Timelines of the Universe: The Rise of Homo Sapiens

We’ve been digesting things in terms of millions of years and even billions of years. After a while, the actual value of these big numbers begins to lose its meaning, when one considers that the earth is about 4.5 billion years old, or about 4500 million years old.

Many species have come and gone from this planet over the eons. Many dominant animals have ruled, from the age of insects to aquatic life, reptiles, birds and mammals. We are a part of that last column.

Of those 4500 million years, life has only been around for about 500 million of those years, and of that time, dinosaurs fully ruled for about 165 million years. Humans on the other hand have only been around for about 2 million years (and fully evolving during that time as well). In fact, humans have only been living as civilized groups since somewhere between 4000 BCE and 3000 BCE. That means only about 5000 years of that 2 million was spent in cities using currency to swap goods and survive. Aside from that we were tribal hunters and gatherers, subsisting in a nomadic group-oriented existence, hunting animals on land and sea, dwelling in caves, cooking and staying warm with fire, learning how to use animal skins for warmth.

Somewhere inside of all of that we began to question our existence. At nights we could look up to the stars. Ancient civilizations came to understand the night sky in ways we will never be able to do. The stars told them things like the seasons, when to plant, when to hunt, how to navigate the waterways, even myths and legends of the ancient world were in the stars. When it came to religious symbolism, the stars were there too, all in good time and place.

In the last 100 years, we have left the planet, landed on the moon, explored the solar system with robotic probes, learned more of our place in the cosmos, discovered planets around other stars and more. Our technology allows us to reach into the cosmos and probe and learn. We are merely newborns finding our way and place in this world, and we only know a tiny fraction of all there is to know out there.

Let’s not be confused. Science is still the future of this civilization, and those who defy it will be left behind. Despite politics, science is still worth pursuing and will still give us the answers to all our questions as long as we pursue it.