He continued,
"Let's look at it this way!. You use to teach history. Now suppose you taught a class of 20 students ... and suppose, at the beginning of the school year, you assign each student just one-fifty year period of world history. Their assignment is to study and record everything they can find out about their fifty year period. Later, each student would be asked to present a three minute oral report of their period."
He paused, letting me think about this.
Sam continued,
"The question is: What span of history would a mere 20 students represent ... and how long would it take the class to summarize the highlights that span this period?"
He didn't wait for my answer.
"Of course," he said immediately, "It is 1000 years ... or the span of "modern" civilization ... and it would take the class only one hour to "count off" major events and headlines occurring during this period."
He continued,
"Extrapolating again ... two of these classes, would take you back to the time of Christ and five classes would represent the 5000 years of recorded history."
He let this fact sink in.
"So," he continued, "5000 years is not so long and it doesn't seem reasonable that We could have changed much during this time."
"Have I proved my point?" ... Sam asked.
He looked pleased with himself.
"You should be feeling-right now-that you could sit down with a Viking and share your hopes, your dreams, your ... "
I interrupted ... because I finally saw the implications.
I said,
"Now this is an exciting idea because if the Egyptian were able to build pyramids .. then there must have been 'alota' changes before 5000 years ago to get us to the point of being able to build complex civilizations."
For the first time, I was moving along with Sam and Fang in this new "Time Thesis" thing.
Sam's head moved up and down affirmatively.
"Fang is working with this idea, "he said."
"As you know, Fang has been away for sometime." Sam continued, "His research is to study the ancient buried river and stream beds along the Nile. Fang considers this area the "cradle of fishilization."
Sam continued,
"After Fang arrived, he teamed up with other Fisheologists ... each having a piece of the 'chapaddie,' so to speak."
"Based on the characteristic surface erosion and historical climatic changes in the Nile region, Fang began to realize the Sphinx and a couple of other Egyptian cities were created about 5000 years before - now get this - the Egyptian civilization began."
Sam continued,
"It was about this time that I arrived at the "dig" site and became totally absorbed in his research."
I knew that Fang could care less about the Egyptians; his only interest is in ancient fish and their early fishilization.
Sam continued,
"When I began to understand what Fang had uncovered, I was dumb-founded. All this time, we people had been thinking in terms of evolution. If Fang is correct, his research seems to imply We people must have been competently doing complex things - such as making large levers, developing mathematics, and some form of engineering or science, - even before the Sphinx had been created."
"Now that's old," I said.
to ... Previous Chapter
Top ... or ... back to the ... Home .. or ... Announcement page