RE: Are you a lumper or a splitter?
April 24, 2018 at 1:09 pm
(This post was last modified: April 24, 2018 at 1:11 pm by Edwardo Piet.)
Lumper. That doesn't mean we aren't different from other animals in some way. We just aren't different enough to need our own category.
There's only 2% difference in DNA between us and chimps. That's the only reason they don't have technology like we do. Once you get a creature with the brains and limbs able to construct tools and technology gets started... it just snowballs from there.
We're nothing special. I'm sure there are plenty of other lifeforms out there in the universe that also had an evolutionary pathway that happened to take them on the path to invention... and then it snowballed just like it did with us.
Why is there only us? There wasn't. There were other apes that were smart enough to make tools and stuff, we just happen to be the smartest of the bunch (anrhropic principle there), and also the most aggressive. We out-bred, out-thought and murdered all competition.
I'm sure that must be the same on alien planets. When live evolves and a create starts to develop simple tools, there will be other creatures closely related that do too... and then it just becomes an arms race and they exterminate each other. The strongest species sticks around and becomes the dominant creature.
Hell, we still exterminate each other today... and that's our own species.
There's only 2% difference in DNA between us and chimps. That's the only reason they don't have technology like we do. Once you get a creature with the brains and limbs able to construct tools and technology gets started... it just snowballs from there.
We're nothing special. I'm sure there are plenty of other lifeforms out there in the universe that also had an evolutionary pathway that happened to take them on the path to invention... and then it snowballed just like it did with us.
Why is there only us? There wasn't. There were other apes that were smart enough to make tools and stuff, we just happen to be the smartest of the bunch (anrhropic principle there), and also the most aggressive. We out-bred, out-thought and murdered all competition.
I'm sure that must be the same on alien planets. When live evolves and a create starts to develop simple tools, there will be other creatures closely related that do too... and then it just becomes an arms race and they exterminate each other. The strongest species sticks around and becomes the dominant creature.
Hell, we still exterminate each other today... and that's our own species.
