Re: Re: Re: This is ridiculous.

Posted by maxmccauley on 12-24-2007 in Are humans the most valuable organisms on the planet?

Ok, this post I like a lot more. You made some valid points.

First of all let me get this out of the way:
YOU: "Who really cares if you can land on the moon? Only humans do."
ME: "What else, that we know of, even has the capacity to care about us landing on the moon?"
YOU: "So are you trying to tell me that the capacity of the human mind/intelligence, is way more valuable and impressive then a plants ability to photosynthesize, a cheetahs ability to run...."

In that particular comment I wasn't saying that, I was just pointing out that you saying that only humans care about humans landing on the moon was obvious because only humans have the capacity to care. As far as we know, no other organisms CAN care. Dogs and mice have no clue we landed on the moon. I was just pointing that out.

But on to what you are saying about whether or not our intelligence is more valuable than the host of examples of abilities other creatures have, I would say that it depends on your definition of valuable. There is a reason why humans have risen to the top of the food chain (a place we weren't always). From 5 million years ago all the way until about 100,000 years ago (estimated numbers, but they are close) the human race was primarily a scavenger race, similar to a vulture. When a big animal would kill a small animal we would steal its carcass after the bigger animal was done with it. Humans slowly, around this time, began to expand their knowledge of toolmaking and started doing a lot of the hunting and gathering on their own. We then about 6-8 thousand years ago (whenever you want to place it) had the Neolithic revolution and began farming. This lasted until about 1800 with the industrial revolution which spurred a rapid chain of events; increasing our technological capability many times over. We no longer have to steal carcasses from bigger animals.

What is the point of all of this? I'm just demonstrating what our intelligence has been capable of. We weren't handed our position as the most powerful race on the earth, we attained it.

The question, however, is if our intelligence is more valuable than the abilities of all of the other creatures. If the question is most valuable for survival, then yes. Most valuable to the PLANET? No, it would probably win the award for most likely to destroy the planet. Neither of these was the question. The original question of the thread asked if humans were the most valuable organisms ON the planet. Any my answer remains the same. Our intelligence is so great that we not only have the abiliity to achieve all the technological advances we have on this planet, but we WILL have the ability to leave and colonize space. Who knows, maybe we will save one thousand other planets from their destruction by inventing a planet-saving chemical? It is hypothetical, and who knows if it could ever really happen, but the point is that it has the POTENTIAL to happen, and you can't say the same about any other organism on the planet. A fox, clever as he/she may be, is not going to leave earth and save planets from destruction (despite what Star Fox might tell you :) )

Maybe it is the human ego, but I really believe that we should take ourselves as far as we can go. I've never once said we should purposefully hurt animals or the planet to achieve our ends, but I do believe that as humans we should look at ourselves as having the potential to outgrow this planet and achieve more. Maybe not in 100-200 years, but within a thousand we will have colonized other regions in space. The question will then become not whether we are the most valuable organisms on the planet but rather the most valuable in the universe.

P.S. I take back what I said about people like you holding up the human race, I was just responding harshly to as post that I took as an attack. No hard feelings, I enjoy this debate.