I've always been fascinated by humankind's move from superstition to science. It obviously didn't happen all at once (and to some degree is still happening — 20% of Americans take the Bible literally). But can a tipping point be identified? A moment where the species saw the truth of the Matrix and there was no going back? Copernicus' discovery that the Earth orbited the sun? The invention of the printing press? The Enlightenment and Scientific Revolution? Isaac Newton's laws of motion? Or maybe much later, with the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species?
This piece in The Atlantic reviews two new books which make the case that the single most important turning point is… the discovery of dinosaur bones. That's right — this one moment in 1811 upended the received wisdom more than any other and did it almost overnight.
The discovery of prehistoric fossils, largely in Britain, challenged long-held theological and scientific assumptions about nature and humankind's place in it: that the Bible was to be taken literally; that the world had been made a mere 6,000 years before; that a divine being wrought man in his own image; that humans were the pinnacle of all Creation. As [author Michael] Taylor writes, "Few if any transformations in intellectual history have been more profound."
It's hard for us to grasp from our perch in 2024, but the idea that there had been species that were not around anymore really must have been an earthquake, a civilization defining moment — suddenly Noah's ark looks a lot more like a metaphorical story and less like a history lesson.
According to Taylor, the discoveries of fossils and ancient bones of heretofore unknown creatures marks the place "where new knowledge of the Earth and its prehistoric inhabitants collided seriously and persistently with Christian belief in the accuracy of the Bible." Genesis was perhaps not a factual account of how the world began. Fossils suggested that the world might actually be far older—by millions and millions of years—than anyone had imagined.
Myths die hard — so much work and thought and identity and morality are tied up in believing these myths. James Ussher, the Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of Ireland in the 17th century, famously spent years working out the exact date of creation: October 22, 4004 BC. As absurd as it sounds, he didn't pull that date out of his ass — he devoted his career to reading the Bible closely to make this calculation and knew to a certainty that the world was only 6,000 years old.
Here's the irony:
When Darwin died in 1882…he was buried at Westminster Abbey, not far from Bishop James Ussher…. That Darwin was interred at the Abbey too seemed to indicate that there was truly no going back: The world was no longer explained by "bishops' books," as Wallace Stevens described it, but perhaps, more so than ever before, by science.
Previously:
• Scientists discover two new dinosaur species in Chinese fossils
• Watch Morne Mamlambo prepare a 4-million-year-old fossilized penguin
• Flying T-Rex fossils found in Australia, because of course they were
• Man notices ancient human jawbone embedded in parents' tile floor
• Three little kids find juvenile T-rex fossil while hiking
• Scientists study fossils without having to remove them from rock
