We’re All One – No, Really
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Trusted Clothes (Unpublished)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2016
Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species in 1859. The development, adaptation, and speciation of species. The theory comes from that text. Early evidence is followed from the HMS Beagle voyage. Evolution is true; evolution is hard, too.
It’s often the target of illogical counterarguments and counterexamples. Because of misunderstanding, deliberate and unintentional. Evolutionary theory defines various classifications via taxonomy.
Taxonomy is about classification; the scientific study of classification. This is in biology. Evolution defines us, human beings, as one single species. It is not in a vague reference such as groups, races, ethnicities, genders, but, rather, we are defined as a single species via scientific classification. What does this mean?
It is such as a profound insight as to seem redundant, and so it’s hard. One reason is tautological seeming things are skimmed over. And it’s incredibly nuanced and deceptively simple. It means one of the most profound social and cultural interpretations from natural science in the modern era.
Over the last century and a half, this has not gotten enough press. It is a profound fact that all the conversations around ethnicity and race are in some fundamental, objective ways inaccurate. Even public science communicators such as Bill Nye say about the same thing, but he argues for it as a single race.
I disagree with Bill Nye on that single point. That’s an outmoded term ripe for wrongful interpretation picking, selective quoting. Species is scientifically accurate, though race might be a colloquial olive branch. I am making an identical if not highly similar argument to him from the science of evolutionary theory, biology, and biological taxonomy.
The tree of life is a literal representation of taxonomy in a visual format for ease of interpretation. It’s from single-celled organisms to multicellular organisms to mammals to proto-humans to primates such as humans.
Human beings as a species are one. It’s a little less ‘airy fairy’ to me. And it is concrete. It is based on naturalism, empiricism, and science. That appeals to me. Not only that part, but it is true. But if you look at the international landscape and the timescale of evolution, the human species is only 100,000 years old.
And that means the 2,000, or 6,000-year-old civilizations are a blip on the evolutionary radar. That makes the idea of a single species profound. It breaks the barriers and boundaries of concepts that are quite minor by comparison, and even anti-scientific, pseudoscientific, or even junk science.
You can note the distinctiveness of cultures involved in sustainable fashion including the Maori in New Zealand, First Nations, Inuit, and Métis in Canada, Native Americans in Americas, the Incas and Mayans in South America.
And the suite of others throughout the world. These individuals are remnants from ancient historical periods and civilizations. On the evolutionary timescale, all ancient and old civilizations are a blip on the evolutionary record, of the human species.
Ethical and sustainable fashion is based around nuances and differences in clothing, which are part of cultures, sub-cultures, and personal identities. Cultures that are simply various facets and expressions of individual human beings that are part of one common human species. We’re all one, even the science says.
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