Monday, March 4, 2013

IS INTELLIGENCE A SURVIVABLE TRAIT?

Homo sapiens are unique in many ways but the most troubling for the Planet is our high level of intelligence. Many creatures on Earth have rather high levels of innate intelligence that they use to survive and continue their species, but we humans are the only one that is using this gift to degrade and destroy the habitat we live in.


The human ability to create, to invent, to communicate, to wonder, are all traits that allow us to produce art, music, literature, machines, electronics and so on. These tools and toys allow us to explore our world and beyond like no other being can. For the last million years or so this condition we have inherited has permitted homo sapies to move from being a wild creature of the savanas of Africa to a domesticated creature in the megalopolises of the Twenty-First century. But we all must remember, we are still creatures, animals if you will, and out first inclination is self preservation for ourselves, our family, our tribe, our country.

That should be a good thing, Right?  Let's examine the record.

As we have evolved our diet has expanded from the easily available seeds, berries, roots and other plant foods to other ceatures in our habitat. We had to find ways to get these meals with as little effort as possible, so we invented tools starting with clubs, snares and traps and ending with a wide assortment of guns. As humans numbers expanded  competition for limited resources arose, these same tools became handy weapons of what is now called WAR. Over the last two millenia we have successfully refined these tools from spears, bows and arrows and swords to the Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs of today. Since World War II we have had the means to destroy civilization and much of the natural world as we know it.

With the domestication of animals, start of grain farming and the establishment of permanent settlements humans have been able to control their own survival and no longer have to follow the law---"Survial of the Fittest"

Will the Earth treat us as the "disease" we have become and bring our saga to an end, or will our species recognize that to survive we must "live within our means"?