I used to think that human beings evolved because some quadrupeds evaded predators by climbing into trees where they were safe and free to chatter and grasped branches, thus developing opposable thumbs. Then, their descendants descended to the plains walking upright in groups with forelimbs freed to manipulate their environment. This account at least had the merit of plausibility.
The Time Patrol Academy is:
"...in the Oligocene period, a warm age of forests and grass-lands when man's ratty ancestors scuttled away from the tread of giant mammals." (Time Patrol, pp. 5-6)
Those "...ratty ancestors..." would have been the pre-arboreal quadrupeds. Bryan Talbot's The Tale Of One Bad Rat (see here) also states that human beings are descended from something like rats. And this may be the case. However, I am now told that what evidence there is indicates that bipedalism preceded opposable thumbs.
5 comments:
William Tenn's *Of Men and Monsters* (1968) depicts a future in which giant extraterrestrials came to Earth and didn't QUITE exterminate humanity, but still destroyed most of our civilization. Still, the survivors hide -- like rats or mice -- in passages hollowed in the walls of the aliens' dwellings.
But humans plot a more insidious revenge: although we'll never be able to build starships of our own, with the aliens on the watch and ready to kill if they see us becoming dangerous, we CAN stow away aboard their ships, like rats aboard the old sailing ships, and go out to INFEST the universe as "a most superior sort of vermin."
Our "ratty ancestors" would be proud.
Hi, David!
I am glad of the comments you leave here. Because of the insights I would never have thought of.
And your comments above reminded me of another story using the same idea in a way. F.L. Wallace's story "Big Ancestor" (1955), which I read in Volume 2 of Brian Aldiss' anthology GALACTIC EMPIRES (Avon Books: 1979), used the idea of mankind NOT being conquered but beginning as "rat like" vermin which snucked aboard alien ships and spreading to other worlds like rats (despite the best efforts of the aliens to prevent this.
In fact, Poul Anderson himself used a similar idea in "A Message in Secret," where rats escaping from space ships on the wintry planet Altai began evolving bigger bodies and brains as centuries passed. A species of beasts the human colonists called "gurchaku." To quote what Dominic Flandry said: ' "A new genus, similar things have happened on other colonized planets." Flandry wished for a cigarette. He wished so hard to remind him before he continued: "Oh, yes. Some of the stowaway rats on your ancestors' ships must have gone into the wilds, as these began to be Terrestrialized. Size was advantageous: helped keep them warm, enabled them to prey on the big animals you were developing. Selection pressure, short generations, genetic drift within a small original population...Nature is quite capable of forced draft evolution on her own hook." ' And the Noyon Arghun commented that the gurchaku had not been as large in his grandfather's day, or as cunning. He also said something would have to be done about them.
Hmmm, the idea of rats, human or otherwise, seems quite popular in SF!
Sean
I should have added that the bit I quoted from "A Message in Secret" in my previous comment came from Section XII of that story.
Sean
Sean:
Yeah, my aunt gave me *Galactic Empires* as a birthday or Christmas present sometime shortly after it was published. I've still got it. I thought of "Big Ancestor" while citing *Of Men and Monsters*, but decided to focus on the one story just then.
As a side note, how did you like R.A. Lafferty's take on angels -- and monkeys with typewriters -- in "Been a Long, Long Time" in Volume 1?
Hi, David!
Now THAT'S really interesting! You too have Brian Aldiss' GALACTIC EMPIRES!!!
I remember the Lafferty story you mentioned and can't help but think the wimpy angel in that story might as well be damned himself. The monkeys FINALLY got the complete works of Shakespeare correctly if randomly typed, EXCEPT for one tiny error--and it's back to square one for the angel.
But, to make a serious point, I would have to disagree that something like that happened. ALL the angels, Catholic theologians generally agree, had to make a final and irrevocable choice for or against God soon after their creation. No wimping out allowed!
And it was in volume 1 of GALACTIC EMPIRES that I first read Poul Anderson's "The Star Plunderer" and "Lord Of A Thousand Suns" in volume 2. Those stories alone were enough for me to get the books.
Sean
Post a Comment