It’s thought that the earliest inhabitants of what we now call North America crossed a land bridge from Asia about 11,000 years ago. Now some footprints have been found in Mexico which date back 30,000 years earlier. Controversy is sure to follow.
Science magazine celebrates its 125th anniversary with 125 big questions scientists are trying to answer. Samples:
- What Is the Universe Made Of?
- What is the Biological Basis of Consciousness?
- Why Do Humans Have So Few Genes?
- To What Extent Are Genetic Variation and Personal Health Linked?
- How Much Can Human Life Span Be Extended?
- How Does Earth’s Interior Work?
- Are We Alone in the Universe?
Each question at that page has a link to further discussion. I look forward to the answers.
Update: Not to throw wet blankets at all that interesting stuff, but Chris Mooney has a distressing article about one Congressman’s attempt to intimidate a scientist.
Interesting article in this month’s Harper’s about the efforts to prove that the orginal settlers of this continent were Caucasoid (read white European) whose land was taken from them by the invading ancestors of the what we now call native Americans.
And does anyone still think “Science” is objective?
Science is objective, it’s its practitioners who are subject to all the usual human foibles. đ
dee’s post brings to mind that the history of human migrations is long indeed.
Aboriginal claims to the land often ignore what took place before their favored group took “possession” of the land. Often, there were others that they displaced, either by conquest, absorption, or superior competition for resources.
Well, here in NJ, the favored group that is taking over possession of our land are Mexicans and Brazilians.
No one has to carbon date the footprints either. Just look in the kitchens of restaurants and the emergency rooms in hospitals…
Aside from that:
I remember a story on “60 minutes” a few years ago. It was about a Native Indian population in New York that had a reservation in that area. Scientists found skeletal remains of a human body several thousand of years old. The Indians refused to have the bones examined by the Scientists. “60 minutes” had “hinted” that perhaps the bones would reveal the body of not an Indian but perhaps an even earlier inhabitant of the land. The skeleton has never been examined, because it was on Indian property-and I don’t know what happened after that…