A recent article in Scientific American struck a chord. It was a piece about the dawn of cooking. Harvard University biological anthropologist Richard Wrangham believes that as our early ancestors began cooking food, they had more time to devote to other activities rather than spend their days chewing raw food. The eventual payoff to these ancient barbecues was more energy and time to form, among other things, social relationships. Wrangham believes that “cooking made us human.”

There’s no reason to challenge the scientific community. However, I would like to respectfully submit an alternative observation.

During a drive this summer, my friend and I found ourselves traveling on an unfamiliar street in the City of Buffalo. The small yards were overrun with weeds, abandoned broken toys, rust-eaten vehicles, various piles of garbage and discarded home projects. A mangy dog scratched near a long-neglected scrubby bush that partially hid a sagging porch. House paint was sorely needed everywhere you looked. Two homes were boarded up.

This was the kind of neighborhood that compels one to reach for the locks and wish you were driving an older model car — preferably dented.

We both became quiet. Our eyes scanned the dismal blight as the air-conditioner blew out a refreshing breeze. I began to think of alternative escape routes.

“Why that house looks like Grandma Burke’s,” my friend said, spotting a structure that, in itself, was unexceptional. Yet the front yard, actually a small enclosure, was full of garden ornaments — white plastic swans, a bird bath, gnomes and spinning whirly gigs. We slowed down for a better look. Someone had planted a few hardy marigolds near the front door, and a macrame hanger hung with the promise of a verdant trailing vine, struggling to survive.

“Grandma Burke could never throw anything out,” my friend reminisced. “She saved everything. We cleaned out her house when she died and she had saved everything her kids had ever made or given her. My cousin made a clay worm pot in kindergarten. There it was — slightly chipped — holding her cotton balls!”

Rolling on, we began to spot a pot of flowers here, a small garden tucked in there, a lace curtain in a front window, a funky-colored door — heck, a whole house painted wild chartreuse. Someone had gone jungle filling an upper porch with assorted plants.

“This is art!” my friend exclaimed. “A little bit of beauty; an expression of hope.”

On a cross street, I eased the car past a middle-aged man driving a bicycle with a steering wheel. The steering wheel appeared to be constructed from another bicycle wheel. There was something colorful in the center—possibly a plate.

The man seemed to be talking to himself. Not so. He had a small transistor radio with a long antenna tied with string to the bike frame. To our delight, he was in full song.

“Now if we could only find the bubble man,” my sidekick chortled. “You don’t get a ride like this every day.”

It could be that after our basic needs are met and we’ve cooked our beefburgers, we feel a need to put out a pot of petunias or stick a whirling bluebird in the ground. Maybe even press our hands in fresh cement or break out in song. Art, in all its many forms, is what really makes us human—unscientifically speaking.