Our ancestors have arrived at the American Museum of Natural History. They are very old, and we are only beginning to recognize them and ourselves in them. They remind us of our origins long ago and how we have emerged as modern humans in the fullness of time.

The museum’s new permanent exhibition on human origins, which opens tomorrow, merges notable achievements in paleontology and genetics, sciences that have made their own robust evolutionary strides in recent years. Each introduces evidence supporting the other in establishing a genealogy extending back to protohuman species that arose in Africa from earlier primates some six to seven million years ago.

These two scientific threads run through the exhibition like the strands of the DNA double helix.

Ellen V. Futter, the museum’s president, said the “mutually reinforcing evidence” was organized in the exhibition to address three fundamental questions: Where did we come from? Who are we? And what lies ahead for us?

Good questions. A museum worth visiting for answers grounded in science. Unlike this crowd who will sell you a print of Noah’s Ark for only $1,000.



  1. woodie says:

    One of the really great reasons for missing New York Cty. Best collection of museums on the planet.

  2. John Paradox says:

    C’mon, Eidard, we all know that SATAN created those skeletons and stuff to lead us from THE BIBBLE!

    /sarcasm

    J/P=?

  3. TJGeezer says:

    #2 – How can you say that? It was that invisible guy up in the sky, playing a practical joke on gullible people like, well, pretty much every educated human on Earth.

  4. tallwookie says:

    Interesting article there – wish i was in that area, i’d go for sure

  5. joshua says:

    I would love to see this exhibition.
    I always wonder what exactly it was about Africa that it became the breeding ground of the Human race. Why not Australia or Southeast Asia? When our ancestors started coming out of the trees, much of the Earth in the Southern Hemisphere would have been conducive to the same sort of developement.

    I guess it was so we modern humans could look at a bigot and tell him that he to came from Africa.

  6. Isos says:

    As a Christian, it’s nice to get slammed at the end of every post regarding evolution. You forgot to call me a right wing nut-job, though.

  7. Mr. Fusion says:

    #6, Isos, OK, then you’re a right wing nut job. Happy now?

  8. Isos says:

    That works.

  9. Arkansas says:

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  10. Mule Acid says:

    Doesn’t the guy on the “charter membership” graphic at the bottom look just like a chimpanzee?


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