(March 14, 2010 at 8:11 pm)AngelThMan Wrote:Welsh cake Wrote:Our "dominance" as you put it is merely your perspective or subjective world-view on our current status, technically we're not the dominant species on this planet and never really have been.This is a perfect example of avoiding the real subject at hand and going into little tangent arguments. I didn't include all living cells and organisms when I said humans are the only species with sapient intelligence. Cells and organisms are not species. They are cells and organisms, and I can make the claim that God has a reason or purpose for each of those organisms. This point has nothing to do with the topic, except to sidetrack it to avoid answering the real question. How about sticking to the subject, people? Why are humans the only species, out of millions of species, who developed sapient intelligence?
While creating our own artificial environment instead of gradually adapting is certainly an ability we possess that established our success, this only makes us one-of-the-most successful species currently around. We can't make our own food the way plants do, Bees pollinate flowering plants that we get a deal of our produce from, anything happens to those little guys and we're all screwed basically. Afterall we're not the most successful life-forms in terms of sheer numbers, Viruses, Bacteria and countless pathogens have us beat there I'm afraid.
Welsh cake Wrote:And for all our 'dominance' it only takes one extinction-event like the asteroid/comet that wiped out the dinosaurs to remove every trace of our brief existence from this tiny celestial body.This hasn't happened to us yet, so for now all it is is a science fantasy movie idea.
It has been very frustrating trying to get people here to talk about the real subject. When I make the claim that humans are the superior and most intelligent species, all I get is discussions about dolphins, fangs, and bacteria. I'm obviously dealing with very young people here, because their arguments remind me a little bit of kindergarten. Like when a teacher says something like, "Dogs like to eat bones." And a student raises their hand and says, "But my dog eats Alpo!" The teacher explains, "Yes, some of them like Alpo too, but as an instinct they gravitate towards bones." Another tiny student raises their hand and says, "But wait, my neighbor's dog loves to eat hot dogs." The teacher grabs their forehead and says, "Yikes!"
We are all trying to respond to your idea. You have to understand that to us you sound like the kid in our college astronomy class that was home schooled saying that stars were created by a deity for us to appreciate which in astronomy or astrophysics is not something you would say to describe the formation of stars. Your question is similar to 'Why don't horses have horns?' which in turn is similar to 'Why don't stars glow pink instead of yellow?' Maybe you'll be more humble about your question when you put yourself in our shoes? Your question is like when atheists ask you 'Why did God need to become a human and die in order to forgive us of our sins?' You know that an omnipotent deity just does what he wants and there is no 'physical' reason. There is no physical, biological, or chemical rule or law that predicts that more species should have the ability of language or that horses should have horns. Biology just turned out the way it did and there's no reason why it should have gone the other way.