Phelan is worried that humans will become extinct soon, because we are not going to be able to adapt to the catastrophes that are changing the world we live in. "The global climate is changing too violently for DNA to respond by fiddling around with heat regulation and hair thickness; forests everywhere are being clear-cut too quickly for their inhabitants to adjust, so food chains are coming undone...and a nuclear disaster would constitute a catastrophe many orders of magnitude greater than what nature could really absorb." Could he convey how upset he is any more than this? Phelan even adds what Ehrlich said about evolution "The fate of our civilization, and maybe our species may be determined by the next five generations. So I don't give a shit what's happening to our genetic evolution." Ehrlich does not care about how our genes have to adapt to the changes, we need to make changes. Phelan agrees with this when he says we need to "avert a self-inflicted extinction." Our decisions, our actions, are the reasons for this downfall. We need to change our ways in order to help the world grow stronger, and to allow us to evolve.
I believe that in order for us to evolve, we must be able to live through catastrophic events. We do not need to change physically, in order to prove that we have evolved. Our minds can evolve; the way we think and the way we make decisions to help one another can show how much we evolved. We are not primitive beings who only believe in "survival of the fittest." We care for others and want them to succeed and live happily and healthfully, so we try our best to help. This is an example of evolution. We do not need to lose our useless pinky-toes to show that we have evolved. We need to overcome the natural disasters that we helped bring about, and show that we can live through rough times with the way we are now.
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I completely agree. Number one, we don't have the time to just sit and wait for our gene-pools to start evolving. Number two, our genes are not going to save us if a tidal wave comes crashing down on long island! Not unless those genes are making us grow gills then were all screwed. Our actions are the only thing that will save the human race against natural disasters. What decisions and actions we need to make, I really do not know. The comedian in class has made me a little less hopeful that we have any chance in surviving what the earth has in store for us!
ReplyDeleteI have a "need to know" question: what role does Phelan claim technology has in this evolution towards human extinction? Why is this happening?
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ReplyDeletePhelan believes that technology makes us dependent on only the material things that make simple, doable tasks, easier to complete. We are not confident of the wisdom and intellect we have, but use the machines and robots and whatnot to help us. We are not using our minds the way primitive beings did before, and that is OK since we have evolved, but we cannot completely turn our minds to technology and forget where we came from. If technology takes over, we will never remember that we can actually do things on our own, without the help of technology.
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