I agree that many of us have grown up and stopped imagining that humans are uniquely different from all other life on Earth...the apple of God's eye and given a license to rape and pillage the planet like an all-you-can-eat buffet. But to be realistic, what's the average? Can you say that about our species as a whole?
There is a spectrum of intelligence on Earth; we're not unique, just a little hypertrophied in the brain department. But obviously not everyone sees it, or by now we'd have recognized chimpanzees and other great apes as cousins, nearly human, and defined killing them as murder. Yet chimps and bonobos are on the edge of extinction. If we can't see species that closely resemble us as close cousins, it's no wonder people have trouble seeing the intelligence in physically alien species such as whales and dolphins.
I don't mean to be a downer, I just think that our species still needs a little work before we can proclaim ourselves "intelligent".
Space/Science » in reply to "Intelligence"
re: "Intelligence"
The whole thread (49 posts)
- Many, Perhaps Most, Nearby Sun-Like Stars May Form Rocky Planets
- There's no PROOF for their claim. (n/t)
- Translation: Very good news for SETI weenies.
- I was never too worried about it
- How about admitting: "We don't know"...and search from there
- re: I was never too worried about it
- colonization's always been a one-way trip
- It's obvious you don't believe space aliens will be Democrats. (n/t)
- "Intelligence"
- Fermi Shmermi
- It is just nice...
- I was never too worried about it