Humans

[Mr. Bougo]

Eh, didn't know about this thread!

Well imho we give ourselves TOO MUCH credit! I hate those people who justify cruelty to other animals with the pretended superiority of the human race...

Blah

[Flying Steel]

Humans are much less intelligent than we think we are and physically much more able than we think we are. The reason many animals are better than us in one or a few areas physically, is because they are physically specialized to do really well in just those areas.

Can a Cheetah or Chimpanzee beat a Human in anything that happens under water (speed, max dive depth)? No.

Can a Duck beat us in a fight? No.

Could a Bear beat us at a log throwing match to the death, even if he had our brain? No. (Think hands versus paws).

Could a Wolf beat us in a wrestling match? No. (Wolves are just a bite on four legs; you can't bite in wrestling).

Could a Tuna beat us in a 100m land race? No.

That's why comparing ourselves to other animals known for doing somethings really well, in only the areas that they do really well, so that we may have the pleasure of calling ourselves physically weak is pointless.

[Taiyo.uk]

I am no where near as badass as I would be if I had:

Horns
A tough leathery skin with hard scales and plates where most useful
Solid hooves
The use of muscle mass as energy storage
Eyes that can see infra-red light
Limbs that can regenerate (think salamanders)
Peristaltic blood vessels instead of a centralised heart
Decentralised cerebellum
A selective connection to a hivemind
etc, etc...

I guess I'm just never satisfied. Now, where's that smug contented bast.. err... I mean "community member" gotten to, I've got some trolling to do.

[Mr. Bougo]

Flying Steel, to summarize, we are just an animal species among others...

We just happened to invent a large variety of tools, and there we are... But IMHO there's no point in emphasizing our "superiority", it's completely useless, as our survival still depends on the well-being of other species.

[AnArKiSt]

Instead of really good sense of smell, good hearing, the ability to fly or good eyesight, what we have is intelligence, which in this case turned out to be a very valuable.

I think we probably did have a good sense of smell and eyesight at one point, but that probably went away because were so good at protecting ourselves from nature, ourselves, and other animals, that natural selection was unable to kill off those with inferior traits.

Those with bad eyesight/hearing/sense of smell had children with those who had superior eyesight/hearing/sense of smell, and now human senses are partially ruined for eternity.

Just a thought.

[Sepelio]

Of course we beat nature! We have guns and fire.

[Flying Steel]

Flying Steel, to summarize, we are just an animal species among others...

We just happened to invent a large variety of tools, and there we are... But IMHO there's no point in emphasizing our "superiority", it's completely useless, as our survival still depends on the well-being of other species.

There simply is no superior. When you add one thing you have to take something away.

Methinks the real superiority complex is in those who feel intelligence is paramount to everything, which probably puts us at the top of everything, and breeds sentiments like 'we are on the path of progress', 'the world revolves around us' or 'the wild corners of the world are parks or undeveloped'.

And I for one only want to live in a world where we depend on other species, or else there's no limit to how dark things will get.

I think we probably did have a good sense of smell and eyesight at one point, but that probably went away because were so good at protecting ourselves from nature, ourselves, and other animals, that natural selection was unable to kill off those with inferior traits.

Those with bad eyesight/hearing/sense of smell had children with those who had superior eyesight/hearing/sense of smell, and now human senses are partially ruined for eternity.

Just a thought.

Extremely unlikely, evolution usually allows better to beat out just good enough over time. Only very recently have our machines and society reached the point where we might be able to begin devolving.

What is alot more likely is that since brain tissue requires so much power in the form of blood flow (20% for our brains) that a choice had to be made between color vision and advanced image recognition, or the old wolf-like olfactory analyis. If you used both you'd have too little power for your other brain functions and muscles, for that particular dual-sensory emphasis. And you still wouldn't have something like more intelligent white noise reduction for wolf-like hearing.

[morfar]

I think we probably did have a good sense of smell and eyesight at one point, but that probably went away because were so good at protecting ourselves from nature, ourselves, and other animals, that natural selection was unable to kill off those with inferior traits.

Those with bad eyesight/hearing/sense of smell had children with those who had superior eyesight/hearing/sense of smell, and now human senses are partially ruined for eternity.

Just a thought.

Extremely unlikely, evolution usually allows better to beat out just good enough over time. Only very recently have our machines and society reached the point where we might be able to begin devolving.

Evolution does not know what is good or bad. I think you're talking about Evolution by Natural Selection, where the best treat usually survives better than bad treats in the long run.
But civilized humans does not evolve by natural selection anymore. There is no selection at all afaik (except maybe healthy/beautiful people have a higher change of getting children).
But I do think we will get smarter and live longer, not by evolution, but thanks to education, vaccines and good health care.

Humans are special though. We are the only species with foresight.
That does of course not gives the right to be cruel to other animals.

[ai]

I'm just waiting for the day when we all lose our eye sight, which is inevitable if we continue on the same road as we do now.

Btw, did Vermin not survive his trip? He didn't respond in this thread. Nature beat him? That would be ironic.

[paperclips]

Morfar is right, the biggest advantage we have is collective learning.
there's first the natural selection bit, which takes forever with countless of casualties.
then there is individual learning, its really expensive though since the brain uses much energy so for example, a seaslug, at some point that seaslug begins a journey looking for a good stone to sit on and just collect food that passes by for the rest of its life. So since the brain takes a lot of energy, it simply eats its own brain, problem solved, no more wasted energy there.

Then there is collective learning, which simply mean that since we can communicate and not only that we can communicate by symbols. Like: "oh my cousin was eaten by that leopard, down by our waterhole behind the high trees." Just try to tell your dog that: "no we are not going to have chicken today, but tomorrow." This gives us the ability that if one individual learns something that person can teach the surrounding community what was learnt. Like the history of the world, be able to construct computers, cultural references and so on.
This also enables us to have control over most of the energy on our planet, basicly all energy from the sun, could be stored energy, fossil fuel, or control of land, crops etc.