Those of us who will admit it have watched lots of horror movies and mystery movies. In those movies, we sit in the audience and wonder when the people in the movie are going to realize that everybody who goes into that particular house or movie studio or whatever gets killed. But people keep going in.
As a ridiculously overeducated redneck from Pontiac, South Carolina, I have exactly the same feeling when I watch science documentaries or political debates: “When are those clowns going to realize the obvious?”
I was just watching a documentary on Raymond Dart’s theory that man evolved as a “killer ape.” Dart said that man began to use weapons to kill animals, and the more intelligent weapons-makers survived.
This offended the Ghandi School of Political Correctness which says that man is a peaceful animal. So they found that men had used their tools as scavengers, which proved men were just scavengers, not predators. Those tools allowed men to get the brain of dead animals, which were left because animals couldn’t use their teeth to get through the skull. Also those tools allowed men to get to the nutritious bone marrow which animals couldn’t get to.
Whew! That took care of the killer ape bit!
I watched other documentaries which exposed the old idea that hyenas were only scavengers, not hunters. Scientists discovered that hyenas do hunt, but they also scavenge. In fact, the scientists explained, ALL hunters are also scavengers.
So, like someone waiting for the horror movie characters to add two and two, I wait for the documentaries to add two and two. The killer ape was also a scavenger.
This doesn’t end the puzzle of man’s origins, but when the documentaries miss obvious stuff like this, it sure makes the movie seem longer.
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