Let me ask you this. If humans saw themselves as mammals, do you think it would be a better world. Mammals with the ability to reason.

@Aristippus Doubtful, as most of the people who do see themselves as animals also see humans as superior beings/animals. There are a number of studies that show a very distinct percentage of people who hold to the theory of human dominance. Of course, religious people are even more likely to feel superior. Some cultures, not races, hold to a human based superiority as well.

@Beowulfsfriend They feel superior. But how? Animals are stronger, faster, swim better, and even display non-kindred altruism, Various species of hens will feign being wounded to lead a wolf away from her nest.

@Aristippus people feel that their brain puts them on top. Many forget that, when alone, they have little advantage, if any.

@Gwendolyn2018 Excellent reply. I'm very familiar with this argument having written an lengthy essay on the same idea. The scientific proof of evolution got so strong, especially after the evolutionary synthesis of the '20s that discovered genetics, that the church realized they could no longer evade the subject.

So the church in typical fashion tried to cover its sham misconceptions by using sophistry and subterfuge. In 1996 Pope John Paul II wrote a papal bull (short for papal bullshit) that attempted to resolve the controversy. The pope told us that evolution is probably true but late in the process God came along and infused a soul in the reclining Adam, as depicted in the Sistine Chapel painting.

Believers think it solved the issue. But it doesn't answer why God waited six billion years to evolve thought and the higher emotions, the soul.

Thanks for the insightful replay. I'd like to know if you agree with the statement. Overpopulation is the key to advancing human evolution. Look at all the problems caused by having too many people.

I'd like to discuss your views on this.

I think that the term 'Darwinism' should be avoided >>>

What better word would you use to express "evolution by means of natural selection."?

@Aristippus I'd choose my words according to the audience and the context. Usually it's best to make it clear at the start you are talking about "evolution by means of natural selection" because a lot of people think that Darwin invented the idea of evolution itself, when it was an idea that had been around for some time. I've no objection to attributing specific ideas to Darwin. It's making it an "ism" that leads you into the rhetorical trap that creationists have set.

I think that the term 'Darwinism' should be avoided.>>>

Sev, to my mind "isms" are more prevalent than people think. Dawkins uses the term to describe a "memeplex" which can take over one's entire existence. Is it wrong to say Nazism? But surely you'll concede that millions of Germans were willing to give their lives for Nazi beliefs.

@Aristippus I'm not objecting to the use of '-ism' for a set of beliefs rigidly held and often mindlessly defended by the rejection of contrary evidence, like Nazism.

You've just demonstrated the reason why I don't think that '-ism' should be coupled with Darwin's name to express a scientific idea.

Are you familiar with Chief Seattle's speech before Congress. Very touching. Shows how superior Indian religion was compared to Christian nonsense.

Shows how they were connected to nature.

when native americans died from disease or lost in battle it was thought to be the will of god by xtians. Read John Winthrop's writings and I descend from him. Same old xtian bullshit.

Just to defend my statements. Muslims believe Allah blesses you for every baby you bring into the world. Muammar Qaddafi predicted Muslims would dominate Europe. From the Romania all the way to Spain, white families don't produce more than two offspring -- not even Italy. The average family size for Islamic families is 6.2 counting the mating pair. Have you noticed that the mayor of London is Mohammadan?

If people realized that we evolved from nature it would be a different world. Do you think we'd have 535 brain-washed Christians in Congress? or 2.5 million in prison? Are you familiar with the Roman slave writer Terence?
His famous line is "Homo est, nihil humani alienum puto." Nothing human is alien to me.
I think we'd be better off with this line rather than the Ten Commandment in back of the judge's wall.

@Aristippus you keep pushing your wrong assumption which is baseless. It doesn't matter if people realize anything about evolution, it will happen regardless of humans being aware or not. I know of a playwright Terence who wrote ancient comedic plays. I wouldn't use quotes from a comedic play as life guidance, nor do I use the 10 commandments which are really 6. I use common sense and basic decency. Don't quite get your point at all or what does congress or people in prison have to do with my comment on Darwinism definition.

Yeah Darwinism is a label applied to people who focus on selection and adaptation and neglect factors such as genetic drift or that gene variants can be neutral per fitness.

As a way of life Darwinism is a poor grounding. We shouldn’t look to outcomes of evolution or the way things happen to be in nature to derive our values, sense of virtue, or views on the so-called “good life”.

Rationality or self-reflective capacity are themselves outcomes of evolution in some particular species. But I wouldn’t join rationality to Darwinism as a philosophy. That’s not to say evolution doesn’t have aspects of philosophical interest. Dennett wouldn’t be writing books if there was nothing about which to philosophize. But even he got carried away especially in Darwin’s Dangerous Idea.

You're not understanding me. We're all human beans. We all have the same genetic code, I know thee are no races.

@Aristippus ummmm, when every other sentence in your post uses the term "race" or "races", what am I supposed to think?!?!?

I sure hope Mr. Rosling is right. He's betting the future of life on his hunch. Gaia is at her carrying capacity right now. His theory would take many generations to achieve.

@K9Kohle789 nature is pretty keen on extinction.

If the earth could support 70 billion people, how much room does that leave for wild animals and what kinds? Rats and roaches haxve become well adapted to live underfoot of humans, but elephants and other large species need much more property not shared much with humans.

@RussRAB yeh, i wasnt sure i was buying 70 billion understand, and that was prolly the highest est i guess

@spartan919 - I think the reason species like rats and roaches thrive is because they have adapted to survive on the waste produced by humans and we have not been successful in eradicating them from our midst. I see it as operating purely on evolutionary principles. Larger species would be far less able to adapt to live with humans as these smaller fast reproducing species.

If human populations were more spread out, then the concentration of our refuse would also be more spread out and rats and roaches may hhave to adapt to these conditions in order to survive. Their populations may be more spread out since our refuse the feed off of would be, but they may be just as able to adapt and survive under these conditions as they are under the current set.

I am often reminded of a realization I had about single cell organisms on earth several billion years ago before oxygen was present to any degree in earth's atmosphere. Oxygen is a waste product of photosynthesis and potentially lethal to organism unable to metabolize it. Somewhere along the line, an organism developed the ability to use oxygen to produce energy to fuel itself. With this new ability to use oxygen, these new organism thrived and began what would eventually become widespread dependence on O2. In a way, the ancient ancestral single celled organism were like the rats and roaches of their day living and thriving on the refuse of other successful species.

I heard that myself.. Christian theologians believe the Earth could support 30 billion. But why even think about it. Our beautiful planet would be a feeing trough for humans.

@spartan919 - I believe it's reasonable that if humans produced less refuse, then we would provide less for vermin that feed off of it. If recycling reduced the amount of refuse produced, then we would have less to provide for vernin. The only exception may be the type of material we recycle. Isn't nearly all of it inorganic - plastic, metals, glass, etc.? Vermin wouldn't feed on these materials. But who knows for certain, recycling could still have a positive effect in reducing vermin populations.

@spartan919 All societies promote population growth because kings need soldiers and subjects to pay taxes - religions need priests and sheep they can fleece. It's very hard to do an about face on these age old customs and social norms, even though we do have more people than our current economic system can handle. War used to keep the population down but with the nuclear weapons being a factor there is less chance of having a major conflict that would eliminate a large percentage of the population. Disease is not as big of a threat to curb population growth as it was even 50 years ago, infant mortality rates are much lower now in most of the world because of improvements in health care. Even starvation which could be counted upon to cull the population in the past is not the danger it once was.
Of course, all this could change at any moment but I would say that the biggest problem in the world today is that 2,200 people have more wealth than the combined wealth of 4.6 Billion of the world's people, that is obscene.

Even starvation which could be counted upon to cull the population in the past is not the danger it once was.>>>

I feel close to Paul Ehrlich, author of the Population Bomb. My friend tells me that Paul is disappointed that his life's work was a failure. Agricultural engineer, Norman Burleigh changed everything. His methods doubled and tripled the output per acre in agriculture and made the Population Bomb look all wrong.

But this is a temporary fix creating a very unstable condition, like a supersaturated solution. One mating pair of aphids could destroy the entire farm acreage of our agricultural cooperate giants.

IMO, Richard Dawkin's book "the Selfish Gene" explains all of this quite well. I think one of the most seminal books ever written that every human ought to read. In short and perhaps too simplified, our genes do whatever it takes to be replicated into the next generation, so genes fight over resources that genes require to replicate, so even within tribes there are individuals(genes) fighting for supremacy and will do anything to accomplish this task. Genes do not care about us or even themselves as long as they successfully replicate. Examples. you have Nazis throwing jewish children out of windows in Paris after they knew the war was lost. The slightest advantage will be taken by the genes and their vehicles which are us.