How did life and humanity come from Earth? For this question, human beings have only begun to think about it after the age of science and technology. In fact, in the distant ancient times, the ancestors of human beings also had such thinking, but the ancient human ancestors did not have scientific guidance, and everything in this world was very strange to the ancients.
Coupled with the mystery of the forces of nature, ancient humans gave life and the origin of mankind the attributes of God, believing that God created all things, life, and human beings. Therefore, in the five thousand years of human civilization, at least four thousand years belong to the era of Church rule. The ancient emperor was supreme, ostensibly the supreme ruler, but in fact there was a ruler above the emperor, that is, the Church that was endowed with the attribute of God.
In ancient times, theological thought was the absolute mainstream. You can question everything, but you can't question God, or you'll be labeled rebellious and hated by a whole bunch of people. With the continuous development of human civilization, industry began to sprout in the Western world hundreds of years ago, and scientific thinking also appeared.
Under the guidance of science, some people questioned theology and began to use science to explain everything in the world. Regarding the origin of life, in the mid-18th century, a biologist appeared in England, and he was Darwin. Darwin was a staunch scientific thinker. After decades of research and exploration, he found that there is a connection between species, so he proposed the theory of evolution, which has a profound impact on future generations.
Evolution tells us that life on Earth was not created by God, but evolved from organic matter to early simple life in earth's ecological environment. Over time, simple life has evolved step by step into more complex and advanced creatures. Humans also evolved from apes.
Scientists have never doubted the correctness of evolution. With the continuous development of science and technology, scientists have not only confirmed the correctness of the theory of evolution, but also constantly improved the theory of evolution, which has become a holy book for human beings to study the mysteries of life.
Although evolution occupies a very high position in the scientific community, not everything described in evolution is supported by scientists. Some have been questioned by scientists, especially about the origin of human beings.
According to the theory of evolution, humans evolved from Australopithecus 700-800 years ago, and Australopithecus evolved into Australopithecus about 400-1 million years ago. Later, ancient apes evolved into apes, living 17,000-200,000 years ago, and eventually evolved into Homo sapiens 20-100,000 years ago, Homo sapiens is the ancestor of modern humans.
The above evolutionary timeline from great apes to modern humans is not a big problem, but is the result of a lot of archaeological research by scientists. If careful friends will find that there is a huge gap in this timeline, that is, the evolution from Australopithecus to Australopithecus, which is a gap of millions of years, and scientists have not found any transitional fossils in this gap so far.
This blank period is an important node in the evolution of apes into apes, and it is also an important period in the history of human evolution. Isn't it strange that no fossils related to humans have been found in this long time? It also shows that the origin of human beings may not be as simple as we think, and there may be other changes.
What happens to this gap period? Scientists have also come up with two conjectures. The first conjecture is the "water ape hypothesis," a subversive cognitive conjecture proposed by marine biologist Alist Hardy in 1960 that the immediate ancestors of humans may have come from the ocean.
Such conjectures are not random conjectures, but conjectures made by geologists through continuous research and discovery. Geologists have found that 8-4 million years ago, due to global warming, glaciers melted on a large scale, causing sea levels to rise sharply, submerging a large amount of land, including the African continent, the birthplace of humans.
Even over millions of years, we can find some answers to geological formations. Therefore, the results of the geologists' research are basically correct. Millions of years ago, such a flood event was likely to occur.
After the Continent was flooded, Australopithecus australopithecus living there had to live in the water in order to survive. It can be seen how difficult the evolutionary path of human ancestors was. First, because of climate change, forests have been greatly reduced, and they can only survive from forests to plains, thus beginning the road of intelligent evolution. Later, the climate changed again, and the sea level rose sharply, flooding a large amount of land and forcing it to migrate from the plains to the waters again.
The environment in the water is very different from the environment on land. Long-term living in water will inevitably lead to great changes in the evolution of great apes, which is the structure of natural selection. No matter what kind of creatures, their evolutionary direction is determined by nature, and the natural environment has changed, so the evolutionary direction of organisms will also change.
Over time, earth's climate changed again, the Great Ice Age came again, the sea gradually receded, and submerged land re-emerged. Aquatic apes that lived in the water returned to land again, continuing their evolutionary path, eventually evolving into Homo sapiens. Is there a scientific basis for such speculation? Of course.
Scientists have proposed the "water ape hypothesis". Aside from some of the discoveries of geologists, it is based on some features of the human body, which is very consistent with the evolution of aquatic life. We know that humans and chimpanzees have a common ancient ancestor with a genetic similarity of 98.77%.
But the genetic difference is only 1.23%, while humans and chimpanzees have a big difference in appearance. The most obvious external difference is hair. Chimpanzees are covered in hair, while humans are clean except for hair and eyebrows. Why?
Due to the lack of hair in the human body, some scientists once believed that the ancient ancestors of human beings walked upright for a long time, needed to hunt by running fast, and needed to emit a large amount of hot air, so as to continuously evolve the hair on the body. While there is some truth to this explanation, scientists have suggested another possibility, which is that the living environment has changed dramatically.
As we all know, marine life is basically devoid of body hair. This is so because thick body hair increases resistance as it flows through the water, so marine life's body hair evolved over the course of evolution. If apes had lived in the water for a long time millions of years ago, it would have been normal for them to evolve long hairs.
Small areas of hair, such as hair, eyebrows, and beards, remain behind because there is fragile mucosal tissue under these hairs, and leaving the hair in these places can play a protective role. In addition, there is a special essential fatty acid in the human body - "omega-3". This fatty acid is usually found only in aquatic organisms, but is almost absent in terrestrial organisms except in humans.
These characteristics of humans are very similar to those of aquatic organisms. Therefore, the "water ape theory" is not a complete guess, but has a certain basis. Of course, at present, this conjecture has not yet been recognized by the mainstream, and more evidence needs to be found if it wants to be accepted.
Another conjecture about the origin of man is that the perception of man is more subversive. This conjecture is the theory of the creation of extraterrestrial civilizations. After Fermi proposed the Fermi paradox, the "zoo hypothesis" became a hot topic. Some people think that the Earth or the entire solar system may be a biological laboratory established by an alien civilization, and humans are the "guinea pigs" in this laboratory. This conjecture, while inconceivable, does not mean that it is completely impossible.
You know, the power of science is powerful, and when science develops to a certain extent, it is inevitable to solve the mystery of life. After understanding the mystery of life, it is not difficult to change genes and change the direction of life evolution. Some scientists believe that it is possible that an alien civilization came to Earth millions of years ago, and then some apes were genetically modified to change the direction of evolution and embark on the road of intelligent evolution.
Of course, this is just a conjecture, and the dominant view of human origins is the evolutionary theory of apes. If we want to break this view, we need to find more evidence, and that is on this small planet, whether deep underground or deep in the ocean. I believe that with the continuous progress of human technology, we can explore more and more fields. More subversive evidence may be found at that time.