Wednesday, Indianapolis, Indiana

There are times when I have an innate confidence that science and technology has pretty much mapped out human reality. I have a sense of what is known, what is unknown and what might probably become known in the future. Once in a while, however, I do get disappointed with the expertise of experts. Yesterday provided a riveting example of the limitations of human knowledge.

A a team of scientists from Scotland, wandering around remote areas of Africa discovered a heretofore unknown community of gorillas. These primates, as most of us are aware, have been diminishing and even threatened with extinction. So it was pretty remarkable that these scientists stumbled upon an unknown gathering of these creatures.

Ah… but here’s the rub. This previously unknown guerrilla community numbered… are you ready?

125,000 Gorillas!

Are you kidding me? 125,000 creatures that had escaped the notice of primatologists until a few weeks ago. This represents the population of New Haven, Connecticut! It would be like finding out that, until this week, no one really knew of the existence of East Los Angeles, Cedar Rapids, Iowa or Cambridge, England!

How did this happen? I mean, I could understand this oversight were not for the invention of…say…helicopters and satellite photographs. 125,000 gorillas is more than the population of Waco, Texas and Flint, Michigan. Let’s face it, this is a fairly significant oversight by the entire community of zoologists and their colleagues in the animal sciences.

Now, of course, I’m delighted that they found these magnificent creatures. And it makes me wonder if, given the suspicion that primates (although they don’t speak to us in our native tongue) are nonetheless capable of some higher order thinking, exercised their intention to avoid humanity.

\And who could blame them? Their sibling creatures have been the victims of systematic eradication by human beings for decades. I can almost imagine the reaction of the first guerrilla to see these approaching scientists.

“Oh, that’s just great!”

Let’s face it, being “discovered” was probably not good news for these gorillas.