Adam's Grim Progress
'With regard to early hominids, Australopithecus was in the ape pattern and H. habilis (KNM-ER 1470) the human . . .
'Modern humans form a highly variable species. Homo erectus is similarly marked by appreciable regional variability, and I believe such polytypy is there at the level of homo habilis. It is a feature that was made possible by man's culture. Our speciation and evolution are different from most other species by virtue of the cultural dimension. This has enabled us to diversify all over the world without speciating, unlike other creatures.' Tobias, P.V., The Brain of the First Hominids. In J.-P. Changeux & J. Chevaillon (eds.) Origins of the Human Brain, (Clarendon Press, Oxford), 1995, pp/60-61, 83
'Yahweh God said, 'It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him a helpmate.' So from the soil Yahweh God fashioned all the wild beasts and all the birds of heaven. These he brought to the man to see what he would call them . . .' Genesis: 2:18-20 (Jerusalem Bible) (Darton, Longman and Todd, 1968)
God gave him to the earth to serve primal forces,
Habile, but unable in naming his pets
To live up to the ideals of the Golden Age myth
That earmarked him for failure two million years later
And for investiture with an ape's inflationary brain.
But with a workshop in his head and words in his heart
Adam could have designed him or called him like Tarzan,
Naming him 'Cheetah', that australopithecine!
Nature was the tyrant of his fate. Small wonder
She let him think that the ground was accursed,
Where God might have walked in a swirl of leaves,
The moment he asked why rights and duties,
Blown in, should root his moral judgments,
When the Tree of Life grew up to bring