Those who don't learn from the past might be doomed to repeat it, but what about those who do know their history? Perhaps they can use that knowledge to be more creative going forward. Bernard Wood and Alexis Uluutku take us on the ultimate human history field trip, back to the earliest stages of hominin evolution ("The Inevitably Incomplete Story of Human Evolution," pages 106-113). Life is often depicted as a branching tree, but the authors caution that with an unavoidably patchy fossil record and a human tendency toward cognitive bias, we should expect the path of human evolution to more closely resemble a loosely braided rope. As the field of paleoanthropology continues to advance, more evidence may help create a fuller picture, but, the authors argue, we should never expect a complete one. That understanding may help researchers consider how they interpret newly found fossils. Sometimes history doesn't give us an accurate picture until we look again. As Dana Mackenzie recounts in Computing Science ("The Princess and the Philosopher," pages 80-84), famous figures may have had influences that weren't acknowledged, but should be.
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