"As tranquil streams that meet and merge
and flow as one to seek the sea,
our kindred fellowships unite to build
a community that shall be free..."
-Marion Franklin Ham
-Marion Franklin Ham
In the study of hominid evolution, some mystery surrounds the origins of modern humans. Anatomically modern humans appear in the fossil record around 200,000 years ago. Human "culture," or what we associate with modern human culture (art, beads, decorative tools etc.), doesn't appear in the fossil record until around 45,000 years ago (and a brief glimpse in Africa around 90,000 years ago). So why the discrepancy? Why the 150,000 year gap between modern-looking humans and modern-acting humans?
In the past, scientists suggested that humans looked modern, but the brain hadn't evolved the wiring necessary for modern behavior. Paleoanthropologists looked at fossil endocasts searching for clues about the evolution of our brain. Their findings, however, didn't seem to explain this lag in behavior. Recently, UCL geneticist, Mark Thomas, found a positive correlation between population density and innovation. Population density, they found, does not just account for the acquisition of cultural innovation, but also the loss of cultural knowledge and technology. Essentially, there is a threshold in density that must be passed in order to retain cultural knowledge. For example, the fall of the Roman Empire and subsequent loss of technology is associated with a significant decrease in population density. This important study suggests that the lag between modern human form and behavior may be explained with population density. When people are not exchanging information, we cannot create much.
Robin Dunbar, an evolutionary anthropologist, conducted a study of scientists. He found that groups of scientists composed of individuals with diverse backgrounds had more intellectual breakthroughs than groups of scientists with similar backgrounds.
The quote above is from a hymn that we sing at New-Unity (see our nice congregation photo on the right). I like it because I think it says, in a more poetic way, what Dunbar and Thomas found: we get something from each other that we cannot get on our own. In sharing and exchanging, in working with people different from ourselves, we are able be more effective innovators, we can be more creative, we can support each other and learn from each other. At New-Unity, we are a diverse group of individuals who choose to spend Sunday mornings with each other not because of shared beliefs, but shared values. We value searching, we value collaboration, and we value what we uniquely get from each other.
And on an unrelated note...here is my current favorite song
Robin Dunbar, an evolutionary anthropologist, conducted a study of scientists. He found that groups of scientists composed of individuals with diverse backgrounds had more intellectual breakthroughs than groups of scientists with similar backgrounds.
The quote above is from a hymn that we sing at New-Unity (see our nice congregation photo on the right). I like it because I think it says, in a more poetic way, what Dunbar and Thomas found: we get something from each other that we cannot get on our own. In sharing and exchanging, in working with people different from ourselves, we are able be more effective innovators, we can be more creative, we can support each other and learn from each other. At New-Unity, we are a diverse group of individuals who choose to spend Sunday mornings with each other not because of shared beliefs, but shared values. We value searching, we value collaboration, and we value what we uniquely get from each other. And on an unrelated note...here is my current favorite song
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