short essay on evolution

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Introductory essay

Written by the educator who created What Makes Us Human?, a brief look at the key facts, tough questions and big ideas in his field. Begin this TED Study with a fascinating read that gives context and clarity to the material.

As a biological anthropologist, I never liked drawing sharp distinctions between human and non-human. Such boundaries make little evolutionary sense, as they ignore or grossly underestimate what we humans have in common with our ancestors and other primates. What's more, it's impossible to make sharp distinctions between human and non-human in the paleoanthropological record. Even with a time machine, we couldn't go back to identify one generation of humans and say that the previous generation contained none: one's biological parents, by definition, must be in the same species as their offspring. This notion of continuity is inherent to most evolutionary perspectives and it's reflected in the similarities (homologies) shared among very different species. As a result, I've always been more interested in what makes us similar to, not different from, non-humans.

Evolutionary research has clearly revealed that we share great biological continuity with others in the animal kingdom. Yet humans are truly unique in ways that have not only shaped our own evolution, but have altered the entire planet. Despite great continuity and similarity with our fellow primates, our biocultural evolution has produced significant, profound discontinuities in how we interact with each other and in our environment, where no precedent exists in other animals. Although we share similar underlying evolved traits with other species, we also display uses of those traits that are so novel and extraordinary that they often make us forget about our commonalities. Preparing a twig to fish for termites may seem comparable to preparing a stone to produce a sharp flake—but landing on the moon and being able to return to tell the story is truly out of this non-human world.

Humans are the sole hominin species in existence today. Thus, it's easier than it would have been in the ancient past to distinguish ourselves from our closest living relatives in the animal kingdom. Primatologists such as Jane Goodall and Frans de Waal, however, continue to clarify why the lines dividing human from non-human aren't as distinct as we might think. Goodall's classic observations of chimpanzee behaviors like tool use, warfare and even cannibalism demolished once-cherished views of what separates us from other primates. de Waal has done exceptional work illustrating some continuity in reciprocity and fairness, and in empathy and compassion, with other species. With evolution, it seems, we are always standing on the shoulders of others, our common ancestors.

Primatology—the study of living primates—is only one of several approaches that biological anthropologists use to understand what makes us human. Two others, paleoanthropology (which studies human origins through the fossil record) and molecular anthropology (which studies human origins through genetic analysis), also yield some surprising insights about our hominin relatives. For example, Zeresenay Alemsegad's painstaking field work and analysis of Selam, a 3.3 million-year old fossil of a 3-year-old australopithecine infant from Ethiopia, exemplifies how paleoanthropologists can blur boundaries between living humans and apes.

Selam, if alive today, would not be confused with a three-year-old human—but neither would we mistake her for a living ape. Selam's chimpanzee-like hyoid bone suggests a more ape-like form of vocal communication, rather than human language capability. Overall, she would look chimp-like in many respects—until she walked past you on two feet. In addition, based on Selam's brain development, Alemseged theorizes that Selam and her contemporaries experienced a human-like extended childhood with a complex social organization.

Fast-forward to the time when Neanderthals lived, about 130,000 – 30,000 years ago, and most paleoanthropologists would agree that language capacity among the Neanderthals was far more human-like than ape-like; in the Neanderthal fossil record, hyoids and other possible evidence of language can be found. Moreover, paleogeneticist Svante Pääbo's groundbreaking research in molecular anthropology strongly suggests that Neanderthals interbred with modern humans. Paabo's work informs our genetic understanding of relationships to ancient hominins in ways that one could hardly imagine not long ago—by extracting and comparing DNA from fossils comprised largely of rock in the shape of bones and teeth—and emphasizes the great biological continuity we see, not only within our own species, but with other hominins sometimes classified as different species.

Though genetics has made truly astounding and vital contributions toward biological anthropology by this work, it's important to acknowledge the equally pivotal role paleoanthropology continues to play in its tandem effort to flesh out humanity's roots. Paleoanthropologists like Alemsegad draw on every available source of information to both physically reconstruct hominin bodies and, perhaps more importantly, develop our understanding of how they may have lived, communicated, sustained themselves, and interacted with their environment and with each other. The work of Pääbo and others in his field offers powerful affirmations of paleoanthropological studies that have long investigated the contributions of Neanderthals and other hominins to the lineage of modern humans. Importantly, without paleoanthropology, the continued discovery and recovery of fossil specimens to later undergo genetic analysis would be greatly diminished.

Molecular anthropology and paleoanthropology, though often at odds with each other in the past regarding modern human evolution, now seem to be working together to chip away at theories that portray Neanderthals as inferior offshoots of humanity. Molecular anthropologists and paleoanthropologists also concur that that human evolution did not occur in ladder-like form, with one species leading to the next. Instead, the fossil evidence clearly reveals an evolutionary bush, with numerous hominin species existing at the same time and interacting through migration, some leading to modern humans and others going extinct.

Molecular anthropologist Spencer Wells uses DNA analysis to understand how our biological diversity correlates with ancient migration patterns from Africa into other continents. The study of our genetic evolution reveals that as humans migrated from Africa to all continents of the globe, they developed biological and cultural adaptations that allowed for survival in a variety of new environments. One example is skin color. Biological anthropologist Nina Jablonski uses satellite data to investigate the evolution of skin color, an aspect of human biological variation carrying tremendous social consequences. Jablonski underscores the importance of trying to understand skin color as a single trait affected by natural selection with its own evolutionary history and pressures, not as a tool to grouping humans into artificial races.

For Pääbo, Wells, Jablonski and others, technology affords the chance to investigate our origins in exciting new ways, adding pieces into the human puzzle at a record pace. At the same time, our technologies may well be changing who we are as a species and propelling us into an era of "neo-evolution."

Increasingly over time, human adaptations have been less related to predators, resources, or natural disasters, and more related to environmental and social pressures produced by other humans. Indeed, biological anthropologists have no choice but to consider the cultural components related to human evolutionary changes over time. Hominins have been constructing their own niches for a very long time, and when we make significant changes (such as agricultural subsistence), we must adapt to those changes. Classic examples of this include increases in sickle-cell anemia in new malarial environments, and greater lactose tolerance in regions with a long history of dairy farming.

Today we can, in some ways, evolve ourselves. We can enact biological change through genetic engineering, which operates at an astonishing pace in comparison to natural selection. Medical ethicist Harvey Fineberg calls this "neo-evolution". Fineberg goes beyond asking who we are as a species, to ask who we want to become and what genes we want our offspring to inherit. Depending on one's point of view, the future he envisions is both tantalizing and frightening: to some, it shows the promise of science to eradicate genetic abnormalities, while for others it raises the specter of eugenics. It's also worth remembering that while we may have the potential to influence certain genetic predispositions, changes in genotypes do not guarantee the desired results. Environmental and social pressures like pollution, nutrition or discrimination can trigger "epigenetic" changes which can turn genes on or off, or make them less or more active. This is important to factor in as we consider possible medical benefits from efforts in self-directed evolution. We must also ask: In an era of human-engineered, rapid-rate neo-evolution, who decides what the new human blueprints should be?

Technology figures in our evolutionary future in other ways as well. According to anthropologist Amber Case, many of our modern technologies are changing us into cyborgs: our smart phones, tablets and other tools are "exogenous components" that afford us astonishing and unsettling capabilities. They allow us to travel instantly through time and space and to create second, "digital selves" that represent our "analog selves" and interact with others in virtual environments. This has psychological implications for our analog selves that worry Case: a loss of mental reflection, the "ambient intimacy" of knowing that we can connect to anyone we want to at any time, and the "panic architecture" of managing endless information across multiple devices in virtual and real-world environments.

Despite her concerns, Case believes that our technological future is essentially positive. She suggests that at a fundamental level, much of this technology is focused on the basic concerns all humans share: who am I, where and how do I fit in, what do others think of me, who can I trust, who should I fear? Indeed, I would argue that we've evolved to be obsessed with what other humans are thinking—to be mind-readers in a sense—in a way that most would agree is uniquely human. For even though a baboon can assess those baboons it fears and those it can dominate, it cannot say something to a second baboon about a third baboon in order to trick that baboon into telling a fourth baboon to gang up on a fifth baboon. I think Facebook is a brilliant example of tapping into our evolved human psychology. We can have friends we've never met and let them know who we think we are—while we hope they like us and we try to assess what they're actually thinking and if they can be trusted. It's as if technology has provided an online supply of an addictive drug for a social mind evolved to crave that specific stimulant!

Yet our heightened concern for fairness in reciprocal relationships, in combination with our elevated sense of empathy and compassion, have led to something far greater than online chats: humanism itself. As Jane Goodall notes, chimps and baboons cannot rally together to save themselves from extinction; instead, they must rely on what she references as the "indomitable human spirit" to lessen harm done to the planet and all the living things that share it. As Goodall and other TED speakers in this course ask: will we use our highly evolved capabilities to secure a better future for ourselves and other species?

I hope those reading this essay, watching the TED Talks, and further exploring evolutionary perspectives on what makes us human, will view the continuities and discontinuities of our species as cause for celebration and less discrimination. Our social dependency and our prosocial need to identify ourselves, our friends, and our foes make us human. As a species, we clearly have major relationship problems, ranging from personal to global scales. Yet whenever we expand our levels of compassion and understanding, whenever we increase our feelings of empathy across cultural and even species boundaries, we benefit individually and as a species.

Get started

Zeresenay Alemseged

The search for humanity's roots, relevant talks.

Spencer Wells

A family tree for humanity.

Svante Pääbo

Dna clues to our inner neanderthal.

Nina Jablonski

Skin color is an illusion.

We are all cyborgs now

Harvey Fineberg

Are we ready for neo-evolution.

Frans de Waal

Moral behavior in animals.

Jane Goodall

What separates us from chimpanzees.

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Human evolution: short essay on human evolution.

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Man is a product of evolution. Therefore human evolution is intimately related to the origin of life and its development on the face of earth. It is customary to speak of evolution ‘from amoeba to Man’, as if the amoeba is the simplest form of life. But in reality, there are several organisms more primitives than amoeba, say for example viruses. The evolution from a self-replicating organic molecule to a protozoan, like amoeba, is the most complex step in evolution, which might have consumed the same extent of time from protozoan to man.

The term evolution was first applied by the English philosopher Herbert Spencer to mean the historical development of life. Since then evolution denotes a change, although the term may be defined in several ways. In the context of man, the biological evolution started with the ‘Origin of life’. In the beginning, there was nothing. The first successful formation of protoplasm initiated the life and its continuous development proceeded towards complexity to give rise different life forms of evolved type.

About 10 billion years after the formation of Universe, the earth was formed. Life on earth appeared far late, nearly three billion years ago. Of the several evolutionary problems, perhaps the origin of life is the most critical, since there is no record concerning it. Life has been characterized by the capacity of performing certain vital functional activities like metabolism, growth and reproduction. There is no ambiguity regarding this point. But how the first life came on earth is a matter of conjecture.

Ancient thinkers speculated that life originated spontaneously from inorganic components of the environment, just after the formation of earth. A series of physio-chemical processes were perhaps responsible behind this creation. Aristotle (384 BC to 322 BC) was the pioneer in this line of thought and nobody raised any voice against his speculation till seventeenth Century. But in seventeenth Century, an Italian scientist, Francesco Redi (1627 -1697) made an experiment with two pieces of meat.

One of the pieces was kept fully covered and the other piece was kept in an open place. After some days he examined both of the pieces very carefully. He noticed that, flies laid eggs on the uncovered piece of meat and so many new flies had born. But the covered piece of meat had not produced any new fly, as there was absolutely no access of flies.

Redi tried to establish the fact, that living organisms cannot be originated spontaneously from inorganic components. More or less at the same time, Leuwenhock (1632 – 1723) by studying several microorganisms like protozoa, sperm, bacteria etc. under microscope declared that the spontaneous generation was possible for the microorganisms. Later, Louis Pasteur (1822 -1895) also studied much to furnish evidences in support of spontaneous creation.

In fact, scientists of this period were perplexed in finding out how life began spontaneously as a matter of chance. Philosophers, Thinkers and Scientists all had submitted their varied thought and propositions regarding the nature and mechanism of origin of life on earth. Different religions had also put forth different concepts in this connection.

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UC MUSEUM OF PALEONTOLOGY

Understanding Evolution

Your one-stop source for information on evolution

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An introduction to evolution

The definition.

Biological evolution, simply put, is descent with inherited modification. This definition encompasses everything from small-scale evolution (for example, changes in the frequency of different gene versions in a population from one generation to the next) to large-scale evolution (for example, the descent of different species from a shared ancestor over many generations). Evolution helps us to understand the living world around us, as well as its history.

The explanation

Biological evolution is not simply a matter of change over time. Many things change over time: caterpillars turn into moths, trees lose and regrow their leaves, mountain ranges rise and erode, but they aren’t examples of biological evolution because they don’t involve descent with inherited modifications.

All life on Earth shares a common ancestor , just as you and your cousins share a common grandmother. Through the process of descent with modification, this common ancestor gave rise to the diverse species that we see documented in the fossil record and around us today. Evolution means that we’re all distant cousins: humans and oak trees, hummingbirds and whales.

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You can learn lots more about common ancestry in Evo 101: Patterns or in our Tree Room .

Learn about common ancestry in context:

• A fish of a different color
• The legless lizards of LAX
• What has the head of a crocodile and the gills of a fish?

Find  additional lessons, activities, videos, and articles  that focus on common ancestry.

Reviewed and updated June, 2020.

Evolution 101

The history of life: looking at the patterns

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ENCYCLOPEDIC ENTRY

Theory of evolution.

The theory of evolution is a shortened form of the term “theory of evolution by natural selection,” which was proposed by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace in the nineteenth century.

Biology, Ecology, Earth Science, Geology, Geography, Physical Geography

Young Charles Darwin

Painting of a young Charles Darwin

Photograph by James L. Stanfield

Ideas aimed at explaining how organisms change, or evolve, over time date back to Anaximander of Miletus, a Greek philosopher who lived in the 500s B.C.E. Noting that human babies are born helpless, Anaximander speculated that humans must have descended from some other type of creature whose young could survive without any help. He concluded that those ancestors must be fish, since fish hatch from eggs and immediately begin living with no help from their parents. From this reasoning, he proposed that all life began in the sea.

Anaximander was correct; humans can indeed trace our ancestry back to fish. His idea, however, was not a theory in the scientific meaning of the word, because it could not be subjected to testing that might support it or prove it wrong. In science, the word “ theory ” indicates a very high level of certainty. Scientists talk about evolution as a theory , for instance, just as they talk about Einstein’s explanation of gravity as a theory .

A theory is an idea about how something in nature works that has gone through rigorous testing through observations and experiments designed to prove the idea right or wrong. When it comes to the evolution of life, various philosophers and scientists, including an eighteenth-century English doctor named Erasmus Darwin, proposed different aspects of what later would become evolutionary theory. But evolution did not reach the status of being a scientific theory until Darwin’s grandson, the more famous Charles Darwin, published his famous book On the Origin of Species . Darwin and a scientific contemporary of his, Alfred Russel Wallace, proposed that evolution occurs because of a phenomenon called natural selection .

In the theory of natural selection, organisms produce more offspring than are able to survive in their environment. Those that are better physically equipped to survive, grow to maturity, and reproduce. Those that are lacking in such fitness, on the other hand, either do not reach an age when they can reproduce or produce fewer offspring than their counterparts. Natural selection is sometimes summed up as “survival of the fittest” because the “fittest” organisms—those most suited to their environment—are the ones that reproduce most successfully, and are most likely to pass on their traits to the next generation.

This means that if an environment changes, the traits that enhance survival in that environment will also gradually change, or evolve. Natural selection was such a powerful idea in explaining the evolution of life that it became established as a scientific theory . Biologists have since observed numerous examples of natural selection influencing evolution . Today, it is known to be just one of several mechanisms by which life evolves. For example, a phenomenon known as genetic drift can also cause species to evolve. In genetic drift , some organisms —purely by chance—produce more offspring than would be expected. Those organisms are not necessarily the fittest of their species, but it is their genes that get passed on to the next generation.

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Evolution: A Very Short Introduction (1st edn)

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Less than 150 years ago, the view that living species were the result of special creation by God was still dominant. The recognition by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace of the mechanism of evolution by natural selection has completely transformed our understanding of the living world, including our own origins. Evolution: A Very Short Introduction provides a summary of the process of evolution by natural selection, highlighting the wide range of evidence, and explains how natural selection gives rise to adaptations and eventually, over many generations, to new species. It introduces the central concepts of the field of evolutionary biology and discusses some of the remaining questions regarding evolutionary processes.

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Frontiers for Young Minds

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A Brief Account of Human Evolution for Young Minds

Most of what we know about the origin of humans comes from the research of paleoanthropologists, scientists who study human fossils. Paleoanthropologists identify the sites where fossils can be found. They determine the age of fossils and describe the features of the bones and teeth discovered. Recently, paleoanthropologists have added genetic technology to test their hypotheses. In this article, we will tell you a little about prehistory, a period of time including pre-humans and humans and lasting about 10 million years. During the Prehistoric Period, events were not reported in writing. Most information on prehistory is obtained through studying fossils. Ten to twelve million years ago, primates divided into two branches, one included species leading to modern (current) humans and the other branch to the great apes that include gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos, and orangutans. The branch leading to modern humans included several different species. When one of these species—known as the Neanderthals—inhabited Eurasia, they were not alone; Homo sapiens and other Homo species were also present in this region. All the other species of Homo have gone extinct, with the exception of Homo sapiens , our species, which gradually colonized the entire planet. About 12,000 years ago, during the Neolithic Period, some (but not all) populations of H. sapiens passed from a wandering lifestyle of hunting and gathering to one of sedentary farming, building villages and towns. They developed more complex social organizations and invented writing. This was the end of prehistory and the beginning of history.

What Is Evolution?

Evolution is the process by which living organisms evolve from earlier, more simple organisms. According to the scientist Charles Darwin (1809–1882), evolution depends on a process called natural selection. Natural selection results in the increased reproductive capacities of organisms that are best suited for the conditions in which they are living. Darwin’s theory was that organisms evolve as a result of many slight changes over the course of time. In this article, we will discuss evolution during pre-human times and human prehistory. During prehistory, writing was not yet developed. But much important information on prehistory is obtained through studies of the fossil record [ 1 ].

How Did Humans Evolve?

Primates, like humans, are mammals. Around ten to twelve million years ago, the ancestral primate lineage split through speciation from one common ancestor into two major groups. These two lineages evolved separately to become the variety of species we see today. Members of one group were the early version of what we know today as the great apes (gorillas, chimpanzees, and bonobos in Africa, orangutans in Asia) ( Figures 1 , 2 ); that is, the modern great apes evolved from this ancestral group. They mostly remained in forest with an arboreal lifestyle, meaning they live in trees. Great apes are also quadrupeds which means they move around with four legs on the ground (see Figure 2 ). The other group evolved in a different way. They became terrestrial, meaning they live on land and not in trees. From being quadrupeds they evolved to bipeds, meaning they move around on their two back legs. In addition the size of their brain increased. This is the group that, through evolution, gave rise to the modern current humans. Many fossils found in Africa are from the Australopithecus afarensis, Homo sapiens ."> genus named Australopithecus (which means southern ape). This genus is extinct, but fossil studies revealed interesting features about their adaptation toward a terrestrial lifestyle.

• Figure 1 - Evolutionary scheme, showing that great apes and humans all evolved from a common ancestor.
• The Neanderthal picture is a statue designed from a fossil skeleton.

• Figure 2 - Great Apes in nature.
• (above) Arboreal (in trees) locomotion of orangutans and (under) the quadrupedal (four-foot) locomotion of gorillas and chimpanzees.

Australopithecus afarensis and Lucy

In Ethiopia (East Africa) there is a site called Hadar, where several fossils of different animal species were found. Among those fossils was Australopithecus afarensis . In 1974, paleoanthropologists found an almost complete skeleton of one specimen of this species and named it Lucy, from The Beatles song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.” The whole world found out about Lucy and she was in every newspaper: she became a global celebrity. This small female—only about 1.1 m tall—lived 3.2 million years ago. Analysis of her femurs (thigh bones) showed that she used terrestrial locomotion. Lucy could have used arboreal and bipedal locomotion as well, as foot bones of another A. afarensis individual had a curve similar to that found in the feet of modern humans [ 2 ]. Authors of this finding suggested accordingly that A. afarensis was exclusively bipedal and could have been a hunter-gatherer.

Homo habilis , Homo erectus , and Homo neanderthalensis

Homo is the genus (group of species) that includes modern humans, like us, and our most closely related extinct ancestors. Organisms that belong to the same species produce viable offspring. The famous paleoanthropologist named Louis Leakey, along with his team, discovered Homo habilis (meaning handy man) in 1964. Homo habilis was the most ancient species of Homo ever found [ 2 ]. Homo habilis appeared in Tanzania (East Africa) over 2.8 million years ago, and 1.5 million years ago became exinct. They were estimated to be about 1.40 meter tall and were terrestrial. They were different from Australopithecus because of the form of the skull. The shape was not piriform (pear-shaped), but spheroid (round), like the head of a modern human. Homo habilis made stone tools, a sign of creativity [ 3 ].

In Asia, in 1891, Eugene Dubois (also a paleoanthropologist) discovered the first fossil of Homo erectus (meaning upright man), which appeared 1.8 million years ago. This fossil received several names. The best known are Pithecanthropus (ape-man) and Sinanthropus (Chinese-man). Homo erectus appeared in East Africa and migrated to Asia, where they carved refined tools from stone [ 4 ]. Dubois also brought some shells of the time of H erectus from Java to Europe. Contemporary scientists studied these shells and found engravings that dated from 430,000 and 540,000 years ago. They concluded that H. erectus individuals were able to express themselves using symbols [ 5 ].

Several Homo species emerged following H. erectus and quite a few coexisted for some time. The best known one is Homo neanderthalensis ( Figure 3 ), usually called Neanderthals and they were known as the European branch originating from two lineages that diverged around 400,000 years ago, with the second branch (lineage) Homo sapiens known as the African branch. The first Neanderthal fossil, dated from around 430,000 years ago, was found in La Sima de los Huesos in Spain and is considered to originate from the common ancestor called Homo heidelbergensis [ 6 ]. Neanderthals used many of the natural resources in their environment: animals, plants, and minerals. Homo neanderthalensis hunted terrestrial and marine (ocean) animals, requiring a variety of weapons. Tens of thousands of stone tools from Neanderthal sites are exhibited in many museums. Neanderthals created paintings in the La Pasiega cave in the South of Spain and decorated their bodies with jewels and colored paint. Graves were found, which meant they held burial ceremonies.

• Figure 3 - A comparison of the skulls of Homo sapiens (Human) (left) vs. Homo neanderthalensis (Neanderthal) (right).
• You can see a shape difference. From Scientific American Vol. 25, No. 4, Autumn 2016 (modified).

Denisovans are a recent addition to the human tree. In 2010, the first specimen was discovered in the Denisova cave in south-western Siberia. Very little information is known on their behavior. They deserve further studies due to their interactions with Neandertals and other Homo species (see below) [ 7 ].

Homo sapiens

Fossils recently discovered in Morocco (North Africa) have added to the intense debate on the spread of H. sapiens after they originated 315,000 years ago [ 8 ]. The location of these fossils could mean that Homo sapiens had visited the whole of Africa. In the same way, the scattering of fossils out of Africa indicated their migrations to various continents [ 9 ]. While intensely debated, hypotheses focus on either a single dispersal or multiple dispersals out of the African continent [ 10 , 11 ]. Nevertheless, even if the origin of the migration to Europe is still a matter of debate [ 12 ], it appears that H. sapiens was present in Israel [ 13 ] 180,000 years ago. Therefore, it could be that migration to Europe was not directly from Africa but indirectly through a stay in Israel-Asia. They arrived about 45,000 years ago into Europe [ 14 ] where the Neanderthals were already present (see above). Studies of ancient DNA show that H. sapiens had babies with Neanderthals and Denisovans. Nowadays people living in Europe and Asia share between 1 and 4% of their DNA with either Neanderthals or Denisovans [ 15 ].

Several thousand years ago H. sapiens already made art, like for example the wall painting in the Chauvet cave (36,000 years ago) ( Figure 4 ) and the Lascaux cave (19,000 years ago), both in France. The quality of the paintings shows great artistic ability and intellectual development. Homo sapiens continued to prospect the Earth. They crossed the Bering Land Bridge, connecting Siberia and Alaska and moved south 12,500 years ago, to what is now called Chile. Homo sapiens gradually colonized our entire planet ( Figure 5 ).

• Figure 4 - The lions in the Chauvet cave (−36,000 years).
• In this period wild lions were present in Eurasia . Photo: Bradshaw foundation.com. Note the lively character of the picture.

• Figure 5 - Homo sapiens traveled in the world at various periods as shown on the map.
• They had only their legs to move!

The Neolithic Revolution

Neolithic Period means New Stone Age, due to the new stone technology that was developed during that time. The Neolithic Period started at the end of the glacial period 11,700 years ago. There was a change in the way humans lived during the Neolithic Period. Ruins found in Mesopotamia tell us early humans lived in populated villages. Due to the start of agriculture, most wandering hunter-gatherers became sedentary farmers. Instead of hunting dogs familiar with hunter-gatherers, farmers preferred sheepdogs [ 16 ]. In the Neolithic age, humans were farming and herding, keeping goats and sheep. Aurochs (extinct wild cattle), shown in the paintings from the Lascaux cave, are early ancestors of the domesticated cows we have today [ 17 ]. The first produce which early humans began to grow in Mesopotamia (a historical region in West Asia, situated between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers) was peas and wheat [ 18 ]. Animals and crops were traded and written records were kept of these trades. Clay tokens were the first money for these transactions. The Neolithic Period saw the creation of commerce, money, mathematics, and writing ( Figure 6 ) in Sumer, a region of Mesopotamia. The birth of writing started the period that we call “history,” in which events are written down and details of big events as well as daily life can easily be passed on. This tremendous change in human lifestyle can be called the Neolithic Revolution .

• Figure 6 - From the beginning to final evolution of cuneiform writing.
• Writing on argil support showed changes from pictograms to abstract design. Picture modified from British Museum. Dates in year BC.

From the time of Homo erectus , Homo species migrated out of Africa. Homo sapiens extended this migration over the whole planet. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Europeans explored the world. On the various continents, explorers met unknown populations. The Europeans were wondering if those beings were humans or not. But actually, those populations were also descendants of the men and women who colonized the earth at the dawn of mankind. In much earlier times, there was a theory that there were several races of humans, based mostly on skin color, but this theory was not supported by science. Current studies of DNA show that more than seven billion people who live on earth today are not of different races. There is only one human species on earth today, named Homo sapiens .

Suggested Reading

Species and Speciation. What defines a species? How new species can arise from existing species. https://www.khanacademy.org/science/biology/her/tree-of-life/a/species-speciation

Speciation : ↑ The formation of new and distinct species in the course of evolution.

Genus : ↑ In the classification of biology, a genus is a subdivision of a family. This subdivision is a grouping of living organisms having one or more related similarities. In the binomial nomenclature, the universally used scientific name of each organism is composed of its genus (capitalized) and a species identifier (lower case), for example Australopithecus afarensis, Homo sapiens.

Eurasia : ↑ A term used to describe the combined continental landmass of Europe and Asia.

Clay : ↑ Fine-grained earth that can be molded when wet and that is dried and baked to make pottery.

Revolution : ↑ Fundamental change occurring relatively quickly in human society.

Conflict of Interest Statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Emma Clayton (Frontiers) for her advice and careful reading. Photo of Neanderthal statue was from Stephane Louryan, one of the designers of Neanderthal’s statue project [Faculty of Medicine, Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Brussels, Belgium].

[1] ↑ Godfraind, T. 2016. Hominisation et Transhumanisme . Bruxelles: Académie Royale de Belgique.

[2] ↑ Ward, C. V., Kimbel, W. H., and Johanson, D. C. 2011. Complete fourth metatarsal and arches in the foot of Australopithecus afarensis. Science 331:750–3. doi: 10.1126/science.1201463

[3] ↑ Harmand, S., Lewis, J. E., Feibel, C. S., Lepre, C. J., Prat, S., Lenoble, A., et al. 2015. 3.3-million-year-old stone tools from Lomekwi 3, West Turkana, Kenya. Nature 521:310–5. doi: 10.1038/nature14464

[4] ↑ Carotenuto, F., Tsikaridze, N., Rook, L., Lordkipanidze, D., Longo, L., Condemi, S., et al. 2016. Venturing out safely: the biogeography of Homo erectus dispersal out of Africa. J. Hum. Evol. 95:1–12. doi: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2016.02.005

[5] ↑ Joordens, J. C., d’Errico, F., Wesselingh, F. P., Munro, S., de Vos, J., Wallinga, J., et al. 2015. Homo erectus at Trinil on Java used shells for tool production and engraving. Nature 518:228–31. doi: 10.1038/nature13962

[6] ↑ Arsuaga, J. L., Martinez, I., Arnold, L. J., Aranburu, A., Gracia-Tellez, A., Sharp, W. D., et al. 2014. Neandertal roots: cranial and chronological evidence from Sima de los Huesos. Science 344:1358–63. doi: 10.1126/science.1253958

[7] ↑ Vernot, B., Tucci, S., Kelso, J., Schraiber, J. G., Wolf, A. B., Gittelman, R. M., et al. 2016. Excavating Neandertal and Denisovan DNA from the genomes of Melanesian individuals. Science 352:235–9. doi: 10.1126/science.aad9416

[8] ↑ Richter, D., Grun, R., Joannes-Boyau, R., Steele, T. E., Amani, F., Rue, M., et al. 2017. The age of the hominin fossils from Jebel Irhoud, Morocco, and the origins of the Middle Stone Age. Nature 546:293–6. doi: 10.1038/nature22335

[9] ↑ Vyas, D. N., Al-Meeri, A., and Mulligan, C. J. 2017. Testing support for the northern and southern dispersal routes out of Africa: an analysis of Levantine and southern Arabian populations. Am. J. Phys. Anthropol . 164:736–49. doi: 10.1002/ajpa.23312

[10] ↑ Reyes-Centeno, H., Hubbe, M., Hanihara, T., Stringer, C., and Harvati, K. 2015. Testing modern human out-of-Africa dispersal models and implications for modern human origins. J. Hum. Evol . 87:95–106. doi: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2015.06.008

[11] ↑ Templeton, A. 2002. Out of Africa again and again. Nature 416:45–51. doi: 10.1038/416045a

[12] ↑ Arnason, U. 2017. A phylogenetic view of the Out of Asia/Eurasia and Out of Africa hypotheses in the light of recent molecular and palaeontological finds. Gene 627:473–6. doi: 10.1016/j.gene.2017.07.006

[13] ↑ Callaway, E. 2018. Israeli fossils are the oldest modern humans ever found outside of Africa. Nature 554:15–6. doi: 10.1038/d41586-018-01261-5

[14] ↑ Benazzi, S., Douka, K., Fornai, C., Bauer, C. C., Kullmer, O., Svoboda, J., et al. 2011. Early dispersal of modern humans in Europe and implications for Neanderthal behaviour. Nature 479:525–8. doi: 10.1038/nature10617

[15] ↑ Vernot, B., and Akey, J. M. 2014. Resurrecting surviving Neandertal lineages from modern human genomes. Science 343:1017–21. doi: 10.1126/science.1245938

[16] ↑ Ollivier, M., Tresset, A., Frantz, L. A. F., Brehard, S., Balasescu, A., Mashkour, M., et al. 2018. Dogs accompanied humans during the Neolithic expansion into Europe. Biol. Lett. 14:20180286. doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2018.0286

[17] ↑ Gerling, C., Doppler, T., Heyd, V., Knipper, C., Kuhn, T., Lehmann, M. F., et al. 2017. High-resolution isotopic evidence of specialised cattle herding in the European Neolithic. PLoS ONE 12:e0180164. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0180164

[18] ↑ Revedin, A., Aranguren, B., Becattini, R., Longo, L., Marconi, E., Lippi, M. M., et al. 2010. Thirty thousand-year-old evidence of plant food processing. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A . 107:18815–9. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1006993107

Science and Creationism: A View from the National Academy of Sciences, Second Edition (1999)

Chapter: human evolution, human evolution.

Studies in evolutionary biology have led to the conclusion that human beings arose from ancestral primates. This association was hotly debated among scientists in Darwin's day. But today there is no significant scientific doubt about the close evolutionary relationships among all primates, including humans.

Many of the most important advances in paleontology over the past century relate to the evolutionary history of humans. Not one but many connecting links—intermediate between and along various branches of the human family tree—have been found as fossils. These linking fossils occur in geological deposits of intermediate age. They document the time and rate at which primate and human evolution occurred.

Scientists have unearthed thousands of fossil specimens representing members of the human family. A great number of these cannot be assigned to the modem human species, Homo sapiens. Most of these specimens have been well dated, often by means of radiometric techniques. They reveal a well-branched tree, parts of which trace a general evolutionary sequence leading from ape-like forms to modem humans.

Paleontologists have discovered numerous species of extinct apes in rock strata that are older than four million years, but never a member of the human family at that great age. Australopithecus, whose earliest known fossils are about four million years old, is a genus with some features closer to apes and some closer to modem humans. In brain size, Australopithecus was barely more advanced than apes. A number of features, including long arms, short legs, intermediate toe structure, and features of the upper limb, indicate that the members of this species spent part of the time in trees. But they also walked upright on the ground, like humans. Bipedal tracks of Australopithecus have been discovered, beautifully preserved with those of other extinct animals, in hardened volcanic ash. Most of our Australopithecus ancestors died out close to two-and-a-half million years ago, while other Australopithecus species, which were on side branches of the human tree, survived alongside more advanced hominids for another million years.

Distinctive bones of the oldest species of the human genus, Homo, date back to rock strata about 2.4 million years old. Physical anthropologists agree that Homo evolved from one of the species of Australopithecus. By two million years ago, early members of Homo had an average brain size one-and-a-half times larger than that of Australopithecus, though still substantially smaller than that of modem humans. The shapes of the pelvic and leg bones suggest that these early Homo were not part-time climbers like Australopithecus but walked and ran on long legs, as modem humans do. Just as Australopithecus showed a complex of ape-like, human-like, and intermediate features, so was early Homo intermediate between Australopithecus and modem humans in some features, and dose to modem humans in other respects. The earliest

Early hominids, such as members of the Australopithecus afarensis species that lived about 3 million years ago, had smaller brains and larger faces than species belonging to the genus Homo, which first appeared about 2.4 million years ago. White parts of the skulls are reconstructions, and the skulls are not all on the same scale.

stone tools are of virtually the same age as the earliest fossils of Homo. Early Homo, with its larger brain than Australopithecus, was a maker of stone tools.

The fossil record for the interval between 2.4 million years ago and the present includes the skeletal remains of several species assigned to the genus Homo. The more recent species had larger brains than the older ones. This fossil record is complete enough to show that the human genus first spread from its place of origin in Africa to Europe and Asia a little less than two million years ago. Distinctive types of stone tools are associated with various populations. More recent species with larger brains generally used more sophisticated tools than more ancient species.

Molecular biology also has provided strong evidence of the close relationship between humans and apes. Analysis of many proteins and genes has shown that humans are genetically similar to chimpanzees and gorillas and less similar to orangutans and other primates.

DNA has even been extracted from a well-preserved skeleton of the extinct human creature known as Neanderthal, a member of the genus Homo and often considered either as a subspecies of Homo sapiens or as a separate species. Application of the molecular clock, which makes use of known rates of genetic mutation, suggests that Neanderthal's lineage diverged from that of modem Homo sapiens less than half a million years ago, which is entirely compatible with evidence from the fossil record.

Based on molecular and genetic data, evolutionists favor the hypothesis that modem Homo sapiens, individuals very much like us, evolved from more archaic humans about 100,000 to 150,000 years ago. They also believe that this transition occurred in Africa, with modem humans then dispersing to Asia, Europe, and eventually Australasia and the Americas.

Discoveries of hominid remains during the past three decades in East and South Africa, the Middle East, and elsewhere have combined with advances in molecular biology to initiate a new discipline—molecular paleoanthropology. This field of inquiry is providing an ever-growing inventory of evidence for a genetic affinity between human beings and the African apes.

Opinion polls show that many people believe that divine intervention actively guided the evolution of human beings. Science cannot comment on the role that supernatural forces might play in human affairs. But scientific investigations have concluded that the same forces responsible for the evolution of all other life forms on Earth can account for the evolution of human beings.

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• Books Received
• Published: 08 June 1946

Essays on Human Evolution

• A. D. RITCHIE  

Nature volume  157 ,  pages 749–750 ( 1946 ) Cite this article

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IN these forty short essays, written during 1942-44, Sir Arthur Keith develops a thesis that would be vitally important if true, and in any event raises issues it would be folly to ignore. He claims (1) that men have always lived and always will live with a mixed allegiance to two incompatible codes of conduct ; one of friendliness, gentleness and cooperation within the community, the other of competition, hatred and warfare without (for example, pp. 5ff., lOOff.). (2) A community becomes a unit by isolation from its neighbours, whereby it preserves its genetic character, and it evolves as a unit (pp. 105, 130, 142). (3) The primitive unit is the tribe ; the advanced one the nation-state. Increase in size is brought about by warfare, which is part of the evolutionary process (pp. 48, 173). (4) Behaviour according to the code of 'amity' is morally approved, but 'enmity' between tribes or states is the necessary condition for human evolution ; therefore a universal community or state, even if possible, is undesirable, since it would stop the evolutionary process (pp. 45, 53).

By Sir Arthur Keith. Pp. x + 224. (London: Watts and Co. Ltd., 1946.) 15 s . net.

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Learning the history of evolution and primatology

An exhibition and undergraduate course at Stanford examines the peculiar scrutiny people have placed on their primate relatives to better understand the human condition.

Go to the web site to view the video.

Ever since Charles Darwin claimed in 1871 that humans and other primates share a common ancestor, people have turned to apes in search of an answer to the age-old question: What makes us human?

A new collaboration between Stanford historians  Jessica Riskin  and  Caroline Winterer  takes up this question, and their efforts have culminated in an exhibition in Green Library’s Hohbach Hall,  The Apes & Us: A Century of Representations of Our Closest Relatives , an accompanying  color catalog , a conference, and most recently, a winter quarter  Introductory Seminar  (IntroSem),  HIST 41Q:  The Ape Museum: Exploring the Idea of the Ape in Global History, Science, Art and Film , where students study with original source material to learn how people have viewed and exploited apes in science and across society through the ages.

“Students can see what people around the world in the 19th century were seeing – it was like the moon landing of the 20th century to suggest that all life on Earth is not only connected, but connected over an enormous span of time in which we all changed and evolved,” said Winterer, the William Robertson Coe Professor of History and American Studies in the School of Humanities & Sciences (H&S) and the author of a forthcoming book,  How the New World Became Old: The Deep Time Revolution in America . “As Darwin himself put it, there’s ‘grandeur in this view of life.’ ”

But as her collaboration with Riskin shows, that revelation has been controversial from the beginning. Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, evolution and primatology have been entangled with race, ideology, and politics.

“When you think historically about the relationship of humans to nonhuman primates, you can connect current ideas and attitudes in science and culture with their now hidden roots in the past,” said Riskin, the Frances and Charles Field Professor of History in H&S.

Gabriel von Max (1840-1915) Abelard und Héloïse , c. 1900-1915, oil on canvas. (Image credit: Courtesy Jack Daulton Collection)

Grappling with a paradigm shift in science

The course and exhibition on the primates and people began after Riskin visited an exhibition in 2021 at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, The Origins of the World: The Invention of Nature in the Nineteenth Century .

Riskin described some of the items  in an essay for  the New York Review of Books , including the small selection of paintings by the eccentric Czech-Austrian artist Gabriel von Max (1840-1915) showing his pet monkeys assuming human-like positions and roles. Riskin described how von Max – who was an avid Darwinian as well as a painter – anthropomorphized non-human primates to emphasize Darwin’s theories that apes were closely connected to humans.

Riskin’s essay caught the attention of lawyer turned art collector Jack Daulton, who had loaned some von Max paintings to the Musée d’Orsay from his private collection. He contacted Riskin to say he lived near the Stanford campus and asked if Riskin and her students would be interested in seeing other von Max works he owns, to which Riskin enthusiastically responded, yes.

Gabriel von Max, Schlechte Zeiten / Bad Times , 1915, oil on canvas. (Image credit: Courtesy Jack Daulton Collection)

Gabriel von Max (1840-1915), Geburtstagblumen / Birthday Flowers , c. 1890, oil on wood panel. (Image credit: Courtesy Jack Daulton Collection)

Now, some 13 paintings by von Max from Daulton’s collection are on view in Hohbach Hall, including the iconic image of two capuchin monkeys holding one another tenderly, even mournfully. The painting is named after the tragic star-crossed lovers from the 12th century, Abelard and Héloïse.

In addition, there are six glass cases with items from Stanford’s own collections that show the many ways artists and scholars – at Stanford and elsewhere – have examined the differences and similarities between people and primates throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.

For example, there is a case on posture that includes an 1863 copy of Thomas Henry Huxley’s notorious diagram comparing a human skeleton to that of a gorilla, chimpanzee, orangutan, and gibbon as a way to show how our place in nature is in step with apes.

An original copy of Huxley’s diagram is on view at the Apes & Us exhibition. (Image credit: Courtesy Department of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford University Libraries Collections)

Another case looks at tools and the hands that made them. Some have argued – such as Friederich Engels, a collaborator and close friend of Karl Marx – that the main differentiator between humans and apes is tool use. In the case is a first edition of the book from the Stanford University Archives in which Engels makes his argument.

The exhibit also shows some of the dangerous ways that differences drawn between human and non-human primates have been used to create imaginary racial and class hierarchies.

Francis Galton, Darwin’s cousin, invoked his own interpretation of Darwin’s theory of evolution to found eugenics, a field devoted to “improving” the human population through selective breeding and controlled reproduction.

One case in  The Apes & Us exhibit looks at the role that the evolutionary biologist, ichthyologist, and first president of Stanford, David Starr Jordan, played in the eugenics movement in the United States.

Throughout the cases are various materials from the personal papers of Stephen J. Gould, the influential paleontologist, historian, and evolutionary biologist who spent much of his career rebutting scientific racism and biological deterministic theories. The exhibition calls attention to his 1981 book,  The Mismeasure of Man , in which Gould confronts some of the pervasive tropes about race and intelligence that were prevalent throughout the Victorian era and early 20th century.

There is also a case on primate research at Stanford, including images from the Stanford Outdoor Primate Facility (SOPF) that British primatologist Jane Goodall established in 1974 with David Hamburg, Stanford professor of human biology. Their research became mired in controversy and SOPF closed in 1979.

Learning the history of science and ideas

Studying how humans have interacted with primates in a post-Darwin age is what Winterer calls a “boundary case” where different historical, political, and social perspectives can be brought to bear.

“Whenever you explore a boundary case, you’re also exploring connections,” Winterer said. “When do we erect boundaries between things? When do we create connections across boundaries? We can apply those questions to almost every domain of human thought. The ape and the human boundary or connection is really just one of many such inquiries we can make.”

Crossing in and out of these boundaries was a goal of Riskin’s and Winterer’s IntroSem.

Appropriately titled  The Ape Museum , their course was held in Hohbach Hall, where each week, students interacted with items in the  Apes & U s exhibit.

Students also looked at objects held elsewhere on campus, including at the Stanford University Archaeology Collections, where curator Danielle Raad presented tools and other artifacts made by human ancestors, including some estimated to be between 300,000 to 1.75 million years old.

Francesca Pinney (left) and Megan Liu (right) hold ancient artifacts on a class visit to the Stanford University Archaeology Collections. (Image credit: Danielle Raad)

For freshman Francesca Pinney, holding something so distant in time and space from her was stirring. “History never felt closer,” she said.

The class also visited the Hoover Institution Library & Archives, where  Jean M. Cannon , a research fellow and curator for North American Collections, pulled out propaganda  from their world-renowned poster collection  that showed how apes were used in World War I and II by both Allied and Axis powers to dehumanize the enemy.

Pinney said she was particularly struck by how apes were used in racist ways and the far-reaching consequences that imagery had in society.

“It was disturbing to see some of this propaganda that was so influential in dehumanizing various populations,” Pinney said. “The most haunting part of seeing those pieces of propaganda was [realizing] the prevalence of such disturbing racial components and how successful it was.”

Megan Liu, a sophomore in the course, had a similar reaction when viewing the propaganda posters – some of which were up to 4 feet wide.

“Just seeing them in their original state really showcased how effective it can be because it’s very in your face. It’s very loud. And it’s very bold,” Liu said. “It was a completely different experience seeing them at the Hoover Archive than seeing them [reprinted] on a regular piece of paper.”

The course also featured guest speakers, including course assistant Noah Sveiven, a Stanford senior who talked about his honors thesis research investigating the history of primate science at Stanford and SOPF.

SOPF facility, c. 1974. (Image credit: Stanford University; Archives Peninsula-Times Tribune, Stanford University photographs)

The class also took an optional visit to the San Francisco Zoo, which included a poignant moment for the group with Oscar Jonesy, a 43-year-old silverback western lowland gorilla. When he saw the group entering his enclosure, he approached them and watched them – calmly and intensely – until they disappeared from view.

“It was a stare full of meaning and import somehow,” Riskin recalled of the visit. “That encounter with Oscar gave me a pang to think that he’s lived his whole life in captivity.”

Indeed, an unsettling discomfort can emerge when thinking about the treatment and ethical implications of our closest evolutionary counterparts.

It is that proximity that makes primate science controversial, said Riskin.

“All of our uncertainties, anxieties, convictions, and our whole psyche with regard to humans and humaneness comes out in primate research,” Riskin said.

Apes & Us is on view at Hohbach Hall, located on the first floor of the East Wing of the Green Library, until June 2024.

Stanford Global Studies, which is part of H&S, helped fund the course through  a Course Innovation Award  which supports the development of new courses focused on global topics.

• Book Review
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• Published: 18 March 2010

Thirteen Essays on Evolution and Creationism in Modern Debates

Stephen C. Barton and David Wilkinson (eds): Reading Genesis after Darwin. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. pp. xiv + 254. S/b $24.95

• Kim Paffenroth 1  

Evolution: Education and Outreach volume  3 ,  pages 297–299 ( 2010 ) Cite this article

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This anthology consists of 13 essays written by professors trained in biblical studies or theology, writing on the interpretation of Genesis (by which they almost exclusively mean the first chapter of Genesis) since Darwin’s Origin of Species (1859). After a brief Introduction by the editors, the book is then divided into three parts: “Engaging again with the Scriptures,” “Understanding the History,” and “Exploring the Contemporary Relevance.” It includes an index of modern authors and a subject index. References of works cited are included in the notes for each chapter, though a bibliography at the end would’ve been a welcome addition.

Section 1, “Engaging again with the Scriptures,” includes four essays. In “How Should One Read the Early Chapters of Genesis?” Walter Moberly discusses the implications of taking Genesis as “a literary phenomenon.” His conclusion is probably unremarkable to anyone trained in modern, liberal biblical criticism, and it will recur in similar terms in several of the other essays: Moberly challenges us to see in Genesis biblical ideas such as “wonder and delight of the world, creaturely contingency, creaturely responsibility, the gift of relationship between creature and Creator, and the difficulty that humans have in genuinely trusting God as a wise Creator and living accordingly”. I think he is quite correct that this view maintains the text’s meaning and relevance, without insisting on a literal reading of it.

Francis Watson takes the history of controversy much further back, in his essay, “Genesis before Darwin: Why Scripture Needed Liberating from Science.” He traces what he calls the “annexation” of the Bible by astronomy and geology in the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries: harmonization of the biblical account with scientific findings (e.g. the “days as eons” solution) was done to the detriment or obfuscation of both. Darwin put forth his theory with no reference to Genesis, and according to Watson, this shows a more fruitful and beneficial relationship between Genesis and science—separation or liberation from one another.

In “The Six Days of Creation according to the Greek Fathers,” Andrew Louth discusses the interpretation of Genesis by Theophilos of Antioch and Basil. Louth’s conclusions echo Moberly’s, in that he counsels some of the same attitudes toward creation, showing how ancient theologians regarded the created world with “wonder” and “humility” and were convinced of its “interconnectedness”.

In “The Hermeneutics of Reading Genesis after Darwin,” Richard S. Briggs examines the comparison of Genesis with other ancient Near Eastern texts (a method of biblical study that was coming into vogue contemporaneously with Darwin), concluding that the process and implications of such “triangulating” are similar, whether one is comparing Genesis to the Enuma Elish or to Darwin.

Section 2, “Understanding the History,” includes three essays. It starts with John Rogerson’s “What Difference Did Darwin Make?: The Interpretation of Genesis in the Nineteenth Century,” which examines some biblical commentaries published shortly before and shortly after Darwin’s work, to see what effect (if any) it had on their interpretation of the Genesis text. The examination does a good job of showing there was no unanimity among interpreters as to the meaning of Genesis, and a range of interpretations were advocated, both before and after Darwin. Perhaps even more interestingly, even within the group that rejected his theory, interpretations of Genesis often differed.

John Headley Brooke, in “Genesis and the Scientists: Dissonance among the Harmonizers,” returns to some of the scientific controversies already examined in Watson’s essay, concluding similarly that Darwin’s theory may be more amenable to Christianity than attempts at harmonizing Genesis with current scientific theories, since Darwin “purged it [Christianity] of a semi-deistic position”. This is an important distinction for those who would “defend” the Bible, who too often seem to be defending a deistic position that God created the universe and let it go on its own subsequently, rather than defending the idea of a God who wishes to be in communion with humans (the more narrowly biblical concept of God, in either Jewish or Christian interpretation). He also speaks in terms similar to Moberly and Louth, counseling a “nonliteral reading of the text”, and focusing on the text’s primary relevance to “our human existential condition”. David Brown concludes the section with a discussion of some paintings in his essay, “Science and Religion in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Landscape Art.” The most familiar of these to readers is probably Dali’s “The Sacrament of the Last Supper.”

Section 3, “Exploring the Contemporary Relevance,” includes six essays. David Wilkinson’s “Reading Genesis 1-3 in the Light of Modern Science” gives perhaps the fullest summary of the interpretive issues, compared to the other essays in this collection. He puts Darwin in the context of other, sometimes more fundamental and intractable controversies with the Bible; he briefly describes the creationist alternative (pp. 132-135); he traces the various attempts at harmonization, with their pros and cons; and he lays out possible points where Genesis may still speak to the human condition and understanding. Echoing previous essays in the volume, his conclusion is that a primarily literary approach is needed to understand or appreciate the text, and this will yield an interpretation that does not address cosmogonic or biological data, but rather our “unique conscious intimacy with God”.

In “All God’s Creatures: Reading Genesis on Human and Nonhuman Animals,” David Clough argues that in light of evolution (and other observations of animal consciousness and rationality), Christians should abandon anthropocentric readings of Genesis (what he calls “human-separatist” readings throughout). Jeff Astley argues in “Evolution and Evil: The Difference Darwinism Makes in Theology and Spirituality” that evolution exacerbates the problems of theodicy by making suffering (and large amounts of it) intrinsic to creation.

In “’Male and Female He Created Them’ (Genesis 1:27): Interpreting Gender after Darwin,” Stephen C. Barton examines constructions of gender in the classical world, in the Bible, and in subsequent biblical interpretation, contrasting these with modern and postmodern analyses. Ellen F. Davis looks at how organisms fit into their environment in her essay, “Propriety and Trespass: The Drama of Eating,” drawing some conclusions for our current environmental situation and its (un)sustainability. Finally, Mathew Guest’s essay, “The Plausibility of Creationism: A Sociological Comment,” examines the current popularity of creationism in the USA (and to a much lesser degree in the UK), suggesting some sociological forces that may contribute to its acceptance, despite its logical or factual shortcomings.

Although I was excited when I first began reading this volume, this wore off in the course of study. I would single out three essays for praise. Moberly’s is a very helpful look at how believers could still maintain the importance and sacredness of the biblical text, without interpreting it literally. Rogerson’s is a wonderful and suggestive illustration of how Christian belief and interpretation are never monolithic, and never a matter of “good guys” versus “bad guys.” Wilkinson’s is a thorough and accessible discussion of the issues at stake. But overall, I was struck by how little the book deals with Darwin: it could be entitled “Reading Genesis in the Modern World” with little loss of focus. Several of the essays make only the barest nod toward Darwin before moving on to some topic only tangential to his work. The suggestions for the future interpretation of Genesis (literary criticism, a reading that encourages a sense of wonder and humility, the acknowledgment of human incompleteness and contingency, etc.), while sober and encouraging, are repeated by several contributors without much expansion or specificity (Moberly, Louth, Brooke, Wilkinson); such heuristic suggestions are also commonplace in biblical studies, so I found little new here that couldn’t be found in many introductory classes or texts on Genesis.

Several essays were much more deficient, in my estimation. Briggs’s idea that comparing Genesis to other, contemporaneous myths, and comparing it to a scientific treatise written 2,500 years later, are somehow similar comparisons, and the two interpretive acts can shed light on one another, struck me as odd, if not misleading. It overlooks the more fundamental difference in genre: comparing Genesis to other myths (contemporary with it or not) is probably more helpful to understanding it, than comparing it to scientific writings (from whatever time period, though especially a work that eschews teleological questions, and therefore has a completely different outlook than Genesis). Brown’s essay has little to do with the topic of this collection and barely mentions Darwin or Genesis: its observations would make a fine beginning to a chat about “art and spirituality,” but it has no place here. Clough’s essay doesn’t deal with “stewardship,” which many interpreters today would see as the crucial way to understand the biblical teaching on how humans differ from, and yet are immersed in, the created order. Neither Clough’s nor Barton’s essay deals with the differences between Genesis 1 and 2, again a crucial interpretive issue for understanding the text’s ambiguities (and discrepancies) on anthropocentrism and gender.

I say all this from the perspective of a biblical scholar of a decidedly liberal Protestant bent, for whom these issues are well-worn. Perhaps if I try to step outside of this context (and many of the essays in this collection properly remind us of how much context determines meaning), I might better see where some of these essays could fit into a useful discussion. I’d say that for someone who thinks (as many of my atheist and agnostic friends do) that all Christians are creationists, that all Christians immediately opposed Darwin’s ideas and continue to do so today, or that there is only one way to interpret Genesis—for a reader with such impressions, the better written, more thorough of these essays would prove enlightening, and might promote a dialogue that goes beyond secularists versus Biblicists, those who would discard the text versus those who cling to a literal interpretation of it. Such a dialogue might even become a mutual search for truth, conducted with real exchange, understanding, and respect.

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Creationism vs. Evolution

Creationism or Intelligent Design is the belief that life and the universe were created by a supernatural being (an "intelligent designer"), an omnipotent, benevolent God. Evolution is the process by which different kinds of living organisms developed and diversified from earlier forms during the history of the Earth. The theory of evolution purports that life on earth evolved from one universal common ancestor about 3.8 billion years ago. It is a "theory" in the scientific sense of the word , which means it is supported by evidence and accepted as fact by the scientific community. The intelligent design hypothesis is not supported by evidence. Since 1929, the term “creationism” in the US has been associated with Christian fundamentalism, and specifically with a disbelief in evolution and a belief in a young earth .

Comparison chart

The points of view.

Evolutionary theory holds that living organisms that do not adapt to their environment fail to survive. Genetic variations are introduced in species through random DNA mutation. These mutations manifest themselves in different phenotypes , or physical characteristics, in living organisms. Organisms whose characteristics are better suited for the surrounding environment survive and reproduce, passing on their mutated DNA to subsequent generations. This is often called "survival of the fittest", and it is not a random process. As the surviving organisms reproduce, and this process repeats over several generations, the species evolves.

There are many flavors of the creationist worldview. Young Earth Creationism and Gap Creationism believe that humanity was created by God, but while Young Earth Creationism claims the Earth is less than 10,000 years old and was reshaped by the flood, Gap Creationism claims the world is the scientifically accepted age. Progressive creationism believes humanity was directly created by God, based on primate anatomy , while intelligent design and theistic evolution include a variety of beliefs based on the idea that divine intervention led to something that may appear like evolution.

Types of evolution

Divergent evolution occurs when one species separates into two species, for example if they become separated geographically and have to adapt to different environments to survive. Parallel evolution, on the other hand, occurs when two or more species develop similar traits, such as growing wings, to survive the same environment. Finally, convergent evolution occurs when two or more species develop similar traits in different environments.

The Evidence

Evolution relies on evidence from fossil records, similarities between life forms, the geographic distribution of species, and recorded changes in species. Since the 1920s, for example, hundreds of fossils have been found of creatures in the intermediate stages between monkeys, apes, and humans , and fossil records in general suggest that multi-celled organisms only appeared after single-celled ones, and that complex animals were preceded by simpler ones. Geographic evidence includes the fact that, before humans arrived in Australia 60-40,000 years ago, the country had more than 100 species of kangaroo , koalas and marsupials, but no placental land mammals like dogs, cats , bears and horses. Islands like Hawaii and New Zealand also lacked these mammals, and had plant, insect and bird species not found elsewhere on Earth.

Creationism is typically based on a literal interpretation of the Book of Genesis in the Bible . Supporters of Intelligent Design argue that either God created the conditions for evolution or point to patterns occuring in nature as evidence that the universe is not random but created by an intelligent being.

Here is a video of a debate between evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins and cardinal George Pell , a Catholic priest. They discuss evolution, creation, Adam and Eve and the first humans, as well as the existence of God. A question specifically about evolution is at around 28:40.

A basic tenet of science is the scientific method , which states that

To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning.

This mans that scientific hypotheses must be testable. Critics of intelligent design argue that the creationist hypothesis is not testable i.e., the existence of God cannot be proved . Although science cannot test issues of faith, scientific studies have disproved many elements of Creationism, including the age of the Earth , its geological history , and the relationships of living organisms. Anthropology , geology and planetary science reveal that the Earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old, disputing Creationist claims that the Earth was created 6000 years ago. Creationism has also been criticized by several religious organizations , as they maintain that the Christian faith does not conflict with the science of evolution.

Many Creationists argue that evolution is a “theory” and not fact and so should be taught as such. However, this is based on a misunderstanding of the scientific use of “theory,” which does not mean “possibility,” as it does in common usage, but “a scientifically acceptable general principle to explain phenomena.” Creationists also claim that supernatural explanations should not be excluded, and accuse of evolution of also being a religion , not a science. Creationism also criticizes the idea of “common descent” – the theory that creatures with similarities in their genes must have evolved from a common ancestor -- by arguing that such similarities suggest that the creatures shared a common designer, aka God .

Contemporary beliefs

According to a Gallup poll, 46% of US citizens believed in creationism in 2012, including 52% of those with only a high-school education or less and 25% of those with post graduate education. 25% of those who do not attend church believe in creationism, while 67% of those who attend church weekly believe. Outside of the US, most contemporary Christian leaders believe that Genesis is allegorical and support evolution.

Notable supporters of Evolution

Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins is a notable and vociferous critic of creationism.

The Catholic church 's unofficial position is an example of theistic evolution, also known as evolutionary creation, stating that faith and scientific findings regarding human evolution are not in conflict. Moreover, the Church teaches that the process of evolution is a planned and purpose-driven natural process, guided by God. Catholics regard the creation descriptions in the Bible as parables written to provide moral instruction rather than as literal history, and therefore see no conflict between these accounts and the Theory of Evolution. The Church has deferred to scientists on matters such as the age of the earth and the authenticity of the fossil record. Papal pronouncements, along with commentaries by cardinals, have accepted the findings of scientists on the gradual appearance of life. The Church's stance is that any such gradual appearance must have been guided in some way by God, but the Church has thus far declined to define in what way that may be. [1]

Notable supporters of Creationism

Many Protestant, and particularly Evangelical, churches, on the other hand, reject Evolution in favor of a literal, rather than figurative, interpretation of the book of Genesis. However, it is typically not specified which version of the creation account is being considered divinely inspired and hence "literally true". This is problematic since there are two such accounts in the Bible (Gen1:1 - Gen2:3 vs. Gen2:4 - Gen50:26) , and they contradict each other in numerous ways. For instance, order in which Adam vs. the Beasts were created differs [2] [3] between the two accounts.

• The Evidence of Evolution
• Wikipedia:Creationism
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• Wikipedia:Creation-evolution controversy

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Anonymous comments (4).

April 12, 2013, 7:40pm Intelligent Design is not testable. Any conceivable evidence that could be gathered for a theory other than Intelligent Design could be claimed to be evidence for Intelligent Design as well, by just claiming that "for reasons unknown to us, the designer chose to design it that way". Likewise, any evidence against Intelligent Design could likewise be dismissed with a similar claim. There is no experiment that could be created, even in principle, that could prove definitively that Intelligent Design is false, since an intelligent designer might have anticipated the experiment and manipulated the results to pass the test. Therefore, Intelligent Design fails the "falsifiability" criteria which are required for a scientific hypothesis or theory. Furthermore, proponents of Intelligent Design have tended to focus their arguments on attacking Evolutionary Theory rather than on demonstrating via experiment the truth of their own claims, essentially relying on the "false dualism" argument that if Evolution were false (which has not been demonstrated), then Intelligent Design must therefore be true, and ignoring the possibility that other theories could exist as well. — 67.✗.✗.30

November 28, 2013, 6:56pm When you actually take the time to study the 2 it becomes obvious to any rational thinking person comes to the clear conclusion that Evolution by Natural Selection is a factual factor of life here on Earth regardless of the existence or non-existence of any supernatural being. But still I feel like this comparison has been slightly unfair in that it doesn't take into account that there is a difference between Creationism and Intelligent Design. Personally I find both of them a bit fictitious since they both operate under the assumption that a designer is required for any piece of the puzzle but at least ID takes reality into consideration even if those who employ it clearly don't have a full understanding of just how much mankind knows about these things in the modern day. Everything in the known universe thus far has been quantifiable and reducible, even the eye which creationists have constantly claimed cannot possibly be. Anyone who's spent a considerable amount of time watching both sides will also notice that much of the time those on the religious side of things tend to argue about things like the Big Bang when at some point in the conversation it becomes clear they don't even know what the Big Bang actually was. In the end it comes down to faith vs fact. There's enough faith to go around today and facts can't be refuted by anything other than contrary facts, which faith cannot provide if it refuses to enter the realm of tangible reality. If any actual evidence was found proving any deity's existence then science will be the first to jump on the band-wagon because science is the search for truth. We're still waiting. — 68.✗.✗.119

March 20, 2013, 6:37pm "Intelligent" design is not testable. That's because it is a fantasy. Fact. — 62.✗.✗.133

March 17, 2013, 5:30pm Who wrote this nonsense? Intelligent design is very different from creationism, with the only similarity being that they both posit at least some involvement of a creator (thought ID makes no assumptions about its identity or characteristics other than intelligence) in life and/or the universe. That's where the similarity starts and ends. Beyond that, intelligent design is an evidence-based, testable scientific theory. Anything but a "biblical version of truth". I suggest some honest reading up on ID, and keeping this article to actual Creationism. Additionally, the author's understanding of testability and how both evolution and ID hold up to the notion seems shaky at best. Suggested homework in this regard: http://www.arn.org/docs/dembski/wd_isidtestable.htm — 198.✗.✗.50

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Should We Change Species to Save Them?

When traditional conservation fails, science is using “assisted evolution” to give vulnerable wildlife a chance.

Credit... Photo illustration by Lauren Peters-Collaer

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By Emily Anthes

Photographs by Chang W. Lee

This story is part of a series on wildlife conservation in Australia, which Emily Anthes reported from New York and Australia, with Chang W. Lee.

• Published April 14, 2024 Updated April 16, 2024, 12:01 p.m. ET

For tens of millions of years, Australia has been a playground for evolution, and the land Down Under lays claim to some of the most remarkable creatures on Earth.

It is the birthplace of songbirds, the land of egg-laying mammals and the world capital of pouch-bearing marsupials, a group that encompasses far more than just koalas and kangaroos. (Behold the bilby and the bettong!) Nearly half of the continent’s birds and roughly 90 percent of its mammals, reptiles and frogs are found nowhere else on the planet.

Australia has also become a case study in what happens when people push biodiversity to the brink. Habitat degradation, invasive species, infectious diseases and climate change have put many native animals in jeopardy and given Australia one of the worst rates of species loss in the world.

In some cases, scientists say, the threats are so intractable that the only way to protect Australia’s unique animals is to change them. Using a variety of techniques, including crossbreeding and gene editing, scientists are altering the genomes of vulnerable animals, hoping to arm them with the traits they need to survive.

“We’re looking at how we can assist evolution,” said Anthony Waddle, a conservation biologist at Macquarie University in Sydney.

It is an audacious concept, one that challenges a fundamental conservation impulse to preserve wild creatures as they are. But in this human-dominated age — in which Australia is simply at the leading edge of a global biodiversity crisis — the traditional conservation playbook may no longer be enough, some scientists said.

“We’re searching for solutions in an altered world,” said Dan Harley, a senior ecologist at Zoos Victoria. “We need to take risks. We need to be bolder.”

The extinction vortex

The helmeted honeyeater is a bird that demands to be noticed, with a patch of electric-yellow feathers on its forehead and a habit of squawking loudly as it zips through the dense swamp forests of the state of Victoria. But over the last few centuries, humans and wildfires damaged or destroyed these forests, and by 1989, just 50 helmeted honeyeaters remained, clinging to a tiny sliver of swamp at the Yellingbo Nature Conservation Reserve.

Intensive local conservation efforts, including a captive breeding program at Healesville Sanctuary, a Zoos Victoria park, helped the birds hang on. But there was very little genetic diversity among the remaining birds — a problem common in endangered animal populations — and breeding inevitably meant inbreeding. “They have very few options for making good mating decisions,” said Paul Sunnucks, a wildlife geneticist at Monash University in Melbourne.

In any small, closed breeding pool, harmful genetic mutations can build up over time, damaging animals’ health and reproductive success, and inbreeding exacerbates the problem. The helmeted honeyeater was an especially extreme case. The most inbred birds left one-tenth as many offspring as the least inbred ones, and the females had life spans that were half as long, Dr. Sunnucks and his colleagues found.

Without some kind of intervention, the helmeted honeyeater could be pulled into an “extinction vortex,” said Alexandra Pavlova, an evolutionary ecologist at Monash. “It became clear that something new needs to be done.”

A decade ago, Dr. Pavlova, Dr. Sunnucks and several other experts suggested an intervention known as genetic rescue , proposing to add some Gippsland yellow-tufted honeyeaters and their fresh DNA to the breeding pool.

The helmeted and Gippsland honeyeaters are members of the same species, but they are genetically distinct subspecies that have been evolving away from each other for roughly the last 56,000 years. The Gippsland birds live in drier, more open forests and are missing the pronounced feather crown that gives helmeted honeyeaters their name.

Genetic rescue was not a novel idea. In one widely cited success, scientists revived the tiny, inbred panther population of Florida by importing wild panthers from a separate population from Texas.

But the approach violates the traditional conservation tenet that unique biological populations are sacrosanct, to be kept separate and genetically pure. “It really is a paradigm shift,” said Sarah Fitzpatrick, an evolutionary ecologist at Michigan State University who found that genetic rescue is underused in the United States.

Crossing the two types of honeyeaters risked muddying what made each subspecies unique and creating hybrids that were not well suited for either niche. Moving animals between populations can also spread disease, create new invasive populations or destabilize ecosystems in unpredictable ways.

Genetic rescue is also a form of active human meddling that violates what some scholars refer to as conservation’s “ ethos of restraint ” and has sometimes been critiqued as a form of playing God.

“There was a lot of angst among government agencies around doing it,” said Andrew Weeks, an ecological geneticist at the University of Melbourne who began a genetic rescue of the endangered mountain pygmy possum in 2010. “It was only really the idea that the population was about to go extinct that I guess gave government agencies the nudge.”

Dr. Sunnucks and his colleagues made the same calculation, arguing that the risks associated with genetic rescue were small — before the birds’ habitats were carved up and degraded, the two subspecies did occasionally interbreed in the wild — and paled in comparison with the risks of doing nothing.

And so, since 2017, Gippsland birds have been part of the helmeted honeyeater breeding program at Healesville Sanctuary. In captivity there have been real benefits, with many mixed pairs producing more independent chicks per nest than pairs composed of two helmeted honeyeaters. Dozens of hybrid honeyeaters have now been released into the wild. They seem to be faring well, but it is too soon to say whether they have a fitness advantage.

Monash and Zoos Victoria experts are also working on the genetic rescue of other species, including the critically endangered Leadbeater’s possum, a tiny, tree-dwelling marsupial known as the forest fairy. The lowland population of the possum shares the Yellingbo swamps with the helmeted honeyeater; in 2023, just 34 lowland possums remained . The first genetic rescue joey was born at Healesville Sanctuary last month.

The scientists hope that boosting genetic diversity will make these populations more resilient in the face of whatever unknown dangers might arise, increasing the odds that some individuals possess the traits needed to survive. “Genetic diversity is your blueprint for how you contend with the future,” Dr. Harley of Zoos Victoria said.

Targeting threats

For the northern quoll, a small marsupial predator, the existential threat arrived nearly a century ago, when the invasive, poisonous cane toad landed in eastern Australia. Since then, the toxic toads have marched steadily westward — and wiped out entire populations of quolls, which eat the alien amphibians.

But some of the surviving quoll populations in eastern Australia seem to have evolved a distaste for toads . When scientists crossed toad-averse quolls with toad-naive quolls, the hybrid offspring also turned up their tiny pink noses at the toxic amphibians.

What if scientists moved some toad-avoidant quolls to the west, allowing them to spread their discriminating genes before the cane toads arrived? “You’re essentially using natural selection and evolution to achieve your goals, which means that the problem gets solved quite thoroughly and permanently,” said Ben Phillips, a population biologist at Curtin University in Perth who led the research.

A field test, however, demonstrated how unpredictable nature can be. In 2017, Dr. Phillips and his colleagues released a mixed population of northern quolls on a tiny, toad-infested island. Some quolls did interbreed , and there was preliminary evidence of natural selection for “toad-smart” genes.

But the population was not yet fully adapted to toads, and some quolls ate the amphibians and died, Dr. Phillips said. A large wildfire also broke out on the island. Then, a cyclone hit. “ All of these things conspired to send our experimental population extinct,” Dr. Phillips said. The scientists did not have enough funding to try again, but “all the science lined up,” he added.

Advancing science could make future efforts even more targeted. In 2015, for instance, scientists created more heat-resistant coral by crossbreeding colonies from different latitudes . In a proof-of-concept study from 2020, researchers used the gene-editing tool known as CRISPR to directly alter a gene involved in heat tolerance.

CRISPR will not be a practical, real-world solution anytime soon, said Line Bay, a biologist at the Australian Institute of Marine Science who was an author of both studies. “Understanding the benefits and risks is really complex,” she said. “And this idea of meddling with nature is quite confronting to people.”

But there is growing interest in the biotechnological approach. Dr. Waddle hopes to use the tools of synthetic biology, including CRISPR, to engineer frogs that are resistant to the chytrid fungus, which causes a fatal disease that has already contributed to the extinction of at least 90 amphibian species.

The fungus is so difficult to eradicate that some vulnerable species can no longer live in the wild. “So either they live in glass boxes forever,” Dr. Waddle said, “or we come up with solutions where we can get them back in nature and thriving.”

Unintended consequences

Still, no matter how sophisticated the technology becomes, organisms and ecosystems will remain complex. Genetic interventions are “likely to have some unintended impacts,” said Tiffany Kosch, a conservation geneticist at the University of Melbourne who is also hoping to create chytrid-resistant frogs . A genetic variant that helps frogs survive chytrid might make them more susceptible to another health problem , she said.

There are plenty of cautionary tales, efforts to re-engineer nature that have backfired spectacularly. The toxic cane toads, in fact, were set loose in Australia deliberately, in what would turn out to be a deeply misguided attempt to control pest beetles.

But some environmental groups and experts are uneasy about genetic approaches for other reasons, too. “Focusing on intensive intervention in specific species can be a distraction,” said Cam Walker, a spokesman for Friends of the Earth Australia. Staving off the extinction crisis will require broader, landscape-level solutions such as halting habitat loss, he said.

Moreover, animals are autonomous beings, and any intervention into their lives or genomes must have “a very strong ethical and moral justification” — a bar that even many traditional conservation projects do not clear, said Adam Cardilini, an environmental scientist at Deakin University in Victoria.

Chris Lean, a philosopher of biology at Macquarie University, said he believed in the fundamental conservation goal of “preserving the world as it is for its heritage value, for its ability to tell the story of life on Earth.” Still, he said he supported the cautious, limited use of new genomic tools, which may require us to reconsider some longstanding environmental values.

In some ways, assisted evolution is an argument — or, perhaps, an acknowledgment — that there is no stepping back, no future in which humans do not profoundly shape the lives and fates of wild creatures.

To Dr. Harley, it has become clear that preventing more extinctions will require human intervention, innovation and effort. “Let’s lean into that, not be daunted by it,” he said. “My view is that 50 years from now, biologists and wildlife managers will look back at us and say, ‘Why didn’t they take the steps and the opportunities when they had the chance?’”

Emily Anthes is a science reporter, writing primarily about animal health and science. She also covered the coronavirus pandemic. More about Emily Anthes

Chang W. Lee has been a photographer for The Times for 30 years, covering events throughout the world. He is currently based in Seoul. Follow him on Instagram @nytchangster . More about Chang W. Lee

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