How come man is atop of the world?

As a fan of animals, insects, marine life and nature. There's a huge issue no one has ever brought up. Which is why is man atop the food chart. While animals do many similar work that men do. Many times on a larger scale. Whether the animal is very small or larger then man. We have made a huge impact on this planet. Maybe it's because we put in more and improve it then animals do. I would like to share articles, pictures and videos of animals and even plants doing amazing fetes. Some even are stronger then men. no it's not the hulk.

Google Video Link

The first video is of the ants species. These many species of ants are amazing. From agriculture, architect, working with both other incests and plants, and getting tree sap to put in the nest for antibacterial purposes. These ants are even tougher then the average man.

Here's a list from Animal planet of the ten most intelligent animals. I would share a few entries.
animal.discovery.com...




The impressive intellectual abilities of this animal have long fascinated humans. They can make and use tools, hunt collectively, and are capable of advanced problem-solving. They are also able to learn sign language to communicate with humans and can remember the name sign for individuals they have not seen for several years. But perhaps the most amazing feature of the chimpanzee is its ability to use symbols for objects and combine the symbols in a sequence to convey a complex idea. Such intellectual gifts are probably central to maintaining this animal's complex social groups, where they form strong bonds and observe elaborate hierarchical structure.

Time also released an article on chimps going to war as well.
www.time.com...




Have you ever wondered why dolphins and other cetaceans are the star attraction at most aquariums? It's because they're smarter than almost any other creature on the planet. Dolphins are extremely social animals. Schools of dolphins can be observed in the world's oceans surfing, racing, leaping, spinning, whistling and otherwise enjoying themselves. They also have a sophisticated "language," though humans have only begun to unravel it. Dolphins use tools in their natural environment and can learn an impressive array of behavioral commands by human trainers. Like many of the most intelligent animals on Earth, dolphin females remain with their young for several years, teaching them all the tricks of the dolphin trade.




Contrary to popular perception, elephants are more than just lumbering giants with big ears and a good memory. In fact, elephants are quite elegant, cultured and curious. They have been known to clean their food and use tools in various ways in the wild, and they can also follow human commands in captivity. Elephants are also extremely caring and empathetic to other members of their group and to other species, which is considered a highly advanced form of intelligence.




Crossing the street against traffic may be called "jay-walking," but jays and other members of the crow family understand better than some humans the importance of waiting for the light to change. Crows living in urban areas are known to gather nuts from trees and then place them in the street for passing cars to crack open the shells. Then, after waiting patiently for the light to change, they return to the street to retrieve their nutty snack - an impressive example of animal innovation. Crows also communicate in elaborate population-specific dialects and play games and tricks on one another. Some scientists even believe that crows are more intelligent than primates.

Here's two videos from another intelligent spices of marine life





Hopefully I didn't over do it with all the animals and the information about the animals. To support my question and confusion as to why man is atop the world right now and many of these animals that are way older then us are in the same positions they were in millions of years ago.

[edit on 24-6-2010 by Romantic_Rebel]

reply to post by Romantic_Rebel


I think it has to do with our ability to creatively 'think' outside of the current moment in time.

From what I have been told over the years, the majority of animals have not developed the cognitive ability to "think" ahead or conceptualise outside of the current moment they live in. Hence why it's pointless to "punish" a dog for a bad deed 20 mins after they do it as they don't really know why you're doing it. (ie, punish doesn't mean hit or anything!)

I'm not saying animals are stupid - far from it. I think that many are, in fact smarter than us in the more basic and natural world ways. But as humans have developed this ability to coneptualise in an abstract way, and been quite fortunate in our evolution (read: brain capacity, opposable thumbs, etc), we managed to climb to the top.

However, what I understand, and I think you do as well based on your post, being at the top means being responsible for all those that are 'below' us in the pyramid. Something I think much of the world doesn't appreciate, myself included. I cannot stand to see animals slaughtered or killed but yet, I'm not a vegetarian as I do like meat. I fully understand the hypocrasy of that.



Also - I think you have a typo in the first sentence and meant to type "insects"

EDIT for spelling!

[edit on 24-6-2010 by noonebutme]

reply to post by noonebutme


What an cool thought.... Maybe it is true what you have been told.

By the way you have a typo... you said "dead" when you should of said "deed"

............................................................................................

Good thread to the OP.... S&F

reply to post by noonebutme


Thanks for the reply. I shouldn't eat while I type.

Originally posted by Romantic_Rebel
There's a huge issue no one has ever brought up. Which is why is man atop the food chart.

Ah, I beg to differ... A lot actually.

reply to post by Thain Esh Kelch


Thanks for the link. I must of missed the meeting. My four O' clock called and I had to rush over.

reply to post by Romantic_Rebel

We were designed and made to be soveriegn.

We were made to 'image' God in the world...
...but we are not doing a very good job.

reply to post by troubleshooter


It shouldn't matter what you believe, If I should believe in creation. Then I would believe God created more from this Earth. Then from his image, maybe he put more time in us then the others.

According to science man is the predominant species on this planet because of several factors;

A large brain which allows us to have advanced social interactions, to plan with an expectation of result, to remember vividly - thus learning, and to problem solve efficiently.

We have opposable thumbs which is necessary for the creation and usage of tools.

We are bipedal, allowing us advantages in locomotion.

We are highly adaptable to changes in environment, temperature, and diet.

Personally I think it's because we throw the best parties.

If God created us in his image, then what does that say about God?

How come?

Are you saying you would be dominated by ants, chimps or octopi playing with coconut shells?

Well, first off, it depends on how you measure being on top.

There are enough organisms (viruses, parasites, bacteria) that prey on man with success. And enough animals do prey on humans if hungry enough or given a chance.

But as I said, it really depends on the metrics.

There are organisms that live thousands of years (trees, fungi), and others that spread over vast areas (insect colonies, mushrooms). There are many beings with a far higher biomass than us (ants).

Aside from that, most people left to themselves would not be on top. Humanity has always relied on some few smart members to pull along the rest.

I prefer to use longevity and balance as a measure, and by that we are not even on the leader board, yet alone on the top.

reply to post by Hefficide


This is an easy one to answer.

We reign supreme because we wrote the book.

He who writes tells his-story.

Now if you were smart enough to speak with an elephant, a dolphin or a chimpanzee, they may have a different slant on this claim.

I think it is funny that we think it is so neat that animals can learn our language yet we don't understand one word of theirs.

I don't count the fact that some of us have been trained to respond to a certain, bark, whine or behavior, like nudging the feed bowl or sitting by the door, as language learning.

We are on top because we say so or until a large enough group of the animal kingdom decides that we aren't, and we seem to be losing the battle against one of the smallest members of the animal kingdom. One so small that we can't even see it with the naked eye.

We are not as smart as we think we are, and we have very short memories.

It will not be the first time large groups of us have been wiped out by a microscopical clan of earthlings.

Originally posted by DeltaChaos
If God created us in his image, then what does that say about God?

We weren't created in His image...that's a mistranslation...
...we were created as His image...
...in the same sense that a person working in the capacity of a bank manager would acting as a bank manager.

That is, we were made to 'image God' in the world.

NIce thread Romantic_Rebel. I love the videos that show how ingenious and adaptive animal life on earth is. As for being on top of the food chain I disagree. I think viruses and bacteria are by far the most successful life forms on the planet. They are everywhere that human and animal life can be found.

To me, nature is the greatest mystery. The one thing that makes me realize that there is a higher power than man. Humans are certainly the most arrogant species of all.

Native Americans taught that animals are our teachers as does the bible. Pay attention to them and they will teach us all. Ignore them and we will surely destroy ourselves and much of the world with us.

Star and flag for a lovely thread

I have asked myself this question too, and Ive come up with an answer myself. Humans are very, very advanced and civilized compared to other animals. We can grow our own food, create fire, create art, and have developed spoken language. However, just because we are so advanced, that doesn't mean we are the smartest creatures ever, it just means we like to move forward unlike other animals who like to keep things as they are running smoothly.

The next question is why we have these great imaginations. That can be answered with the Ancient Astronaut Theory. First off, lets pretend that the existnce of ETs is out of the question, because really, it is. According to the Ancient Astronaut Theory, extraterrestrials came many thousands of years ago durring the time of the Sumarians, although some people think they were here as early as Neanderthal Man. They helped the human race progress and rise above all other animals with there teachings.

However, in order for the humans to actually comprehend what these ETs were teaching them, they needed to have great atention spans. We got this trait from the apes in which we evolved from. Although some Ancient Astronaut theorists believe that the ETs (who look like man) even mated with the humans so they evolved into an even more advanced species.

You could call me crazy for beieving this, but once you look into it, the Ancient Astronaut theory really starts to make so much sense. You should read Erich von Daniken's Chariots of the Gods and watch Ancient Aliens on the History Channel. But for right now, you should check outthis webpage on the History Channel's site and just maybe you can help me support the Ancient Astronaut theory

[edit on 27-6-2010 by nicolee123nd]

It is the power of sentience; it transforms the spiral power of the double helix, the ever-self-improving genome, into one that is mental. We do not simply try to improve the next generation, as non-sentients do; we try to improve ourselves and the world around us. We fail and flop around, but we constantly want to improve this moment, this second. That is why we have had such a huge impact.

Not bad... Not bad at all.

reply to post by Romantic_Rebel


One of the draw backs of having such big brains is that the range of behaviors we can undertake increases. The smarter the organism the more you see things like murder and even war. Dolphins and Chimps both commit murder and chimps are known to go to war over territory against rival factions.

Why are we on top of the world, our brains. While certainly we're not the only intelligent species (far from it) we are the only one with language this complex. That's not to say other animals don't have fairly complex systems of communication just that our language is more advanced and allows to pondering abstract concepts and imagining just about anything. This equips us well for survival but unfortunately also opens that wider array of behavior.

I think one of the reasons we got smarter, an note that I am not an expert on the evolution of man, was competition from other species of hominids. This fierce competition might have driven natural selection to favor the intelligent. What we're left with are a set of fairly intelligent apes and, well, we're one of them.

One of the questions I have is, why didn't the Neanderthal's win? They were every bit our equals however some scientists suggest they lacked the capability to make certain sounds that are key to modern human language. This could have led their languages to being more simple than ours and given us the edge despite them being equal to us in brain and brawn. This is just one hypothesis and other scientists suggest Neanderthals speech capabilities were very similar to that of humans.

In the end I'm not sure why we did end up on top but really we've done a poor job of taking responsibility for our position and taking care of the world that gave us life.

many reasons I don't usually think about this because if you think to long on it nothing makes sense. First of all humans were given an advance on the evolution scale somehow, if you think about it and you ask yourself why did humans come to be so much more sophisticated then all the other animals on this planet beginning from the lizards/dinosaurs to the insects and other mammalian lifeforms. They are not the fastest, strongest, or if you go back far enough in time we weren't even the smartest race on this planet when the dinosaurs were around our biological ancestors were measly snacks for them. They were scraping around and hiding in trees and holes in the ground while the lizards were more dominating and smarter. And even with the extinction event those that survived still would of had an advantage on the great apes/monkeys. So i'm guessing something happened during those times between when the dinosaurs went extinct and the great apes propagated. Basically what i'm saying is evolution by nature is not this sloppy, and if one thinks about it, to get to were we are now as a species should take much longer then we did, So be it god or aliens or providence or whatever, someone cheated and skipped our evolution ahead on the timescale.

But then again who says we are smarter then ant's or reptiles, in a basic survival kind of way, we could still wipe ourself off the face of the earth with nuclear war or cosmic events/meteor strike like on the dinosaurs, and after were gone the insects and others that could survive a planetary nuclear winter would be around when the last human is dead, so who says were smarter. Who knows maybe in the end being more efficient and resilient is better then being smart and having hands to manipulate surroundings, supposedly the sun will die in 7.8 billion years. thats enough time for something else to evolve into something better more efficient as a whole organism, and smarter with better physical manipulators/hands, if humans happen to disappear of the face of the earth any time in the next million years.

I think time to compose ourself as a species has helped us out greatly, when the dinosaurs went extinct and we had more time on our hands for something other then hunting, eating, sleeping and pissing and #ting, when our natural predators disappeared we had time to expand our minds, and therefore our world. Basically time to sit and watch the world and wonder "why and how" without having to wonder what is in the bush that might kill us, and eventually if you think long and hard on anything, you start to see it in new light ie tools to hunt and farm and so on. It seems to be like that, some say necessity is the mother of invention, and then apply it to dire situations like conflicts and wars, well if that is the case then Africa and the middle east should have flying cars by now, there is always a conflict and war in those places.

Thats just the way it is.

Just like the hardest workers in the world are the lower/middle class folks in the low to mid-range pay scale. Move to upper pay scale in the human food chain and you have nothing but crooks that make our annual salaries in a week but are on the golf course or anywheres else but on the job 99% of the time. These such folks may actually do 10 minutes of real actual work a week. And its the type of work where your biggest risk of injury is a paper cut.

AND, the huge majority of them certainly didnt "work" their way up to their position, they earned by being born the right person by relative or by TRAMPLING others to get where they are.

Just the way it goes.



[edit on 28-6-2010 by Baloney]