Garden Party: From Genesis to The Descent of Man
Good. Evening i'm homi, Bhabha and it's my great pleasure to welcome you to this. Fascinating. Event on origin. Stories, and my thanks, to. Our remarkable, group of speakers Stephen, Greenblatt is John Koch and University professor, of humanities at, Harvard, his. Most recent book is the rise and fall of Adam of Adam and Eve his. Previous book the swerve won the Pulitzer, Prize in 2012. And the, 2011. National. Book Award for nonfiction. Kimberly. Patton is professor of the comparative, and historical, study of religion, at the Harvard Divinity School. She. Specializes. In ancient Greek religion and archeology with research, interests, in archaic, sanctuaries. And the. Iconography of sacrifice. Her. Most recent book is religion of the gods ritual. Paradox, and reflexivity. Meredith. Wretches. Did. I get it beautifully, dad. His, assistant. Professor, of the anthropology, at U of anthropology, at UMass, Boston, in. Her interdisciplinary. Work on adolescence, she. Seeks to tease out the narrative, elements, in the acts of conducting. And communicating. Science and to. Analyze the side by see side, by side with literary narratives, of coming-of-age. Asking. The question. What. Does it take to make the transition, from, childhood, to adulthood, in human. Society. Richard. Wrangham is Ruth. Beamer, professor, of biological, anthropology at Harvard and founder. Of the Cabal a chimpanzee, project. Does that say that right peculiar. He's. Best known for his work on the evolution, of human warfare. Described. In the book demonic. Males and on. The role of cooking, in human, evolution. Described. In the book Catching, Fire, how cooking, made, us human. Amongst. The many wonders, of Stephen Greenblatt snoo book is the belated invitation. We, receive, to. The garden party. After. Being expelled, from paradise, at the very start of the story the. Epilogue. Finally lays on the garden party at, Uganda's. Kabali national, park in the, company of the chimpanzees. And. Here. In the Ugandan, research station, at. A great distance from Harvard's, heart of darkness, for. A brief fleeting, moment, dime. Stands, still and Steven. Experiences. A kind. Of identic. Tranquility. Let me quote him, this. Then I thought, is what, Paradise, must have been no. Permanent address. No planting, and cultivating, and at. That dizzying, height the, chimps are up in their nests no. Predators, and no fear I. Had. Glimpsed, a part of that ancient, dream, of every. Tree of the garden thou, mayest, freely. Eat. Our. Paradism. Moments. Originally. And mythic, so. Compelling, to our sense of identity, and belonging our. Ancestry. In its tradition. Because. They are naturally, and historically, vicarious. And, voyeuristic. If hell. Is our the people, paradise, is also, other people or other places. Reading. Stephen left me with a stray thought our. Myths. Of origin, less about the primal, moment, of being. Or becoming, and, more. About constructing. A narrative about. Recovery. Or. Rediscovering. The self the. Legitimation, for, a cultural, and political self. Fashioning. The. Political, identification. With myths of origins, in our times at least have an unknowingly. Atavistic. And iterative. Address, the. Fundamentalists. Returned, to the unchanging. Reality of, hindu scriptures. Fables. And myths of origin, in india, today are. Formulated. As the recovery, of a pure Hindutva. Identity. In, the, face of a predatory, secular. Modernity, and, what. They see as, an, expanding. Islamic, hegemony, I think you could make this argument for many of the, revivals, of orange myths now that and sort of the recovery, of a self in the, face of some, kind of pursuit, or some kind of predation.
When. We asked ourselves. Who. Are we why. Are we here, what, is the purpose of our lives and deaths the. Seeming, emphasis, on origin, and ontology on person, and place is, a, strange. Tangle, of temporalities. A future, anterior. Whose. Complex. Representation. Is of, course the aspiration. Of great narrative, art the. Poiesis of literature, painting. Ritual. And even, scientific. Discourse. Stevens, inspired, portrait, of dura on, at. Work, on the fall of man and I, quote him a figure. Made up of beautiful, pieces of bodies stitched, together to an idealizing. Geometrical. Scheme, drawn. From a pagan idol is a, motif, of the techni. Of aesthetic, assemblage, that. Gives the myth of Adam and Eve its. Narrative, powers, of refreshment. Of permanence. As well. As iteration. At the same time. Myths. Of origins, are often located in spaces. Which. Become sites of transgression. And expulsion. They. Are concurrently. Temporalities. Of transition. Balanced. On the liminal, edge between, transgression. And transition. Original. Narratives, have the tensile capacity. To. Endure the pressure that is required, for them to be extended. Repeated. And revised, in time and space. Stephens. Fascination. With the trace of loss as, the. Locus of invention. Or. Reinvention. Of. Repetition. As the. Locus of recognition. Is, at. The heart of his work both. In the swerve and his. Reworking. Of Adam and Eve, but. A loss of this kind a loss. To be found again, is strangely. Again. Recovering. What is lost, Steven, once wrote. Requires. And I quote him one. To venture out to unfamiliar. Cultural, texts, and these texts, often. Marginal. Or. Fragmentary. Unexpected. And crude in, turn. Could begin to interact, in, interesting. Ways when. The with the intimately, familiar works, of the, literary camp Canon the. Panel today of course precisely. Illustrates. This point. Unfamiliar. Cultural, texts, that. Stephen has turned into neighbors, and friends and, sometimes antagonists. Coming. Together for. What I'm sure will be a very. Illuminating, discussion. Thank you all very much for being here at ado.
Thank. You so much homie for the. Eloquent. Introduction, and. To. The Mahindra Center, for hosting. This, occasion. Homie. Asked, me. Now. Some time, ago. If. I would like to do. Something. At. The Mahindra Center to mark the. Publication. Of my book and Adam and even that was very gracious of him and I said I would love to do something, if. We, could possibly. Think, of a way of bringing together. My. Particular. Literary interests, with, with. Theology. And. With. Evolutionary. Biology, and with anthropology, and. Marvelously. Here. We are what. We propose to do is speak. Very very briefly each of us for. Eight. To, ten minutes and. Then. Have, some. Conversation. Among, ourselves in. The mode of a garden party and. Then, open, the. Floor up to questions, from. You so I would, say just, a few things briefly. About. My own interests, which as. I, suppose, befits my disciplinary, training have to do with, fascination. With, stories. With narrative, and with. Extremely. Powerful. Stories of which this is probably the single most spectacular, in, the Western. Tradition. Of a story that had, enormous. Impact. Consequences. And diffusion, in. The. World of the Near East and, the. West especially. The. Christian world. The. Story which originates, this you I'm, sure know and the Hebrew world. Probably in an oral culture that precedes. The. The. Invention of what we think of as Judaism but goes back, probably well before, that the. Story gets picked up told. In the book of Genesis, gets. Embraced. After. Considerable. Argument by, Christianity. Gets. Transmitted, and enters. Also the Muslim world and therefore, penetrates. Very. Fully in an enormous. Over. An enormous population that a huge amount. Of time it's. A story that. Like. As. Origin stories do. It's. A story in this case then the very tiny compass, attempts, to explain, a, great many things almost, everything. Certainly. The origin, of our. Species. Also. Species. Dominance. Which. Is announced, in. The. Genesis story it. Attempts, to explain or at least give. You a depiction. Of the origin of pair-bonding. Culminating. At that moment at which the. The. Woman is brought, to the man evidently. Taken from the man's body but brought back to him. After. What the. Rabbi sanctioned rabbis thought was possibly. An abortive attempt to introduce Adam, to the other animals and have one one of them chosen as his. Mate. Then. Of course transgression. And, then the origin of shame, so. That a somatic as well as a moral, or ethical. Problem.the. The, nature of labour why, we have to work and sweat. Why. Women. Experience. Excruciating. Pain and childbirth. Why. We die why. The earth doesn't. The. World doesn't keep us going and we can't continue. In the world and then, a suite of issues that as so many of these issues that I'm describing have have. Problems. Of, that. Are, in the boundary between. Ethics. And. And. Biology. Including. What. Appears to be a. Curse. Or. Punishment. As. It's described, in the Bible of male domination, of women. And then. What. Again the Bible of the. Signals singles. Out it's something to think about the. Fact that women continue to dominate to desire, the. Creatures. Who dominate, them it's, one of the strangest things about the Genesis account is that, are. Those in that strange half, of Earth's Genesis, 3:16. In. Which the who ever told the story thought that it needed explanation. That it shouldn't be taken for granted that, men dominate, women or, that women desire, men. In that those circumstances, but needed, to be explained as a punishment for. Transgression. That's, worth reflecting. I think on. At. Least it, is, for me a. Source, of surprise and it was even a source of surprise for many commentators. In the 17th century, when. This this issue in 17th century was a Christian of, our era when this, issue was.
Focused. On, of. Course that I've set the male, theologians, who. Said of course the men were intended, to dominate, women, even in Paradise it's. Just that women would have enjoyed it more than. They. Get, the experience of finding it disagreeable, must, be part of the punishment in the case that that. This. Is one of the reasons these issues are among the reasons why. The. Joseph. Koerner, in. Our, history and I have. Taught. This course in the general. Education program, of ethical, reasoning, because. You can watch the story as. It evolves as, a story about a. Long-term. Project of, human, attempt. To understand. Ethical. Life. That. Project. Which. Continues. Actually, into the 19th and 20th century and much, of what home he said in introducing us, about the liminal, a transitional, moment is precisely, what obsessed, for example. Kierkegaard. And thinking. About how you would get from innocence to, guilt. Or culpability what kind of cross threshold, you would have to cross that. Kind of ethical, thinking, philosophical. Thinking doesn't involve. Believing. That this the, story in any sense is literally, true. But. My, own book, is. About. The. Long-term and extraordinary project, in. Especially. In christian culture and. Especially in christian culture after Saint Augustine to. Believe that the story to make people believe that the story is literally true. So. To defeat. In effect, the. Allegorist, s' whether they were Jews. Like Philo or Christians, like Origen and to. Make, doctrine. The central doctrine of the faith, be. The literal interpretation of. The story of Adam, and Eve and that leads, us all the way continues, all the way into our present. World. In which if. We can believe the poles 40%, of our fellow. Countrymen, and the united states profess, to believe in the literal truth of the story even though it's rather difficult to. Coordinate. That which will believe with, virtually. Everything that we know about, the world since. At, least the late 18th century. So. The. Project. Of making it literal. Making. It real as it was understood by the renaissance is at the very center of my book and. That. That. Plot, which. I won't take the time to describe, now has, to do with. Serious. People grappling. With what, it means to make anything real but particularly this story real a. Story. About a naked man and woman and a talking snake in. A magical, garden with weird trees is, not. Obviously. To be taken literally, and, that was true, two. Or three thousand years ago as well they weren't actually dumber than we are. So. They understood. That the story has all the elements of a fairy tale or myth and. To. Make people actually thinking. That it is literally true required, an enormous. Effort of will. But also of. Intelligence. Symbolic. Intelligence, and also, of art making. So. That. The. It's, a triumph finally, of of. Technology, of Renaissance technology. To. Actually give us. Duras, Adam, and Eve or Michelangelo. Sortition, 's but also to give us Milton's Adam and Eve to give us creatures. Who seem actually. To. Be taken literally.
To Be to be evidence, of of the reality, of this story and those. Attempts. Had, to grapple. With a, set of things that are extremely difficult difficult. Already, before, Darwin. Came along in, the 19th century to blow the whole thing open. But. Questions. For example about. How creatures. Who. Evidently. Did, not know what death was, because. There was no death in the garden could ever understand, what death was or. How, you begin, to, speak. If you were if you're apparently, born, into the world as an adult without an infancy or a childhood or. What. It would mean to. Obey. A. Prohibition. If. You if the prohibition, actually kept you from knowing the difference between good and evil just. Lies at the very center of the story that is to say people, grasped. Already. Several thousand years ago that, this was a story, by Franz Kafka, and. They. Struggled. For. Centuries. Many. Of the most interesting I think people in, the, whole Western tradition struggled, with how to explain, how to grapple with things. That are built-in and the deep way, hardwired, into, the story. We. Will turn, to. The. Other members of the panel, now but I just want to say that that. Hovering. At. Least, for me over, the, over. Our, own relation. To the story my own relation, to the story in the 21st century is to try, to understand, when. The. Moral features, that figure, so prominently, in, the Genesis. Story disobedience. The search for knowledge. The. Experience of shame the. Feeling of not being in the place that you should be a feeling of exile when, to disappear, if. In the world that we. Now believe must. Have been the world of our ancestors, not Adam. And Eve in the paradisal garden, but, the world of primates, when. Could these have come. Into. The. World and when into. The, world did we get and how, did we get. Symbolic. Acts. Did. We get, aesthetic. Acts. Were they already in our primate, ancestors. Did. We get. Varieties. Of. Cooperation. And. Collaboration. That. Lead us to, the. Creatures that we are now. This. Is just a way of beginning. And I'm. Excited to turn, the. Microphone. Over to, Kimberly. Patton to wake up from here. Thank. You Steven. I'm honored, to be here. It's, always a, pleasure. To be. In. A space at Harvard that allows religionists. And scientists. To actually talk to one another. These. Are the conversations we need to be having especially, now. As. A reminder in the news this week by a pending Supreme Court, case for. A wedding cake never baked for two grooms in Colorado the story of Adam and Eve is alive and well in our culture, and protected. By the mantle, of religious belief or is it Adam, and Eve not Adam and, Steve, continue. To run a parallel race alongside. The. Changing, and contested, global, understanding, of the range of human, sexuality 'he's the ethics and political discourse that results from that and the. Civil protections, of legal marriage in, another, lane runs evolutionary, biology, and, our evolving understanding of, it. Yet. No one seems to be staying in their lane. Reality. And our experience, of it continues. To be interdisciplinary, a, palimpsest, of many, layers, Freud. Wrote in future of an illusion that religion would be outgrown as science ascended, and human beings became more willing to let go of their paternalistic, God figure embracing. Our terrifying. Vulnerability. And existential aloneness, in an uncaring, universe, the. Sociologist of the 1960s. Predicted, that religion was atrophying, into a colorful set of illuminations, and the margins of the pre enlightenment, and. My. Own wonderful. Professor, of paleontology, Stephen. Jay Gould did, not. Share, Darwin's. Unhappiness, with. The. The. Increasing, ascendant, role that evolution, plays in, the, thinking of some. Of the world and he, invited humanity to get real and grow up in a world of, stasis and sudden replacement, a world, free of fantasy, free. Of story the real world. None. Of this happened and lived. Religion, remains stubbornly, persistent, in many is more fundamentally, Duggan than ever before, in.
The Rise of Adam and Eve Stephen Greenblatt is both fascinated. And troubled by the persistence, of a tale that, he says, bears. The hallmark. And I'm quoting of the imagination, at its most extravagant. A magical. Garden a naked, man and woman who are brought into existence in, a way that no other human beings have been born people. Who know how to speak and function without the prolonged childhood, that is the hallmark of our species. A mysterious. Warning, about death that, no such newly created beings could possibly, understand, a talking. Snake, a tree. That confers, knowledge, of good and evil another. Tree that confers, eternal, life, supernatural. Guardians wielding, flaming swords this. Is fiction at its most fictional. A, story. That revels in the delights of make-believe. Joni. Mitchell, left, out of Woodstock through, a scheduling, error, wanted. It both ways we. Are Stardust, we, are golden we, are fifty billion year old carbon, and we've, got to get ourselves back, to the garden. The. Author's fundamental, question is why Adam and Eve whom he argues epitomize, quote the weird and during power of human storytelling. Began. To bear insistence. On the literal truth which he attributes, as he says to Christian orthodoxy. Following, agustin and then, into, the Renaissance, how. Does something made up become so compellingly, real he asks what happens, when fictional, creatures behave as if they were alive are. They fated for that reason to begin to die. Professor. Greenberg gives us a masterful, deeply, researched tailed it allows us to peer, both backwards, and forwards, in its genealogy. Of stories, about the origin of the cosmos and of humankind, shedding. Light on its past in the ancient Mesopotamian, epics, the, animilitia in the outer houses, and later, continuing, its story in the great flood of the Sumerian, tale the Gilgamesh which, informs, the story of Noah. Many. Historians find this story about Amin was the artistic response. To the exile, in Babylon, the Torah being redacted at the time of Ezra Nehemiah in, the sixth century BCE. It, appropriates. Rewrites, and emphasizes, the creation, Mitch myths to which the Jewish people return, and. To. Which they were exposed the, warrior creator Marduk, who when his own grandmother, Tiamat, and her chaos monsters rise, up against him the, salt ocean deep who was primordial, and never created splits. Her in half to create the heavens and the earth and out, of the god Kingu who, incited grandmother, to riot, Marduk, creates, human beings Lulu to be slaves to the gods. The. Adam and Eve story on, the other hand has one sovereign, God who broods, upon the face of the deep Tohu vevo who who. After creating all the other living things in the sea and on earth as. Lyle actually, noted makes, the first pair of human beings in his own image so Elohim. Troubling. Plural is that remains in the text, male, and female together in the first creation Adam. From the earth and the. Woman whom he will name Eve, life. In, the second. They're. Given dominion over the creatures Adams. Tasked with naming, them they're prohibited only from eating the fruit of the knowledge tree. Of the knowledge of good and evil for they will die, the. Serpent, tells Eve, that. They will not die but instead, become, like, God knowing, good and evil and in, the heartbreaking, sequence, that follows, including. All the terrible punishments, of the pear God's. Preoccupations. Become, clear he, says to himself after. His terrible litany, see. The, man has become like us knowing good and evil and now he might also take his hand out from the tree he might also take out his hand and stretch it to the tree of life and eat, and live, forever. Greenblatt, argues that Genesis as a whole and in particular the, Adam and Eve story is, one that gives us an etiology of, all that afflicts us creation.
And Innocence, lost, of temptation, wrong choices. Shame. Sexual, desire labor death and most tragically, of all deep alienation, between creator, and his created, beings. Durkheim. Or Foucault might. Call it a reflection of social engineering, created. From the remains of ancient Near Eastern stories, and now patrolling, the boundaries, of the. Social, realities, that mattered, to the Royal State of Israel. He. Gives us not only the past of the story, we're following recur, in the myth of Ann Terry Rd there is no real beginning I, would. Argue that Adam and Eve of Genesis do in fact have parents, they're just camouflaged, in the narrative, teamö. Lives on into home in Genesis. 1 she's. Not created, she's simply there at the beginning the deep and the, shadow of Marduk is clearly seen in God the Creator who, separates, the heavens and the earth who. Orders the lights of heaven who. Makes man from the earth and breathes life into him. As. Greenblatt, says this is a story in which innocent, turns into wickedness, in a flash without any fair chance for moral development, unlike. Its predecessors, it offers an etiology of creation. And. A. What. He calls so brilliantly, a. Reversal. Of stories such as Gilgamesh, wear clothing means belonging, where strife love and encounter with death and the struggle over immortality, lead. To a restored, not a lost Kingdom and to wisdom, Genesis. Turns. This upside down and quote, rewrites, initiation. As transgression. And. It. Is hard in, that powerful, ritual, phrase, in. This book not to hear an echo of the. Childhood story that he is brave enough to share with us, looking. Up defying, the prohibition. During. The blessing of the Kohanim, during. The Jewish liturgy. Because. God would be seen because that, would be death. Instant, death and. Professor. Green but shares. That, he sees when he dares look up and is willing to sacrifice that he sees not God passing, overhead, but. Also only, empty. Air and gossiping. Adults, and. He. Writes I, had. Been lied to. For. Him. Transgression. Was initiation, into. This question. Now. Let. Us think about the words story. Versus. The word myth, story. Occurs far. More often in this book than the word myth but myth means something, different than story, moooo, in the Greek or MUOS I means. I tell in a special, way it is cognate, with the word mystery, a myth. Is a sacred history a tale of origins, with moral force but. Often involving, in fact always involving, supernatural. Creatures, it has no normal, moral parameters, it. Is neither true nor untrue. Right. Nor wrong in, the sense that we normally mean these terms. Creation. Stories exist because of the human commitment, to qaulity Aristotelian. Or otherwise they, almost always involve, separating. Differentiating. And demarcating. Chaos. Is almost always replaced, by order ancient, pieces almost always ruptured, paradis. Both gardens are almost always lost. Ancient. Unending, intercourse, is almost always disturbed. The, fire is almost always stolen, and given to whom it should not be or else that gift is eternally, contested. The. Angels protestin, are incinerated police, protests, and is cast out of heaven, something. Is broken something, is stolen and try. As we might to restore it or replace it it. Is not accomplished. So. The creation story of Genesis, can, and should I would argue be studied alongside other, creation, stories, from the world's history myths. Paradoxical. In some, ways beyond ethics in many. There's one creator god or, there's two and as in the case of izanagi, and his a nami the divine couple brother and sister who draw up the Japanese islands, from the bottom of the sea in, the. Yoruba tradition, winged beasts, and by Obatala scratched the earth into existence, earth, diver pulls, it up from the bottom of the sea in Native.
American Mythology. Zoar the gods created with primal sacrifice, from an egg or a, primal, person as in, indo-european. Myth Eames, there. Can be many creator, gods as in the case of the Mayan Popol Vuh sovereign. Plumes surfin along, with heart of lake and heart of sky at, a time when only the sea is pooled under all the sky there, is nothing whatever gap under. Despite. Differences, which always all all, of these tales. Almost, always involve, as I, said creation, of order from chaos chaos, a kind of differentiation. And. Here. We enter into the question, why. Make, people, in. The, Popol Vuh the gods say how. Should the sowing be and the dawning who, is to be the provider the nurturer, let. This be this way think about it the. Earth should be removed the water should be removed emptied, out for the formation of the Earth's own plate and then, comes the sowing and the dawning of sky earth but. There will be no high days and no bright praise for our work our design, until. The rise of the human work the human design. Maker. Muddler, begetter of the mayans create humans, to sow the land as Marduk, does although. In a gentler way God. Takes. Multiple tries. Unlike. The God of Genesis. Human. Generations, are mud wood and finally maize people, the final draft egg. Draws ol reversing. The Genesis story hides. The, primal couple lift and lift rosier. Life. And life's partner after, all. Of the gods and the whole world are destroyed the, Pacific Northwest trickster, figure the Raven creates people on the beach just because he's bored. Often. We hear, that, God needs, laborers, but he also or, they also need company, they need a way to be, known and understood to, be mirrored. Even. Our abhi writes in the foo psious I was. A hidden treasure and I yearned, to be known in God's name. Another. Feature of creation, epics and they don't have time to go into this R is, the, notion of alienation, of God the God who is removed, or removes himself and we find this not only in Africa but in many other myths. Of creation including, this one just. To give one example among. The crowd see people in Togo will barri ends up removing. Himself from a very intimate space, with humans, because. People keep hitting him with their pestles, when they grind the, smoke of the cooking fires gets into his eyes and, worst. Of all an old woman anxious, make a good soup used to cut off a bit of him at each meal time and God. Being pained at this treatment went, higher. So. There is a way in which the loss of intimacy and, God's loneliness, at the Exile figures. As well into. The sadness and the sorrow and the disruption. Although. The book does not dwell on that. In. Conclusion I would argue that theologically. The, notion, that we have to choose between a story of randomness, and loss rivulets, of debt and evolution, on the way to the sea of traits. Only inherited, because they are envelopes, of DNA to. Be more likely to be passed on to other envelopes, of DNA and so, that they will not be annihilated, versus, a fairytale primal, of primal, parents and talking snakes with. A gardener God who builds a booby trap for, them is, perhaps a false, dichotomy. And. I. Wish the. Rise and fall of Adam and Eve this brilliant book did not cleave so closely, to it, myths. Often and codes or response to history, it is not necessarily. A story told apart from historical, experience. Plato's. Cave as it turns out as I discovered to my shock in Greece ends. Up being, an actual cave and it exactly, resembles. The, one as. Mentioned, in the Republic, Plato. Played there as a child for. Example there. Is a there, is evidence, of an enormous, flood, geologists. William Ryan and Walter Pitman worked on it for 30 years it happened around 5,600. BC in the Black. Sea and involved. The collapse. Of an earthen dam in the Bosphorus. They. Called their book Noah's Flood and thereby set, off its, I would argue its dismissal, which, is unfortunate, because. It could be that the many flood myths do carry at least some trace of historical, memory of it, and. Perhaps. We could flip that notion and we could say that, why should we not think of evolution, not as a story, or a parallel, story but. As a myth with all of the paradox, and Wonder. With all of the strangeness. And beauty, that. The, story. Of Adam and Eve holds a story. Is told in a special way as, surely. A story, that can be manipulated to evil ends just as Adam and Eve can be as Steven notes the eugenics, movement the, randomness, of causal randomness, bringing. With it its own form of despair such as perhaps Darwin experienced.
From. The shampoo, standpoint. Of sheer evolutionary. Biology, we human beings are actually a predatory, invasive, species, that's radically. Dominated, our environmental. Niche but. That means that religion, and storytelling. And miss making and meaning making is as much a part of evolution as. Anything. Else that we readily, identify, with. It as much as stasis and sudden replacements. So. Turning. The tables we delude ourselves if, we see scientific, inquiry and knowledge as not a story, and by which I mean not, a sacred history perhaps. This was Stephen Jay Gould Zinn site. Perhaps. We do live in a magical universe. In which time can bend the trees in a forest can, communicate, with one another. Where. My. Parakeet. Has an ancestor in massive, dinosaurs, 120. Million years ago where. Those same dinosaurs, turn out to have had feathers and could sing a magical. Universe where dung beetles known as scarabs, turned to use the Stars to navigate their, perfectly straight routes across the desert at night so, that when their little heads are covered they running crazy zigzags, where. The Neanderthal, versus. Lucy the Neanderthal, is my direct ancestor, 4%, where. Giraffes turn out to have a form, of communicative, language it was just to pitch too high for just us to be able to detect it until recently we're. Creatures living near sulfurous vents seven miles below the earth's surface can, thrive in pressure that would make a human head explode, with, a coelacanth that was supposed to have gone extinct, 30 million years ago it turns up in a fish market in Sulawesi. Where, chimpanzees, dance before a waterfall, in Tanzania, when, it rains and rabbits rabbits kick their feet in the air when they leap for no reason we're. In vertebrates such as Giant Pacific octopus. Show individual, personality. Traits and facial recognition, a, magical. Universe where, pregnant mothers and their fetuses, swap entire, populations. Of cells. Across the placental, barrier osmotic. As it turns out and those, cells called micro chimera little monsters, stays, swapped, and subdividing, so, that none of us is a hermetically, sealed individual. And Hopa, Homo sapiens mothers and their children, represent. An unbroken and chain meant all the way back not, to four female, individuals, who lived between. 160,000. And 200,000. Years ago as was. Believed in the 1980s, but, has now been shown to be only one living. Almost certainly in what is now Ethiopia, is this. Fiction, at its most fictional, a story, that revels and the delights of make-believe, this.
Is Perhaps instead, the random, purposeful, mystical, world that, we have inherited the. Garden that we are trying so hard to, exile ourselves, from and as. We know geneticists. Have given our common, grandmother, a name. Mitochondrial. Eve Steven. Greenblatt's, beautiful, book shows the. Perhaps they could not help themselves thank. You. Okay. Well. Thank. You Kimberly Thank You Steven, thank you homies. It's great to to see an attempt to bring humanities, and scientists, together. I meant to be a scientist. So, I. Haven't, had time to read all of Stephens books so in, order to do some research for this I did. What all of us would do it turn to the web and. If. You look up Adam and Eve on the web then. You. Find yourself looking at a page all. About sex toys. So. It's how I went back to. To. Nature. Nature. Communications, this week had, a paper. Published. About. Hunter-gatherers. Hunter-gatherers. Is a very. Sad story of course because. We, come from hunter-gatherers. And hunter-gatherers. Living in the wild in the way that, our, ancestors once did we, are in the generation, that is seeing the end of that we're, losing that tie to it to our evolutionary. Past but. People are out are quickly, getting data where, they can on people living as close to real, hunter-gatherer, life as possible and there were 18, groups in the Philippines, of actor. Who, were studied for storytelling. And the. Stories they tell seem to me to resonate exactly, with what we're hearing, about with Adam and Eve they. Are mythic, in all sorts of ways and. In fact in this particular study what they're able to show is. That among. 18 different camps, they, varied, in the, quality, of the storytellers. As rated, by other people they looked at two or three hundred people and it. Turns out that the better storytellers. I, have. Camps, in which there is more cooperation, as, measured, with economic, games. And. By the way the better storytellers. Have, more children. They. Benefit. Themselves and. The stories they tell are like, Kimberly. Or say and Steven was saying they they kind of bring social order they tell stories of a, hierarchy. And organization, and division, and and, indeed, cooperation. So when we find that. 56%. Of people in the United States believe. That Adam and Eve were real people. And. That, 44%, of them believe so is strong or absolute, certainty. Then. That, to me is something. About the way that people organize, themselves to cooperate, in. Terms of their shared belief in something, that is, incredible. Well. I'm a scientist, scientists, tell stories. Kimberly. Was trying to suggest that we tell equivalent, kinds of stories I think in some ways they are equivalent because they. Are. Beautiful. And creative. But. I think in other ways they're not equivalent. Because I, don't think they have the same social function they've different social functions, I don't, think they serve to help bring, people together around. A. Specific. Kind of shared belief only about the belief that science matters. And. I'll just draw attention to two. Ways in which we can tie the Adam, and Eve story, to, to science. One. Is, the. Genetics, so, just just building. On what Kimberly, was saying actually. In. 1987. Rebecca, can use. The fact that, mitochondria. Have, very little recombination. They're, in all our cells and the, occasional, mutation, happens and we can work out the mutation rates and you can work out when, it was that you have the last individual, who was the common.
Ancestor. For everybody, living on the earth today and. What. Candide in 1987, was say it's about 200 thousand years and now the estimate, is 150. To 200 thousand years ago. And. I'll add, to that by looking at the, atom so. I. My. Mitochondria passed, through the maternal. Lines and then you have the Y chromosome passed down the paternal. Lines and they. Only very rarely I have any crossing. Over with the matching. X chromosome, so. Again. There are some uncertainties in, the calculations, but, the. Last Adam, who. Gave, rise to all, the people, living today. It. Was estimated, to be between 200, and 300 thousand. Years ago so. Whether. Or not Eve, actually. Met, Adam, he's. Unclear. Whether. Or not they lived at the same time is unclear, they might have lived as much as a hundred fifty thousand years apart. So. We. Have to just adjust the story just, a little bit. So. That's the genetic angle let. Me just mention briefly about the the social behavior, angle. Steven. Mentioned, about Adam, and Eve being a story among many different things but but partly it is about, bonding, and. The. Fact that there is only one Eve. And, one, Adam pushes, one in the direction of thinking it's about monogamy. Which. It seems very strange because, the. Ancient, Israelites were certainly not monogamous. But. It can, be said to be about pair bonding and then that that fits with what, the. Israelites were, like but. Still just to think about monogamy. Just, very briefly. And one could really. Say, the same thing about a bonding. About, the. Up bonding in general. It's. Not, very. Common in the primates, as a whole, most, of the primates have a much more liberal, attitude, a sort of Harvey. Weinstein attitude, to. Their. Sexual relationships. Something. Like 10% can be said to be monogamous, that, sort of thing if. You, serve a human, societies, then, monogamy. Is common. Within, the societies, but, rare between, societies, that is to say, there. Are the great majority of human societies a 75, 80 % that sort of thing are, polygynous, and since they they welcomed Kil'jaeden likely allow. It but, most. People in fact end up monogamously, married. Now. There. Is a difference, between the bonding, that you see in humans. And the bonding, that you see in non-human primates, which. Is due, to the. Way that they move about in, the. Monogamous, primates they, travel, together all the time the male and the female it's. Like what. Happens after you retire. I'll. Leave you just get. The implications, of that but. The. Reason appears, to be that. When. A, primate. Male bonds. With a primate female, he, does not trust what she is up to unless, he is with her he. Has to guard her as a mate. So. Now then think about humans. If. You, look at any. Hunter-gatherer, population, in the world or any population. Of humans, anywhere, in the world regardless. Of their subsistence type. Males. And females do not spend all their time together, especially. In their reproductive years. The. Women go one way and the. Men go another if you're in hunter-gatherer society and. Then. They come together in the evenings in fact they spend very little time together it's very difficult to find a photograph. Of a, male and a female hunter-gatherer. Who. Are married to each other being together you only do it by asking them please. Will you sit together what, that's. Crazy. So. In order to have a mate guarding a relationship, how do humans, do it, the. Answer is we do it through, language. We. Have gossip, that allows, us to check, what. Each of you were doing during, the day and so. There's lots of evidence that's what's happening so if you're going to think about the, evolution of human bonding. You, have to think about mate. Guarding and you have to think about language. Well. For. My own part I will. Take a view on language. But. Different, people might take different views but. For various reasons I'm, impressed with the evidence that. Language. Is the key to understanding, the, evolution, of Homo sapiens. Thanks. To a paper published last year the, date of the evolution, of Homo sapiens has been pushed back from. 170,000, years ago to three hundred and fifteen thousand, years ago in Morocco and you. Never find literally, the earliest thing so probably it's a little bit earlier than than that and. Language indeed. Emerged. Then then, that would be the, time when, for the first time humans. Were able to. Mate. God they. Could not do so before I think because, we, know what the toddlers looked like. We. Know enough about locomotor, mechanics, to, know that the toddlers were, walking extremely, slowly and basically, had to be kept in camp and that means. That the women and the men really had to be doing something different it's not like the non-human primates were a male and a female given, can swing cheerfully, from tree to tree together, and their baby comes with them.
So. The, story that I want, to convey, from the, evolutionary, anthropology, perspective, is that. If we think about Adam and Eve from the point of view of bonding. Then. There. Is a convergence, with the notion of story. Because. The. Language, that, emerged enabling. People to check, what each other were doing during a day is, the same language that would have produced the, stories, that. Were told around the campfire, from. At. Least 300 thousand years ago, stories. That would have included come, together equivalents, and. Adam and Eve thank. You. Many. Thanks, to homie. And to Steven for including me in this occasion and to Kimberly, and Richard for your beautiful papers. In. The. Final paragraph of on the Origin of Species, Charles. Darwin guides the reader in an exercise, on how to look at nature through, the eyes of evolutionary, theory. It's. Interesting he suggests, with characteristic. Mildness to, contemplate. An entangled, Bank. Clothed. With many plants of many kinds, with, birds singing. On the bushes with, various insects, flitting about and with worms crawling, through the earth and to. Reflect that. These elaborately, constructed, forms. So different, from each other and dependent. On each other in so, complex, a manner have. All been produced, by laws acting, around us. Though. Darwin's words share, within vacations of Eden their, imagery of plural proliferation. Of an, exhaustive, and teeming roster, of all that lives this, is no deliberately, staged, garden, divine. Law is nowhere, in evidence the. Blind and soulless, actors, Darwin goes on to name are and these are all capitalized, in his text growth, and reproduction. Inheritance. Variability. The, struggle for life and natural. Selection, leading. Not only to divergence, of character, or speciation. But. To extinction. This. Is a story that extinguishes, as much as it creates. There. Exists, an eerie similarity, between Darwin's. Language here, and the, words chosen by Stephen Greenblatt to describe the experience of visiting a paleoanthropology. Lab and, contemplating. The dizzying, non-linearity. Of fossil evidence for hominin, evolution. It. Is difficult to find the story in a tangled, bush he, writes playing. On the branching, tree like structures, that evolutionary, thinkers, use to illustrate relationships. Of ancestry, and dissent among. Species. The. Narrative of human evolution, looks from this perspective less, like an act of creation or a march of progress than, quote a wilderness. Of discontinuous. And crisp crossing tracks end quote. Despite. The confidence, with which Darwin imbued, his final paragraph the. Idea that a properly, attuned, act of looking will, yield the truth of the evolutionary, story, Stephan, identifies, an unavoidable feature, of Darwin's theory as it applies to human, origins, quote. But. This account, happens. To be true according, to our best scientific, lights does, not in itself make. It good to think with on. The. Contrary, its difficulty. Its uncertainties. Its resistance. To narrative coherence, makes, it one of the great challenges, of our, age end quote. Although. Darwin, himself did not address human origins, in print until 1871. Other. 19th, century thinkers were eager to work through evolutionary, theories human implications, they. Began to ask another, of Steven's central questions one, that Renaissance artists, took up with particular, passion what. Were the first people liked. While. Naturalist Slyke Thomas Huxley drew, their favorite evidence from the anatomical. And embryological similarities. Between humans, and other primates, cultural. Evolutionists. Began to think through what the earliest humans were like using, a different source. Ethnographic. Reports their, own and those of others and this is a pretty heterogeneous. Group of documents on the, life ways of small-scale, societies. The. Words I just used life, ways and small-scale, societies would. Have been neither familiar, nor coherent, to a 19th century thinker. Instead. Those thinkers, describe, the conditions, of those outside, the ambit of Western, Europe and its cultural, offshoots, or the, lower races of man with. Taxonomic. Gradations, including, savagery, and barbarism. These. Labels, were as technical, and anthropology, as lunatic, and idiot were in late 19th, century English law Lewis.
Henry Morgan explains. In ancient society, that, they serve to classify, both peoples, and time, periods, according to modes of subsistence techno. Logical innovations, geographic. Distribution and. Degree, of literacy. The. Overlap, of social, and temporal, categories, is crucial here it. Underlines, a cornerstone of cultural. Evolutionary, logic. Small-scale. Societies are, atavism, x' living, examples, of earlier stages, through which civilized, nineteenth-century populations. Once passed and we, see what can sometimes be a complicated. Echo. Of this though much updated, in contemporary, evolutionary, anthropology's, engagement, with hunter-gatherer, societies. In. The, sciences, of law and society John, Ferguson McLennan wrote old, means, not old in chronology, but in structure, that. Is most archaic, which lies nearest, to the beginning of human progress considered, as a development, and that, is most modern which is farthest removed from that beginning. Subsistence. Strategies, technologies, and language capabilities, that is could, be arranged, in a hierarchy, from primitive to complex, the. Developmental, sequence of any given society, would be charted, as a journey up that hierarchy. There. Was however a problem, Morgan. Admitted in, his taxonomy, of human development that, there existed, no human, population, in the late 19th century that persisted, in the most primitive human, state known, as the lower status of savagery in which, humans first used fire and began to speak but, had not yet invented the bow and arrow so perhaps something of what Richard, is imagining with the first Adam and Eve. Conjuring. This period, quote, the infancy of the human race end quote therefore. It required an act of imagination the, generation, of a coherent narrative a. Strategy. Adopted by several prominent, cultural evolutionists. Including, Morgan relied on a form of deep reading, human. Rituals, and words they claimed move, along a trajectory from, the literal to the symbolic, the. More civilized we become, the, more distant, are our cultural practices and words from the utterly concrete, form in which they originated, a father. Used not to walk his daughter down the aisle in a gesture emblematic. Of the end of her childhood, and the beginning of sociological, maturity. He, literally gave her away though probably, in exchange for something of value from the family of his future son-in-law a groom. Did not carry his bride over, the threshold of, their new home for reasons of romance, he, had to bind her in his arms because he had captured her from her tribe and she might run away. It. Was even, easier to infer the earliest, human version of a practice, from a more primitive society, one closer to the source. Morgan. And colleagues including Sir John Lubbock took, their methods a step further not. Only did the kinship arrangements, and marriage practices, of savages and barbarians, provide, a window into human prehistory. But. They proposed, contained. In the terms of kinship themselves, in the, words people used to describe their relationships, to one another the, keen observer. Could find the key to, primordial human, social structures. Europeans. Use a form, of kinship, terminology that they. Labeled descriptive, in which, terms like aunt grandfather. Stepmother. And son-in-law, give, precise information about, the nature and degree of connection between parties, but. Compared, to Mandarin from what I understand. Romance. And Germanic languages, are actually pretty generalized, for. Example, we use the word aunt to describe our mothers, sisters our, fathers sisters and the, wives of our mothers brothers on both sides so. It's, descriptive, only to a point, but. At the other extreme, small-scale. Societies that, Morgan and others encountered, employed much more inclusive terminology. And they, call this not descriptive, but, clasificado. The. Same word might be used to identify a man's wife his, wife's sister his brother's wife and his wife's brother's wife so, these are all kind of the same kinship, term, at. The most inclusive, level, the only kinship terms recognized, would translate as mother father wife.
Husband's, Son and daughter vertical. Generational. Differences, and differences, of sexes were the only ones preserved, by these terms. If. Rituals. Of gift-giving marriage, and diplomacy, were distant echoes of literal, enactments, then, the language of kinship, surely symbolized, the actual, relationships, it originated, to describe, in. The, earliest, days of, classification. Ship terms and societies. But claimed all, the, men and women of a single generation not, only called one another wife and husband but in fact behaved. As wife and husband to one another, participating. In what he delicately called, promiscuous. Marriage. Paternity. Would have been unknown and, Maternity, inconsequential. Because, the children belong to the tribe. Lubbock's. Version of early society, society, titillating. Ly foreign to the sexual mores of his readership, reinforced. The narrative of immorality and backwardness, among. Largely brown-skinned, people that, helped to justify, British colonial, projects. When. Darwin came at last to write about human origins, in the Descent of Man and selection, in relation to sex much, of his book did not concern humans at all the. Vast catalogue, of evidence for sexual selection and insects fish birds and mammals is bookended by two discussions. Of Homo sapiens the. First establishes. Human antiquity and biological, continuity, with other species, and the, second which occurs at the end takes. The differences, in physical appearance among, human populations as, evidence. For sexual selection different, people find different things attractive, and this, has resulted in population. Differentiation. To, make. The case for sexual, selection in humans, Darwin, engages, the theories of prehistoric marriage, and kinship articulated. By Morgan McLennan and Lubbock. He. Treats them respectfully, but in the event he disagrees, with them. Perhaps. Because his own experiences. Which Stephen describes of savages. From Tierra del Fuego did, not include evidence of promiscuity or, perhaps, because, the idea that, early humans mated indiscriminately. Was, for Darwin and ethical, bridge too far to. Go back to the ethical resonances, of these stories he, turned to what he knew of non-human, primates. Close. Range longitudinal. Field studies of primate behavior of the kind that Richard conducts were still a century, away so. Darwin had very limited evidence to work with and drawing. On what he had he, concluded, that male Apes manifested. The same kind of pair-bonded. Sexual, jealousy and, protectiveness. Of their young as did civilized, modern. European human, men, so he's kind of projecting, this image female. Primate sexuality, thus was, and always, had been restrained. This. Story, conferred, for Darwin, a form. Of narrative coherence. I. Want. To close with an observation and then open discussion, with a question for the panel the. Observation, is this in both. Broadly, judeo-christian. And Western scientific, imaginings, of human origins, the. Question of how our species came into being is closely. Linked with visions of our earliest reproductive. Arrangements whether, we are made of dirt in the image of the divine or descended. From clever, arboreal. Knuckle walkers our, mating systems, in these stories are governed by hierarchy. And by rules. What. Do, any of our panelists, think drives this particular, fascination, are. We merely describing. The inevitable, is this a descriptive, act or are. We grappling, with something, that as cloud lévi-strauss claimed, about incest, has, to be regulated, has to be narrative, eyes because. Instinct, unbounded, would threaten a fundamental, tenant of human society, so in shorter. Terms are these stories we have to tell. Well. I can perhaps, just. Start. By responding. First of all thanking the the, three of you again. And. Responding. To, Meredith's. Last question. By by. Resuming. A conversation. I had very very briefly with. Richard. As. Far, as if I and, I'm sure I'll get all of this wrong as. Far as I know. What. Happens, to. Early humans is, to. Mark early humans as bipedalism. We come down from the trees and start walking on two. Legs we, stop knuckle-walking and, that. Seems, to be associated with with. Also. Reduction, in size, of canines. Yes. That. That our, canines, we have them but they're much smaller than than, than, those of our, primate. Cousins. And. I. Said. Rather. Rashly, that.
That Must be to, pick up Meredith's point that somehow the reduction, of canines must be a sign of a renegotiation, of, sexual relations. Because. The, canines, in in. In. Chimpanzees. And gorillas must, be used in, in. Establishing. Male dominance, and. Then you said no I was completely wrong so, let's. Start there, with with, and, then we can maybe, figure out why, did, the deeper question that Meredith's asking. Why why. We care about these so. Much about these arrangements anyway, in our in, in in our origin stories well. That's a great segue about. About. What australopithecines, were doing so, what you're talking about is, three. Or four million years ago, yeah, the genus homo came out about two million years ago and then, 6 million years ago we came from a chimpanzee like ancestor, and you. Said we came down from the trees yeah I go, I excuse. Me for this aside. You. Know we didn't come down from the trees what, we did was to shift from quadrupedal. Walking, in forests, to bipedal, walking in moss Ivana's but we still went up in the trees and the. Chimps spent a lot of time on the ground right now so there's no reason to think that we actually changed it - time we spent on the ground. The. The. Point though is. That the. Australopithecines by, the time you get to three or four million years ago although not earlier, I have, got these very reduced canines, and. As. You say. Absolutely. Rightly they have been attributed to reduced. Fighting, among males which they associate, with more. Monogamy, I gave. My reasons few minutes ago for why you wouldn't expect nog me at that time and. The, logic. About the reduced teeth is, now I. Would say predominantly. Referred to, eating. And. What's going on is that. These. This. Shift, into a more open areas, is associated, with a change in the diet to things that you'd spend longer chewing, and that. You need stronger.
Muscles, To be able to chew and namely. Roots. Roots. And tubers coming, out of the ground and if. You look at carnivals. Or ungulates or primates, where, they are doing more chewing, then. The. Muscles come forward the gape. Of the mouth is reduced and therefore, the, weapons at the end of the mouth just. Get in the way, you. Can't afford long canines, because. You, have a relatively narrow gape in order to be able to accommodate, really. Effective chewing, so. I. Would, say that. Many. People I mean I hesitate, to speak for the whole discipline. But a strong. A popular, view is that. The. Reason, for the reduction in those canines is to do with better, chewing, and, not better, fighting oh no or not reduced fighting, so. In, terms of the Genesis, account they, were it's. The it's the it's God's words. About eating. Being. Vegetarians, and eating all of the. If many of the fruits except, for one that. Really counts and not the, the. The. Ecstatic, sexual, bond between. Well. Well you could say that of course the you know the ancestry of Primus goes back a long way of eating stuff but but this is eating roots in particular that, enforces. The chewing I. Wanted. To to, challenge, the. Premise, and. I'm. Probably yeah, I'm sure, I'm wrong but but, I know of a number of cosmological stories, which do not involve mating. And. I. Wanted, to draw attention to the fact that a lot of them seem to me to draw to, refer. To relationships. Between men, and women, of dominance, as was, being discussed earlier and. That. Seems to me to be really fascinating for the and Kimberly you draw attention to this that. You. Know it's puzzling, in. A world in which men. Always are dominant, why do you need stories to reinforce, that. Yeah. I agree, Richard, on you know that creation, stories always. Reflect. The, preoccupations. Of. The, society, telling them and, when we say that we need to be not over, overly. Sociological. Because, the relationships, between human, beings and supernatural, beings, is I would argue. Usually. The most important, you, know we tend to because, we live in the age we do tend. To be, extremely. Anthropocentric. But, that does not mean that these stories were negotiating. Relationships. With, the. Powers that live us that we pretend to understand, as odd and said was was.
The Central concern, and. You, know so, one of the the you, know the sadness the breakages, that occurs in the genesis story that stephen doesn't dwell on is, god remaining. In the garden you, know god is lonely, he remains there and what's interesting is that the Jewish mystical. Tradition, argues. That part of God actually gets split off the lowest the. The. Shekinah the feminine, part of God actually goes into exile, with, Adam and Eve weeps. With them is. Cut off from the rest of God and so you end up with this yearning for reunion return and that, is what ends up in the temple between the crew team between, the cherubim the, Holy of Holies and that, is what goes into exile when the temple itself is destroyed and ends up being incarnate, as the Sabbath Queen at Shabbat so. You. Know God Himself, is left is left lonely as well but anyway the negotiation. Of human, relationships, with invisible, powers if we're, thinking about the Paleolithic, or Neolithic, period we have to include the dead who. Are, metaphysical. Who are much more powerful than living. That. Relationship, has to be negotiated and what's interesting, for. Example I was working at Chad Ohio for. Three different, seasons working, with archaeologist, there is the, way that that ends up getting literalized, to the dead have to be under the floor you can't build a house there. Has to be a dead baby in the southwest, corner of the house or it will not you, can't build it and. So. Forth about nowadays oh, no, no this is too 9,000, years ago okay yeah, yeah, yeah exactly, so. So the dead the, dead you know we tend to think of the Dead is different from the gods but we shouldn't in most societies the, dead are powerful, metaphysical, beings in fact they may have been you know the source of later. Theologies, that are more developed so I would agree, not, all cosmogony, --zz are, interested. In patrolling, sex or reproduction. Many. Of them have other concerns.
Well. I mean I'm aware, of this from reading, some of the hunting analysts show where, you. Often find this. Story. Of, of. Why, it is that men end up controlling, women and and. You get the perspective, that it's, an endlessly, used justification. And they. The, idea that it, seems, to me to sort. Of be appealing here is that in. The public arena it's, clear that men, are dominant to women but, in the private arena it's not you, know in other words within a husband-wife. Relationship then. Either the man or the movement might be socially. Dominant to the other but. It's not true in the public arena and so, the these stories, enable, the. Men to appeal to a, wisdom that is agree, in the public level to. Justify, their patriarchy, within the home it's so interesting you say that because for, example at childhood the. Anthropologists. Were so startled, to discover that, men and women have the same amount. Of stress in their bones the same amount of weight bearing that the labor was in fact equally. Divided, and, I'm not saying it was a proto a gala tarry in society but that was that was very surprising. Yeah. Yeah they're. Also surprised, to discover that, the skeletons, that are routinely buried under the floors of the houses, up to 30 in some cases this. Was a chakra 3 didn't dental phenotyping, we're not related to one another no, so, again, back to Meredith's, notion, of you know the way that family and kinship groups can be very differently, culturally, appropriated, and distributed, depending on you know where we are in the world it sounds like in health societies, there's, been recent evidence from what I understand, in hunter-gatherer societies, even that ritual. Or fictive kinship can be as binding, in a way that people exactly, distribute. Time. And energy resources as, genetic. Forms of care exactly and childbearing, and not so barren but child rearing per house and food distribution I. Want. To ask. What. To. Put a little pressure and. This is. Partly response to Kimberly's. Calling. Me out as the village atheist which, I am. That. That. I. Because. It's true that that. That. What. The reason, I think you're right and observing, that in my case I, spend. Too little time thinking. About, the. Strange. The. Strange. Haunting. Quality. Of the Adam. And Eve hearing the voice of God, in the garden and then hiding themselves so it's not that goddess was drawing from them but they're hiding they're now in a position of hiding but it has to do with with. My. Difficulty. I think. Grappling. With what to do with the, belief, in the God, that I think can't.
Fit. In our but. Richard may correct me in our account. Of. The. Of. Our current. Scientific account, human origins it, is possible, that that. That. You could construct a narrative. In. Which in some part of you are. Should. We say life frame, you, can acknowledge. The existence of, a god I don't know how but I imagine you can't but not in the evolutionary. Story if I understand, the evolutionary story there, isn't a way in which the. Creature, who was described, in this, and in so many other of the in, various forms and so many of the other of the origins stories there's no equivalent. Figure, I I, take it that that was the whole force of the of the. Scientific, effort of the late, 18th and 19th century. To try to get that figure out of the origin. Story well, that's a funny way of reading Darwin isn't it because I thought the, Darwin's point was he. Found it rather agonizing. That he you had to give up God in. Order to understand, the way that never Lucia my right would I I don't, mean that was done gleefully, or easily but but that it, was part of the of the. It, was built it was a conference it was it was a sort of perhaps unintended. Consequence. And an. Interesting, moment happened, so Darwin is in correspondence with ASA gray who is a really. Famous, biologist. Actually, here at Harvard and, ASA. Gray is also a committed theist and Darwin. Darwin's. Disappointed. He finds himself disappointed. To see how hard a segue is working, to try to reconcile. Evolutionary. Accounts, with some role for God and so he does I think, what a lot of people with faith and also, who believe in evolution do which is he kind of defers. God's role farther and further back in the process a, kind. Of a. Watchmaker. But also is a raised originally quiz, that it was God who put, the favorable, variations in, there among all the not so favorable ones and Darwin's. Getting these letters from ASA grade who he just he loves dearly and who has been his his. Defender. Here and who's been baiting Louis Agassiz like it's his job. And. Are was just reading these letters saying oh my god and I think that for him is actually a moment when he sees how disappointed, he is in great, Ryan if it got in there when, he really has to come face to face with, how, for him at least personally, there isn't a space for God in this narrative and this. Is in his relationship, with his wife Emma a kind, of a big deal there are two points in their relationship, when she writes him letters because she's so agonized one is right, after they get married and they've moved to London and she's. Kind of hoping for rounds of theatres and visitors, and Darwin is hoping for quiet time in his study and so they have all these kind of newlyweds figuring it out moments, and in. The midst of this she's also
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