Reflection 4

The theory of evolution has always seemed to be ever changing. One day everyone is saying that we all come from monkeys and the next everyone is saying we all come from a fish. After reading Hominids, Early Human Phylogeny, and the story of Lucy, one can say that more people believe that we are all descendants of monkeys. I on the other hand beg to differ.

Just because monkeys happen to walk on two legs, use their hands as we do, and have a face structure similar to ours, does not mean that we are related. I can support the theory that we all came from Africa however. Now as far as all of us being descendants of Lucy, I also disagree. The only Lucy that I am descended from is Lucienne Joseph.

Despite my conflicting beliefs to the subject matter, I still found the readings quite interesting. It was interesting to see the change in brain size and speech develop. I also thought the fact that females once gave birth to litters of kids at a time was cool. Then when I learned that babies weren't always so dependent on their parents.

Homo Habilis started using very primitive versions of tools, then Homo Erectus came along and perfected tool use. They even found and discovered fire! They used fire as a means of survival from using it to cook, to using it to scare animals out of their caves for shelter. These things alone show the evolving of the ancient human mind.

Homo Erectus also made more advanced tools. These tools basically changed their way of life. No longer did they have to eat from the ground by using a stick to dig in the earth and get grub. Now, they could start hunting large game and not only eat their meat, but use their hides and skin as clothing.

While these pieces were very informational and at times controversial, they did not really have an effect on me. I just really liked that I was able to see how the human mind has literally grown. Not only has the mind grown, but the cognitive abilities has reached such extreme heights of higher knowledge.

Reading these pieces made me recall the saying "If you don't know where you came from, you don't know who you are." I'm proud to say that I do know who I am because thanks to these pieces I can trace back human history.