Climate Change and Human Evolution by Dr. Naomi Levin, University of Michigan
Geologists of Jackson Hole
424 views
a behind the scenes look at using geology and geochemistry to understand our origins:
Linking human evolution to environmental change is nearly as old as the concept of evolution. As soon as fossils of early humans were identified, questions were posed about how they fit into a story of changing vegetation and climate. Did human evolution occur amidst a backdrop of (or in part because of) expanding grasses and the development of hot, arid environments? Answering these questions rigorously requires many different types of data on a range of spatial and temporal scales. The collective communities of paleoanthropologists, paleontologists, archaeologists, geologists, ecologists, and climate scientists have made huge strides in addressing these questions in the past 25 years.
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Climate Change and Human Evolution by Dr. Naomi Levin, University of Michigan
Geologists of Jackson Hole
424 views
a behind the scenes look at using geology and geochemistry to understand our origins:
Linking human evolution to environmental change is nearly as old as the concept of evolution. As soon as fossils of early humans were identified, questions were posed about how they fit into a story of changing vegetation and climate. Did human evolution occur amidst a backdrop of (or in part because of) expanding grasses and the development of hot, arid environments? Answering these questions rigorously requires many different types of data on a range of spatial and temporal scales. The collective communities of paleoanthropologists, paleontologists, archaeologists, geologists, ecologists, and climate scientists have made huge strides in addressing these questions in the past 25 years.
The wisest thing I've heard any scientist say was a quote from Freeman Dyson, and i'm paraphrasing but it went something like this. "The best scientist are those who humbly remember everything we think we know is ultimately wrong. The best we can hope for is to learn something new that will make what we know a little bit less wrong. An example of this is how for a long time Isaac Newton's modal was the least wrong way we knew how to describe the motion of the universe. Then Albert Einstein came along and gave us a new model that was less wrong than Newton's. but it's still not perfect. Hopefully one day a new genius will come along with a different model that's even less wrong than Einstein's, but that model won't be perfect either.