The Naked Ape

Why this Page?

I've always been interested in human evolution, the beginning of human civilization, the GUT (Grand Unified Theory) behind how it all began. My initial sources of information were pseudo-scientific books like "Strange Stories and Amazing Facts", which tend to present radical interpretations of facts (or fallacies). Many of my friends too have expressed similar interest, but we've all been exposed to distorted versions of facts known to the scientific community, thanks to lots of these psuedo-scientific books that ride on our enthusiasm for science, mysteries and the unexplored. In some way these books allowed me to explore alternate theories against those that are widely accepted.

Some of these Psuedo-scientific ideas

I was almost taken into believing Graham Hancock's weird theories on the Egyptian Necropolis, till I woke up to get some more credible material. I still do accept some unorthodox approaches of Hancock's, but sometimes he tends to get too carried away instead of employing scientific method (the only good thing about this chap is he subsequently admits his fallacies and follies). The same goes for the Aquatic Ape Theory (AAT) that caught my attention. (visit www.aquaticape.org for a nice thesis-antithesis approach to the proposal.) Many of these theories lack scientific method which seriously affects their credibility. Adding to this, some facts are distorted to fit into a hypothesis which is not properly contested and published in scientific circles. Although they do some good to fostering scientific spirit, they ultimately distract people from true scientific work.

The Naked Ape Mindmap

In an attempt to compile some of the information connected to our evolution (my original perception was distorted because of lots of psuedo-scientific books) and the beginning of civilization, I've created a Mindmap [PNG: 80KB]. This is accompanied by a list of notes available here. This is just to give a picture of facts presented by the scientific community about our past. Most of it is from encyclopedias (I've tried linking to Wikipedia where possible). I'm sure you'll find it interesting if you have any interest in our origins.

Some of the terms used in the mindmap are:

• ybp - years before present (the same as years ago)
• for epics or stories
  • epic [e] - historic events related to the epic
  • epic [w] - writing/narration/scribing of the epic
• [beg], [end] - beginning and end of ages or events

I've tried to explain most of them in the notes, you should be able to quickly relate the facts being presented. If you have any suggestions in improving or adding to this mindmap, contact me.

kdissert

This was my first try using the application "kdissert", you can visit the project's website here. The source document for this mindmap can be downloaded from here [KDI: 6KB]. KDissert provides a nice interface to create mindmaps and compile them into pictures, notes, TeX slides or ASCII text outlines. I've found this program to be intuitive and recommend that you try it out.

Motivation

After reading Carl Sagan's Demon Haunted Earth I have become more selective in reading popular science literature. It's disturbing to see most of the so-called Science channels airing too many programs on UFOlogy and weird theories on stonehenge when there's so much of interesting science to learn about. I hope the content evens out soon enough. Carl Sagan is better known for his creation of the SETI project, his dogged activism against what he termed psuedoscientific literature and some wonderful books (The Dragons of Eden, Broca's Brain, Cosmos [the series], Contact).

DISCLAIMER: This website has nothing to do with the Greek Alphabet 'Beta' or Sony's Beta video cassette format.