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Journey to Civilization
The Science of How We Got Here
by
Roger P. Briggs
280 page soft cover
Illustrated with nearly 100 charts, graphs,
and full color graphics and photographs
$34.95
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Roger Briggs, now
retired, was an acclaimed high school physics teacher during a career
that spanned thirty years. He collaborated as an educational writer with
scientists from the Space Environment Lab of NOAA, the National Center
for Atmospheric Research, the University of Colorado, Ball Aerospace
Corporation, and other research centers to bring real science into
classrooms.
Seven years in the research and
writing, the scope of Journey to Civilization
is breathtaking. Authoritative yet clearly and fluidly written, it is a
page-turning account of our human adventure from the birth of the
universe to the birth of humanity. |
Published by
The Collins Foundation Press
2013 |
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Chapter 2
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Description and Contents |
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The traditional study of
history goes back about 5,000 years to the first civilizations
in Mesopotamia, where writing was invented along with government
and politics, laws and taxes, monetary systems, military
operations, and many other aspects of our modern world. Until
recently, the story of humanity before this was largely unknown
and loosely referred to as “prehistoric”.
We now know that humans in their present anatomical form,
so-called Homo sapiens, were living in East Africa by
about 200,000 years ago, which means that traditional history
can account for only the most recent 2% of the time people have
been living on Earth. What were people doing for the preceding
98% of that time? Can we know a fuller story of humanity that
deals with the whole time we have been on Earth? And what was
happening before 200,000 years ago? Who were our
ancestors long before that? How far back can the search for our
origins go? What about the Earth itself - how did it come to be?
And was anything happening before the Earth existed?
The search for this “deep history” eventually leads to
the question of creation. How was the world made and how
did we get here? All human cultures have ancient accounts
of the creation of the Earth, and people, that were passed down
through an oral tradition of story telling, until they were
eventually written down. These traditional creation stories were
universally important: they defined our place in the universe
and gave meaning to our existence.
Then what is our creation story today?
In a surprising turn of events, science has recently made
profound new discoveries about our deep history, making it
possible for the first time to construct a new kind of creation
story. Since about 1990, spectacular advances in
paleoanthropology, molecular genetics, and astrophysics have
answered some of the most fundamental questions about our
origins. A new field of study has now emerged that takes
the search for our origins all the way back to the birth of the
universe nearly 14 billion years ago, and weaves a fairly
continuous account of an unfolding universe that gave rise to
life on our planet and eventually humanity.
Journey to Civilization: The Science of How We Got
Here reveals this new story that is based on the evidence
and skepticism of science. It explores and explains the science
itself, from the physics of stars and the formation of rocky
planets, to the evolution of life and the epic journey of humans
out of Africa to cover the Earth. Journey to Civilization
is written for the non-scientist in clear, straight-forward
language, and is richly illustrated with diagrams, charts, and
beautiful color graphics and photographs.
There has never before been one creation story that was
shared by all the people of the world. Today, however, nearly
all of humanity shares the methods and products of science.
Science has become a universal language across all cultures; and
thus the new creation story produced by science is the story of
all the people of the world. It is the common ground upon which
we all stand.
Journey to Civilization will change your understanding of
science, and it will change your view of humanity and our place
in the universe. |
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CONTENTS
Preface
Introduction
Main Events in the Story of the Universe
PART ONE – THE AGE OF THE COSMOS: Building a Perfect Planet
Main Events of Part One
Chapter 1 – The First 380,000 Years
In the Beginning
Exploring Deeper: An Inevitable Question
Science and Discovery: The
Two Great Pillars
Much Ado About One Second
Science and
Discovery: The Particle Zoo
The Rules of the Game
Exploring Deeper: Big
Bang or Big Bounce?
Ancient Light: Microwave Soup
Science and
Discovery: The Cosmic Microwave Background
Chapter 2 – Large Scale Structure
Dark Matters: The Cosmic Web
Galaxies and Dark Energy
The Physics of Stars
Exploring Deeper: What is
Nuclear Fusion?
Exploring Deeper: Black
Holes and Quasars
Chapter 3 – Sun and Earth
The Birth of the Sun
Where Do Planets Come From?
Science and
Discovery: Are We Alone?
Early Earth
Part One Summary
PART TWO – THE AGE OF BACTERIA: Life on Earth Begins
Main Events of Part Two
Chapter 4 – The Origin of Life
Out of the Furnace: The Hadean Era
What is Life?
Science
and Discovery: DNA and RNA
The Origin of Life
Exploring
Deeper: Does Life Violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics?
Chapter 5 – Prokarya: The Greatest Survivors
First Life: Prokaryotes
Harnessing the Sun: Photosynthesis
The Sea of DNA
Science and Discovery: Biological Evolution
Part Two Summary
PART THREE – THE AGE OF COMPLEXITY: Life Goes On (and On)
Main Events of Part Three
Chapter 6 – Eukarya: The Power of Cooperation
The Great Oxygen Crisis
Science and Discovery: Endosymbiosis and the Rise of Eukarya
Snowball Earth
Science and Discovery: The Global Thermostat and Plate Tectonics
The Sexual Revolution
Multicellular Life and the Fossil Record
Exploring Deeper: The Cambrian Explosion
Science and Discovery: Contingent or Convergent Evolution?
Chapter 7 – Living on Land
Life on Land: The Age of the Reptiles
The Rise of the Mammals
Exploring
Deeper: The Brain
The Upside of Extinction
Part Three Summary
PART FOUR – THE AGE OF THE BRAIN: Becoming Human
Main Events of Part Four
Chapter 8 – The Apes Who Learned to Walk
The Missing Link
The Hominid Puzzle
Science and
Discovery: The Evolutionary Tree and Taxonomy
Exploring Deeper:
Divergence, Speciation, and the Molecular Clock
First Hominids
Genus Australopithecus
Chapter 9 – Homo: A Whole New Animal
Tool Time
First Out of Africa: Homo erectus
Human Origins: Dueling Theories
Science and
Discovery: The Mystery of Atapuerca
The Neanderthals
Science and
Discovery: Climate Variability and Hominid Adaptability
Part Four Summary
PART FIVE – THE AGE OF HUMANITY: Last Hominid Standing
Main Events of Part Five
Chapter 10 – Idaltu: Facing Extinction
The First Homo sapiens
Science and
Discovery: Finding Mitochondrial Eve
Bottleneck
The Great Leap
Chapter 11 – Sapiens: Inheriting the Earth
Out of Africa (again): The Peopling of the Earth
Exploring
Deeper: Y-Chromosome Adam
The First Americans
The Neolithic Revolution
Chapter 12 – Consolidating Power
Civilization and Empire
The Rest is History
Part Five Summary
Epilogue
Appendices
Appendix I: Finding the Age of the Universe
Early Steps
Exploring Deeper:
The Evolution of Telescopes
How Big is the Universe?
The Expanding Universe
The Big Bang
Exploring Deeper:
Are We at the Center of the Expanding Universe?
Appendix II: The Tools and Techniques of Astronomy and Astrophysics
Parallax: Measuring Distances to Nearby Stars
The Inverse Square Law
The Stefan-Boltzmann Law
Wien’s Law
The Spectral Luminosity Method
Measuring Distance using Cepheid Variable Stars
The Doppler-Redshift Equation
Hubble’s Law
Appendix III: Dating Earth’s History
Introduction
Some Background on Radioactive Decay
Equations of Radioactive Decay
Carbon-14 Dating
Problems with Carbon-14 Dating
Other Radiometric Dating Techniques
Non-Radiometric Dating Techniques
The Art of Dating: Putting it All Together
Appendix IV: Summary of Important Hominid Fossils
Annotated References by Chapter
Index
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Preface
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My main motivation for writing Journey to Civilization
came from two places: a life-long love of science and a deep
curiosity about our origins, that is, how we humans got here. Regarding
the first of these, I must acknowledge that many people today do not
think of themselves as lovers of science, perhaps because they were
confused or intimidated in some uninspiring science class. Yet science
is one of the most natural of human endeavors, stemming from our innate
curiosity about the world. We can experience a sense of awe and even joy
when we learn about the secrets of nature. It is my hope that this book
will help readers rediscover that sense of wonder and curiosity about
the world that we had as children.
The second of
these, the need to know about our origins, is something that is
deeply rooted in human culture and consciousness. By about
100,000 years ago, ancient people were beginning to acquire
spoken language and telling stories, passing them on from old to
young, down through the generations. These mythical traditions,
the stories of "our people," were important in all human
societies because they provided a common ground of meaning by
explaining to people how the world was made, how people came to
be, and what human life means. Myths gave people a sense of
order and place in the universe.
However, in the
last few hundred years, we have lost our creation stories as
modern science has compelled us to question their validity and
diminished their cultural power. Now our stories, our myths, are
about sports teams and charismatic media stars, or cowboys
clearing out the Indians so America could be built, or the lives
of people on television. But these stories cannot satisfy our
need to know our origin and place in the universe. We have been
left disconnected and adrift, as we casually exploit and ravage
the Earth.
Since the late twentieth century, a new kind of origin story has
been emerging from the discoveries of science. Journey to
Civilization tells this new story, the story of the universe
and life and humanity, based entirely on mainstream,
well-accepted science. But unlike every origin story before,
this new story is universal: it is the origin story of all the
people of the Earth. It establishes a common ground for all of
us, regardless of nationality, religion, race, or any other
difference among us; and it points toward a new sense of our
place in the universe.
There were two
pervasive challenges that I faced in writing this book, aside
from the monumental task of covering nearly 14 billion years of
history. First was the question of how much depth and detail to
go into with each new part of the story and each new area of
science. Too much depth would make this book thousands of pages
long and lose all but the most hardcore science geeks. Too
little would trivialize the magnificent knowledge that we have
amassed and the achievements of the remarkable scientists who
devoted their lives to discovery. So I tried to strike a
balance, and I apologize right up front to the many scientists
who will feel that there was so much more that could be said
about their field of expertise.
The second
challenge, more a frustration, comes from the fact that
scientific knowledge is constantly changing and expanding. The
pace of scientific discovery and the rate of growth of our
knowledge have been continuously accelerating for the last
century, and one has to wonder how long this can continue, even
though there are no signs of this slowing down. For this reason,
a book of this kind will be out of date in some ways from the
moment it is published, no matter when. We plan to publish
revised and updated versions but it is my hope that, in the
bigger scheme of things, the origin story according to science
will be a project that humanity will continue to take up and
improve upon. This book is a contribution to that project.
I would like to
acknowledge some of the people who generously offered their time
and energy to improve this book. I am grateful to Ron Biela,
Beth Bennett, Bill Briggs, MaryAnn Briggs, Scott Brown, Chip
Chace, Jeff Etter, Beverly Hackenberg, Chip Lee, Dan McBride,
and Scott Winston for reading my manuscript at critical stages,
and for their constructive suggestions.
Thanks also to
astronomer Roger Linfield for helping me get the astronomy and
astrophysics right; to paleoanthropologist Robert Corruccini for
his suggestions on Hominid evolution; to Eric Miller for
inspiration and support throughout my science teaching career,
and for access to his incredible fossil collection; to Mark
Bekoff for his encouragement and guidance at times when I really
needed it; to Russ Genet for his thorough reading of my
manuscript and his many suggestions to strengthen it; to Joanne
Ernst for editing, counsel, and support throughout the project;
to Vera Wallen for her keen eye and sense of clarity in late
stage editing; to Cheryl Genet for believing in this project
from just about the moment she saw it; to Collins Foundation
Press and Cheryl Genet for turning my work into a book; and to
Jim Collins and Jon Krakauer for their ongoing inspiration and
encouragement.
Roger Briggs
Boulder, Colorado |
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