Are humans too smart for their own good?

[I Ratant]

Wait'll the Taliban get to the Paki nukes.

 

[INRM]

Wowbagger, post #20

Good point

 

[Trent Wray]

I disagree. We dominate the world because of our intelligence.

So we are no longer prone to the whims of nature and/or the earth overall? There is no aspect of the world that we cannot control?

7 billion of us, average height 5 foot something. That's a lot of space. I'd call that domination.

A lot of space compared to what?

 

[jasonpatterson]

If we look at the species on Earth, to me it would appear that the grasses were soundly kicking everything else's butt until humans came along. Sure, the trees were winning in some areas, but the grasses managed to ruthlessly choke them out in so many places.

Why do you assume a symbiosis among things just because they can't talk? If an organism is able to reproduce itself faster than it dies, the population grows. Mice or rabbits don't suddenly stop breeding because there are enough and they realize that further reproduction will harm their habitat. Instead they reproduce until they either eat everything or the predator population catches up a bit, or a disease runs rampant through them and kill them.

Look at all the little tropical islands swarming with cockroaches and rats for a good example, or the population of house sparrows and starlings in the US, or the population of gray squirrels in the UK, not to mention zebra mussels, grass carp, kudzu, and purple loosestrife. Sure, these were introduced by people, but there is no reason to suppose that the introduction of invasive species doesn't happen naturally from time to time.

 

[Complexity]

7 billion of us, average height 5 foot something. That's a lot of space. I'd call that domination.

Worms?
Bacteria?

We don't even begin to compare.

You also tend to have erroneous ideas on the measurement of intelligence, if I recall correctly.

 

[bpesta22]

I'm not even talking IQ-- just cognitive capacity (though if by erroneous ideas you mean peer reviewed science; guilty).

Is humanity so politically correct now that we can't even throw ourselves a bone? That we have to use worms or cockroaches to argue we haven't been successful is kinda dumb.

We dominate not by adapting to environments but by creating better environments. That's unique to us; at least at the scale humans do it. Any alien creature summarizing this planet now for his colleagues would have to spend lots of time on humanity.

 

[drkitten]

It seems to me that the ability to live in a symbiotic relationship with your environment would be more advantageous for survival and reproduction.

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Why? Then you're limited to the environment that you're living symbiotically with, which limits how far you can spread -- and it's also an express ticket to extinction when the environment changes.

The big advantage of humans is that they can change the environment. Which is one reason that humans are found on every continent in the world (with the possible exception of Antarctica), but that kangaroos are only in Australia.

 

[bpesta22]

Hi Dr. Kitten.

You should comment on the cats v. dogs thread in social issues.

 

[jasonpatterson]

I
We dominate not by adapting to environments but by creating better environments. That's unique to us; at least at the scale humans do it. Any alien creature summarizing this planet now for his colleagues would have to spend lots of time on humanity.

I agree with the scale portion of the statement, but every macroscopic living thing I can think of changes its environment to suit its needs. Trees drop leaves which prevent undergrowth, termites build mounds in which they can live comfortably regardless of the weather. People are particularly good at this, I agree, and we've gone to much greater lengths in modifying our environments compared to other creatures, but the idea from the OP, that living things other than people are in symbiotic, group hugging, happy-fun-time relationships with one another is just wrong. There are some relationships of that type, to be sure, but there are far more cases where they are not so friendly.

 

[KingMerv00]

I'm not even talking IQ-- just cognitive capacity (though if by erroneous ideas you mean peer reviewed science; guilty).

Is humanity so politically correct now that we can't even throw ourselves a bone? That we have to use worms or cockroaches to argue we haven't been successful is kinda dumb.

We dominate not by adapting to environments but by creating better environments. That's unique to us; at least at the scale humans do it. Any alien creature summarizing this planet now for his colleagues would have to spend lots of time on humanity.

Hey, I think humans are awesome. They are my favorite species. But "domination" is entirely subjective. Yes, we create environments but we aren't the most likely species to survive a global extinction event.