and the importance of defending science in the public arena. Maybe that’s partly why ID proponents are shifting their efforts to neuroscience – they want a naïve specialty to go after.
Conclusion
At the beginning of this post I characterized creationism as perhaps our greatest victory. And yet I also described that we have had a mixture of victories and defeats on the various battlegrounds of this issue, and have made little progress in the ultimate goal of changing public opinion.
Yet I maintain my former claim because on this issue the skeptical movement has discovered how to be successful. We have formed dedicated watchdog organizations, we have websites and books to serve as detailed references, and we have learned the tactics of our opponents and actually try to counter them, rather than just naively playing into them. We have clearly defined the relevant battle lines, and have strategies to deal with them. We can mobilize the troops at a moments notice.
Even more importantly, we have fully partnered with the mainstream scientific community and have even trained them how to be good skeptics and science popularizers on this issue – or at least they understand their value. And within academia, otherwise ivory-tower academics know exactly what you mean when you bring up the issue of creationist incursions into science education.
There is much work ahead – but we are winning.
Next week I will discuss what is currently our greatest failure.
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22 Responses to “Skeptical Battlegrounds: Part II – Creationism”
Inspiring post– thanks!
So far so good. I look forward to the next post. I guess I’ll keep my donations to the watchdog groups going. Every creationist that gets shoved aside for real science is a valued return on investment, even in a bad economy.
A point which I consider important when debating creationists or ID proponents is to politely ask which creation myth they are referring to in their arguments. From the Ainu to the Zoroastrians, most cultures have had such a myth at some point.
I feel strongly that to let this go unchallenged is to give unspoken acknowledgement that ‘creation’ is synonymous with ‘judao-christian biblical creation’. By raising the point it also reminds people that theirs is not the only culture in the world, and possibly may remind them that their being in that culture is mostly an accident of birth.
By reminding them that there are dozens, maybe hundreds of different creation myths in the world it deflates their ego’s a touch and pulls a small corner of the rug of certainty out from under their feet.
Perhaps this can be a small bit of consciousness-raising that we can all do?
Pithy post and duly bookmarked.
Thank you, Steven, that is a really well-written overview.
Please let me make some additions.
As I have written before: we are faced with a war. And: The stakes are high. So, pussy-footing will lead us nowhere – nowhere good that is.
It is a war which to a great extent is fought with words. So the weapon is rhetoric. Most people have not the least clue on how to use rhtoric. Their education or even scientific education is one thing, but rhetoric is something TOTALLY different.
You mention how naive many went into discussions with esotters or even god’s self-declared ground personnell. And that they were plowed under. NO WONDER! Having learned a trade or even science does NOT make a person fit for the war! They end up like a 150-kilo couch-potatoe in a karate camp…
Reason #1: People do not REALIZE that they are NOT fit, that the worth of their scientific knowledge is just ZERO in a rhetoric war.
People – and the higher in rank, the more – overestimate their abilities. I have seen many professors get sunk in open discussions…
Reason #2 is …TEATIME! All the discussions are so friendly. “Please, do not stir up anyone.” “Don’t be rude.” “Please, be polite.” “All are so friendly here.” …
Friendlyness is a weapon! And this weapon is used INTENSIVELY! It is one of the most powerful and the most perfidious weapons. This is absolutely identical with political correctness. It is only its other face.
Reason #3: The skeptics do not have their own land. They are invited to radio or TV shows. So what? So they are led onto a ground where
a) the war is fought with the weapon of friendlyness and
b) the REAL person to talk with is NOT the opponent but the audience.
Being rude in a public discussion tears you down. However good your arguments are, the public does not like hefty debates. Why so? Because the audience is insane. The audience is NOT driven by logic.
The crucial point here is: that the skeptics have scissors in their head (in German: “Schere im Kopf”).
The skeptics act in anticipatory obedience – and in a cloud of politeness just do not say the right words. They sit on their chairs and grin sheepishly…
… and the enemy plows them under…
Reason #4: The higher in rank/education, the more people tend to do “meta”. No discussion about real facts, but meta-discussions.
The higher in rank/education, the more people use Latin or sociology-babble. Swirling words of swirling meanings – or none at all. The words do not describe plain understandable facts anymore. The audience cannot follow. It cannot see the real facts anymore. Everything is blurred.
It is the esotters’ world! Esotters do not have real facts. This is why they boast, why they foam like soaped geysirs with hypes and exagggerations.
And in THIS world one thing is for sure: following this is plain suicide.
There is one way to handle all this:
* ALL THE TIME use plain facts.
* Use REAL examples, not invented ones.
* Do not talk WITH the esotters, do talk ABOUT them.
The audience is the one to convince. And, in dissecting an esotter, one does NOT have to be polite, au contraire! One can beat up the esotters like hell (sic!). But all the time one must be humorous, and use clear-cut understandable language.
We have the experience of quite a number of years and tens thousands of war scenes, and the result is always the same:
1. If you talk WITH an esotter, you drown.
2. If you are polite, you drown.
3. If you do meta-talk, you drown.
4. If you get insulting, you drown.
Being tough is NOT impolite.
And don’t forget: the public is with the winner.
ama
)
(A place of war: “iris-diagnosis”
http://www.transgallaxys.com/~kanzlerzwo/showtopic.php?threadid=1398 )
(We never lost a single war…
I take your point, Sion. Unfortunately, if the average (and aren’t they all so very, very average?) creationist can ignore the mountain of evidence for evolution, how much easier for them to shrug off opposing fairy tales? Alternatively, the creationists might embrace one another, despite their inevitably divergent creation myths, on the basis that my enemies enemy is my friend.
Your tactic might work on the fringe supporters of creationism, on those with a “knee-jerk” religious view but not on those who have invested so much in the creationist cause. Do you think Dr. Egnor, for example, will have a deconversion on the road to Damascus? I doubt it. Too much invested, too much face to lose.
@Clinton Huxleyon 08 Dec 2008 at 11:22 am
>Too much invested, too much face to lose.
Face to lose? Yes, THAT is all the time the problem.
But the kernal proble is this: “too much invested”. Yes, too much time.
AND: The public is not educated in all these variations of insanity, so so it will not understand the differences between the “religious” or other scenes, groups, whatever…
And, by the way: What is all this biped stuff anyway? The god of the ants is not amused…
@Ama,
“The god of the ants is not amused”
Damn those crazy fundamANTalists…..
I think it’s time to go on the offensive instead of just defending the teaching of evolution, It would be great if critical thinking could be taught directly. In the UK you can now get an A level in critical thinking, I am thinking of taking the exam. I think if students were taught from an early age how to sort fact from fallacy it would be a great win for the skeptical movement.
Steve,
I just wanted to add a bit of corrective texture to your description of the opposition to evolution. I have heard (second hand) that a good part of the objection to the teaching of evolution at the time of the Scopes trial was that the text books on the subject took the concepts from evolution to explain social differences, poverty, and crime – that is, social Darwinism.
Given the southern states were poorer at that time, the people there were being told their situation was intrinsic to their genetic lineage. They naturally resented being told that – and they were right, since social Darwinism was an erroneous overreach from the implications of natural selection.
Also, the Scopes trial itself I think is mostly known from the movie Inherit the Wind, which really distorts what actually happened. After seeing the movie, I read up a bit on the trial, including the transcript of Darrow questioning Bryant.
Scopes actually volunteered to challenge the law, rather than being an innocent victim. And Bryant never advocated a literal interpretation of the Bible, as his character is portrayed in the movie.
Social Darwinism is passé, but given the themes running through the movie Expelled, opposition to evolution is still finding resonance with this outdated idea. Reading between the lines while listening to Creationists, I think I can hear their real objections to evolution. It is not that it conflicts with a literal creation myth – it is that the idea that the world is just matter and energy has terrible moral and existential implications that they find repugnant. They need to believe that humans have a special something extra.
If scientists said that all life on earth evolved from simple origins, but humans were specially created, I doubt that there would be much criticism of evolution from the religious.
I don’t know how you could address the concerns of someone whose worldview depends on believing that humans need to be special and separate from the rest of the natural world, but one at least needs to understand where the opposition to evolution comes from to properly address it.
There are 2 reasons why going after neuroscience will be even more difficult than going after evolution, time and usefulness.
1) time. Experiments demonstrating the scientific underpinnings of neuroscience can be conducted and demonstrated in real time. This makes it much easier to teach the public.
2) Results. I think it is much easier for the layperson to connect neuroscience research with cures for disease like parkinsonism, MS, ALS, etc, then it is to connect evolution research with cures for diseases. This sentiment is not even true, as evolution research has helped modern medicine enormously. However, it is easier for the public to understand the link when it comes to neuroscience because the benefit is more direct.
@Blair T
“Reading between the lines while listening to Creationists, I think I can hear their real objections to evolution. [...]
They need to believe that humans have a special something extra.”
Exactly. The same is true in many variations. I wrote abut this often. It is their right to exist, which is scratched. They take their right to exist from the fact that they are something better.
Esotters in total have this problem, in many ways.
One one hand they do not have they massive knowledge of studied scientists.
SO WHAT! They do not need that because THEY DO KNOW!
And THAT is the key to nearly all persons in that field. THEY DO KNOW. To even scratch the surface of this would undermine their worth, would mean that they are nothing. They would rather die than to accept that.
They let their children or themselves die, but they do not accept that.
You can corner them, you can prove that all what they say is wrong… and in the end they say that they KNOW.
My remark about the ants was not for joke. It is a fast and easy way to demonstrate that there are many living creatures on earth and that the human species has no right to claim a god for it alone.
There is no need to differentiate the religions. They are all the same: the believe in a supernatural force – and the explanation for dos and don’ts.
But this “explanation” is BS. ALL religions are BS.
We are stranded on a stone in the universe. A worthless, little stone flying around a sun which one day will swallow it – long after all life will have been roasted. Like myriads of other stones around myriads of other suns. Since 13 billion years.
An interesting SF story I remember is about a supernova. Scientists find a way to travel through space … and go there. And they find remnants of a civilization, and a “time capsule” made by the old, gone species for future visitors of that planet, who know that their sun will explode and they all will die.
The astronauts see pictures and films of adults with their children, leading a wonderful and friendly life in in a wonderful nature. And they realize that this wonderfull world was destroyed by the supernova… which was known as Star of Bethlehem. And the question is why god destroyed all that wonderful life just to have a candle in the sky for some three fools in the Near East.
Steve wrote
Perhaps, though it’s spotty. For one example, consider the surprise expressed by a Howard Hughes investigator who interviewed Judge Jones (of Kitzmiller fame) when she learned that 50% of the U.S. population believes in creationism and thinks creationism should be taught:
One wonders where she’s been living.
I have to admit I didn’t expect my post to be removed! (Not that it had any useful content.)
As someone who has gone up the learning curve of how to deal with creationists myself (I’m a scientist), I agree with the “how to deal with them” issue Steven outlines and the general “not our problem” approach taken from academia. (I would add, though, that this is consistent with the notion off being a producer of science, but not telling people how to use it.)
Detailed academic arguments have limited value against creationists. I can’t say I always get it right, but I try use simple, “real world” cases and to try directly (and concisely) point out the approach that the creationist is trying to use (to alert their audience).
Your post is a good summary. I’d mention that in my experience you can’t really change the minds of the people who have already fallen for the creationist myths and in all of the few accounts I’ve read of those who have changed their minds, they all say that this has come from their own reading (I have no doubt careful scepticism from others may have helped, but it seems in the in the end it’s come from themselves). But as your post indicates you can deal with their actions on a larger scale, try speak to those who are borderline cases, so to speak, and deal with the educational issue so that the population as a whole might eventually move past this.
Regards dealing with an attack on neuroscience, I feel that one simple approach to dealing with creationists attacking neuroscience is simply to “ask” them if they mean to dehumanise people. And while you are at that, get a little upset about it. In my experience neuroscientists care a great deal about people; the audience will get that. Personally I think tackling neuroscience would founder for too many reasons, one being that it would be hard to make humans “special” and “exceptions” in the way that religion attempts to when dealing with neuroscientists who already care about people, as opposed to a concept (evolution).
Sion is spot on in asserting that any debater against creationism needs to be a rhetorician first and a scientist second.
The scientific community has erred in the past in this general area, by assuming expertise in science would allow them to detect the sleight of hand-type conjuring tricks used by psychics and other cons and passed off as supernatural talents. James Randi to the rescue on that one.
I risk a justified charge of semantical argument, but it isn’t exactly the *minds* of people who believe in creationism over evolution that needs to be changed, it’s their hearts. The main tools in any debating scientist’s tool box are skeptical tools: critical thinking, logic, reason, established science, evidence, facts, et al. But… the beliefs of creationists aren’t based on logic, reason, science, or facts, and are therefore largely impervious to these things. Ten thousand tons of scientific evidence and reason are easily blown away by one wisp of feeling, of emotion, within the heart of one who beliefs deeply in creationism.
As counterintuitive as it might be to skeptics and scientists, it is their hearts, their feelings, that must be changed. That is, we might try using their E over I formula against them (where E = emotion, I = intellect).
Aw, who am I kdding. 90% of the people are quite insane. We are all doomed. DOOMED, I say.
Great post Steve.
I am also looking forward to your next part.
A slight correction of your intellectual history, Steve… You write:
Meanwhile, the scientific controversy over evolution was rather brief, lasting a few decades at most. The fossil, genetic, developmental, geological and biological evidence quickly piled up in favor of the various aspects of Darwin’s theory: common descent, change over time, and natural selection acting on variation as the dominant mechanism.
That’s not quite right: while Darwin quickly convinced his fellow scientists about the fact of evolution – descent with modification – it took much longer to convince them that his theory of evolution – the mechanism of natural selection – was correct. Jim Endesbury describes this process quite nicely in his book A Guinea Pig’s History of Biology (which I reviewed on my blog here). Indeed, Julian Huxley used the phrase the eclipse of Darwin to describe the period between consensus on the fact of evolution and consensus on the mechanisms.
Hello Friends,
I was a Christian, a very strong debating Christian, for 15 years. One of my main targets was evolution. I learned every argument in favor, and had every argument against it. Ironically, the evidence for evolution was one of the main reasons I fianlly dropped Christianity! So glad I’m free of all those lies-and still thinking.
If I had the money, I would gladly go anywhere to stand for evolution against “creation science”. The one who sponsored me would not be disappointed. I know Christian debating techniques, and even can use Bible against itself.
I do think we should be respectful of our Christian (or other) opponents in any forum. We expect respect, so we should give it. However, I would never tolerate dishonest debating tactics from them. Makes me kind of mad, knowing them as I do…
Anyway, keep up the good work, and please remember two things:
1. Truth always stands. It can get buried, but always comes up.
2. Lies will die in the face of truth.
health and peace to you,
J Edgar Billings
As I am a non-scientist, please excuse my ignorance on this topic.
The Law of Evolution (is it a law or a theory?) is able to explain why humans are biologically, physiologically similar (99%) to other animals, and other living organisms. But what can explain the mental differences? the intellectual complexity? Is it just a sliding scale of intelligence? Why is it that we bipedal mammals have computers and no other species does? Why have we traveled beyond our planet and no other has? Biologically we are weak, average and don’t possess that “something special” but it is unscientific to claim that we don’t in the mental department.
please reply to help my non-scientist mind comprehend.
Pinkeye
We definitely have greater intellectual capacity than any other animal. It is mostly, however, a matter of degree. There is still debate about whether we have any skills that the smartest animals lack. One possibility is a true understanding of cause and effect – we can think abstractly about it.
Our brains are bigger and more complexly organized. That is sufficient explanation.
Pinkeye…. also, we have language, which ’supercharges’ cultural evolution. That is, because we can communicate so effectively, we can cooperate more efficiently. And when writing was invented (around 6 or 7 thousand years ago, if I remember correctly), the fruits of that cooperation often became cumulative. In our pristine state, humans were living not much differently from chimpanzees do today (in small nomadic bands), but through the accumulation of cultural, technological and scientific knowledge, we advanced dramatically.
Remember, it took about 10,000 years from the rise of civilization to the landing on the moon. Armstrong was standing on the shoulders of many, many, many giants…
Pinkeye:
I always use this simple argument as to why humans have achieved so much: Because we have pockets (and by pockets I’m referring to using things to carry items) and thumbs. Some animals have thumbs, some have pockets, but none have both. Thumbs allow us to use tools, and pockets let us carry things.
Pockets and thumbs.