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Kenya: Grandma's Reserve Evolution Theory
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The Nation (Nairobi)
OPINION
27 September 2007
Posted to the web 27 September 2007
Okiya Omtatah Okoiti
Nairobi
FIRST CAME THE REPORTS, complete with TV footage, from Kabete that monkeys in the area deride women. Then came the news that following a chance discovery of fossils seven years ago in Turkana by Dr Frederick Manthi, and his subsequent studies, science now challenges the popular version of the theory of evolution, reducing it to yet another creation myth.
When I was a little boy, my grandmother, who has since died, would take me along to her maize plantation because the baboons and monkeys that raided her crops, especially the big male troop leaders, always defied her whenever she tried to chase them away from her farm
But the sight of a little boy by her side would send them scampering for cover.
My grandmother, a great storyteller who taught me the art, would tell me how humans are closely related to monkeys and baboons. But in her order of things, the relationship was the complete reverse of the Darwinian, namely that they degenerated from humans not the other way round. Here's how the story goes:
A long, long time ago, longer than any living person could fathom, there were no monkeys or baboons in the world. Then some human beings refused to work their farms and went off into the bush to seek freebies. As years passed, they gradually became hairy as they degenerated into wild animals. They lost all human traits, among them walking upright, speech, wearing clothes, using tools and fire, and living in houses.
What was most fascinating about my grandmother's reverse evolution theory was that she was able to "demonstrate" that beyond looks, or mere physical similarities, there was a discernible lingering memory, some consciousness, among the primates about their days as humans.
Key among these was how they feared men but derided women like humans do. Can palaeontologists demonstrate any institutional memory human beings have of our primate days?
Stories of how things began are common to all peoples. As a species, we thrive on the story. And we continue to generate new stories that generate new meanings of the world, unable to make common sense of all the senses.
Scholars studying ancient creation myths from around the world have observed that what feels like a random bombardment of infinite stories, is really a handful of calculable tales told by an infinite number of storytellers.
Darwin's theory of evolution is not an exception. Its major observations have been a common theme in ancient creation myths, including the Judeo-Christian and Iroquois versions of the first male and female. In the book, Darwin's Dangerous Ideas, Daniel Dennett argues that the fact that species share homologies is an argument for evolution, for if they had been created separately, there would be no reason why they should show similarities.
The same argument can be used to support the evolution of stories. Why else would stories share homologies?
Water, chaos, and a single source of creation are all so common themes in creation myths that it is hard to believe the stories developed independently.
The authorship of these creation myths is collectively shared by hundreds of cultures, including the Darwinian culture. Hence, it appears that the belief that all living things potentially originated from a single source preceded Darwin by a few thousand years.
There is a psychological view of mythology that believes that myths are products of the human psyche and are, therefore, universal to all human beings. And the reason for their similarity is not a product of chance. Something inherent within us forces us to think certain things and make certain observations.
I leave it to my grandmother to debate Darwin and come up with something more convincing.
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Mr Okoiti is a playwright and businessman
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