| | Good find, Robert!
Daniel, I agree with your sentiments. Each time a scientific discovery is found -- it seems that it is lauded as a major breakthrough beyond some previous level of ignorance.
I read the article, and it makes a crude (but good) point: hundreds -- if not thousands -- of "mutual" mutations are responsible for the human brain. Compare this to the few-to-tens of mutations being responsible for differences in the animal world, and we have, at least, an order of magnitude (or possibly 2 orders of magnitude!) of difference between human brains and the 'usual' difference between brains in animals.
The differences between different species of nonhuman animals pales in comparison to the difference between humans and animals.
Another point, somewhat obscured by your response to this article, is that we are now largely in control of our own evolution. You said:
---------
it's not as if we are the pinnacle of evolution
---------
Sure, we may not be the "pinnacle" -- but we are the first to control the otherwise-natural selection that has been behind all previous evolution. In the mystical sense, we -- with our new abilities of genetic recombination, cloning, and thought-aceuticals (my euphemism for that which is currently described as "smart drugs"), have become "gods" -- able to direct future evolution.
Language and the passage of knowledge are another way in which we have control of our own species' evolution. It can even be said (with a straight face) that at the point we are at -- where we adapt our own environment to ourselves, rather than adapting ourselves to our environment -- we no longer have a survival "need" for evolution. Though, admittedly, we may still have a "thrival need" for evolution.
Ed
|
|
