Understanding Early Man : Scientific Discovery vs. Emotionally Driven Hypothesis

Understanding Early Man : Scientific Discovery vs. Emotionally Driven Hypothesis

The ways in which we attempt to determine the history of early man say much more about who we are today, and who we will be tomorrow, and who we want to be today, and who we want to be tomorrow, than they do about who we were in the past. This statement comes from a person who knows little about science, and less about the specific scientific techniques used in archeological excavation and analysis. But it seems to me that much of the observations that are made in the study of early man are predicated as much on new theory as they are on old observation, and much of the old observation seems to be based on how humans act now, rather than in the past.

For instance, an entire new field of study known as "Evolutionary Psychology" is based on the premise that we can understand who we are today based on how we have evolved, and what we have evolved from. Evolution, is more or less a proven fact, analogous to gravity, it is a theory that we have used to understand countless other phenomena in the world around us. But there is no theory about how early man behaved, how he evolved, or even, what he looked like, that comes even close to being as widely accepted. In other words, this new field of study is based on science that does not yet exist, and might not ever exist, and the thinking behind it is similar to thinking behind the study of early man. Evolutionary psychologists use things we don't know about who we were then to try and understand who we are now, and anthropologists use things we don't know about who we are now to try and understand who we were then.

Our debates about these early human ancestors echo our debates about our present and our modern history to such a degree, that in some ways, this echo seems to cast doubts on the entire process of examination.A great debate in history departments around the world who study the Twentieth Century concerns what is known as the "Great Man Theory." This theory supposes that the major events, and major social changes, of the past century were due more to the actions of a handful of men and women (usually those in positions of great power, or those who made important scientific discoveries) rather than to the actions of the majority.