(July 13, 2015 at 4:28 pm)Esquilax Wrote: New species arise from the deaths of others? I object, sir: new species arise from the lives of new organisms. Those organisms that stay alive and spread that life by breeding are the engine of new species, not the ones that die. Those are the opposite, the failed ones, that don't propagate. Hell, there doesn't even necessarily have to be competition between species, as symbiotes and cooperative groups show. This assertion is wrong at every conceivable scale.
The reasoning is that for the betterment of a species, weaker or less "evolved" species must be eliminated. I won't venture into Master Race/Hitler/Pol Pot/Evolution justifies genocide/etc territory here, but the idea is that a species will not evolve into unless its weaker members are unable to reproduce, such as by geographic separation, death, or whatever (symbiotic relationships only go so far). By evolution, if certain primitive earlier "humans" didn't die out, and let our ancestors propagate, we wouldn't be here. In that sense, I can see why he says that through the deaths of other species did the human race come into existence.
