Origin Story: A Big History of Everything

by David Christian

European navigators found new continents and islands, saw new constellations in the southern skies, and encountered peoples, religions, states, plants, and animals never mentioned in ancient texts. The tsunami of new information shook up education, science, and even religion throughout Europe, because this was the region through which new information flowed first and fastest. That information forced European scholars to question ancient science, and even the Bible. It began to undermine traditional origin stories. In sixteenth-century England, Francis Bacon argued that science and philosophy should no longer rely mainly on ancient texts but should actively seek out new knowledge, like Europe’s navigators: “By the distant voyages and travels which have become frequent in our times many things in nature have been laid open and discovered which may let in new light upon philosophy.”6 “There is,” wrote Joseph Glanvill in 1661, “an America of secrets, and [an] unknown Peru of Nature” waiting to be found.