Was I supposed to concentrate on reading after that?

;-)

Spring birds are such a joyful distraction!

I feel the “creation” much more closely describes these ineffable, awful processes than does “evolution.”

I might agree with you on that. It’s very difficult to eradicate the popular notion equating evolution with progress, for example. But we all understand how, in the process of creation, “shit happens,” and retooling and retrofitting is almost a given.

Incidentally, I was myself a breech birth.

I find it exceedingly tedious when the science campers pound the creationists over the head with “evolution” as though it were a unitary hammer. I feel the “creation” much more closely describes these ineffable, awful processes than does “evolution”. I think “science” has a hard time accepting itself in its role as a religion. It’s largely in denial about the degree to which it begins and ends in belief, only unfolding through acts of imagination.

Interesting to reflect on how widespread the innocence myth is, thanks.

Right. I dramatize and lack sobriety. Thank you for the detail and nuance.

“The origins of bipedalism are even more hotly disputed. ” Of course. Visualizing evolution requires an awful lot of “bandwidth”, generally more than I have online. I feel very lucky in the moments when, in the dark, I brush up against “evolution’s” furry hide. It is spine tingling just to get a momentary sense of the some of the vastness that is hidden. For me, “evolution” is a state of mind I rarely visit. It is the opposite of pat, or understood. It has an incorrigible dynamism, like electricity or the atom. It is impossible to engage when in an everyday state of mind. At the height of my acuity I can only get a sense of how far it is beyond my comprehension. I think “evolution” is misjudged when thought of any easier to “get” than string theory or general relativity, or, for that matter, any plainclothes everyday mystery, like birth, death, the seasons, photography, automobile radiators etc. I’ve used scare-quotes around the word because, though a believer, I really don’t get it.

Bill – I don’t think a slow global climatic shift toward dryer conditions is exactly the same as desertification, but in any case there’s no consensus yet on the precise ecological context of early hominid evolution:

An examination of the data obtained from pollen analyses reveals that there is no clear way to characterize the environment of early hominid sites. A high degree of variability exists with respect to ecological conditions at these sites. Plant ecosystems at early hominid sites range from subdesertic steppe to Afro-alpine heath moorland, but do not show any evidence of closed rainforest (Bonnefille, 1995). This diversity in ecology and plant resources fits well with the generalized mixed-mode of subsistence presented earlier (utilization of a wide variety of plant and animal resources) for these early hominids.

The origins of bipedalism are even more hotly disputed. Suffice it to say that we are habitat generalists and scavengers, I think.

“The notion of a pre-lapsarian state I find utterly bizarre.” Me too, if by “pre-lapsarian” you mean “wholly innocent,” as in traditional interpretations of the Eden story. However, versions of this story may be found in radically different societies all over the world, including some with no priestly class.

leslee – You bet. (I thought of adding in a Mom’s Day reference, but it seemed like too great a tangent.)

Black_Pete – Thanks for visiting.

It is said that the trees abandoned us, not we them, so perhaps our feelings for them are rather second hand and vestigial. The success of our bipedalism may have given us the feeling that we can get along perfectly well without them.

I have an idiosyncratic notion that sin is more invested in the great beasts, now for the most part missing; that it was only they who could be counted on as being actively interested in absolving us of the weight of our existence.

The notion of a pre-lapsarian state I find utterly bizarre. I can’t imagine any utility for it, other than a mode for priests to gather power and credit to themselves, through the rhetoric of “choice”, so establishing themselves as central in the action of our wills.