Explain the imporatnce of the study of human origins.?

Answer 1

I think it can be exemplified in one question: Why do clocks run clockwise?

There are some people who will answer with, "Who cares? These details are unimportant and don't matter. We'll never really know anyway."

But there is actually a reason, and it is even a pretty good one. Clocks were made to model sundials, and that is the direction that a shadow moves on a sundial in the northern hemisphere.

A critic may say that this information is meaningless, but it does tell us a number of things: perception of time has been linked to light from the earliest of times, that even before clocks there were systems in place to measure them, that even though a clock was innovative its makers respected tradition, and even that if clocks had been invented or mass produced in the southern hemisphere they might have been made to run the other direction (as sundials do there). These are all things about ourselves and our universe which we might not have had so clear a picture of, if we hadn't investigated the direction of clocks.

The same thing can be said about the origins of humanity. By learning about the diet that ancient humans were adapted to, we might learn what is good for us to eat now. By learning about the origins and early use of language, we might learn more about our own languages. By learning about creatures which might be our surviving relatives, we might learn about what makes us unique and different; what causes us to be who we are. And by learning how we came to be, we might learn about how other intelligences might arise in the universe.

All of which, I think, are quite possibly VERY important things to know!

Answer 2

The study of human origins is of importance to human beings
for only two reasons: humans are always curious about everything and want answers to any question they can think up, and, being supremely egotistical, they think anything having to do with themselves is obviously of maximum importance. There really is no more importance to the study of human origins than the study of origins of any other kind of
animal.