News Archive

Thursday, September 23, 2004 New Short Story: Dawn of Science Ruins of Earth? Credit: Indiana University Eric Erkenbrack has sent us a short story entitled Dawn of Science. I won't give away the end, but the story is a history of the human race told through the eyes of someone from the distant future. The story is very well written, and though somewhat unrealistic (hey, this is science fiction) its descriptions are captivating. Here's a snippet: Yesterday, my pre-college biology class visited the Biological Museum at Mare Imbrium. My teacher was especially excited due to the grand opening of a new exhibit touching upon a former period in the evolution of hominids. The traveling exhibit was enormously popular, since this period in the development of hominids – a period popularly known as the ‘Dawn of Science’ – is held in extremely high esteem. Due to our classical education in the sciences, the exhibit was just like taking a trip back in evolutionary time. In school, we read about those critical, brave first insights. Ptolemy, Kepler, Copernicus, Aristotle: we’ve read excerpts of many great works from that era. It’s nice to reflect on the past, learning from their mistakes and reveling in their accomplishments. We are very different from our predecessors though. Like hominids prior to H. sapiens, we have evolved. We are Homo intellegens. @ 21:18 EST