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"For I was conscious that I knew practically nothing."  In Plato’s Apology, Section 22, we are presented with this as part of Socrates' defense speech, where he discusses his reputation for wisdom and his quest to find someone wiser than himself. If you dig deeper into the quote, you will see the straightforward fact that the universe is beautifully simple; we complicate it with our attempts at overly complex descriptions of the cosmos because, in reality, we know very little about it. Instead, as an alternative to this fact, we have decided that we know everything when, in reality, we know nothing. There are big ideas we are taught in school that we are told to believe, and yes, some are true; however, it's essential to remember that our accepted history is often written by the victors. 

In our scholastic journey, we are told what to think, not how to reason and deliberate on ideas. This is the wrong approach to truly educate the mind. No, instead, we need to show how to build the skill of critical thinking. It is this crucial ability that has served the enlightened few who rule over us as we are told what to believe instead of what our lying eyes sometimes witness. Is it possible to break this cycle of servitude that we have become so accustomed to that we do not even realize we are nothing more than a herd of blind sheep being guided in a direction that will never lead us to our own personal enlightenment?

I am not saying that establishment education is wrong. Not at all. The point I am attempting to make is that we need to question everything, whether science, history, or even our religion, because there are always two sides to every argument. We must take what we are told and then process that information using logic while also noticing the connections between the two different sides of the claim. Unlike mathematics, which is a finite discipline, all other forms of information are subjective. 

Let's open our eyes and look around. Many new discoveries are being made worldwide, challenging what is considered settled science and traditional religious orthodoxy. Recently, we have uncovered evidence that people from the Solutré Region of France reached and settled on the shores of North America over 21,000 years ago, along with other evidence of a long-lost civilization comparable to our own. 

In 1945, we even discovered ancient, so-called Gnostic Christian texts that were once hidden away in tombs lost to the sands of Egypt, known as the Nag Hammadi Codex, rewriting everything we thought we knew about Christianity's origins. What mysteries are found in these forbidden texts? Or, in the same vein, the more popular Dead Sea Scrolls somewhat reinterpreting and expanding the accepted biblical narrative.

Yes, no matter what you have been led to believe, the fact is that the world of antiquity remains a vast and mysterious realm. Who were these enigmatic ancients? What did they really know? And why is the evidence of their existence being suppressed?

In this book, I will attempt to answer some of these questions while presenting information about our past, ranging from mainstream Darwinism to Biblical Genesis to the forbidden creation story of humanity. We will explore some of the philosophical concepts found in Gnosticism, Hermeticism, and other lesser-known ancient teachings. Some of the writings I've included may be, at times, hard to follow, but my intent is to give you the actual words they wrote. However, sometimes, due to copyright issues, I had to rewrite their original words into my own interpretation; however, the spirit of the original texts would be self-evident.  

With that said, I, myself, cannot stand when writers write at an academic level, attempting to show you just how "smart" and above you they are. This is not a textbook or a doctoral thesis, so that will not be the case here. I will not let my voice on these pages appear as if I am trying to prove that I am more intelligent than you, but rather as if we are having a conversation. Some may not care for my writing style, and that is perfectly fine; everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Others may feel differently. Just remember, I am not above you or beneath you. I am equal to you and walk beside you on our journey through life. 

Anyway, this book will cover highly controversial subject matter, such as the original Gnostic Christian beliefs or the possibility that the Olmecs of ancient Mexico were of African descent. Some will be highly offended by the material contained in these pages, but this is a good thing, as being offended causes you to engage in your hidden critical thinking skills. If you look at your brain as an engine, all I am trying to do is turn the key and give it some gas. Just remember, this book is about our journey through time as a grand human family.

With that said, how did this book come to be? Well, my name is Joshua T. Whaley, and I have written multiple novels and other works in the horror genre. In my books, I attempt to use actual history and dogma, just like Iron Maiden does in their music. For the very few of you who have read any of my other books… there's your Maiden reference (big fan).

Moving on, I began working on a new novel that would draw upon a wide range of esoteric knowledge. However, I followed Alice down the rabbit hole and uncovered hidden information more horrific than anything I had ever written. So, instead of just another tale full of jump-scares and hopefully clever twists, I felt that it was more important to pass on the information that had led me to the brink of madness. Yes, I may continue with my career as a horror novelist. Still, I want to leave something different to the universe that will hopefully last the test of time long after I am gone. In the end, leaving behind a legacy is a dream we once had that has seemed to fall out of favor in recent years. 

My greatest hope with this book is that you will open your mind, and if you remember just one point, then it will have been worth the hundreds of hours of writing time. Worth the sleepless nights of questioning our existence. Worth all the time I sacrificed researching the topics we will cover in these pages. Has all this work enlightened my soul, or has it cost me more than just my sanity? Only time will tell.

So, with that, let's embark on a fascinating journey through time and space as we attempt to discover our origins and learn who we truly are.  Joshua T. Whaley 

Chapter One: The Big Bang Theory

Author's note: Part One of this book will by no means be an exhaustive look at our history, from the singularity to modern times. That would take hundreds of thousands of pages to cover, and we have roughly a hundred to do it. I suggest, if anything in Part One genuinely interests you, to do your own further research on that matter outside of these pages. This Part is only an outline, a fast-paced telling of accepted history, to provide you with the basic building blocks of our story. This way, if and when these blocks come into play later on, as we delve deeper into the esoteric nature of this work, we can better comprehend the concepts.

According to mainstream astronomy, the universe is 13.8 billion years old and comes from a single point that contained all matter of creation, known as the singularity. Inside this finite particle was everything in an infinitely dense and extremely hot state of being, which finally led to a massive explosion known as the Big Bang. 

Immediately following the initial explosion, the universe underwent a phase of cosmic inflation, during which the known laws of physics were temporarily suspended as the expansion occurred at a rate exceeding the speed of light. However, only a split second after the inflation phase, growth slowed back down to the measured growth of today. However, during this time, which is a hundred times faster than the blink of an eye, the universe had expanded 10 to the 78thpower. In other words, that's 10^10, and so on, 78 times… that's an astronomically high number.

After this period of growth, the universe cooled dramatically, leading to a decrease in the energy of volatile particles, as they are more active in hotter environments. But during this super-heated phase, the smallest known elements, called gluons and quarks, formed protons and neutrons. No longer able to create the basic building blocks of atoms, there was a mass extermination of the original particles, leaving none of the antiparticles. Then, the same process repeated itself, creating electrons. 

After another few minutes into this grand process of creation, the temperature hovered around a billion kelvin, allowing all the created matter to form a density equal to our planet's atmosphere. This is where some of the protons and neutrons began to form bonds, creating helium nuclei, which are not yet complete atoms. However, most of the protons did not bond with their neutron counterparts. Instead, they stayed as what is known as hydrogen nuclei. 

Finally, after roughly 380,000 years into the universe's life, it had cooled sufficiently for the free-moving electrons to fall victim to gravitational forces, causing them to combine with the hydrogen and helium nuclei, creating the first atoms. Most of these new atoms were hydrogen atoms, which emit radiation. It is because of this radiation that we are able to estimate the age of the universe by measuring what is known as the cosmic microwave background.

Over the long eons of time, gravitational forces attracted more atoms together, forming denser regions that created the first nebulae. In these gas clouds, known as star nurseries, more hydrogen atoms clumped together until there were so many that the heat caused a nuclear chain reaction. With this, the first stars were born. As they lit up the darkness of the universe, they, too, began to coalesce together, forming the first galaxies.  

These new cosmic titans came in all different sizes, from small ones to average ones (our Sun) to cosmic behemoths. These massive stars had shorter life spans, and when it was time for them to die, as everything eventually does, they exploded on a grand scale, known as a supernova. But it was because of their violent deaths that the building blocks of life were disbursed throughout the universe. In the core of the dying star, hydrogen was bonding with other atoms, creating even heavier elements. Yes, under extreme heat and pressure, the carbon that builds our bodies, the oxygen and nitrogen that breathe life into our lungs, and all other heavy elements were formed. With every death comes rebirth. 

This theory, albeit expanded upon over time, was first suggested by a Roman Catholic Priest Named Georges Lemaître in 1927. Inspired by Edwin Hubble, Father Georges Lemaître, a physicist, developed his theory. He believed, through his observations, that if you go far enough back in time, matter becomes fewer and fewer and smaller and smaller until it is stored in a single quantum being. There is a rich history of the Catholic Church and the universe, which we will explore more in-depth later in this book.

The Big Bang Theory provides the most comprehensive and wide-ranging explanation for the diverse range of phenomena observable in the night sky. From the atoms that we are built of to the air we breathe to our Moon, to our solar system, to our galaxy, to the cosmic structure itself, the Big Bang Theory seems to have all the answers. In other words, we are all the children of stardust, the light that created the All (yes, I capitalized the All, and you will come to understand why as we venture further into these pages). This is yet another concept we will discuss in detail later in this book.

My final thoughts on the Big Bang Theory:

This chapter is by no means a comprehensive study of the Big Bang theory; it is only meant to give you a simple understanding. However, the theory explains so much yet seems so flawed at the same time. I do not question this as a matter of religious dogma but as a matter of the accepted timeline. Stars, even bigger, short-lived ones, still burn bright for billions and billions of years. If all the elements that make up complex matter are created inside these giant furnaces, would it not take longer than the estimated time given for the lifespan to create so much raw material? 

To me, it seems that the universe would have to be significantly older for the theory to be viable. This doesn't even take into account that our own solar system is 4.5 billion years old, which cuts the time for the universe to create the building blocks of our neighborhood down to just 9 billion years —roughly the lifespan of our life-giving sun. 

Nor does this even consider the other 100 billion stars in our galaxy or the estimated 200 billion to 2 trillion galaxies in the observable universe, which is estimated to be ninety-three billion light years across. Additionally, in the context of time, the newer James Webb Space Telescope is discovering new, even more ancient galaxies that, according to our own laws of physics, appear to rival the currently accepted age of the universe. However, at the time of writing this book, a new study conducted by the University of Ottawa claims that the universe is 27 billion years old. To me, this timeline seems more reasonable. 

This brings me to another argument. If, according to Einstein's own adopted Theory of Relativity, then nothing can go faster than the speed of light. I was led to believe that this is a law of physics that cannot be broken. If this is the case, why can scientist tell me this out of one side of their mouth while telling me to ignore it out of the other? Answer: Science is as steeped in its own dogma as the Spanish Inquisitor Tomás de Torquemada was in his.

Finally, have you ever heard of the cosmological argument? It is a simple philosophical idea that states you cannot have a creation without a creator. You cannot have cause without causation, or everything from nothing without some type of first cause that itself was uncaused. Now, this does not mean the Hebrew God, who has become the supreme being of the three Abrahamic religions, is the cause. It simply means that there must be some force, some underlying principle, that ignited the Big Bang. Hopefully, we will uncover that divine spark together in this book.

Chapter Two: Creation of the Earth

Around 4.5 billion years ago, a dense interstellar cloud of dust was shocked, possibly by the shockwave of a distant supernova, and coalesced into a flat, swirling disk known as a solar nebula. As the gravitational forces pulled more hydrogen atoms closer together, our Sun formed, marking the genesis of what would eventually become our solar system.

The remnants of the solar nebula initiated a lengthy process called accretion, where the gas and dust that had not been absorbed by our Sun began to orbit the bright solar body, colliding with each other and forming larger and larger structures. Over eons of time, these growing collections of rock and dust became immense enough to create their own gravitational forces, pulling in more of the raw materials that lay in their path. This was a prolonged process, as science suggests the growth rate was roughly only two centimeters per year, meaning it took millions of years to occur. 

Due to the extreme heat generated by our Sun, the more volatile elements, such as water and methane, could not consolidate and instead gradually journeyed to the outer solar system beyond what is known as the frost line. This left only the heavier elements, like the metals nickel and iron, along with silicates (rock), to come together, forming the inner terrestrial planets. During this time, it is speculated that some 50 to 100 of these planets had formed. Still, due to what is known as angular momentum, these bodies migrated around instead of remaining in a more permanent orbit, as they do today. However, due to the grand cosmic collisions, we are only left with Mercury, Venus, the Earth, and Mars.

On the other side of the frost point, beyond the asteroid belt, the volatile elements of water and methane were able to coalesce into the larger gas giants, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Due to the size of these monsters of the solar system, they were able to capture the rest of the free-floating and most abundant elements, such as hydrogen and helium. When I say these heavenly bodies are large, we can put their size into scale with the simple statement that they make up 99% of the matter orbiting our sun. 

Now that we have a basic understanding of how the planets formed, let's journey back to the early Earth. 

The first phase, known as the Hadean, was now complete, and the second eon of time, the Archean, began around 3.8 billion years ago. However, after the crust formed, things did not go smoothly. No, at this time, there were still larger heavenly bodies wandering around and playing havoc in the inner solar system. Then, one of these planetary vagabonds hit our primitive world. This cosmic event is known as the Giant Impact Theory, where the Earth was nearly obliterated following a massive collision. Yet, even with the bad comes the good, as it is also theorized that this is how the Moon was formed from the rocky debris from the aftermath.  

After the Earth and Moon coalesced into their current heavenly bodies, a period of intense cosmic bombardment ensued. The planet was the definition of "Hell on Earth," as the temperatures were too high for anything to survive. Yet, during this time of frozen deep space debris impacts, the building blocks of life were deposited. Again, we are children of stardust.

Over the next few million years, the Earth cooled sufficiently for tectonic plates to form through a process known as mantle convection. This new rocky surface then hid the molten mantle, allowing for even more cooling. The oldest known rocks date back to this time and are found in the North American Craton, located in Canada, and are estimated to be 4 billion years old. This hardening process of the virgin surface allowed the Earth's mantle to cool more rapidly than it does today, given current known temperatures. 

Following this cooling trend, the Earth's atmosphere began to form, trapping the gases that are now known as greenhouse gases. This next fact may seem unbelievable because, even though the Sun was thirty percent dimmer in those days, the hot solar winds and the heat generated from below should not have allowed for the formation of an atmosphere, which would have allowed the Earth to naturally cool off into a ball of ice. Yet, it didn't. Anyway, in this new veil that covered our planet, clouds began to form, and like today, the rains then came. Between the asteroid bombardment of rock and ice from above and the Earth-bound precipitation from below, the oceans began to form.

Then, at roughly 2.8 billion years ago, LIFE Began! Due to the chemical reactions of simple organic compounds, the first forms of life were formed. Yet this was only single-cell bacteria that lived in the ocean and fed on the atmosphere rich in greenhouse gases… but it was life. Because of this miracle, for lack of a better word, our planet's atmosphere became rich in oxygen, which all higher known lifeforms need to survive. 

We have now entered what is known as the Proterozoic era, which spanned from approximately 2.5 billion to 540 million years ago. In this era, the continents formed, and the atmosphere became richer in oxygen, which was essential for supporting the epic journey to more complex life. During this period of bacterial dominance, the Earth also underwent significant changes, including multiple ice ages and periods of extreme heat. Yet, the bacteria continued to do their crucial job.

We have now reached the most critical time in our Earth's life to this point, the Cambrian Explosion. Approximately 538 million years ago, a significant event marked the emergence of complex life. This was the time when the famous trilobites thrived. During this eon, the earliest vertebrate creatures began to take shape, along with some of the first prehistoric fish. Now, the emergence of mollusk-type life may not seem like much, but it was the precursor for even more complex life to form. An evolutionary threshold had been crossed. 

During the next Period, known as the Ordovician, these simple fish evolved into the true monsters of the deep, developing jaws and growing to lengths of over 20 feet. They were the vicious predators of the sea, hunting and killing anything they came into contact with. Then, closing out this Period was a mass extinction event that resulted in the loss of 86% of known life. However, this age gave birth to the Devonian Period, which also ended with a mass die-off of 75% of the life that had evolved during this era, including the trilobites that had been holding on for nearly 100 million years.

We now enter the Permian period, which was the last of the Proterozoic era and the time when reptiles controlled the land we know as Pangaea. During this time, the original insects also began to diversify, including the ancestors of our beloved dragonflies, which hover around our gardens. The amphibians of the land and the fish of the ocean also expanded their respective genomes. Yet, as we are now finding out, this period, too, ended with another mass extinction event. This one, however, was the most significant die-off known, where 90 to 95% of all fish and 70% of all land-dwelling creatures went extinct. 

From there, we enter the Triassic Period, followed by the famous Jurassic Period, and then the Cretaceous Period. This was the time when the dinosaurs ruled, whose bones we marvel at every time we visit a museum. The biodiversity during this epoch of history is comparable to that of today. The plants and animals had diversified and spread to the four corners of the globe. It was also during this time that mammals first appeared, carefully hiding themselves under the ferns and ginkgoes, hoping to survive this age of the dinosaurs. 

As all good things must come to an end, so did the reign of the largest land creatures the world had ever seen. 65 million years ago, a giant asteroid headed to Earth, with the Yucatan Peninsula as its final destination. When this killer from above hit, the seas boiled, and the sky turned to fire… a genuinely apocalyptic level event. Every animal that could not burrow deep enough into the ground and every sea creature that could not dive into the depths of the ocean met their end in the initial blast, followed by the nuclear winter that came after.

But, as stated before, with every death comes rebirth. And so it did around 14 million years ago when the first hominids appeared. We have now entered into the Pleistocene Period, when ancestors of the fun-loving orangutans first began swinging through the now-recovered trees of the aging Earth. However, we will conclude this chapter here, as the evolution of hominids will be covered in more detail in the next one.

My final thoughts on the creation of our Earth:

Like the previous chapter, I wanted to keep this one short and to the point. There are countless volumes that go much more in-depth than I can do here. What I can say is that the creation of the Earth is a fantastic story of death and rebirth over eons of time. The thought of how everything coalesced could be somewhat mind-boggling when taken as a whole. Additionally, we did not even cover how the Earth just happened to be at the perfect distance from the Sun for life to form. So, how can so many random occurrences happen? How could there have been so many mass extinctions over the eons of time? Will there be another extinction-level event in our epoch of time? Will it involve our society, or has it already happened to the human race at some distant point in the past? Yes, the consequences that led to this point in our journey almost seem as if they were planned rather than random. Don't they?

Chapter Three: Darwinism and the Missing Link

Charles Darwin, the father of Darwinism and the theory of evolutional biology. Never was there another man of science in modern times who was more controversial than him. His theory of evolution revolutionized what we know about our creation… our genesis. Or does it? Did we evolve from the hominids that we touched on in the previous chapter? Considering this part of the book deals with the history we are taught, we shall proceed as if we had. 

First, his backstory. Charles Darwin was born on February 12th, 1809, in the town of Shrewsbury, England, to Dr. Robert Darwin and his wife Susannah. Charles was the fifth of six children. In July of 1817, at the age of eight, he suffered a significant loss with the death of his mother. After which, in September of 1818, he attended and boarded at Shrewsbury School. 

A few years later, after demonstrating his aptitude for medicine, he apprenticed with his father, providing medical aid to those who could not afford it in the town of Shropshire. As a result, he then attended medical school at the University of Edinburgh. Yet, he grew bored with his education and instead took up taxidermy to help him cope with learning surgery, which he found repulsive. 

Instead of continuing his dreaded medical studies, he began investigating marine invertebrates. This new curiosity led him to attend the University of Cambridge from 1828 to 1831. During this time, his interest was piqued when studying the natural sciences. Then, after completing his time at Cambridge, he boarded the HMS Beagle for a five-year tour. He documented this journey and later published it, which made him a well-known author of his time.

On December 27th, 1831, his voyage to immortality began as the HMS Beagle set sail. The five-year journey was meant to survey and chart the coasts of South America. During this period in his life, he spent most of his waking hours on land collecting specimens. As mentioned, he cataloged everything, from the different animals he came into contact with to his other newfound interest in geological investigations. Then, while in Cape Verde, he noticed a white line high up in a rock cliff, which he discovered to be seashells, only adding to the mystery he was attempting to solve. From the rainforests in Brazil to the coast of Patagonia, Charles was discovering a world that only a few will ever find. 

While in Patagonia, he made a major discovery when he found a large, fossilized bone of a mammal lying in a bed of modern seashells. Next, he explored the interior of "The Land of Giants," where he discovered additional fossils and learned about the native inhabitants of this remarkable land. Collecting all these stunning finds, including fossils of jawbones, teeth, and the external armor of some type of animal, he had them shipped back to England, where this legendary voyage was becoming the talk of the halls of academia. 

The journey seemed more of a quest for oneness with the world than a scientific one. From experiencing an earthquake in Chile to climbing high into the Andes, his young, impressionable mind was beginning to form a theory that would later earn him recognition. Then, from there, Charles sailed on to the Galápagos Islands. In the mid-1990s, when I served in the US Navy, I too followed in Darwin's footsteps, as the ship I was stationed aboard, the USS Peterson (DD-969), took the same course through the Galápagos Islands as the Beagle. It is an experience I will never forget and cherish to this day.

In March 1837, just six months after the Beagle docked for the final time with Charles aboard, he moved to London. Writing in what would later become known as his red notebook, he began to pen his theory. Everything he saw, from land masses that rose and fell to long-extinct animal fossils, led him to his belief that everything evolves. 

Years later, and with multiple published books under his belt, he released, or should I say, unleashed his On the Origin of Species. Since he was already a famous author, the book, released on November 22nd, 1859, sold out on the first day. Inside its pages, Charles detailed his observations and considerations that led him to believe in the case of a common descendant. 

However, he intentionally left out his radical views on humans' possible origins at the time. But even leaving out this crucial piece of the puzzle, his theory of evolution challenged the prevailing beliefs about the origin and diversity of life, sparking significant social and scientific debates. Yes, Darwin's theory revolutionized the fields of natural sciences, including geology, biology, and anthropology (my second favorite subject in college, after philosophy, followed by biology).

After years of sickness, and despite facing some controversy and criticism, his ideas gained widespread acceptance throughout the scientific world. They would later become the foundation for modern evolutional biology. Continuing to postulate new ideas, even from his deathbed, Charles Darwin passed away on April 19th, 1882. Yet, even though the man was gone, he left a lasting legacy as one of, if not the most, influential scientists in history.

Now that we have a basic understanding of the man, let's examine some of the findings that attempt to support his revolutionary theory.

Traveling forward in time to 1891 and to the far-off land of Java, we meet Eugène Dubois, who was leading an excavation team on the banks of the Solo River. While digging one day under the hot Indonesian sun, his team found a tooth, a skull cap, and finally, a thighbone. Estimating the bones to be somewhere between 700,000 and 1.49 million years old, the claim was made that this "Java Man" was the oldest known hominid ever found. Dubois gave his find the name Anthropopithecus erectus but later decided to change the name to Pithecanthropus erectus. 

First publishing his findings in 1894, his central claim was that it was the transitional form between apes and humans. Then, after a decade of researching his discovery, multiple books and papers had been published about it. Yet, there was much controversy surrounding Pithecanthropus erectus. Some scientists believed the fossils were from a primitive human, while others thought they were the bones of an upright walking ape. No matter how hard Dubois argued, only a few initially accepted that his Java Man was indeed the so-called missing link. 

However, throughout the rest of the 1890s, he allowed other scientists to examine his fossil remains, holding conferences all over Europe. After examining the remains themselves, most other researchers began to agree that Java Man was indeed a transitional form, but from an extinct side branch rather than from humans. Angered by this, Dubois stopped showing his life's work until 1923.

Then, for the first time in over two decades, he finally relented and allowed Ales Hrdlicka of the Smithsonian Institution to examine the fossils. However, the problem Ales found during his examination was that its body-to-brain ratio was half that of a modern human but double that of an ape of equal size. In other words, the cranial capacity was closer to a man than an ape. So, was it a man, was it an ape, or were the fossils from two different beings? The mystery deepened. 

In 1921, at Zhoukoudian Cave in northern China, near Beijing, a tooth was discovered. Yes, a single tooth, but one that led to further exploration of the area. Then, in 1927, a Canadian named Davidson Black discovered two more fossilized teeth found in the exact location. Two years later, in 1929, the first skull cap was found at the same site. This cap closely resembled Java Man's but was slightly larger. 

Now, having enough to give this new humanoid a name, Sinanthropus pekinensis was chosen, better known as Peking Man. Franz Weidenreich, who replaced Black after Black died in 1933, believed and stated that Peking Man was another transitional form. Eugène Dubois, stuck in his own dogma, dismissed the new discovery as some kind of Neanderthal, a subspecies we will cover in the next chapter. Moving on to 1950, after extensive study of both Java and Peking Man, a German-American evolutionary biologist named Ernst Mayr, believing the two discoveries were the same, led a panel to rename these two erectus species as Homo erectus, placing them in the evolutionary tree. 

Moving forward again in time to 1974, paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson, along with his team digging in the Afar region of Ethiopia, made another significant discovery when they found a nearly complete skeleton. Dating the bones to 3.2 million years old, science was thrown into an uproar as they had found the oldest hominin known. They named their find Australopithecus afarensis, more commonly known by the nickname "Lucy." 

Standing at just 3.5 feet tall, Lucy was a fully bipedal being based on the structure of her pelvis and leg bones. She had a combination of both ape-like and human-like features. Still, due to her size, she had a much smaller brain compared to the cranial mass of a modern-day human. However, if there was ever a transitional form, Lucy was it… the so-called missing link. 

 In the interest of time, our final stop is in South Africa, where, at 1.98 million years old, not quite as ancient as Lucy, another significant discovery was made: Australopithecus sediba. What is noteworthy about this finding is that this subspecies inhabited the Savannah lands and was a vegetarian, indicating it had evolved to thrive in the area where it was found. Included in this was sediba's ability to eat bark, as no other hominids had the bone structure to chew such a hard substance.  

This is by no means an exhaustive list of the ancient ape-like hominid discoveries made over the past century, as there have been so many more. There is Homo floresiensis, Homo ergaster, Homo gautengensis, Homo rudolfensis, Homo habilis, Paranthropus boisei, Paranthropus aethiopicus, and so on. Then there are the human-like ones, such as Cro-Magnon Man and Neanderthal.

The main points to take away from the concept of the missing link theory, a term not really used anymore, are as follows:

Genetic variation: Within a population of organisms, genetic variation is necessary due to the potential for mutations and genetic recombination.

Adaptation: Through natural selection, species must adapt to their environments or risk extinction. 

Speciation: Over long periods, genetic changes can and will lead to the formation of new species and subspecies, driven by the need for adaptation.

My final thoughts on Darwinism and the Missing Link:

First, Charles Darwin was a truly remarkable man who single-handedly changed the world, and I wish we had more time to discuss him, but we have too much more to cover on this journey. What I can say is that he is not the boogeyman that some people make him out to be. Charles was a man who postulated a theory based on intelligent observations of the natural world around him. Does that mean I agree with all his findings… no. But I do agree with the vast majority of his theory. Yes, everything evolves over time. This is a simple fact of life. Did apes evolve… yes. Did humans evolve… yes. Did apes evolve into humans… unknown. The truth of the matter is that no actual missing link has yet been found; only speculation remains. As I stated earlier, mathematics is the only hard science that is finite and doesn't evolve over time. 2 plus 2 will always equal 4. This is a fact that cannot be disputed. 

Now, I am not entirely opposed to the theory that humans evolved from apes. We very much may have been. But the evidence is still out. And I feel the evidence will never be found because of a simple yet straightforward fact: self-awareness. We, as humans, have something no other animal has, as far as we know, and this is what we know as consciousness. Science will say it is an evolutionary adaptation we have; religion will call it a divine spark. No matter what you call it, we have it. Throughout our journey, we have developed science, religion, art, music, and many other innovations that the animal kingdom has not. Why? How? Who are we? We are so close to the great apes, yet we are so very far away. I believe we will never be able to answer why we are who we are without faith in something bigger than us at play. I will close this chapter with a modern variation of the opening line of the book:the only thing I know is that I know nothing.