KittenKoder
Senior Member
Pretty good observation. However, you are leaving out one big factor. Evolution can only proceed with the material at hand. If a very promising line is wiped out by a catastrophe, whether rapid warming as in the Permian-Triassic extinction, or an impact, there will be no further evolution of that species. Had a random chunk of rock hit Eastern Africa about two million years ago, we would not be having this correspondance.
What promising line has humanity preserved? Ever?
Also, less "promising" species to us may actually be the next super species to nature. Look at the rat, when it first appeared virus' and toxins were just as deadly to them as other species, they had nothing going for them, weak and nearly at the bottom of the food chain. They should have gone extinct by our measure of what is "promising", but nature said otherwise and now they are one of the toughest mammalian species on the earth, even though they are still near the bottom of the food chain. Their survival has allowed many other species to thrive. Already mentioned cockroaches, natures toxic clean up crew. Both of these could not be wiped out, even if we tried, of course the environuts think they should be but think that penguins, which serve a very small purpose in nature right now, should be saved even when nature has decided to drive them extinct. Look at the cheetah, beautiful and fabulous creatures (second favorite feline of mine), but they are suppose to go extinct. Even biologists have said this, nature has just decided they are no longer needed. But do the environuts let them go extinct? No, instead they upset the natural order and try to "save" these creatures. As much as I love them myself, their time is up, and they need to be allowed to fail. Their food sources have evolved to overcome the unique hunting trait that helped them thrive in the past, that's nature, it's cruel but it's natural. We as a species are part of nature as long as we don't try to force our ideals on it, because what we think is the ideal environment most likely (as with the cheetah) is not ideal for the planet or nature itself. Here's an idea, why not worry about our survival when nature deems us worthless? The evolution of an intelligent species won't be measured in our ability to adapt physically, or our ability to force the world to conform to what we "think" it should be, but in how we can learn from it and how well we can use that knowledge to protect ourselves.