Ten Pulses of Evolution & the Surprising Nature of Evolutionary Time
(eBook)

This work offers a novel way to map evolutionary time from life's origin to the first humans. Rather than using a traditional, linear scale in which events bunch up toward the end, a logarithmic scale is employed that expands our resolution as we come to the present. Such a scale allows us to detect patterns that would otherwise be invisible and arrange evolutionary events in memorable fashion. The basic concept of logarithms is not complicated, as we will simply halve units as we move from the past to the present in order to highlight major evolutionary change. Thus, we find the start of life to be approximately four billion years ago, the nucleated cell at two billion years ago, complex multicellularity at one billion years ago, and so on. Remarkably, we find the major events of evolution, along with the certainty of supporting evidence, to be pulsed with logarithmic regularity. This chart also reveals that each Major Node represents change in three major arenas, making for significant leaps in consciousness, gains in mobility, and increased social connectivity. Come, take this evolutionary journey and discover the surprising pattern of logarithmic time, with changes that would seem to have no end.