Better yes (in the ways you describe, but by no means ALL ways), but more important no.
It's called urban humanism: People are more concerned about the starving kids in Africa rather than Korean dogs. Not that anyone bothers to do anything about starving people either, but at least they reason turning stupid petitions like this down.
Well, it seems like the ability to think and evaluate our surroundings passes by some humans.
Many humans have:
Free/cheap access to clean water for drinking/bathing/cleaning in their homes.
Cheap and easy access to processed and unprocessed foods.
Cheap electricity for lighting, cooking food, entertainment, communication etc in their homes.
Communication devices (phone, Internet enabled computers) in their homes which allow them to cheaply communicate with people all over the globe.
Access to public transportation systems which freely/cheaply transport them great distances.
Vehicles of their own which transport them great distances in small amounts of time.
Cheap access to aircraft which transport them great distances in small amounts of time.
etc.
What other animals have done the above?
I actually don't think we evolved to be on top of the food chain per se, but rather evolved up to a level where we were not dependant on the slow process of evolution to make us fit within an environment, e.g. in cold climates (what nowadays is so gently called temperate), we didn't have to wait for our hairy genes come through by millenia of breeding, but rather neatly just took the fur of species who already had a fur.
So, strictly biologically speaking, were not really the top dogs here on this planet. Most habitats feature multiple predators which are vastly superior to us if we were restricted to the means of attack and defense our body offers, like all other creatures...
We evolved the ability to recognise the danger of our surroundings and used that ability to move to a more suitable climate or to use things around us to survive the dangerous surroundings.
That is just a materialistic perspective. We all have a purpose. The earthworm is natures recycler. What is our true meaning for being here? That question has been asked for thousands of years, I'm pretty sure we wont find the answer.
Much like any other established species?
In my opinion, the only field humans are truly superior to other animals in is exploration. Animals could live happily on earth, eating each other and do whatever they do till the end of the earth. Humans are working on leaving this giant cage to explore the rest of the universe.
For all we know, our whole solar system serves no other purpose than evolution on earth. When our sun goes kaput, nobody is going to miss us, or at least we haven't met them yet.
Our knowledge is very limited, but we do know our planet is just one of gazillions of stars in an unbelievably big space.
For all we know, our whole solar system serves no other purpose than evolution on earth. When our sun goes kaput, nobody is going to miss us, or at least we haven't met them yet.
Our knowledge is very limited, but we do know our planet is just one of gazillions of stars in an unbelievably big space.
Debating the meaning of life has nothing to do with whether or not we're more important than other animals.
Yes it does, if there's no meaning to life, nothing is important
Well i believe it does. Untill we find our meaning, only then can we judge if we are more important.
...?
If humans wanted to we could make virtually any species in the world extinct, so we are obviously more capable of surviving our surroundings (climate, predators, terrain) than any other species. Could any other species in the world kill off all humans? If not then we're obviously better at surviving than other species.
'Important' is subjective as can mean so many different things
Humans are the most important if you're a human. That's about it.
I imagine that if it had the faculties to choose, the earthworm mentioned a few posts ago would decide that earthworms are the most important.
Humans are the most important if you're a human. That's about it.
I imagine that if it had the faculties to choose, the earthworm mentioned a few posts ago would decide that earthworms are the most important.
The Influenza Virus did a pretty good job a few decades ago.
Viruses? Bacteria? Morquitos? Pigs (swine flue), Geese (avian flu)? And why does the ability to destroy other species make us more important? If humans disappeared I don't think many species would mourn.
We have survived and created vaccines for diseases using the medical expertise we have developed. We are working on curing the diseases we don't yet have cures for. If pigs started dropping dead tomorrow because of a mysterious "human flu", would they engineer a solution to the problem or would it just be sheer luck whether or not they survived it?
I was saying that we have a better ability to survive our surroundings than other animals, because you said that all established species did.
Bingo.
It is a matter of relativity. To the planet we're really not important. To Dolphins, we're sort of annoying but far from the superior species of the sea (less we forget the Earth is mostly sea).
Dolphins, incidentally, are really bloody clever - they dont use tools and aren't very fond of mathematics but we're too stupid to remotely figure out just how bright they really are.
It's all down to relativity, to Humans the most important species is Human. Of course the definition of important itself is a little vague. Just what is meant by important?
To the universe, I assure you we're not very important at all. Although there is the small faith issue here where anybody of particular dogmas this whole argument gets clouded in scripture because to some people the universe exists specifically for Humans. It doesnt take much intelligence and anything more than a primary school science book to really that the universe is "really very very big", but these people quote books which predated education - education, incidentally, is probably the only real claim that Humans have to be considered of any consequence at all. Many animals do it, but very few have it so efficiently organised as we do.
Still, i'm pretty sure the sun doesnt give a toss about us, the planet Jupiter only sees us in passing every once in a while, and a funny termite-esque alien thing in another quadrant of the galaxy just thinks our bricks and mortar would be a damned inconvenience if ever we managed to settle on it's homeworld.
Really, take the religious perspective out of the equation and what is really meant by important?
I think we're just important to ourselves, there's a phrase for that "self important", we tend to use it in a derogatory sense, but i'm pretty sure the universe doesnt care how arrogant we are either - because when it comes to arrogance, the universe could destroy us in the blink of a long period event (the word long being something of a misnomer, for us, it would be instant) and the only reason that it hasnt done so is because it really doesnt care at all, either way, whether we exist or not.
I don't know if this is aimed specifically at me (since I'm one of the most vocal "pro-human" people in this thread), but I'm an atheist. I believe the "meaning of life" is to have fun, to treat others well, unless they treat you or your own badly, to have kids if you want and then to die. I wouldn't purposely torture animals but I do eat some animals for food. I don't believe when you die you have to see someone who has a big list of all the "good" and "bad" things you've done in life who decides whether you go to a good place or a bad place for all of eternity.
On the subject of other life in the universe (not on planet earth) how can you be sure there is life out there? Statistically, on the laws of probability, it's almost certain there is life out there (intelligent or not) but believing there is life out there without any proof of it (which we don't have at the moment, I believe) is about as silly as believing in God.
you are so wrong.
there are more rats than human on the earth, and you think we can possibly eliminate them all? And that's just one species, not counting all the bacterias, micro organisms, and all the viruses......
yeah....and you know how many people these viruses kill per day? tens of thousands.
human cannot survive without other living organisms either, just think about what is in your diet that is not organic.
you are only saying for the half of whole human population who are above the poverty line, and have access to technology that can protect you from the elements.
throw a dog, a rat and a cityman into the wild barenaked, and see who survive the longest?
you are correct, according to hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy.
(JJ72)
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by JJ72
If something's almost certain, it means it is very probable, which means it is highly believable.
what's stupid about believing something that is highly believable?
Believing something is true does not equal confirming something is true.
We have the ability to kill of rats if we wanted to. We know where they live, we know how to kill them so it's just a matter of scale. I also said we could exterminate virtually any species. There are some viruses and such we could not exterminate at the moment, but that's a limitation in our understanding and a function of the evolution of the viruses. Keeping that in mind you could say that viruses and bacteria have a similar ability to survive compared to humans and something a lot better than most other animals.
Believing something is true without proof is illogical. Believing something is probably true without proof is logical. There's a difference.
That was basically what I was going to write. The existence of other life forms, intelligent or not, is backed up by a mathematical probability while the existence of a god-like, superior being, is only backed up by faith, which in a world of reason means basically squat.
Now you say that we could eventually neutralize a virus after a period of research but what's stoping the virus to also evolve and thus pretty much making the research useless? Disease and cure is a continuous cycle so I wouldn't really claim that we could ever exterminate every form of virus.
IMO, up to this point, you have not given any clear argument to why the humans are more IMPORTANT. You've just proven that we are BETTER in some attributes then the other lifeforms on this planet.
Sorry that's just wishful thinking to me, practically, if you are to send people down to every drainage system in the world, to all the cracks inaccessible to human being or our machinery, or poisonious gas if you will. I still very much doubt you can eliminate them, because many of them will live somewhere without human habitation. Imagine finding rats in iceland or some pacific islands and covering every single ground, simply impossible.
I think bacterias are far more successful than human, they have greater numbers, their speicies existed way longer than we do and after human is gone (which one day we certainly will), they will still be around.
human being are sustained nowadays by a complex system that needs constant maintence, and can easily be destroyed by the natural cycle.
I think you should check up the meaning of believe in the oxford dictionary:
besides this definition:
"accept that (something) is true or (someone) is telling the truth"
there are these:
"(believe in) have faith in the truth or existence of."
"think or suppose."
so believe can be applied to unproven facts, if you have solid prove to something, you are not believing, you are "knowing"
btw. I don't think it is logical for you to believe that we can terminate all other species on earth, because you really can't prove it. but I do know it's very likely that a feet benealth you, dozens of cockroaches are moving around, breeding, dying, eating without you knowing it.
But nowadays, we CONTROL 'natural' selection.
Save the dogs in south korea
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