Which animal will replace humans as Earth's dominant species? This scientist has an idea
Which animal will replace humans as Earth's dominant species? This scientist has an idea
Human beings have been at the center of ecological change on Earth for thousands of years. But as history shows, no species lasts forever.
His answer is the octopus. What say you?
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There's no such thing as a dominant species. Even if we used a questionable definition to elect one, humans wouldn't be it.
I don't think any species could beat my Revolution X top score so... we kind of do dominate sweetie.
Humans most certainly would be it by almost any intellectual qualifier you chose to use. Grading every species we have encountered with regards to intelligence and ability to control its environment humanity is a wildly insane outlier. To point of absurdity, to the point where we do not fit to such an extent that some agency other than organic evolution might be suspected.
Humans most certainly would be it by almost any intellectual qualifier
That's not a biological definition of "dominant species", that's what you want to define it as because surprise, intellect is our most important trait. By that logic, an owl could define "dominant species" in terms of flying ability and they'd find you utterly incompetent.
Grading every species we have encountered with regards to intelligence and ability to control its environment humanity is a wildly insane outlier.
We don't do that, at least not outside of pop science blogs.
to the point where we do not fit to such an extent that some agency other than organic evolution might be suspected.
That's absolutely meaningless.
Intelligence is a qualifier unlike other physical qualities, it allows humanity to dominate its environment while not being physically superior to many of the species surrounding us. Intelligence is a quality we recognise and calibrate in other species and seek out in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence and the development of artificial intelligence. Unlike flying or walking intelligence is universally accepted as a uniquely separate attribute, although not of course by you, so this is where I will end my discussion with you.
You are free to think of intelligence as this supreme trait above everything else and you can go nuts ranking life based on that. Won't change the fact that this effort is meaningless from a biological point of view, and completely irrelevant to the way we classify species, record evolution or understand ecological relationships.
But again, go nuts with it if that's how you want to spend your time.
Human beings can, of course, fly. We can fly much faster and further than any owl could even conceive. However we did it through intelligence, knowledge sharing, tool use, rather than physical evolution. Human flying dominates all other flying life, because of intelligence.
For pretty much anything most creatures have adapted to do, you could argue so can humans, but because of intelligence, not just narrow physical adaptation. Intelligence is a supreme trait
Your grandiose infatuation with humans is completely irrelevant to biology.
Yeah but we literally are changing the planet and affecting other species. We've developed nukes that could take out the whole world
Yeah but we literally are changing the planet and affecting other species.
Where does the oxygen in the air your breathe come from? How much biomass is moved every single day in the ocean war between bacteria and bacteriophages? How does the nitrogen you need to survive go from inorganic compounds into biological systems?
We are in no way special when it comes to impacting other species or the Earth as a system.
We are in no way special when it comes to impacting other species or the Earth as a system.
We do it on purpose, with intent. Heck, we do it for multiple reasons! We also massively impact all parts of the ecosystem at the same time.
purpose, with intent
allegedly.
Congrats? I fail to see how "with intent" is somehow relevant.
Because it opens up doing so many different things that impact the world as a whole. Beavers instinctually damn moving water and build homes, but that has been their limited behavior for thousands of years. They don't expand out and change things even more and more over time like humans do, because they don't actively choose to do new things that continuously expand their impact.
That intent and conscious decision making by humans to change the world around them is what makes them special.
That intent and conscious decision making by humans to change the world around them is what makes them special.
Sure, that's what makes us special. I obviously can't disagree, that's in fact what originates sociology as a whole, language, and our entire relationship with the world. Now explain why somehow our most important trait makes us dominant from a biological point of view. "Understanding behavior" and changing it over time is important to humans, not important for beavers, what makes beavers special is a completely different set of traits.
There are no "dominant" species. Downvote me all you want, go call your favorite phylogeny professor from whatever university you prefer and ask him to define "dominant species" in a biological sense, share your multiple definitions of "impacting the world as a whole" and "humans are special" and see how long they'll entertain that phone call.
Now explain why somehow our most important trait makes us dominant from a biological point of view.
It allows us to accomplish far more than would normally occur based on our biological limitations.
Your problem is trying to argue based on an academic definition (that is not universally defined) against the common usage of the word dominant and doing a piss poor job of making that clear. Like when someone uses the lay version of theory and then arguing against it based on the scientific definition of theory without making it clear which one you are using.
Your problem is trying to argue based on an academic definition (that is not universally defined) against the common usage of the word dominant and doing a piss poor job of making that clear.
We are in the "science" community and the post asked which animal will replace humans as Earth's dominance species. I commented that "dominant species" does not exist in biology.
You people are the ones freaking out over it and trying to come up with a definition. I was speaking about the academic definition from the beginning. But good to hear you finally admit that there is no scientific definition or meaning to this phrase, that was my comment from the beginning. We are done in this discussion then.
If the beavers banded together and tried to exterminate humanity, they wouldn’t get as far as humanity would exterminating beaverkind. That’s domination: exerting your will on those around you to their detriment and not being deterred by their resistance, no?
I don’t think that’s a fun competition or nice thing to consider, but there are few animals that could come close to beating us in that regard. Ants, termites, and bees are the first that come to mind for me, but there are probably other possibilities.
Plants, fungi, and bacteria on the other hand… I don’t think we could really expect to win against the most ubiquitous examples of those.
True but we're one species. This is comparing one species to all the bacteria
Do you want to enter a discussion about the definition of species in rapid multiplying populations of bacteria? Or even viruses for that matter?
I mean, I could, but given how fantastically naive this conversation has been so far, I doubt it would go how you want it to go.
I think you should chill out bc this was supposed to be a fun discussion, but I'll give you the same energy back. The fact that you brought up viruses, which aren't even living organisms, into a debate regarding species tells me all I need to know about your so-called expertise. We can agree to disagree, that way you can save your arrogance for someone who's impressed. :)
*This is MelonYellow. My server went down with fantastic timing!