“It all started a long time ago, ten or fifteen billion years ago,” I began a few minutes later. “I’m not current on which theory is in the lead, the steady-state or the big-bang, but in either case the universe began a long time ago.”
At that point I opened my eyes and gave Ishmael a speculative look.
He gave me one back and said, “Is that it? Is that the story?”
“No, I was just checking.” I closed my eyes and began again. “And then, I don’t know—I guess about six or seven billion years ago—our own solar system was born…. I have a picture in my mind from some childhood encyclopedia of blobs being thrown out or blobs coalescing … and these were the planets. Which, over the next couple billion years, cooled and solidified…. Well, let’s see. Life appeared in the chemical broth of our ancient oceans about what—five billion years ago?”
“Three and a half or four.”
“Okay. Bacteria, microorganisms evolved into higher forms, more complex forms, which evolved into still more complex forms. Life gradually spread to the land. I don’t know … slimes at the edge of the oceans … amphibians. The amphibians moved inland, evolved into reptiles. The reptiles evolved into mammals. This was what? A billion years ago?”
“Only about a quarter of a billion years ago.”
“Okay. Anyway, the mammals … I don’t know. Small critters in small niches—under bushes, in the trees…. From the critters in the trees came the primates. Then, I don’t know—maybe ten or fifteen million years ago—one branch of the primates left the trees and …” I ran out of steam.
“This isn’t a test,” Ishmael said. “The broad outlines will do—just the story as it’s generally known, as it’s known by bus drivers and ranch hands and senators.”
“Okay,” I said, and closed my eyes again. “Okay. Well, onething led to another. Species followed species, and finally man appeared. That was what? Three million years ago?”
“Three seems pretty safe.”
“Okay.”
“Is that it?”
“That’s it in outline.”
“The story of creation as it’s told in your culture.”
“That’s right. To the best of our present knowledge.”
Ishmael nodded and told me to turn off the tape recorder. Then he sat back with a sigh that rumbled through the glass like a distant volcano, folded his hands over his central paunch, and gave me a long, inscrutable look. “And you, an intelligent and moderately well-educated person, would have me believe that this isn’t a myth.”
“What’s mythical about it?”
“I didn’t say there was anything mythical about it. I said it was a myth.”
I think I laughed nervously. “Maybe I don’t know what you mean by a myth.”
“I don’t mean anything you don’t mean. I’m using the word in the ordinary sense.”
“Then it’s not a myth.”
“Certainly it’s a myth. Listen to it.” Ishmael told me to rewind the tape and play it back.
After listening to it, I sat there looking thoughtful for a minute or two, for the sake of appearances. Then I said, “It’s not a myth. You could put that in an eighth-grade science text, and I don’t think there’s a school board anywhere that would quibble with it—leaving aside the Creationists.”
“I agree wholeheartedly. Haven’t I said that the story is ambient in your culture? Children assemble it from many media, including science textbooks.”
“Then what are you saying? Are you trying to tell me that this isn’t a factual account?”
“It’s full of facts, of course, but their arrangement is purely mythical.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You’ve obviously turned off your mind. Mother Culture has crooned you to sleep.”
I gave him a hard look. “Are you saying that evolution is a myth?”