MadMordigan

I happen to believe there is no privilidged perspective from which to judge the 'superiority' of one life form over another. They just ARE.

We happen to like our own health more than the survival of small pox. We like eating steaks more than the life of cattle. We like the company of cats more than their torture. To me, these preferences are all the justification needed to explain our treatment of other life forms. Until we have a way to negotiate with other species how we will treat each other, our own prefernces are our only guides.

This being said, the aesthetic pleasure we feel for wild and domesticated animals is legitimate as well. The joy and wonder we feel when seeing an eagle or wild salmon is a value, and should be protected as well. A valley of old growth forest is a beautiful sight, and it would just just as much of a tragedy to bulldoze it to make toilet paper as it would be to tear down the Pyramids to build apartment complexes.

Kharakov

I'm not sure that the assertion that 'humans do not develop a balance with the environment' is valid. To say 'humanity might not reach a balance with the environment' would be valid.

All life (that we know of) consumes resources. If life does not move to another area when resources run out in the area it is in, life will die. Let us assume the sun just burns out instead of turning into a red giant. If life hasn't moved on to another stellar system or discovered a new way of using the resources available- life is dead.

Since all life (we know of) relies on external resources to survive (the sun), no life (that we know of) has developed a 'natural' equilibrium with the surrounding environment.

The quote from "The Matrix" is entertaining, but the assertions that it makes are wrong. I am pressed for time, so I have to stop breaking the quote down. L8r.

hinduwoman

It all depends on how you define the term 'superior'.
Yes, we can change the environment more than any other species, but a mindless virus can change it even more, even destroying the human race.
We can play around with nuclear power, but when the smoke clear the champion is --- The COCKROACH!

Stephen T-B

How about this?
We are part of a massively complex Equilibrium Machine which we know as the eco-system - and no species of plant or animal “deliberately” tailors its behaviour so as to maintain it.
Indeed, many are geared up to wreck it, and the reason they don’t is because of rivalry from other species, because of disease, because of predation, because winter comes and 80 per cent of their population is killed by the first heavy frost, or because their food supply is exhausted.
Humankind’s brain enables us to overcome all of these obstacles - food isn’t even a problem because we can grow and harvest and eat the bacteria which grow on our own faeces (I suppose we could...)
This should be a pretty good situation to be in, except we are beginning to find out that we are not set apart from the Equilibrium Machine: we are part of it. We NEED the rain forests; we need the ozone layer, we need viable oceans - we need a great many things which might seem quite incidental to our requirements - because although we might be able to survive in the inhospitable conditions which would result in the event of the Earth being denied them, we could not thrive in them. We might be able to colonise the sea bed, the deserts and perhaps the Moon and Mars, but our population will have needed to shrink to a small fraction of what it is today, and we’ll end up being a dominant species which is perilously close to extinction.
Other species are forced by circumstances to live in equilibrium; humans are in the interesting, challenging position of having to work out how to do that.
What we need, at the outset, I suggest, is a bit of humility.

Jamie_L

Not humility. Foresight.

Jamie

Agricola Senior

How about both humility & foresight ?

Huginn

"It is an important and popular fact that things are not always what they seem. For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much --- the wheel, New York, wars and so on --- whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man --- for precisely the same reasons. "

The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Chapter 23.
Douglas Adams we miss you.
<img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" />

Marduk

"Douglas Adams we miss you"

that's for sure!

Someone said something similar about American Indians
"The men spent all day hunting and fishing and the women did all the work, and the white man thought he could improve on this?"

babelfish

I think about Douglas Adams almost every day - well every day I log on here and see my name, anyway .

GeoTheo

Here are some of my thoughts on the issue:
1.Human's are in charge of the planet.
You migt ask: "Oh yeah, well who hired us?"
I would say that is a good question. Christians and other types of theists would say God appointed us. Others may say we are self appointed.
But the fact remains We are in charge. We alone decide the fates of our fellow creatures. There is no committee of woodchucks arguing over our fate.
This is a debate among humans. The primary goal is our own self interest. Obviously from that perspective we should not shoot ourselves in the foot. But that is because we don't want to screw ourselves. So it is so obvious we are in a position of superiority. I previously found myself at a loss of words to people who say otherwise. It is so obvious to me. People defending animals do so as self appointed advocates for them. The animals are not negotiating from a position of power and are not even aware that their fates are in our hands. That says it all right there.

[ November 05, 2002: Message edited by: GeoTheo ]</p>