Mention natural history and most people think of primordial seas, dinosaurs and Neandertals. But evolution of the Earth and its inhabitants continues today. Continents move and rift, oceans open and close, the climate remains in flux and species evolve and disappear. One has only to look at the record of earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions over the past few decades to understand that this is true.
Current scientific evidence suggests that the Big Bang occured some 13.7 billion years ago. Our own species appeared only 125,000 years ago and the human life span is in the order of 78 years. It is no wonder that our perspective leads us to false assumptions. Humans are part of natural history and, assuming we don't destroy our environment first, our species will evolve into others in the distant future.
