Hypotheses of the origin of man: the evolution of views

In all ages, from the deepest antiquity to the present day, mankind was worried about the question of one's own origin. During this period, a considerable number of theories emerged, expressing the most different, sometimes diametrically opposed, hypotheses of human origin. However, most of them were not based on clear evidence, but rather on intuitive assumptions, backed up occasionally by some historical or anthropological factors. In this case, the hypotheses themselves can not be called emerging from scratch - their appearance in this or that historical period is quite logical and is due to the progress of science.

The basic hypotheses of the origin of man as an illustration of the development of scientific thought

Initially, a man, confronted with a highly developed nature around himself and realizing that he more than harmoniously fits into the world around, surpassing, nevertheless, other forms of life for mental development, attributed the origin of all living to the divine forces. Practically in all religions, both those that still function and the antiquities that have left us together with civilizations, the origin of life on Earth was exclusively a merit of the gods. In some religions, man was created from a piece of clay, in others he was a direct descendant of the gods, but somehow life on our planet was explained by supernatural interference. Such hypotheses of the origin of man received in science the name of creationism, that is, the theory of creation.

These hypotheses functioned as the only reasonable explanation for a person's appearance long enough - until the development of science reached the stage when the connection between a person and other forms of life on the Earth became obvious. Moreover, it was no longer possible to explain this connection by interference from outside. So there was an evolutionary theory of the origin of man. The date of its emergence is 1739 - it was in this year that the natural scientist and anthropologist Carl Linnae made a modern man, classifying it as homo sapiens, into the classification of primates.

In the future, this theory was developed and reinforced by Charles Darwin, whose name she is associated today. Supporters of this hypothesis of human origin argue that modern people are the logical conclusion of the evolution of primates, which gradually, under the influence of natural disasters, and as a result of the process of natural selection have reached the current level of development. In the confirmation of this theory, numerous historical and anthropological studies are presented, confirming the fact that the monkeys undoubtedly evolved in their development and gradually came to humanoid life forms. Unfortunately, there is no direct evidence of this theory, that is, it is impossible to trace the entire evolutionary chain, nor can it be possible to explain why some monkeys have remained at the level of animals. But this theory remains to this day official, and most modern classical scientists are adherents of precisely this hypothesis of human origin.

But in the last decades, beginning approximately from the second half of the last century, in contrast to classical theories about the development of mankind - religious and scientific, others began to appear. The most common of these is the explanation of the appearance of a person on the planet under the influence (or with direct participation) of extraterrestrial civilizations. The rapid development of outer space, the periodically arising assumptions about the existence of other civilizations, perhaps significantly superior to the Earth in its development, and unexplained facts from the point of view of modern science have led to the fact that modern hypotheses of the origin of man deny the previous scientific experience.

Supporters of the theory of paleovisitis argue that monkeys have remained a dead-end branch that did not lead to the creation of reason, and modern forms of life were introduced from the outside by more developed beings.