Evolution of Man

[SaltSlasher]

I got into evolution a couple months ago after spending years tracing my family name, but then it changed when i watched a documentary on the evolution of us.

 

It was hard for me to take it all in to understand why! I grasp the concept really easily, cause i have a science brain. The first thing I ask myself, is, Out of all the lines of close species, why did our direct line conquer all, why?

 

I watched the video, showing Lucy taking her first steps out of the tree to the next. I am not sure if its still accurate, but the ape like animal named lucy is an old relative, her basic mind, is still imprinted in how ours works. The fact that we don't have to spend are days fighting to survive against the rest of the world, has given our species the chance to grow in the fields of, everything!

 

 

I have a few questions that I first thought, that would explain this "Why" we made it, and why we conquered the world against every other animal. The one thing that i keep going back to, is our mind. Look at lucys mind compared to others, and look at our minds to others.

 

I am really intriuged in the different places/times that we did something different, that lead us to where we are now. Neanderthals could have lived side by side, even to this day, but we secured global dominance by riding of them!

 

Today we have a lot of tendency's that come with being a human. For example, the fact that I naturally will go for the best "mate". Does the fact that are natural breeding selection involves us picking the best we can get, does that have anything to do with our "Dominance".

 

From what i have seen, our direct line has been innovators, from walking, to tools, to speech and to artistically expressing ourselves. I think that if you look at the past "us", it explains a lot answer as to what we are! I learned more about myself in 9 minutes watching that documentary, than i did at 9 years in church!

 

I didn't mean to ramble but, if anyone else has more facts, theorys or what ever on the different things us humans did that kept our line living all those years!

 

 

 

 

 

[Greg Boyles]

I got into evolution a couple months ago after spending years tracing my family name, but then it changed when i watched a documentary on the evolution of us.

 

It was hard for me to take it all in to understand why! I grasp the concept really easily, cause i have a science brain. The first thing I ask myself, is, Out of all the lines of close species, why did our direct line conquer all, why?

 

I watched the video, showing Lucy taking her first steps out of the tree to the next. I am not sure if its still accurate, but the ape like animal named lucy is an old relative, her basic mind, is still imprinted in how ours works. The fact that we don't have to spend are days fighting to survive against the rest of the world, has given our species the chance to grow in the fields of, everything!

 

 

I have a few questions that I first thought, that would explain this "Why" we made it, and why we conquered the world against every other animal. The one thing that i keep going back to, is our mind. Look at lucys mind compared to others, and look at our minds to others.

 

I am really intriuged in the different places/times that we did something different, that lead us to where we are now. Neanderthals could have lived side by side, even to this day, but we secured global dominance by riding of them!

 

Today we have a lot of tendency's that come with being a human. For example, the fact that I naturally will go for the best "mate". Does the fact that are natural breeding selection involves us picking the best we can get, does that have anything to do with our "Dominance".

 

From what i have seen, our direct line has been innovators, from walking, to tools, to speech and to artistically expressing ourselves. I think that if you look at the past "us", it explains a lot answer as to what we are! I learned more about myself in 9 minutes watching that documentary, than i did at 9 years in church!

 

I didn't mean to ramble but, if anyone else has more facts, theorys or what ever on the different things us humans did that kept our line living all those years!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Perhaps the problem is with your clearly christian influenced, if not explicitly christian, perception of what it means to 'conquer' the planet.

 

If you alter you perception of 'conquering' to mean sheer numbers or biomass then clearly insects would be the dominant lifeform on Earth.

 

If you alter your concept of it to mean evolutionary longevity then again insects would be the dominant lifeform on Earth. They have existed on Earth for several hundred million years continuously. In contrast humans and our ancestors have been here for a mere 1 million years or so.

 

 

Even the dinosarus existed on earth for some few hundred million years and their decendants, birds, are still with us.

 

 

Your problem is that you subconsciously believe that evolution is a heirarchial process with the simplest and least valuable lifeforms in the lower branches of the evolutionary tree and humans, the most valuable at the very top.

 

But as David Attenborough stated at the end of his life on earth series, there is no evidence what so ever that evolution's sole purpose on earth was to bring forth human beings into the universe.

[SaltSlasher]

When i meant conquer, I was more refering to when our modern humans became the only species left. I didn't really mean to imply that we went out at war with all the other primates for the last 3 million years or so, even though we did quarrel with them.

 

Even though I am interested in man's lineage, I really don't think that man was put on earth to rule it. Cause obviously we weren't men when we first showed up.

 

 

I guess to re-state my question, what are some of the reasons why our line never became extinct, but other close species did?

 

When i think about it, I just see our family of primates having this potential to become advanced. So even in the oldest of our ancestors, it shows by our innovated ways to adapt and to learn. Those two things is what i think separated us from the rest of the pack.

 

In my mind we are like the dinosaurs, we rule as earth's mightiest species. Even though we do fall victim to the natural ways of death by volcanoes and lions. Either way in the end, it is inevitable that the species known as our modern man is doomed to extinction...eventually! Not even the power of greyskull can change that! Whether it be fallout, asteroids or another ice age, it will happen sooner or later.

 

But when i do use the word conquer, I am referring to the third definition in the merriam webster dictionary.

[Leader Bee]

Well lets start with neanderthal man; Unlike Homo Sapiens they were far less communal a species, many living in small groups of 10 or so very likley family members and close relatives, this really strikes biodiversity a huge blow to begin with.

 

Secondly, while they could communicate they were not as highly developed for speech as Homo Sapiens, their larynx just too high to produce the variety of noises we can make, great for not choking on your food, not so great for being able to speak. While it seems all the animals in the world survive without being able to "talk" to each other, in a world where 2 very similar species are competing with each other i'd say this was a major drawback for them.

 

Neanderthals also had an unusually devloped shoulder joint that limited it's mobility, they would have difficulty throwing spears for example and using particular tools... Perhaps they had the mental capacity to develop tools like this but they never could due to physical constraints. Neanderthal instead relying on speed and strength to survive over reason and cunning.

[swansont]

Perhaps the problem is with your clearly christian influenced, if not explicitly christian, perception of what it means to 'conquer' the planet.

 

!

Moderator Note

Don't go there. Questioning or investigating someone's motives for posting a science question is unacceptable. This was and is a biology question. Stick to discussions of biology.

 

Do not derail this discussion further by responding to this modnote

[SaltSlasher]

Wow that is amazing.

 

Its just like with the dodo bird, you got to adapt to the world. What exactly was the main reason they became extinct? The video i watched implied that we would kill them because of territorial issues, like with hunting.

 

It just amazes me to think of a long line of men and apes, all built up to become us. Like the video said that it was our actions that really jolted our evolution. Like walking on hind legs, controlling fire, and using tools.

 

Like they call it evolution, but from lucy to us, has each new generation been an upgraded form of the previous?

[Phi for All]

Like they call it evolution, but from lucy to us, has each new generation been an upgraded form of the previous?

Except "upgrade" is misleading. It implies that one form is "better" than another overall, and further that there is a "best" form. But essentially each generation provides opportunities for changes that may lead to more successful humans.

[Realitycheck]

Bigger brains, highly dexterous fingers, the latest is that sex with the obsolete (but still living) Neanderthals boosted our immune systems, among other things. We happened because nobody else happened and it was the only thing that could happen.

[Greg Boyles]

When i meant conquer, I was more refering to when our modern humans became the only species left. I didn't really mean to imply that we went out at war with all the other primates for the last 3 million years or so, even though we did quarrel with them.

 

Even though I am interested in man's lineage, I really don't think that man was put on earth to rule it. Cause obviously we weren't men when we first showed up.

 

 

I guess to re-state my question, what are some of the reasons why our line never became extinct, but other close species did?

 

When i think about it, I just see our family of primates having this potential to become advanced. So even in the oldest of our ancestors, it shows by our innovated ways to adapt and to learn. Those two things is what i think separated us from the rest of the pack.

 

In my mind we are like the dinosaurs, we rule as earth's mightiest species. Even though we do fall victim to the natural ways of death by volcanoes and lions. Either way in the end, it is inevitable that the species known as our modern man is doomed to extinction...eventually! Not even the power of greyskull can change that! Whether it be fallout, asteroids or another ice age, it will happen sooner or later.

 

But when i do use the word conquer, I am referring to the third definition in the merriam webster dictionary.

 

Our ancestors have never been exceptionally common species in the same way as the massive herds of african herbivores. Any species that exists in small numbers and in isolation are very prone to extinction due to regional climatic shifts etc.

 

Perhaps our direct ancestors developed farming and proliferated and spread sufficiently to be able to survive sunsequent regional climatic shifts. Any other remaining hominid lines, such as neanderthals, were then either absorbed or displaced by our exapnding numbers. Just as easily a climatic shift might have come before we developed farming and expnaded our numbers and thus caused our ancestors to become extinct.

 

There has always and will always be an element of luck in evolution.

 

Neanderthals also had an unusually devloped shoulder joint that limited it's mobility, they would have difficulty throwing spears for example and using particular tools... Perhaps they had the mental capacity to develop tools like this but they never could due to physical constraints. Neanderthal instead relying on speed and strength to survive over reason and cunning.

Don't know about that!

 

There is abundant evidence that they were big game hunters and very successful at it. So they can't have had that much trouble in wielding a spear.

 

Wow that is amazing.

 

Its just like with the dodo bird, you got to adapt to the world. What exactly was the main reason they became extinct? The video i watched implied that we would kill them because of territorial issues, like with hunting.

 

It just amazes me to think of a long line of men and apes, all built up to become us. Like the video said that it was our actions that really jolted our evolution. Like walking on hind legs, controlling fire, and using tools.

 

Like they call it evolution, but from lucy to us, has each new generation been an upgraded form of the previous?

 

I have seen suggestions in various docos that neanderthaals may have been absorbed into the cromagnon population rather than exterminated by them. And that our genomes contain the remnants of neanderthaal genes.

 

!

Moderator Note

Don't go there. Questioning or investigating someone's motives for posting a science question is unacceptable. This was and is a biology question. Stick to discussions of biology.

 

Do not derail this discussion further by responding to this modnote

 

This is a common misconception of evolution that nearly all of us, even me, find it difficult to entirely put out of our mind due to our christian culture and herritage or perhaps just simple bias about our species.

 

The author of the comment may not have explicitly intended to suggest that humans are the pinncale of evolution but it clearly came across in his/her post.

 

I think it is reasonable to mention it in the context of the question. But any long running debate about can be had in another dedicated thread.

Edited August 30, 2011 by Greg Boyles

[Leader Bee]

 

Don't know about that!

 

 

It's not that they couldn't hold a spear, it's more that they couldn't throw one, at least not far:

 

"(PhysOrg.com) -- A new study of the skeletal fossils of Neanderthal and Early modern man suggest the lack of a "throwing arm" may have made the difference in human evolution. Researchers Jill A. Rhodes and Steven Churchill, evolutionary anthropologists published their findings in the January 2009 edition of the Journal of Human Evolution. The paper entitled, "Throwing in the Middle and Upper Paleolithic: inferences from an analysis of humeral retroversion," provides some clues to the extinction of Neanderthal. "

 

Source: http://www.physorg.com/news151326825.html

Edited August 31, 2011 by Leader Bee

[Greg Boyles]

It's not that they couldn't hold a spear, it's more that they couldn't throw one, at least not far:

 

"(PhysOrg.com) -- A new study of the skeletal fossils of Neanderthal and Early modern man suggest the lack of a "throwing arm" may have made the difference in human evolution. Researchers Jill A. Rhodes and Steven Churchill, evolutionary anthropologists published their findings in the January 2009 edition of the Journal of Human Evolution. The paper entitled, "Throwing in the Middle and Upper Paleolithic: inferences from an analysis of humeral retroversion," provides some clues to the extinction of Neanderthal. "

 

Source: http://www.physorg.c...s151326825.html

 

I don't so much doubt that neanderthaals couldn't throw a spear as well as cromagnons. I doubt that this was the cause of their downfall given that they were far more successful big game hunters than the cromagnons apparently were.

Perhaps they were more vulnerable due to their total reliance on hunting and therefore their tendancy to exist in small numbers. Where as the cromagnons started developing farming which allowed them to be more numerous.

[questionposter]

I got into evolution a couple months ago after spending years tracing my family name, but then it changed when i watched a documentary on the evolution of us.

 

It was hard for me to take it all in to understand why! I grasp the concept really easily, cause i have a science brain. The first thing I ask myself, is, Out of all the lines of close species, why did our direct line conquer all, why?

 

I watched the video, showing Lucy taking her first steps out of the tree to the next. I am not sure if its still accurate, but the ape like animal named lucy is an old relative, her basic mind, is still imprinted in how ours works. The fact that we don't have to spend are days fighting to survive against the rest of the world, has given our species the chance to grow in the fields of, everything!

 

 

I have a few questions that I first thought, that would explain this "Why" we made it, and why we conquered the world against every other animal. The one thing that i keep going back to, is our mind. Look at lucys mind compared to others, and look at our minds to others.

 

I am really intriuged in the different places/times that we did something different, that lead us to where we are now. Neanderthals could have lived side by side, even to this day, but we secured global dominance by riding of them!

 

Today we have a lot of tendency's that come with being a human. For example, the fact that I naturally will go for the best "mate". Does the fact that are natural breeding selection involves us picking the best we can get, does that have anything to do with our "Dominance".

 

From what i have seen, our direct line has been innovators, from walking, to tools, to speech and to artistically expressing ourselves. I think that if you look at the past "us", it explains a lot answer as to what we are! I learned more about myself in 9 minutes watching that documentary, than i did at 9 years in church!

 

I didn't mean to ramble but, if anyone else has more facts, theorys or what ever on the different things us humans did that kept our line living all those years!

 

 

 

 

 

We're pretty far from actually "conquering" nature and other animals, as there are animals which can even survive nuclear blasts and there's tons of them. But, there doesn't really need to be a need to "conquer" all the other animals if we have the brains to survive without doing all that is there?

 

 

 

[Ophiolite]

If you alter you perception of 'conquering' to mean sheer numbers or biomass then clearly insects would be the dominant lifeform on Earth.

I don't know of any insect species whose biomass exceeds that of humans. Can you point to one?

 

Your problem is that you subconsciously believe that evolution is a heirarchial process with the simplest and least valuable lifeforms in the lower branches of the evolutionary tree and humans, the most valuable at the very top.

Exactly so.

 

 

I guess to re-state my question, what are some of the reasons why our line never became extinct, but other close species did?

Arguably intelligence, tool use and language, which together gave us increased adaptability in a time of rapid environmental changes.

 

Like they call it evolution, but from lucy to us, has each new generation been an upgraded form of the previous?

Not necessarily and probably not. Depends on what you mean by upgraded. A characteristic that might have been a disadvantage in one environment could be a positive benefit in another. If a mutation introduces that characteristic in the 'wrong' environment do you call it a downgrade, but when the environment changes you redefine it as an upgrade? You see the difficulty.

[swansont]

I don't know of any insect species whose biomass exceeds that of humans. Can you point to one?

 

Ants supposedly have approximately the same mass, and termites possibly even more. All species, though, not one single species.

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=536123

http://www.pnas.org/content/97/26/14028.full

http://www.antweb.org/antblog/2010/10/do-ants-really-have-the-largest-biomass-of-all-species-on-earth-laurie-usa.html

[Greg Boyles]

I don't know of any insect species whose biomass exceeds that of humans. Can you point to one?

 

Insects in general, not any particular species or group of species. And I believe David Attenborough stated this in his life on earth documentary.

 

 

Arguably intelligence, tool use and language, which together gave us increased adaptability in a time of rapid environmental changes.

 

Humans certainly 'win' in terms of the breadth of ecological niches we can occupy or exploit etc.

[questionposter]

I got into evolution a couple months ago after spending years tracing my family name, but then it changed when i watched a documentary on the evolution of us.

 

It was hard for me to take it all in to understand why! I grasp the concept really easily, cause i have a science brain. The first thing I ask myself, is, Out of all the lines of close species, why did our direct line conquer all, why?

 

I watched the video, showing Lucy taking her first steps out of the tree to the next. I am not sure if its still accurate, but the ape like animal named lucy is an old relative, her basic mind, is still imprinted in how ours works. The fact that we don't have to spend are days fighting to survive against the rest of the world, has given our species the chance to grow in the fields of, everything!

 

 

I have a few questions that I first thought, that would explain this "Why" we made it, and why we conquered the world against every other animal. The one thing that i keep going back to, is our mind. Look at lucys mind compared to others, and look at our minds to others.

 

I am really intriuged in the different places/times that we did something different, that lead us to where we are now. Neanderthals could have lived side by side, even to this day, but we secured global dominance by riding of them!

 

Today we have a lot of tendency's that come with being a human. For example, the fact that I naturally will go for the best "mate". Does the fact that are natural breeding selection involves us picking the best we can get, does that have anything to do with our "Dominance".

 

From what i have seen, our direct line has been innovators, from walking, to tools, to speech and to artistically expressing ourselves. I think that if you look at the past "us", it explains a lot answer as to what we are! I learned more about myself in 9 minutes watching that documentary, than i did at 9 years in church!

 

I didn't mean to ramble but, if anyone else has more facts, theorys or what ever on the different things us humans did that kept our line living all those years!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh it's also just random too. Individuals in the past randomly developed genes that gave them extra neurons or legs to walk up-right, and since those genes were so successful, they got passed on, and since they continue to be successful, they continue to get passed on.

Edited September 1, 2011 by questionposter

[Leader Bee]

since those genes were so successful, they got passed on, and since they continue to be successful, they continue to get passed on.

 

A little misleading imo. They don't necessarily get passed on because they are successful, evolution doesn't distinguish between good genes and bad genes then weed out which ones will be beneficial or not, it just so happens that because the gene mutations were useful more offspring that carried the gene survived and had the chance to pass it on.

 

If less variations of organisms survive with bad genes they have less opportunity to pass the gene on, however those successful enough to breed will pass on the mutation just as well as something with a "beneficial" gene.

[ǮWelsh*IntrigueǮ]

I would like to know how many of man's ancestors have their DNA listed/mapped and if their diploid chromosome numbers are known. Of course that's if the number differs from that of Homo sapiens sapiens. I'm still learning.

[Ophiolite]

Insects in general, not any particular species or group of species. And I believe David Attenborough stated this in his life on earth documentary.

Well, that is rather a valueless comparison. How does it look when we compare vertebrates in general with insects in general? If you are going to compare humans with something, then surely that something needs to be another species? At least within the context of this thread.

[Greg Boyles]

Well, that is rather a valueless comparison. How does it look when we compare vertebrates in general with insects in general? If you are going to compare humans with something, then surely that something needs to be another species? At least within the context of this thread.

 

The gist was that humans are the dominant and superior life form on Earth.

 

But that depends entirely on your criteria for dominance and superiority.

 

I merely pointed out that if you criteria for dominance and superiority were evolutionary longevity, number of individuals and variety then class Insecta would win easily on all counts.

 

Evolution did not exist for the sole purpose of giving rise to humans and there is nothing to suggest that humans will not become extinct at some point in the future.

[Ophiolite]

I completely agree with you that classification of humans as dominant or superior depends upon which criteria you use. While one can argue the case for different criteria, I really don't think it is valid to compare humans (a species) with families, classes, order or phyla. You could certainly argue for comparison with genera, but going beyond that you are comparing apples with orchards.

[Dekan]

I completely agree with you that classification of humans as dominant or superior depends upon which criteria you use. While one can argue the case for different criteria, I really don't think it is valid to compare humans (a species) with families, classes, order or phyla. You could certainly argue for comparison with genera, but going beyond that you are comparing apples with orchards.

 

Don't you think Modern Humans really are dominant and superior. Surely these facts must be persuasive:

 

1. We can kill all other animals on Earth, whenever we want. No animal can kill us, unless it catches us asleep. Or while we're being careless or stupid. Or politically correct.

 

2. We can kill all insects. Pesticide sprays and DDT are their final solution. The peril of DDT to humans was grossly exaggerated.

 

3. We can kill all Earth vegetable organisms, and all bacteria. Any bacterium which develops resistance to current antibiotics, will soon get smacked down by our lab guys.

 

4. We can make the whole Earth unhabitable, if we choose. Suppose we built 1,000 very large H-Bombs. Each with a yield of 100 Megatons. (That's easily achievable -the Russians tested one in the 1960's with their "Tsar-Bomba" - even though they downgraded it to 50MT for fear of breaking windows in Moscow). If all the bombs were jacketed in cobalt, they would produce a huge cloud of deadly radioactive fallout, that would enshroud the entire planet. And kill off all life. Except maybe the cockroaches. But they could be despatched by giant 100 MT DDT bombs, detonated by automatic control a few years later.

 

The point is - all this could be done by only by humans. No animal like a ruddy chimpanzee or dolphin could do it. So I can't understand why some people insist on trying to downgrade Humans, and make out we're no different from animals. Talk about false modesty...

 

We Humans really are different! We control the destiny of a planet! And perhaps in due course, the destiny of the Universe!

 

So why try to belittle us?

[insane_alien]

1. We can kill all other animals on Earth, whenever we want. No animal can kill us, unless it catches us asleep. Or while we're being careless or stupid. Or politically correct.

 

blatantly false.

 

plenty of animals can kill us, plenty of plants, insects and bacteria that can kill us too.

[Ophiolite]

Don't you think Modern Humans really are dominant and superior.

As I believe I indicated in an earlier post, that depends upon how you define dominant and superior. If you set the ground rules from an anthropocentric viewpoint then it will not be surprising if humans seem to come out on top. I was rather hoping for a more objective approach.

 

Surely these facts must be persuasive:

 

1. We can kill all other animals on Earth, whenever we want. No animal can kill us, unless it catches us asleep. Or while we're being careless or stupid. Or politically correct.

 

2. We can kill all insects. Pesticide sprays and DDT are their final solution. The peril of DDT to humans was grossly exaggerated.

 

3. We can kill all Earth vegetable organisms, and all bacteria. Any bacterium which develops resistance to current antibiotics, will soon get smacked down by our lab guys.

 

4. We can make the whole Earth unhabitable, if we choose. Suppose we built 1,000 very large H-Bombs. Each with a yield of 100 Megatons. (That's easily achievable -the Russians tested one in the 1960's with their "Tsar-Bomba" - even though they downgraded it to 50MT for fear of breaking windows in Moscow). If all the bombs were jacketed in cobalt, they would produce a huge cloud of deadly radioactive fallout, that would enshroud the entire planet. And kill off all life. Except maybe the cockroaches. But they could be despatched by giant 100 MT DDT bombs, detonated by automatic control a few years later.

Well, you have certainly presuaded me that humans possess immense destructive power. In my definitions of superiority you will find that creativity outweighs destructive capability by an order of magnitude.

 

You have also demonstrated that your grasp of facts is weak. You have placed so many caveats on your first point as to render it valueless. You might also want to check how many people are killed by mosquitoes every year. They make Al Queada look like pansies. We can kill most bacteria. We are fast approaching a point where more and more resistant strains arise and dominate our health landscape. Apparently you have never heard of MRSA. I don't think your cobalt encrusted H-bombs would do much to bother the subterranean lifea kilometre or so down, feeding quite happily of the rock as it has done for billions of years.

 

 

 

The point is - all this could be done by only by humans. No animal like a ruddy chimpanzee or dolphin could do it. So I can't understand why some people insist on trying to downgrade Humans, and make out we're no different from animals. Talk about false modesty...

Certainly humans are different from other animals. Did you know this? Kanagaroos are different from other animals too. And tigers. And rabbits. Each animal is different. That's why we invented a classification system with species and genera and families and orders, etc. Acknowledging that we are animals is only downgrading us if you have an inflated sense of self worth and don't like animals. A chimpanzee cannot do orbital analysis using tensor calculus and neither can I. The chimp can, however, survive in a jungle that would kill me in a few days, at best. True, with time I might learn to survive there, but I'll never master the chimp's clibing skills, nor match his pound for pound strength.

 

We Humans really are different! We control the destiny of a planet! And perhaps in due course, the destiny of the Universe!

 

So why try to belittle us?

Noting that we are animals is not belittling us.

Noting that we may not be superior is not belittling us.

Noting that we may not be dominant is not belittling us.

Having the destiny of a planet in our hands and screwing up that destiny is most certainly belittling us. I do wish we would stop.

[Moontanman]

Don't you think Modern Humans really are dominant and superior. Surely these facts must be persuasive:

 

1. We can kill all other animals on Earth, whenever we want. No animal can kill us, unless it catches us asleep. Or while we're being careless or stupid. Or politically correct.

 

2. We can kill all insects. Pesticide sprays and DDT are their final solution. The peril of DDT to humans was grossly exaggerated.

 

3. We can kill all Earth vegetable organisms, and all bacteria. Any bacterium which develops resistance to current antibiotics, will soon get smacked down by our lab guys.

 

4. We can make the whole Earth unhabitable, if we choose. Suppose we built 1,000 very large H-Bombs. Each with a yield of 100 Megatons. (That's easily achievable -the Russians tested one in the 1960's with their "Tsar-Bomba" - even though they downgraded it to 50MT for fear of breaking windows in Moscow). If all the bombs were jacketed in cobalt, they would produce a huge cloud of deadly radioactive fallout, that would enshroud the entire planet. And kill off all life. Except maybe the cockroaches. But they could be despatched by giant 100 MT DDT bombs, detonated by automatic control a few years later.

 

The point is - all this could be done by only by humans. No animal like a ruddy chimpanzee or dolphin could do it. So I can't understand why some people insist on trying to downgrade Humans, and make out we're no different from animals. Talk about false modesty...

 

We Humans really are different! We control the destiny of a planet! And perhaps in due course, the destiny of the Universe!

 

So why try to belittle us?

 

 

And yet the unicellular biosphere under our feet, in our bodies, and universally present everywhere on Earth, masses more than all surface complex life put together and they could survive a 300 kilometer asteroid hit, could we? We live at the discretion of the bacteria on this planet, wipe them out and we (and by we I mean all of complex life) are history or fossils.... then there are the virus particles, quite possibly even more influential than unicellular life.