How did life on earth and humans come from? Human ancestors did not think about this issue only after the scientific and technological era began. In fact, the ancestors of human beings also thought about it in the distant ancient times. It is just that the ancestors of human beings in ancient times did not have scientific guidance. They are all very strange.
Coupled with the mystery of the power of nature, ancient humans gave the attributes of gods to life and the origin of mankind, and believed that gods created all things, life and mankind. Therefore, in the 5,000-plus years of human civilization, at least 4,000 years belonged to the era of church rule. In ancient times, the emperor was aloof, and he was the supreme ruler on the bright side. But in fact, there is a ruler above the emperor, that is The church that has been given the attributes of God.
In ancient times, theological thinking was the absolute mainstream. You can question everything but not God, otherwise you will be labeled as rebellious and hated by a large number of people. With the continuous development of human civilization, industries began to sprout in the Western world hundreds of years ago, and scientific thinking also appeared.
Under the guidance of science, some people questioned theology and began to use science to explain everything in the world. Regarding the origin of life, in the middle of the 18th century, a biologist appeared in Britain, and he was Darwin. Darwin is a firm scientific thinker. After decades of research and exploration, he discovered that there is a connection between species and species, so he proposed the “Evolution Theory” which has a far-reaching impact on later generations.
The theory of evolution tells us that life on earth was not created by God, but early simple life evolved from organic matter in the earth’s ecological environment. After a long period of time, simple life evolves step by step to give birth to more complex and advanced life. Of creatures. Humans also evolved from ancient apes.
Scientists have never doubted the correctness of the theory of evolution. With the continuous development of science and technology, scientists have not only confirmed the correctness of the theory of evolution, but also continuously improved the theory of evolution through a large number of research and explorations. They have become the saint of human research on the mysteries of life. Code.
Although the theory of evolution has a very high status in the scientific community, not everything described in the theory of evolution has the support of scientists. Some are still questioned by scientists, especially on the origin of mankind.
According to the description of the theory of evolution, humans evolved from ancient apes 700-800 years ago, and ancient apes evolved into Australopithecus, about 4 to 1 million years ago. Later, the ancient ancient ape evolved into ape-man, living 1.7-200,000 years ago, and finally evolved into Homo sapiens, about 200-100,000 years ago, and Homo sapiens is the ancestor of modern humans.
The above evolutionary timetable from ancient apes to modern humans is not too problematic. This is the result of a large number of archaeological studies discovered by scientists. If a careful friend will find that there is a huge blank period in this timetable, that is, the evolution from ancient apes to australopithecus. This is a blank period of several million years. Scientists have not found this. Any transitional fossils in the blank period.
This blank period is an important node in the evolution of ancient apes to apes, and an important period in the evolutionary history of human beings. During this long period of time, it is not very strange that no fossils related to humans can be found? It also shows that the origin of mankind may not be as simple as we thought, and there may be other changes.
What will happen to this blank period? Scientists also proposed two conjectures. The first conjecture is the “water ape hypothesis”. This is a subversive cognition conjecture proposed by marine biologist Alister Hardy in 1960: the direct ancestors of humans may come from In the ocean.
Such a guess is not a random guess, but a guess proposed by geologists after constant research. Geologists have discovered that between 8 to 4 million years ago, due to the warming of the earth’s climate, large-scale glaciers melted, causing sea levels to rise sharply and submerging a large amount of land, including the African continent, where humans originated.
Even if millions of years have passed, we can find some answers in the geological structure due to the melting of glaciers caused by such climate change. Therefore, the research findings of geologists are basically correct. There was a high probability that such a flood happened millions of years ago.
After the African continent was submerged by floods, the ancient apes living there had to live in the water if they wanted to survive. It can be seen how uneasy the evolutionary evolution of human ancestors is. First, because of the drastic reduction of forests due to climate change, they can only move from forests to plains to live, starting the path of intelligent evolutionary evolution. Later, the climate changed again, and the sea level rose sharply and flooded a large amount of land, again being forced to live in the water from the plains.
The underwater environment is very different from the terrestrial environment. If you live in the water for a long time, the evolutionary evolution of the ancient apes will inevitably undergo great changes. This is a structure of natural selection. No matter what kind of organisms, their evolutionary direction is determined by nature. If the environment of nature changes, then the evolutionary direction of organisms will also change accordingly.
With the passage of time, the Earth’s climate changed again, the Great Ice Age reappeared, the sea gradually receded, and the submerged land reappeared. The water apes living in the water returned to the land again, continuing the evolutionary path behind them, and finally evolving Became a Homo sapiens. Is there any scientific basis for such a speculation? of course.
Scientists put forward the “water ape hypothesis”. In addition to some discoveries made by geologists, there is also the evolution of aquatic creatures based on the characteristics of the human body. We know that humans and chimpanzees share a common ancient ancestor, and the genetic similarity between the two reaches 98.77%.
However, there is only 1.23% genetic difference, which makes humans and chimpanzees different in appearance characteristics. The most obvious external difference is hair. Chimpanzees are covered with hair, while humans are very clean except for hair and eyebrows. why is that?
For the reason that humans don’t have any hair, some scientists once believed that the ancient ancestors of humans walked upright for a long time, needed to run fast to hunt, and needed to dissipate a lot of heat from the body, so as to continuously evolve the hair on the body. Although there is some truth to this explanation, scientists still propose another possibility, that is, the living environment has undergone tremendous changes.
We all know that marine organisms basically have no body hair. The reason for this is that thick body hair increases the resistance when flowing in the water. Therefore, during the evolution of marine organisms, body hair has evolved. If the ancient apes lived in the water for a long period of time millions of years ago, it would be normal to evolve long hairs on the body.
The reason why small areas of hair such as hair, eyebrows and beards are left is because there are fragile mucosal tissues underneath these hairs, and keeping the hairs in these areas can play a protective role. In addition, there is a special and essential fatty acid in the human body-“omega-3”. This fatty acid is usually only found in aquatic organisms, and there are almost no terrestrial organisms except humans.
These characteristics of human beings are very similar to those of aquatic creatures. Therefore, the “Water Ape Theory” is not a complete guess, but there is a certain basis. Of course, this conjecture has not been recognized by the mainstream at present, and if it is to be accepted by people, more evidence needs to be found.
And another conjecture about the origin of mankind is even more subverting people’s cognition. This conjecture is the creation of alien civilization. After Fermi put forward the “Fermi Paradox”, the “zoo hypothesis” became a hot topic for a while. Some people think that the earth or the entire solar system may be a biological laboratory set up by an alien civilization, and humans are the “guinea pigs” in this laboratory. Although such a conjecture is incredible, it does not mean that it is impossible.
You must know that the power of science is powerful, and when science develops to a certain level, it is inevitable to crack the mysteries of life. After understanding the mysteries of life, it is not difficult to change genes and change the direction of evolution of life. Some scientists believe that it is possible that an extraterrestrial civilization came to the earth millions of years ago, and then genetically modified some ancient apes, changing their evolutionary direction and embarking on the path of intelligent evolution.
Of course, this is still only a conjecture of people. Regarding the origin of mankind, the mainstream view is still the evolutionary theory of ancient apes. If you want to break this point of view, you need to find more evidence, and these evidences are on the small planet of the earth, which may be deep underground or deep in the ocean. I believe that with the continuous advancement of human technology, the area we can explore will become wider and wider. At that time, we may find more disruptive evidence.