The mind is a product of the way the brain is organised, how the cells are connected and how they interact with each other. It is an "emergent property" and something much more than just a collection of brain cells.

Ever since our species discovered how to make and control fire, it has sought to control more and more of its environment. The invention of clothes allows us to travel in all weathers; the domestication of animals means we no longer have to worry about finding prey to hunt; agriculture has done away with the need to roam widely to seek vegetable food; air-conditioning and central heating keep our homes at the same, comfortable temperature all the year round.

Last month we saw how there is a parallel universe of worms which have evolved to live within us. Their existence depends entirely on ours. Our bodies create a comfortable environment maintained by our physiology at a steady temperature, with abundant food and balanced chemical conditions.

As recently as the mid 20th Century, most people believed that the world's continents were fixed in position, and that they had been located more or less where they are now since the earth was formed.

Wouldn't it be great to live in a place where it was nice and comfortable, where there was unlimited food and drink, no need to go to work, no stress. All you have to do is eat and have sex all the time?

The idea that man evolved from apes is accepted by most people today. There is also evidence that the entire world was populated by a relatively small group of people who emigrated from Africa. But what caused these developments? Scientists now believe that climate change and global warming had a great effect both on human evolution and our ability to colonise the world.

This article contains some established facts, some theories from evolutionary psychology and a lot of fun. Put together, these insights create a novel way of looking at ourselves. The social organisation of the ape species Homo sapiens has evolved to be dominated by males. In almost all primitive societies, high status males choose which females they want as mates.

A traditional diagram of the Tree of Life, depicting the evolution of living things from their origin, upwards and outwards to mankind standing at the top, implies that evolution has been a steady and gradual process.

In Darwin's book "The Descent of Man" (1871), the evidence he presents for human evolution from ape-like creatures is based purely on similarities in our body form and development. He had none of the fossil evidence we take for granted today and the process of heritability was not understood at all.

There is a geographical area in South-east Asia named after the scientist who first put forward the theory of evolution. This area is called "Wallacea" after Alfred Russel Wallace who co-authored, with Darwin, the 1858 scientific paper which revealed the Theory of Evolution to the world.