Religion and science battled through the Renaissance and Age of Reason. In this struggle, science overcame,  and the discovery of evolution by means of natural selection and speciation (nicely coincident with the discovery of the human fossil record) has been cast as the long-sought, final proof of a naturalistic human essence. It was actually more of a lock on a door that was already closed by people like John Locke and Sir Francis Bacon.

Now there are different, bigger dangers looming that we can address with the science of human origins. This isn’t creationism in Kansas anymore, and it takes a diligent support community to identify objectives. So what is the use of the fossil record in this new time, and how do we approach it? Can the empirical reality of the human fossil record bring people together in a world of increasing extremism? The fossil record is real, and studying these fossils to illuminate human origins has the potential to go on forever as long as fossils continue to be found, curated, and preserved. They are a stable repository of information about what we are, and as long as the Enlightenment is not extinguished, any group that endeavors to preserve this legacy will always be remembered.