What makes us so important

[BeBMan]

Originally posted by Odin
To an Evolutionary Biologist we are basically generalist omnivores with big brains. our big brains are no better an adaptation then say, the speed of a cheetah or the flexible jaw of lizards, or the complex cell parts of some protozoans, or the remarkable metabolic abillities of Archaebacteria.

But that´s just one side of the coin since our brains let us easily think out things that have no problems exeeding speed or power of any animal...

[Odin]

Originally posted by skywalker
Actually... I'd say our brains are a MUCH better adaptation than a cheetah's speed or a lizard's jaws.

We could easily make cheetahs extinct, same for lizards (though it'd be harder with them because of the sheer number). However, cheetahs aren't about to make humans extinct anytime soon.

Big brains are very expensive metabolically, 20% of the food my body uses goes to run my brain, not every creature can have a big one, they would starve.

[Kuciwalker]

So big brains are expensive matabolically, so what? We can afford to get that much food - it's called "agriculture".

[SKILORD]

Originally posted by Odin
Humans think they are imprtant because of the rise of organized religion, many hunter-gather societies thenk of themselves as part of nature, at least that is what my classical mythology textbook said.

SKILORD: Evolutionists don't belive we are special, we arn't even on the top of the pile, that belongs to social insects and beetles success-wise. To an Evolutionary Biologist we are basically generalist omnivores with big brains. our big brains are no better an adaptation then say, the speed of a cheetah or the flexible jaw of lizards, or the complex cell parts of some protozoans, or the remarkable metabolic abillities of Archaebacteria.

Actually... I'd say our brains are a MUCH better adaptation than a cheetah's speed or a lizard's jaws.

We could easily make cheetahs extinct, same for lizards (though it'd be harder with them because of the sheer number). However, cheetahs aren't about to make humans extinct anytime soon.

I suppose you could say from an evolutionary standpoint that our superiority is inherint in our ability to wipe out any other species. I don't see the cows, as BeBro suggested, building up force against us. I'd like to see silkworms harvesting our offal for use in clothing. I'd like to see your bacteria harnessing humans for biological weaponry.

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by Zero
Okay so after enough attempts to get some talking going, here what I thought of the question.

1. Humans think they are important well, because they're humans. All organism's show tendency to promote their genetic packages into the next generation of living things, so obviously considering the life of one that has genetic similaririty must be linked with this kind of behavior. This applies at any level (kingdom, phylum, genus species, race, families etc.)

I also think, that´s it.
In the 19th Century there was even a Differentiation between Races.
Western Civilizations tended to be regard other (African) Races as subhuman. A for now, Racism isn´t considered to be politically corect anymore, but it´s still a matter of "we" (the group you belong to) and "them" (all other groups).
And, as humankind is the largest human group, most humans share the Belief, that they are superior to all other groups of animals.

[MattyBoy]

If I were a cheetah, I would think I was pretty sh1t hot for being able to accelerate from 0 to 100+ km/h in 3 seconds. It would be pretty hard to respect fat, slow humans that sit around at computers all day.

I like the point made in this thread that we are basically animals, albeit very smart ones. That is easily forgotten.
I recently found it educational to watch monkey episodes of Life of Mammals and see once again so many similarities between us and monkeys.

It seems that monkeys' brain size is primarily driven by the size of the social group in which they live. Our social groups and (hence) brains are far far larger than those of any other primates. Otherwise, we share a lot of similarities, and certainly many of our drives are much the same.