What does it mean to be human?
There are many assumptions which have been believed over the years concerning the origin or dawn of humanity. While others attributed it to God that is God is the creator of all humans, and thus the giver of life others attributed it science, such that human life started from apes and evolved through several stages thus gaining the normal upright posture that humans have today. According to the PBS Nova documentary, human life started from the apes who evolved through several stages to become the present human species. According to the Nova PBS documentary, numerous fossils (skulls) have been preserved, which show the evolution of the ape to becoming humans (Hogan; 0:40-0:48, 2016). Humanity is believed to have dawned in Africa since most of the ape human-like (the early mankind remains) fossils were discovered there thus one of the reasons why Africa is considered as the cradle of mankind (Hogan; 36:34, 2016).
Homo habilis fossils, which were discovered in Tanzania, was termed the handyman because they used stone tools in doing their routine activities. Their predecessors were the homo erectors and then the homo sapiens who the human kind take after today.
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How has an understanding of Homo naledi changed this narrative?
Homo naledi, has extremely changed the Paleoanthropologists paradigm giving a new and different view of the dawn of humanity. Homo naledi, a fossil which was discovered on the 10th of September 2015, has practically forced scientists to rethink the evolutionary relationships painting a different picture of humanity. The discovery of this new kind of fossil means a lot in the human race and, thus puts the assumption that humanity dawn was from apes and that the Homo erectus is the perfect and thus the present day human. Discovering of fossils has always been existence and considering the attributes that the ape-like humans possessed and that which the humans have such as jaws and dental formulae, and hands among other human features prove that humanity started with apes. All the same, the current humanity has been attributed to be the root of Homo erectus. Homo erectus is believed to have been the most upright of all fossils with all human-like capabilities including thinking before Homo sapiens. This species, until the discovery of the Homo naledi human beings, are from Homo sapiens since they can think appropriately; thus, the assumption that humanity dawned from apes. All the same Homo naledi, unlike other homo species, had small a brain, but all other features are human like (Berger, 2015). The Homo naledi fossils considering the way they were found, it was clear that they had been placed there as though they were buried. This fact is clear, according to the scientists since no sign of predation was visible on their remains or entry and they were even placed at different times and therefore, according to science they were put there (Hogan; 1:38:00-1:42:53, 2016). Therefore, it clearly indicates that the Homo naledi had social characteristics within them, which makes them think good of their species, even after death just like humans, and thus a sign of being primitive creatures which are well evident in the human species. The discovery of Homo naledi surely alters the old paradigm thus offering a new one for scientific knowledge generation
How does a braided stream analogy of human evolution impact your faith?
With the Christianity belief, nothing changes about the dawn of humanity that God is the creator of all humankind and the giver of life and therefore the braided stream analogy tends to have little or no impact on my faith. All the same, science has a lot to offer, and in the world of a scientist as well as the non-believers, then the braided stream analogy of human evolution would be the most appropriate to use since, in the end, it brings all humanity races together tracing back to a common origin.
References
Berger, L. R., Hawks, J., de Ruiter, D. J., Churchill, S. E., Schmid, P., Delezene, L. K., … Zipfel, B. (2015). Homo naledi, a new species of the genus Homo from the Dinaledi Chamber, South Africa. eLife, 4 , e09560. doi:10.7554/eLife.09560
Hogan, R. (2016, May 26) Dawn of Humanity. YouTube . Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuuSAz9Qb9c
