Human beings: why are we the dominant animal? what does it mean for our future?

[haider]

EXCELLENT talk by Paul Ehrlich based on his book "The Dominant Animal"

In humanity’s more than 100,000 year history, we have evolved from vulnerable creatures clawing sustenance from Earth to a sophisticated global society manipulating every inch of it. In short, we have become the dominant animal. Why, then, are we creating a world that threatens our own species? What can we do to change the current trajectory toward more climate change, increased famine, and epidemic disease?
 
Renowned Stanford scientists Paul R. Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich believe that intelligently addressing those questions depends on a clear understanding of how we evolved and how and why we’re changing the planet in ways that darken our descendants’ future. The Dominant Animal arms readers with that knowledge, tracing the interplay between environmental change and genetic and cultural evolution since the dawn of humanity. In lucid and engaging prose, they describe how Homo sapiens adapted to their surroundings, eventually developing the vibrant cultures, vast scientific knowledge, and technological wizardy we know today.


http://fora.tv/2008/06/27/Paul_Ehrlich_The_Dominant_Animal

[jr]

We came from adam and eve. There was also a talking snake involved.

[funk51]

it means we will probably be the second  last mammal to die [rats will outlast us], the insects will survive a while longer

[240 is Back]

I dunno... a virus could kill a chunk of us, and the rest would die from violence or just starvation/thirst because we cannot provide for ourselves.

If half the rats on earth died in a plague, the rest would be fine, no doubt.  If 50% of humans died, I bet MOST of the remaining 50% would be dead in 5 years, with only a very small group surviving.

[Gonuclear]

EXCELLENT talk by Paul Ehrlich based on his book "The Dominant Animal"

In humanity’s more than 100,000 year history, we have evolved from vulnerable creatures clawing sustenance from Earth to a sophisticated global society manipulating every inch of it. In short, we have become the dominant animal. Why, then, are we creating a world that threatens our own species? What can we do to change the current trajectory toward more climate change, increased famine, and epidemic disease?
 
Renowned Stanford scientists Paul R. Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich believe that intelligently addressing those questions depends on a clear understanding of how we evolved and how and why we’re changing the planet in ways that darken our descendants’ future. The Dominant Animal arms readers with that knowledge, tracing the interplay between environmental change and genetic and cultural evolution since the dawn of humanity. In lucid and engaging prose, they describe how Homo sapiens adapted to their surroundings, eventually developing the vibrant cultures, vast scientific knowledge, and technological wizardy we know today.


http://fora.tv/2008/06/27/Paul_Ehrlich_The_Dominant_Animal

Ehrlich is a joke - a completely discredited alarmist.  Here are a few of his predictions:

"By the year 2000 the United Kingdom will be simply a small group of impoverished islands, inhabited by some 70 million hungry people … If I were a gambler, I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000.” Paul Ehrlich, Speech at British Institute For Biology, September, 1971.

 “In the 1970s … hundreds of millions are going to starve to death,” and by the 1980s most of the world’s important resources would be depleted. He forecast that 65 million Americans would die of starvation between 1980-1989 and that by 1999, the US population would decline to 22.6 million. The problems in the US would be relatively minor compared to those in the rest of the world. (Ehrlich, Paul R. The Population Bomb. New York, Ballantine Books, 1968.)

“I have yet to meet anyone familiar with the situation who thinks India will be self-sufficient in food by 1971, if ever.”

Yet in a only few years India was exporting food and significantly changed its food production capacity. (Julian Simon, The Ultimate Resource, Princeton: Princeton Univesity Press, 1981, p. 64).