birds and superiority
May. 15th, 2004 10:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
miriam_eSome misguided people think that we humans are the peak of evolution. Of course they are wrong and such statements speak mostly about their pride and lack of understanding about how evolution works. Evolution is not a predestined ordering of life into best and worst. All lifeforms alive today are equally fit in evolutionary terms. But evolution often gets rid of the "best" solutions and allows the "worst" to survive -- it is just that over the long term it usually results in lifeforms adapting successfully to conditions around them.
People boasting of humans as being the pinnacle are ignoring so much. Many other animals are stronger and faster than us and have better designed feet, backbones, mouths, and brains. We are plagued by dental, spinal, foot, and mental problems because those are the areas that were changing most rapidly when our extraordinary ability to manipulate symbols exploded. That single ability made us so powerful that other evolutionary forces upon us dropped to almost non-existent.
Birds are, in many ways, our superiors. Our bodies have, hundreds of millions of years ago, developed the biochemical trick of running at a warm temperature -- we are warm-blooded. It enables us to start up quickly in the morning and survive in cold environments and supplies our energy-greedy brains with lots of power. Birds run at a higher temperature than we do and seem to do so more efficiently. They use beaks instead of the trouble-prone teeth we are stuck with. Long ago our ancestors developed the trick of dreaming, which seems to let us make more efficient use of our brains, allowing us to reduce the physical size of our brains yet continue to increase complexity. Birds have taken that to whole extra levels. They can store information away if it isn't immediately needed, collapsing those parts of the brain down to minimum, and re-expanding them out later when required... with no apparent loss of information in the process.
We humans have the amazing ability to use symbols in ways no creature has ever done before, but this has brought with it special problems. The way we use some of our symbols can be very dangerous. Some entirely imaginary symbols threaten all human and other life, in particular religion, xenophobia, and slavery drive hate and destruction. Anybody can see how dangerous religion is -- even religious people, though they generally think the *other* relions are the bad ones. In fact ALL religion is dangerous. Xenophobia is the fear and hatred of anybody (or anything) that is different and is mistakenly seen as a good thing when called patriotism, or barracking for your tribe. Slavery is often seen as a thing of the past, but it is still very much with us -- money is used to dupe people into thinking that slavery is good. It is not often called slavery now, but that doesn't alter what it is.
Of course our ability to use symbols is not all bad. It lets us understand the world around us; it is what has freed us from most evolutionary pressures; it enables us to create and explore; and it gives us the chance to become protectors of life on Earth.
People boasting of humans as being the pinnacle are ignoring so much. Many other animals are stronger and faster than us and have better designed feet, backbones, mouths, and brains. We are plagued by dental, spinal, foot, and mental problems because those are the areas that were changing most rapidly when our extraordinary ability to manipulate symbols exploded. That single ability made us so powerful that other evolutionary forces upon us dropped to almost non-existent.
Birds are, in many ways, our superiors. Our bodies have, hundreds of millions of years ago, developed the biochemical trick of running at a warm temperature -- we are warm-blooded. It enables us to start up quickly in the morning and survive in cold environments and supplies our energy-greedy brains with lots of power. Birds run at a higher temperature than we do and seem to do so more efficiently. They use beaks instead of the trouble-prone teeth we are stuck with. Long ago our ancestors developed the trick of dreaming, which seems to let us make more efficient use of our brains, allowing us to reduce the physical size of our brains yet continue to increase complexity. Birds have taken that to whole extra levels. They can store information away if it isn't immediately needed, collapsing those parts of the brain down to minimum, and re-expanding them out later when required... with no apparent loss of information in the process.
We humans have the amazing ability to use symbols in ways no creature has ever done before, but this has brought with it special problems. The way we use some of our symbols can be very dangerous. Some entirely imaginary symbols threaten all human and other life, in particular religion, xenophobia, and slavery drive hate and destruction. Anybody can see how dangerous religion is -- even religious people, though they generally think the *other* relions are the bad ones. In fact ALL religion is dangerous. Xenophobia is the fear and hatred of anybody (or anything) that is different and is mistakenly seen as a good thing when called patriotism, or barracking for your tribe. Slavery is often seen as a thing of the past, but it is still very much with us -- money is used to dupe people into thinking that slavery is good. It is not often called slavery now, but that doesn't alter what it is.
Of course our ability to use symbols is not all bad. It lets us understand the world around us; it is what has freed us from most evolutionary pressures; it enables us to create and explore; and it gives us the chance to become protectors of life on Earth.