Established Views and Science

Every so often something bugs me and the latest one is Man. Or rather what we claim to know of the history of Mankind. Basically, it goes like this; our oldest ancestors were in Africa (which is considered sound as Africa would have been a benign environment), who then trekked Eastward through Southern Arabia and towards Asia, looping back and ending up in Europe. Inconveniently there are people on every continent, so elaborate theories are constructed for the journeys these people took. I like it, this story. It sounds highly plausible, fits with what we know (but then it would, I'll come back to that) and is romantic. A heroic struggle of people, barely above animals themselves, solving problems and overcoming hardships as they went. It is some story and it seems to meet a human need, not to explain and understand, but to be important. This is where I start to have a problem. Why for instance East? It is speculated that this was just the successful branch, which is what we do with history, we examine the answer and suppose the question. Now, we don't have too many options it is true, but we seem too cavalier with accepting a popular theory. Science is not supposed to be prone to fashion, but it most certainly is, as are far too many global ideas these days.

To go back to the question why East? Did they sit down and ask those who had travelled furthest what the going was like? It is not necessarily the easiest route. We also seem to rather fix the Earth as it is today. Were they driven by environment, a desire to travel, curiosity or war? Why do we have a need for trekking humans anyway? If humans just bred and spread, that would be a lot more likely but very slightly boring. This is why I struggle with the romantic, brave humans narrative, it just seems too grasping, too self-important and if you look at the way nature treats us, how it swots us aside when it feels like it, you realise that in the grand scheme of things, we really aren't that important.

Then there are the dinosaurs. Successful on a pretty heroic scale for millions of years, they seem to have, relatively quickly, died out. As most people now know I think, it was a meteorite what done it. Massive explosion, loads of dust blanking out the sun, cold, lack of plant food etc etc. But how did some survive, like mammals and some fish and some dinosaur like creatures like crocodiles. We don't know, it must have been something special. So, to me the theory isn't proven, but there it is. It's the best we have they say. Well, if it doesn't answer the questions, its probably not right, don't ya think? Why do we have this arrogant need to impose partial ideas as fact?