On Science and Art

When Galileo dropped two balls from the tower of Pisa it was the high point for the unification of art and science, but by the time of Newton’s birth less than a hundred years later the two disciplines had sadly separated. True East strives to reverse that course, finding a common ground between anthropology and fiction. It is a story, maybe the greatest story, of how humankind emerged from the jungles of Africa. As I researched anthropology, I was surprised to find that there are still sizable gaps in that story even with advancements in genetic paleontology. True East fills some of those holes with fiction, while being true to the recent fossils finds. Homo floresiensisnicknamed the hobbit because of its diminutive size, doesn’t fit any models of human evolution or migration, but it does make for interesting reading. Even Katy’s field of genetic anthropology fails to locate it on the human tree of evolution; and yet it existed. Katy’s realization in True East is humankind’s realization that science sprang from the arts and still can learn from them. I could have made Katy’s education anything, but having read articles on the hobbits of Indonesia I decided genetic anthropology enriched my story and by weaving it into Katy’s adventures it made for an interesting read.