Those who have lived through the last two decades will be well acquainted with the increasing rigidity applied to scientific theories that also hold political value.
We have returned to an age where the truth of a theory comes second to its significance as scaffolding maintaining the validity of lucrative ideological and economic causes. This is what happens when the proverb ‘knowledge is power’ becomes corrupted by the idea of ‘divine knowledge used by the powerful’ – the latter being little more than a cynical dogma protected by a mixture of censorship and propaganda.
The narrative of catastrophic climate change, for example, carries with it trillions of dollars, thousands of political careers, and the reputation of extraordinarily dangerous bureaucracies. To challenge ‘climate change’ is to blow on the house of cards supporting these creatures. This is why you must believe in climate change, otherwise you are a denier instead of a sceptic.
This situation parallels the problem faced by Charles Darwin upon his discovery – made against his religious faith – that life exists in a constant state of evolution. In his case, as with most major shifts in knowledge, it was the scientific institutions themselves that fought to hold back progress, fearing the wrath of their benefactors, the moral outrage of a society, and the personal insult of people’s life’s work being proven wrong.
The scientific establishment has long been an unhelpful gatekeeper, which makes its current pretence of being the ‘sole source of truth’ even more laughable.
Thomas Huxley, Darwin’s famed bulldog, stepped into the public gaze in 1860 to rattle the insides of the Radcliffe Library during ‘The Great Debate’. Truth needs a fearless champion and in the end, undeniable scientific truth usually wins out, but we should always remember that it does so in defiance of the established experts, not with their support.
The catch-cry ‘trust the science’ harks back to those dusty, power-hungry, archaic establishment scientists. ‘Trust’ is a measure of faith, not fact. If someone is asking you to ‘trust the science’, they are probably nervous practitioners of an unsteady cult. Or idiots.
One of modern science’s cornerstones is the ‘out of Africa’ theory that posits the birth of humanity in the cradle of Africa. It plays into the preferred mythology of Africa’s Eden-esque beginning destroyed by the greed of European nations. Africa is the innocent victim of history and the tarnished creation around which global bureaucracies circle.
To question the ‘out of Africa’ narrative is a sin against evolutionary science.
And yet for some time there has been a suspicion that ‘out of Africa’ may be wrong. It has been a cascade of little things. A fossil here. A clash of migratory patterns there… A gradual accumulation of facts that chip away at the grand theory.
Recently, one of those chips has become a crack.
As reported in various scientific journals after being published in Communications Biology, an 8.7 million-year-old fossil from Anadoluvius turkae has been found in Central Anatolia in Turkey.
The journal states:
‘Fossil apes from the Eastern Mediterranean are central to the debate on African ape and human (hominine) origins. […] Here we show, based on our analysis of a newly identified genus, Anadoluvius, from the 8.7 million-year-old site of Çorakyerler in Central Anatolia, that Mediterranean fossil apes are diverse, and are part of the first known radiation of early members of hominines.’
The fossil is part of a group known as the Late Miocene apes that have been found across this region and in Europe, with more than one sub-species discovered. They are a common ancestor sitting above gorillas, humans, chimpanzees, and bonobos in the Tree of Life. Those researching the find believe this species moved from the Mediterranean into Africa around 8 million years ago.
‘These findings contrast with the long-held view that African apes and humans evolved exclusively in Africa. While the remains of early hominines are abundant in Europe and Anatolia, they are completely absent from Africa until the first hominin appeared there about 7 million years ago,’ said Professor David Begun, according to Sci-News.
He noted that at this particular time, South-Eastern Europe contained the ancestors of rhinos, giraffes, and other animals more commonly associated with Africa. His point being that if these animals could get into Africa over 7 million years ago, why not the apes?
‘This new evidence supports the hypothesis that hominines originated in Europe and dispersed into Africa along with many other mammals between 9 and 7 million years ago, though it does not definitely prove it. For that, we need to find more fossils from Europe and Africa between 8 and 7 million years old to establish a definitive connection between the two groups.’
The original report concludes:
‘Hominines may have originated in Eurasia during the late Miocene, or they may have dispersed into Eurasia from an unknown African ancestor. The diversity of hominines in Eurasia suggests an in situ origin but does not exclude a dispersal hypothesis.’
If this theory eventually distils into an undeniable fact – that humans are of European origin, not African – what happens to the social structure of our society?
It was always believed that African-born humans colonised Europe, but there remain glaring inconsistencies between migration patterns and the diversity of finds.
There are lots of inconsistencies in the story of humanity. Given how little information we have of our ancient ancestors, let us switch to an example found in modern humans. Despite excellent preservation conditions, the oldest human remains in Australia (the Lake Mungo remains) are dated to 42,000 years. Modern humans are thought to have reached Southeast Asia no more than 55,000 years ago (with Indonesian and Chinese fossils dating to 25,000 years old). This is a long way from the 65,000+ years we hear cited as the arrival date for Aboriginal Australians.
As one government website states, ‘Aboriginal people are known to have occupied mainland Australia for at least 65,000 years. It is widely accepted that this predates the modern human settlement of Europe and the Americas.’ Geographically speaking, at least part of that statement seems to represent a blurring between mythology and science.
This lineage of human migration must have a consistent and sequential timeline across Europe, through Asia, into Indonesia, and finally into Australia because no one was swimming or flying to the Great Southern Land. Sea levels and their corresponding land bridges are the best mechanism we have to date migration along with the odd catastrophic event, such as major volcanic eruptions, that give us accurate dates.
The divergence between fossil dating and artefact dating (which has a wider margin for error) may be to blame for some of these figures. The source of the 60,000+ date is a site in the Northern Territory – a rock shelter originally dated to no more than 50,000 years (although it is likely younger). 65,000 years is a date that remains highly contested and heavily doubted, yet it has been latched onto and repeated as fact to the point most Australians have no idea where it comes from. For whatever reason, dating Aboriginal settlement has become part of the political activist narrative, which is not a good sign for science or the direction of politics.
Returning to our pre-human ancestors… Fragmented history is always tricky, but while people have been hunting for fossils in Africa for a long time, the careful excavation of Europe is new and the more people look – the more they find. Any change of story here could upset the global story of humanity and its political power structures.
Will the truth be ignored, buried, censored, banned, and marked with a little ‘offensive’ tag by social media?
Will we end up in a situation similar to the gender debate in biological science where ‘experts’ are compelled by law to lie about the sex of individuals to suit the current ideological narrative and the institutions that depend on the fiction?
The point of this article is not to prove one way or another where humans first arose. In a sensible, ideologically modern world, ‘origin’ does not matter either way aside from establishing an accurate picture of our history. And frankly, we do not know the answer yet.
Instead, it is a situation that gives us the opportunity to examine what sort of world we live in and where science, as a concept, is headed.
The rise of neo-Marxist identity politics has dangerously placed weight on what we call ‘first peoples’ which is ultimately predicated on patterns of human migration. While most will realise that it is impossible to divvy up the world based on ‘original ancestral ownership’, that is what we are being asked to do by activist movements endorsed by major political parties. From here, Australia risks creating an ethno-state and fresh era of race-based discrimination where the tally of ancestral ghosts equals political power. If you have been here for 200-years, your rights are diminished compared to those who have been here for 40,000 years. 60,000 sounds better. Or do we go with the creation narrative that Aboriginal people have been here since the time of creation therefore giving them eternal privilege over other Australians… The communist regime in China plays this game too, using fossil remains and migration patterns to justify racial discrimination and the supremacy of the Han over other groups. It is not something Australia should tolerate if we want to remain a unified and peaceful nation.
Given all of this, how enraged do you think your average ‘Yes’ activist would be upon discovering that we are all ‘ancient Europeans’ after we have endured their offensive and hateful demands that we should ‘go back to England’?
While the story of our ancient birth is fascinating, one wonders if this will be the next hunting ground for ‘compelled speech’ and social media censorship.
If the scientific establishment can be conned into lying about biological sex, there’s nothing stopping it from deleting our birth.
Alexandra Marshall is an independent writer. If you would like to support her work, shout her a coffee over at donor-box.
