Biology Week Two: Evo-Devo

In class we've looked at the unique skills or traits of animals such as dolphins and crows alongside discussion of our own evolutionary development, what we can piece together through archeological evidence anyway. We talked about this notion humans have of being the supreme intelligence on this planet and therefore the top of the food chain. However, Western researchers are increasingly acknowledging that the unique talents of many species have been missed, ignored, or rationalized away thanks to the biases of researchers who measured animal behaviors and rituals to our own. If you believe that intelligence is proven through verbal communication and complex manipulation of tools, or that animals are purely fueled by mindless instinct, there are many forms of communication and communal bonding to miss. Not to mention the blow to humanity's ego to find that perhaps more intelligent or perhaps more cultured creatures exist.

The possibility of cetacean communication through projection of auditory images, and therefore their vastly more complex correspondence, is just one of their many potential advantages over humans. As we've discussed, the West has a troubling commitment to "rationalism" and "objectivity" that I believe is a pillar of injustice to ourselves, our plant and animal relations, and to the earth. Neurobiologist Lori Marino's research into the brains of killer whales revealed that their limbic system is so large it merges with the cortex, allowing for a mixture of emotional and cognitive thinking. While humans divorce emotions from "rationality," killer whales may very well naturally consolidate the two. What must this do their notions of community, responsibility, and survival?

Looking at the minimal amount of time humans have actually been present on this earth, it seems that our purpose here is a bit more humble than we've been led to believe. Rather than being plunked down in a god's image with the earth ours to reign, we are the result of millions of years of natural selection working its way out of the waters, down from the trees, into a fantastically vast and diverse phylogeny. We can follow scraps of the archeological trail through the many hominids that seem to have evolved into today's human. We can look at the long struggle from the first tools to agriculture to industry to the digital age. We can attempt to look away from the rapid decline of natural resources and the likely effects this will have on humanity's future. In our readings, it was suggested that the next great evolutionary leap may only be possible once humans have mastered space travel. Whether we settle in a foreign atmosphere or if future generations have to make do with polluted soil, air, and water, how might humanity adapt? Give the destruction wrought by Western arrogance, how should we adapt?