The Artificial Ape How Technology Changed the Course of Human Evolution
Timothy Taylor
THE ARTIFICIAL APE Copyright © Timothy Taylor, 2010. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010. First published in 2010 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. ISBN: 978–0–230–61763–6 Our eBooks may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, ext. 5442, or by e-mail at
[email protected] Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Taylor, Timothy, 1960 July 10– The artificial ape : how technology changed the course of human evolution / Timothy Taylor. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978–0–230–61763–6 (hardback) 1. Human evolution. I. Title. GN281.T39 2010 599.9398—d 2010007924 A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India. First edition: July 2010 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America.
For my daughters, Rebecca and Josephine
Creatures of a higher order, thinking humans, are also necessarily materialists. They search for truth in matter because there is nowhere else for them to search: all they can see, hear and feel is matter. —Anton Chekhov, letter to Alexei Suvorin, May 7, 1889
CONTENTS
Introduction: Just Three Systems 1 Survival of the Weakest 2 Naked Cunning 3 Unintelligent Design 4 The 7,000-Calorie Lunch 5 The Smart Biped Paradox 6 Inward Machinery 7 Skeuomorphs 8 Screen Culture Conclusion: One World, Again Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Index
INTRODUCTION
JUST THREE SYSTEMS Now for the materialls themselves, I reduce them unto two sorts; one Naturall, of which some are more familiarly known & named amongst us, as divers sorts of Birds, foure-footed Beasts and Fishes. . . . shell-Creatures, Insects, Mineralls, Outlandish-Fruits, and the like. . . . The other sort is Artificialls, as Utensills, Householdstuffe, Habits, Instruments of Warre used by severall Nations, rare curiosities of Art, &c. —John Tradescant, from his catalogue to the Musaeum Tradescantianum (1656)1
of great ape on the planet. Six of them live in nature. One cannot live without artificial aid. Humans would die without tools, clothes, fire, and shelter. So how, if technology compensates us for everything we do, did we ever manage to evolve in the first place? With such innate deficits, how did the weakest ape come out on top? This is the story of our remarkable ascent. I am an archaeologist and prehistorian, and a devout agnostic, disturbed by the aggressive illogicality and fraud of creationism but also unhappy with the conventional biological account of human evolution. Mostly I believe in the world that we see and touch, the one we are born into. Before we can speak or hold onto a thought, our senses of sight, touch, taste, and smell drink in the material reality that lies all around us. Before we know it—literally—the world we are born into becomes internalized. This is how the world now is, irrespective of what is natural and given, and what is artificial and culturally created. And perhaps because of this profound and primal familiarity, I believe we have continually underestimated the effect of this physical reality in making us human. This book traces humanity back more than 2 million years, long before writing a