Re: Re: Re: Re: humans are not the most valuable organisms on the planet
Posted by Owen on 12-31-2007 in Are humans the most valuable organisms on the planet?Again, you're framing what is "valuable" in your own terms. What inherent value is there in exploring or colonizing space? For that matter, what planets have we saved to date? We're quickly exterminating life on our current home, and that doesn't merit us anything but contempt. Most organisms on this planet are quite happy to engage with one another in relationships that are sustainable, and were sustainable for millions of years. For 200,000 years humans engaged in these same relationships. Now we have a culture of death, having killed 98% of the planet's old-growth forests (replacing them with unsustainable tree plantations), eliminated 90% of the large fish in the oceans in the last 50 years alone, and are heating up the planet's atmosphere at a worrying pace (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_gun_hypothesis). All of this for MySpace, Big Macs, and air conditioning.
In response to: Re: Re: Re: humans are not the most valuable organisms on the planet
Why should humans deign to compare themselves to the other organisms on this planet? Ok, phytoplankton provide half of this planet's oxygen. It is probably more valuable to THIS planet right now. Its potential also ends there.
As humans we have the potential to one day leave this planet and explore many others (I would argue that the question of our space exploration is when, not if). Phytoplankton, as well as every other organism on earth, is not going to do this unless humans take them along. The future will consist of humans affecting many, many more planets and perhaps entire solar systems--possibly the whole universe. The possibilites for the human race overshadow those of every other on this planet and that is why we are much more valuable than they are.
I like what a poster before me said: humans can stop an asteroid from completely destroying the earth, no other species can do that. I think this is just one example of what we can do as a race. If we colonize new planets that contain their own species similar to our animals, we could stop asteroids from hitting and destroying them. Maybe one day we'll lead peace negotiations between two intelligent species in their intergalactic war--literally anything you can imagine has the potential to happen. Are humans the most valuable to THIS planet at THIS instant? No. Could we, in the long run, be the most valuable to this and many more planets? Only time can tell, but we are the only ones with potential to do so.