Do you ever stop to consider what an amazingly successful animal humans are?
We've out competed virtually every other animal on the planet for land and resources. We can change our environment to an incredible degree in order to suit our needs. We've expanded and settled virtually every continent on the planet.
Amazing evolutionary success.
This page is a permanent link to the reply below and its nested replies. See all post replies »
@Pikachu yes actually it does matter. There is a balance to all life on earth. Man, through his dominance untempered by wisdom, puts things out of balance. And by doing that he risks his own extinction. We're seeing pollinators disappearing at an alarming rate due to pesticides and loss of environment. If that continues then you see a decrease in food production to feed the ever growing population. That's just one example of how it matters. Whether the planet will be fine or not... well we won't be around to know how that story ends. But we now know Mars had water and an atmosphere at one time and its' story didn't end so well, obviously. Although we don't know exactly why yet.
The only evolutionary test we have yet to pass is longevity and we'll see how that goes. But in evolutionary terms it does not matter what other species suffer as long as ours continues to thrive. And so far it is. Sucess!
@Pikachu i do understand your point about humans being an evolutionary success. But I don't see the way we've brought about our success, particularly the last 200 years, as anything to celebrate. Yes, I see looking with pride at wiping out other species as hubris. It's more than just survival of the fittest. We're supposed to be thinking creatures. We have the ability to look at what we're doing and understand not only the tragedy of of it, but how it affects ourselves down the road. The dinosaurs were here for how long? And man has been here for how long? I know you know the answers. Do you look at the state of the world now and man and think he'll compare to the dinosaur timeline? Evolutionary success, yes. But too destructive to keep it going.
Well to be clear, i'm taking no moral or ethical stance on the manner in which we've achieved revolutionary success, only pointing out that we are indeed remarkably successful.
And it's not quite fair to compare us to dinosaurs. We're just a single species after all.
