Every morning I get off the train at the Roosevelt stop to get to work. This happens to be the same stop as the Adler Planetarium & Astronomy Museum, The Field Museum, and the John G. Shedd Aquarium. The Museum Campus took over the walkway that leads from the Red line to Roosevelt Ave., creating a permanent installation to educate the commuters and museum visitors about the evolution of the world. As I exit the train stop, I climb a set of stairs and enter the Museum Campus display.

I begin with a metal panel on the wall describing the Precambrian Era (4.6 billion years ago-543 million years ago) - single celled bacteria such as blue-green algae populated the earth. I walk past wall tiles illustrated with the Big Bang, jellyfish, and volcanic eruptions.

The next metal panel tells me about the Paleozoic Era (543 million years ago-248 million years ago) - it all ended with the earth’s worst extinction event. It is at about this point that I hear Neil Armstrong’s “One small step for man…” blurb mixed into the ambient, New Age music being played through the overhead speakers. The walls are decorated with depictions of trilobites, a dimetrodon, and Pangaea.

Next is the Mesozoic Era (248 million years ago-65 million years ago) - meaning “middle animals” and ending with a large object smashing into the earth. The wall tiles represent a Tyrannosaurus Rex, belemnite, and comets (presumably of the cataclysmic variety).

Lastly is the Cenozoic Era (65 million years ago-present) with human life, space travel, and the beluga whale. The walls along the stairs leading to the exit are bedecked with tiles created by museum visitors representing their hopes and dreams. Apparently, most museum visitors’ aspire to be misshapen lumps of ceramic.

As I exit the station, I look up to my right to see a panel hanging above the stairs leading to the next platform. Elementary school students have painted the panel with a crudely rendered Michael Jordan silhouette in his famous spread-legged leap. Surrounding Mr. Jordan are quotes from the students. “I like Michael Jordan because he is rich and famous.” “I like Michael Jordan because he is a basketball player.” “I like M.J. because he is tall and rich.”

I traversed universal history from a nebulous nothing, to single-celled organisms, through two major extinction events, to human life and it’s aspirations, culminating in a strange hybrid of physical and economic Darwinism - basketball. I wonder how much longer we’re going to last.