If Genius Has Any Common Denominator, I

Contrary To Current Cynicism About Past Golden Ages, The Abstraction Known As 'the Intelligent Layperson' Does Exist - In The Form Of Millions Of Folks With A Passionate Commitment To Continuous Learning.

Each Of The Major Sciences Has Contributed An Essential Ingredient In Our Long Retreat From An Initial Belief In Our Own Cosmic Importance. Astronomy Defined Our Home As A Small Planet Tucked Away In One Corner Of An Average Galaxy Among Millions; Biology Took Away Our Status As Paragons Created In The Image Of God; Geology Gave Us The Immensity Of Time And Taught Us How Little Of It Our Own Species Has Occupied.

We Debase The Richness Of Both Nature And Our Own Minds If We View The Great Pageant Of Our Intellectual History As A Compendium Of New Information Leading From Primal Superstition To Final Exactitude. We Know That The Sun Is Hub Of Our Little Corner Of The Universe, And That Ties Of Genealogy Connect All Living Things On Our Planet, Because These Theories Assemble And Explain So Much Otherwise Disparate And Unrelated Information Not Because Galileo Trained His Telescope On The Moons Of Jupiter Or Because Darwin Took A Ride On A Galápagos Tortoise.

Asian Homo Erectus Died Without Issue And Does Not Enter Our Immediate Ancestry (for We Evolved From African Populations); Neanderthal People Were Collateral Cousins, Perhaps Already Living In Europe While We Emerged In Africa... In Other Words, We Are An Improbable And Fragile Entity, Fortunately Successful After Precarious Beginnings As A Small Population In Africa, Not The Predictable End Result Of A Global Tendency. We Are A Thing, An Item Of History, Not An Embodiment Of General Principles.

The Board Transported Its Jurisdiction To A Never-never Land Where A Dorothy Of The New Millennium Might Exclaim: "they Still Call It Kansas, But I Don't Think We're In The Real World Anymore."