Page 79 - The Restless Earth Fossils

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Fossils in

the Human Family

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HUMAN BEINGS TAKE PRIDE IN THEIR FAMILIES, EVEN IF THEY ARE NOT
perfect. Call someone’s mother bad names and you risk getting
smacked. Thus, when Charles Darwin published his theory of
evolution in 1859 in The Origin of Species, he did so nervously.
In this book, he never discusses human evolution other than to
say, “Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history.”
Nevertheless, if animal species changed over time, or evolved,
it was natural for people to wonder about human origins. To
imply that people were once animals of some kind—most likely
some kind of primate—was like calling your mother an ape to
people in Darwin’s time. Besides, there were few fossil primates
known in the nineteenth century. But Darwin had kept lots of
notes pertaining to human evolution and waited. In 1871, as
support for his ideas grew, he published The Descent of Man, and
Selection in Relation to Sex to show how natural selection applied
to human evolution. Since that time, paleontologists have col-
lected many fossils in support of his concepts, but lots of people
still refuse to acknowledge apelike ancestors in the trunk of
their family tree.

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