re: #7 CuriousLurker

Do you ever wonder, “why us?” I mean why, out of all the creatures, were we so phenomenally successful in such a relatively short period of time that we came to dominate all the other creatures?

Of course, I say “successful” but I guess that remains to be seen, doesn’t it? We’re rapidly destroying our planet, we’re not exactly doing that great a job of getting along with each other, and we have the capability to wipe ourselves out with the weapons we’ve invented…add to that that we’ve been reproducing at an alarming rate that threatens to make resources scarce, and we might not be doing all that great after all.

Oh jeez, I just had an awful thought: On an evolutionary timeline our measly couple of hundred thousand years as “modern” humans hogging the spotlight makes us like…what? The Sarah Palin of evolution?

*gasp, choke, whimper…nooo, please*

Evolution tried out lots of “us’s”. We are just the “us” that worked best in the critical early environments. If some other offspring of Ramapithecus had been better at the right mix of things, they’d be the ones making dick jokes here.