HOMO SAPIENS

Humans have not adequately considered other species when building a new shopping mall, developing a new "pest"-icide, or clearing another forest. We have embarked on a system of society which seems to require controlling or filling all the space in the world. These activities of expansion and destruction are sometimes justified to other humans by assuming our superiority. We are, after all, the primmest of the primates, the Homo sapiens.

This attitude is allowing and perpetuating a destruction of plants and animals on scale with an ice age or other major geological shift. This perspective is also ignorant, selfish, and utterly lacking in all the "higher ideals" which supposedly separate Us from them. But from the standpoint of modern evolutionary science, their is no hierarchy of nature, no pinnacle on which humans can stand and look below at their domain. All contemporary life forms have evolved from a common origin. All life forms result from a complex chain which stretches back to the origin of the universe. Every existing species is the latest in the line; a unique form with specializations and eccentricities developed over the course of millions and millions of years.

Despite this reality, we treat these rare beings no better than we treated Native Americans, or Africans, or any number of other less powerful peoples sacrificed in the name of progress. Since we do not understand them, and they do not have the power to resist, we exploit and murder for our pleasure and material gain. We say they are ignorant or not "even" human, and therefore it does not matter if we tear them limb from limb, or destroy their homes, or lock them up in cages.

What really separates us from them is power: poison, fire, guns, and tractors, and roads, and we breed like people: millions upon millions and billions upon billions. We eat our processed Chicken McNuggets; wash them down with sugar, phosphoric acid, and caffeine; and smile to ourselves, happy to be human.

When one looks objectively at the human species, we have no special claim to kindness or intelligence. We kill each other, we let nations starve while we destroy crops in order to "save" the economy. We kill and discriminate against members of our species because of color, class, language and religion. We hate, we destroy. We live lives amidst styrofoam, synthetic fibers and processed food. We work 40 hours a week or more for 40 years or more so we can die in a hospital or nursing home, hooked up to tubes and full of pain.

It is not intelligence that spawned the mess that humans have created. It is ignorance and greed. It is not intelligence or culture that make humans the "best." It is power. It is the ability to do our will despite the needs of other animals.

But there is at least one more page in the history of the world. As the age of mammals comes to a close, there are other species rapidly evolving into the foreground. For example, ants now make up 10% of the biomass of the earth. Some recent studies even suggest that ants may be responsible for the desertification of the earth: ants take seeds from plants and store them below germination level, so the next rainfall does not bring new plants, but only new erosion. Erosion leads to deserts, and no food for us poor humans.

Ants represent just another highly evolved species which could drastically effect human life. There are plenty of insects, mice, and viruses which are evolving at an incredible pace, thanks to the stress humans have placed on their species. By undergoing an extreme, but not fatal, process of selection imposed by our mouse traps, antibiotics, and fly strips, these life forms have evolved into very serious contenders for prominence in the next age. Unfortunately, for us and for them, they seem as incapable as us of generosity and intelligent management of resources.

One end to this cycle of dominance and subjugation is the conscious creation of a balanced and sustainable world. It is not a question of politics or ideology, but of foresight and kindness. Can the human, or any other species, rise above selfish and shortsighted behavior? Is it possible for us to go beyond the pride, the prejudice, and the hate-- and learn to share?