Crazy. Who the hell is crazy enough to want to realize a timeline of the entire biological and cultural evolution of mankind. This month, Tom Schoepen (31) put the finishing touches to his showpiece, after four years of slaving away. A conversation about the impossibility of being a homo universalis.

In the Backstage (cultural center) in Ghent, the timeline is set up on a stage. Fifteen billion years of evolution of the universe and 5000 years of cultural history are rendered on 2 by 1,37 metre. “More than 3000 important movements, representatives, essential publications and other facts are situated in time and place,” the added justification runs. Divided in three horizontal areas, which are ordered above each other, the development of art and literature, of philosophy and world religions, and of sciences, is unfolded against the background of the main political revolutions. An adjustable fastening system provides the desirable information to hang at eye level. Frames with background information on movements, classifications and photographs illustrate the whole.

“The plan for a timeline started when I commenced, after my education as a graphic designer, the studies moral sciences at Ghent University”, the proud author explains. “At first, I only illustrated the course ‘Historic survey of philosophy’ of philosopher Etienne Vermeersch on the size of a poster. Students were so interested, that in 1996 I started with the development of an interdisciplinary survey. Rapidly, it developed into an enormous project with relevance outside the university”. It is not a coincidence that Schoepen came across such an idea while studying at Ghent University. The founding father of the department moral sciences in Ghent, the philosopher Leo Apostel (1925-1995), was the Flemish interdisciplinary thinker par excellence and his influence is still noticeable in the broad education of students. The other source of inspiration of Schoepen was, according to him, the underestimated ethicist Hugo van den Enden, to whom the timeline is dedicated. “His phenomenal knowledge and interdisciplinary approach made a deep impression.” A more accurate tribute is hardly imaginable, nor a more risky undertaking. The scope of the time-line with so much sense of details didn’t exist. “The university courses were my starting point. I completed them with academic sources. Obviously, history consists of a number of people you can not do without, like Aristotle, Shakespeare, Darwin and Einstein. Nevertheless, for the majority counts that for each name you choose, you can replace it by ten others. Fortunately, for the final details some fifteen professors were willing to supervise. By comparing the different sources, it became obvious who is, who is not or who is less relevant. By selecting, I turned around each stone five times. Still, an awful lot of insecurities remain. Even in the most faithful sources you come across contradictions, often because some ‘facts’ are actually approaches of the probable reality, a fact that most sources fail to mention. In such cases, I have always contacted the experts. Where it is desirable, I indicated they are probable data via symbols. An interesting case is for example Jesus. His birth date and his dying days are hardly to discover because direct historical sources do not exist. I have to rely on the dominant consensus between exegetes and theologists.”

Discussion about time In the first place, the time-line is a critical-scientific project, Schoepen emphasizes. Therefore, he wants to start a forum for discussion on the Internet. “If you want to be scientific, you have to be receptive to discussions and refutations. This critical attitude is reflected in his choices, which were also submitted for criticism. The psychoanalysis for example I mention as a pre-scientific discipline. The influence of Freud is especially noticeable in literature, i.e cultural-historical. I strongly emphasized the biological evolution, which I put underneath as the basis for all the rest. On the one hand, I wanted to create an effect of alienation by indicating graphically how our species came into being on the evolutionary clock only a fraction of a second before twelve o’ clock, something that inspires to humility. I also wanted to emphasize how culture is rooted in nature.” This evolutionary-scientific frame does not seem to be something obvious in comparison with the existing time-lines. “Some do not mention our evolutionary background, as if we were not biological but beings who are only culturally determined. Others, especially American ones, handle a Christian perspective or have an absolutely creationistic bias: they take the biblical Creation story literally. A worldwide, wildly popular time-line dates from the 19th century and followed bishops Uscher’s proposition that God created earth in 4004 AC. Adam and Eve are mentioned as the first people and the development of languages is situated in the tower of Babel.” The time-line of Schoepen puts off by its sense of detail, but that is the prize of accuracy. The designer wanted to include marginal movements and important women. “A lot of women have never got the appreciation in history they deserved”, Schoepen means. That is illustrated with the tragic history of the Russian Sofia Kovalevskaya, a 19th century mathematician who made her name in analysis. “In those days a woman got no admittance to university, but she could gain respect through the fact that the German mathematician Weierstrass accepted her as his private pupil; while a lot of his male colleagues simply pinched the ideas of women. Chance wasn’t long on her side: a freezing night in a station where she got stuck, put an end to her life.”

Tendentious “ I did not want to pick out as many women as possible; I do not want to be tendentious in reverse order. The persons have to be worth the effort, especially as in comparison with other relevant names”, he says. The same difficult choice occured when dealing with non-western names and phenomena. “I wanted to reckon with the milestones in other cultures, The Maya’s for example have the invention of the number zero to their credit. Nevertheless, this led to enormous selection problems. For, you can nuance endlessly and in the field of scientific developments, the centre lies in the West. The Arabian world, which took advantage of a great scientific growth during the western Middle Ages, is an exception. Afterwards, it was on the downgrade and the mentioning of this less relevant period can not be at the expense of very influential scientists as J. Kepler or Niels Bohr. However, each selection and each classification remains of course disputable. Especially evaluating the present is extremely difficult, because you are only able to get a clear view on prominent movements and persons from some distance. However, the persistent importance of a recent person as the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins or the genetici James Watson and Francis Crick is beyond dispute.”

Schoepen obviously put his heart and soul into his ‘Sisyphus project’ as he christened it. Philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, economy, psychology, sociology, antropology, world religions, music history, literature and art are carved out in the stone he has been rolling upstairs the previous years. He calls it donkeywork, and he would not start again. What he has learned about it? Not in the least intellectual modesty. “I know it is a philosophical platitude, but I really mean it: the more knowledge you obtain, the stronger you realize your own ignorance”, he explains. “The previous years, I have learned a lot, but this knowledge is especially generalistic. Of course, generalists who can demonstrate connections are as necessary as specialists, but eventually both are problematic. However, since the 19th century, the universal geniuses already have already died out. When it comes to the crunch, everybody is a layman by such a survey.” “My creation is as an evolutionary map of the world. Who wants to know more, can consult books”, Schoepen says. “And it looks nice on top of that.”