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.
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Except, of course, we are now past the tipping point for exponential acceleration of global warming. Our "success" will not only kill most of us but also knock out 90% of this round of evolution. There's no guarantee that our species will survive it']s own greed, pollution and foolishness.
Doesn't really matter. We're still highly successful and even if our population bottlenecks down the line that won't change how successful we have been. Truly, the only as yet to be seen measure of our evolutionary success is longevity. In all other categories we are crushing it lol
@Pikachu Hmm. Fair enough. All things pass, so even success in those terms doesn't really mean much - except subjectively for the species that examines itself.
I'm none too proud of humanity; I see much of our "success" as evidence of how much we collectively ignore the larger picture of how dependent we are on the balance of nature.
Molecular evidence suggests that between 8 and 4 million years ago, first the gorillas, and then the chimpanzees (genus Pan) split off from the line leading to the humans. Human DNA is approximately 98.4% identical to that of chimpanzees when comparing single nucleotide polymorphisms (see human evolutionary genetics).
Bacteria, termites, ants, arthropods, cockroaches, annelids and molluscs have endured and proliferated far longer than we have, and will likely continue long after we've gone extinct. In terms of evolution, I'd vote for them and several other species long before I'd choose humans.
