The hoax, man's lonely and supreme ascent, and the brain

This month seems to have fled past me. Yet before March closes, and feeling April is upon us, I want to speak a little more about Loren Eiseley's The Immense Journey. Today, Friday 29th of March, I bring somewhat and briefly into focus 3 essays from the book.
1. The Real Secret of Piltdown
2. The Maze
3. The Dream Animal
These essays caught my attention because each of them deals with lingering scientific issues and pertinent inquiries. All three of the essays are related to one another, specifically in the manner in which they deal with man's lonely and supreme ascent.

Starting with the first one on the list, "The Real Secret of Piltdown" discusses the Piltdown Hoax (the greatest hoax in the history of science). This hoax, subsequently provides the thesis question of the essay, how did man get his brain? Through the arguments of Charles Darwin and his fellow contemporary, Alfred Russel Wallace, Eiseley expands the matter on the development of the human brain, which is explored through it's variants. A.R. Wallace, a scientist, proponent of natural selection and evolution "challenged the whole Darwinian position on man by insisting that artistic, mathematical, and musical abilities could not be explained on the basis of natural selection and the struggle for existence." This is the challenge that is met head on between Darwin,Wallace and also Eiseley in this essay, keeping the focus on the central point: how, why, when, where is the development of the brain. Add to Loren Eiseley's exploration within the arguments, scientific discoveries and the advancements at the disposal of current scientific inquiries, it suffices to say that the same author adds"today we can make a partial answer to Wallace's question. Since the exposure of the Piltdown hoax all of the evidence at out command– and it is considerable– points to man, in his present form, as being one of the youngest and newest of all earth's swarming inhabitants."

"Man of today, the atomic manipulator, the  aeronaut who flies faster than sound, has precisely the same brain and body as his ancestors of twenty thousand years ago who painted the last Ice Age mammoths on the walls of caves in France."

The next gleam of reason following Eiseley's argument, is the sensible conclusion that "it is man's ideas that have evolved and changed the world about him." From this statement the human being is proved to be a creature dependent on society, unable to develop alone.

"Creature of dream, he has created an invisible world of ideas, beliefs, habits, and customs which buttress him about and replace for him the precise instincts of the lower creatures. (...) The profound shock of the leap from animal to human status is echoing still in the depths of our subconscious minds. It is a transition which would seem to have demanded considerable rapidity of adjustment in order for human beings to have survived, and it also involved the growth of prolonged bonds of affection in the sub-human family, because otherwise its naked, helpless offspring would have perished. (...) Man's competition, it would thus appear, may have been much less with his own kind than with the dire necessity of building about him a world of ideas to replace his lost animal environment.

I am sure it can be derived from the previous paragraphs briefly covering "The Secret of Piltdown", a denotation that these three essays are dense and layered with information. The following two essays are no exception.

Source: http://library.thinkquest.org/29178/media/treeolif.jpg

"The Maze" covers the controversy piqued within the scientific community which followed the publishing of the previous Piltdown essay. It leads to present before the reader the Oreopithecus (the enigma), and his usage for providing the missing link previously deviated by the Piltdown hoax. From here stemmed two divergent schools concerning the search for the the crucial puzzle piece that will unite the tree of life, "the school of the little-man and that of the ape-man." In the end, the Oreopithecus is proven not to lead towards the missing puzzle piece. In the least, it is far less likely for the Oreopithecus to be the evidence that has long been searched for.

"The Dream Animal" picks up the recurrent exploration of "the mystery which enshrouds the rise of the human brain." Loren Eiseley uses   Progeria, premature aging, a curious and relatively unknown disease, to reveal how it is an indication of an internal clock "capable of running fast or slow, shortening life or extending it and, like the more visible portions of our anatomy, being subjected to evolutionary selection." This clock has paved the path for the growth of rare, particular and specialized organs. Included within the bracket of these organs is the human brain. This organ grows with greater rapidity than our nearest living relative, the great apes.

"When we are born, our brain size is about 330 cubic centimeters, only slightly larger than that of a gorilla baby. This is why human and anthropoid young look so appealingly similar in their earliest infancy. A little later, an amazing development takes place in the human offspring. In the first year of life its brain trebles in size. It is this peculiar leap, unlike anything else we know in the animal world, which gives man his uniquely human qualities. When the leap fails, as in those rare instances where the brain does not grow, microcephaly, "pinheadedness", is the result, and the child is then an idiot."

The essay proceeds to place in perspective the minute's clock of what is known of human evolution in comparison to the Astronomical clock, which spans a much, much longer millennia. Will we find the key to our human brain clock?

"For the first time in four billion years a living creature had contemplated himself and heard with a sudden, unaccountable loneliness, the whisper of the wind in the night reeds. Perhaps he knew, there in the grass by the chill waters, that he had before him an immense journey. Perhaps that same foreboding still troubles the hearts of those who walk out of a crowded room and stare with relief into the abyss of space so long as there is a star to be seen twinkling across those miles of emptiness."

Personally, all three essays offer great insight and information to be pondered. They both dually echo the previous essay spoken of a week or so back, The Secret of Life, as well as answer many lingering questions concerning our human journey. Aside from the density of information in the essays, I want to transmit the enlightenment they provide, the benefit enjoyed while reading them, the delight, the sensible, the educational element found while reading line after line of Eiseley's words.

I know I've filled this article more than usual but I hope I have conveyed wonder, and that you, reader, are infected and propelled to read Loren Eiseley, he is definitely worth the time.