Re: Ears under pressure. Was Re: Aquatic ape theory
Phillip Bigelow (n8010095@cc.wwu.edu)
28 Oct 1995 14:43:09 -0700
hubey@pegasus.montclair.edu (H. M. Hubey) writes:
>>>So the evolution is in the direction of the adaptive/advantageous traits
>>>Among the most advantageous/adaptive (if not the most adaptive)
>>>is intelligence. That is the general direction of evolution.
I responded:
>> If you tally the known types of organisms living on earth today, you will
>>notice that pea-brains out-number the big-brains by at least a thousand to
>>one.
hubey@pegasus.montclair.edu (H. M. Hubey) retorted:
>What kind of an argument is that. We've taken over the world.
>WE can wipe out all mammals if we wanted to. If we don't do
Well Mark...aren't WE biocentric today...,
I think we are presently in the process of destroying our earth
environment. We are mining the hell out of the earth, destroying our
precious top-soil, polluting our groundwater, and over-breeding. Most of
the above-mentioned transgressions are a result of having a large brain. We
are the first species to possess high cognitive intelligence, which makes us
an "experiment" of nature. We have been around as a family for around 5
million years. The jury is still out on whether we will survive.
The dinosaurs were a good land vertebrate sucess story in the
history of the world. They lived for 150 million years. Frogs have been
more successful: 180 million years. The greatest land
ANIMAL success story would be the bacteria. They have been around for a
couple billion years. Compare that to hominidae's 5 million year history
and you get humbled very quickly. Besides, bacteria and dinosaurs didn't
pollute themselves out of business.
The best yardstick for measuring evolutionary "succuss" is to look at
temporal range of an organism. Big brains don't necessarily mean longevity. We
lab-rats haven't been around long enough. And, no...I DON'T subscribe to
the ego-centric diatribe in Genesis, that suggests we were put here to
subdue the earth and everything on it.
<pb>
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