James Hogan - Inherit the Stars

Somebody else tried to push the professor from a different angle.

"How about convergent lines rather than parallel lines? Maybe the selection principles work in such a way that different lines of development converge toward the same optimum end product. In other words, although they start out in different directions, they will both eventually hit on the same, best final design. Like…" He sought for an analogy. "Like sharks are fish and dolphins are mammals. They both came from different origins but ended up hitting on the same general shape."

Danchekker again shook his head firmly. "Forget the idea of perfection and best end products," he said. "You are unwittingly falling into this trap of assuming a grand design again. The human form is not nearly as perfect as you perhaps imagine. Nature does not produce best solutions-it will try any solution. The only test applied is that it be good enough to survive and reproduce itself. Far more species have proved unsuccessful and become extinct than have survived-far, far more. It is easy to contemplate a kind of preordained striving toward something perfect when this fundamental fact is overlooked-when looking back down the tree, as it were, with the benefit of hindsight from our particular successful branch and forgetting the countless other branches that got nowhere.

"No, forget this idea of perfection. The developments we see in the natural world are simply cases of something good enough to do the job. Usually, many conceivable alternatives would be as good, and some better.

"Take as an example the cusp pattern on the first lower molar tooth of man. It is made up of a group of five main cusps with a complex of intervening grooves and ridges that help to grind up food. There is no reason to suppose that this particular pattern is any more efficient than any one of many more that might be considered. This particular pattern, however, first occurred as a mutation somewhere along the ancestral line leading toward man and has been passed on ever since. The same pattern is also found on the teeth of the great apes, indicating that we both inherited it from some early common ancestor where it happened through pure chance.

"Charlie has human cusp patterns on all his teeth.

"Many of our adaptations are far from perfect. The arrangement of internal organs leaves much to be desired, owing to our inheriting a system originally developed to suit a horizontal and not an upright posture. In our respiratory system, for example, we find that the wastes and dirt that accumulate in the throat and nasal regions drain inside and not outside, as happened originally, a prime cause of many bronchial and chest complaints not suffered by four-footed animals. That’s hardly perfection, is it?" Danchekker took a sip of water and made an appealing gesture to the room in general.

"So, we see that any idea of convergence toward the ideal is not supported by the facts. Charlie exhibits all our faults and imperfections as well as our improvements. No, I’m sorry-I appreciate that these questions are voiced in the best tradition of leaving no possibility unprobed and I commend you for them, but really, we must dismiss them."

Silence enveloped the room at his concluding words. On all sides, everybody seemed to be staring thoughtfully through the table, through the walls, or through the ceiling.

Caldwell placed his hands on the table and looked around until satisfied that nobody had anything to add.

"Looks like evolution stays put for a while longer," he grunted. "Thank you, Professor."

Danchekker nodded without looking up.

"However," Caldwell continued, "the object of these meetings is to give everyone a chance to talk freely as well as listen. So far, some people haven’t had much to say-especially one or two of the newcomers." Hunt realized with a start that Caldwell was looking straight at him. "Our English visitor, for example, whom most of you already know. Dr. Hunt, do you have any views that we ought to hear about…?"

Next to Caldwell, Lyn Garland was making no attempt to conceal a wide smile. Hunt took a long draw at his cigarette and used the delay to collect his thoughts. In the time it took for him to coolly emit one long, diffuse cloud of smoke and flick his hand at the ashtray, all the pieces clicked together in his brain with the smooth precision of the binary regiments parading through the registers of the computers downstairs. Lyn’s persistent cross-examinations, her visits to the Ocean, his presence here-Caldwell had found a catalyst.

Hunt surveyed the array of attentive faces. "Most of what’s been said reasserts the accepted principles of comparative anatomy and evolutionary theory. Just to clear the record for anyone with misleading ideas, I’ve no intention of questioning them. However, the conclusion could be summed up by saying that since Charlie comes from the same ancestors as we do, he must have evolved on Earth the same as we did."

"That is so," threw in Danchekker.

"Fine," Hunt replied. "Now, all this is really your problem, not mine, but since you’ve asked me what I think, I’ll state the conclusion another way. Since Charlie evolved on Earth, the civilization he was from evolved on Earth. The indications are that his culture was about as advanced as ours, maybe in one or two areas slightly more advanced. So, we ought to find no end of traces of his people. We don’t. Why not?"

All heads turned toward Danchekker.

The professor sighed. "The only conclusion left open to us is that whatever traces were left have been erased by the natural processes of weathering and erosion," he said wearily. "There are several possibilities: A catastrophe of some sort could have wiped them out to the extent that there were no traces; or possibly their civilization existed in regions which today are submerged beneath the oceans. Further searching will no doubt produce solutions to this question."

"If any catastrophe as violent as that occurred so recently, we would already know about it," Hunt pointed out. "Most of what was land then is still land today, so I can’t see them sinking into the ocean somewhere, either; besides, you’ve only to look at our civilization to see it’s not confined to localized areas-it’s spread all over the globe. And how is it that in spite of all the junk that keeps turning up with no trouble at all from primitive races from around the same time-bones, spears, clubs, and so on-nobody has ever found a single example of anything related to this supposed technologically advanced culture? Not a screw, or a piece of wire, or a plastic washer. To me, that doesn’t make sense."

More murmuring broke out to mark the end of Hunt’s critique. "Professor?" Caldwell invited comment with a neutral voice.

Danchekker compressed his mouth into a grimace. "Oh, I agree, I agree. It is surprising-very surprising. But what alternative are you proposing?" His voice took on a note of sarcasm. "Do you suggest that man and all the animals came to Earth in some enormous celestial Noah’s Ark?" He laughed. "If so, the fossil record of a hundred million years disproves you."

"Impasse." The comment came from Professor Schorn, an authority on comparative anatomy, who had arrived from Stuttgart a few days before.

"Looks like it," Caldwell agreed.

Danchekker, however, was not through. "Would Dr. Hunt care to answer my question?" he challenged. "Precisely what other place of origin is he suggesting?"

"I’m not suggesting anywhere in particular," Hunt replied evenly. "What I am suggesting is that perhaps a more openminded approach might be appropriate at this stage. After all, we’ve only just found Charlie. This business will go on for years yet; there’s bound to be a lot more information surfacing that we don’t have right now. I think it’s too early to be jumping ahead and predicting what the answers might be. Better just to keep on plodding along and using every scrap of data we’ve got to put together a picture of the place Charlie came from. It might turn out to be Earth. Then again, it might not."