Palaeoanthropology

Tangential thought, running through head after reading the following quote from a Christian geologist called Davis Young in Mark Noll's The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind:

The issue of the origin of humankind is especially sensitive. It seems that the church is afraid to look into paleoanthropology. Where is the curiosity about the physical history of human beings?

Last sentence ends "...the first Adam." (didn't scan all the way to the end of my bookmark)

Just a quick sketch of what that got me thinking about...

I think the original revulsion to Darwin's idea about the descent of man was more visceral than theologically-based, even, when you think about how Europeans in past centuries were so set on taming nature. If you consider nature to be dirty, something to be conquered and bound to human utility and whatever aesthetic is currently modern, then yes, the idea that humans are linked to those dirty, scratching, bug-eating, creatures we call other primates is repugnant.

Which is totally contra the idea that all nature is the work of God, and that everything has its place, regardless of whether we recognize it or not...see previous blog post on Augustine's ecology. Monkeys are sacred...my hatred for them notwithstanding (one time in Taiping they came into our house, stole our goreng pisang, and terrorized my baby sister).