This is a picture of Central Presbyterian I shot through the steamy window of my favourite place to drink coffee, the Grand Cafe in Cambridge. I don't think it has anything to do with my post, but I can't be sure. I seem to see connections everywhere I look these days.
Have you ever heard of Piltdown Man?
About fifteen years ago I was home, sick from work, not well enough to leave the house, I was just laying on the couch in a restless state, I found day time television unwatchable, and no activity seem to suit my mood. I went to my bookshelf and pulled out an old geology text from the twenties. I had picked this up years before from a used bookshop in Guelph but I'd never really read it through.
It was well written, I’d say at a college introductory level. It explained theories, but also gave their histories, that is to say, how they came to be accepted as scientific fact. There was within the book a small chapter on human origins. A lot of attention was paid to the European discoveries of Neanderthal remains. It was discussed how Neanderthal was felt to be an off shoot species, sharing an ancestor with modern man, rather than modern man being his direct descendant. This was all familiar to me, I had some how absorbed this through school or television.
Near the end of the chapter there was a short reference to Piltdown man, fossil remains said to be found in a gravel pit near Piltdown England, by an amateur geologist. They consisted of a few skull fragments and a lower jaw. There was a reconstruction done, and it showed that the upper brain case appeared to be almost modern in dimensions however the jaw bone seemed, with the exception of the teeth, to be more apelike than human.
Piltdown man became part of my body of knowledge. I didn't really understand it, this was in pre-internet times, so further research would have meant a trip to the library. Piltdown, this man-ape settle into my brain, he may have even helped form my view of the world, and even my view of myself.
Several years later I had learned that Piltdown man, discovered and presented to the scientific world in 1912, was in 1953 proven to be a hoax. the specimen was a compilation of an orangutan's jaw fitted to the upper skull of a modern human.
In 1912 amateur geologist Charles Dawson was messing around on his specimen table with a skull. Many decades later he messed around with the contents of mine.
5 comments:
Oh, my gosh! While I found what you wrote to be very interesting, it is this photo that I am so impressed with. It is VERY cool!
hmmmm . . . i'm wondering if you might have used this photo to subliminally say that things you learned in church were messing with your head—unfounded teachings???
just a guess.
i had not heard of the Piltdown theory. so this was a bit of an educator for me. this made me really think about how you can just so easily take something you've read and go with it—it seems credible just because it is in print. but there may be very little substance to it. especially now with the internet. we google something, and it is so easy to think, "oh, well google found this site, and this site said this, so it MUST be true." when i had health issues and was trying to figure out what was wrong with me when the doctors could not, it was very easy to fall into that very dangerous thinking.
makes me think of Ecclesiastes 12:12—And further, by these, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh.
ps. did i say how awesome that photo is?
Something interesting about this church, Its one of the oldest in Galt. Directly across the square is built another big beautiful church of the same denomination, Presbyterian. There must have been some schism a hundred or so years back. I know that a good Catholic boy shouldn't concern himself with the squabbling of a protestant sect of a hundred years ago, but it's fascinating. :)
do you know why Presbyterian churches have red doors? someone told me once, and i can not recall why. maybe i'll google it. :)
wicked photo!
oh, and i think red doors = welcome.
Post a Comment