Indeed, humans' vision of themselves in the Universe has been forever altered by three fundamental scientific breakthroughs:
- Galileo's proof, in 1632, that the Earth and humans were not the center of the Universe, as suppposed holy books have proclaimed.
- Darwin's discovery, in 1859, (“On the Origin of Species”) that humans are not some god-like creatures unique among all species, destined to live forever, but are rather the outcome of a very long natural biological evolution.
- And, the Watson-Crick-Wilkins-Franklin's discovery, in 1953, of the structure of the double helix DNA molecule (Deoxyribo Nucleic Acid) in each of the 46 chromosomes in human cells, and the devastating knowledge that humans share more than 95 percent of the same genes with chimpanzees.