How Did We Survive This Long?
Fossil evidence is good, but not perfect. Radiometric dating has some limitations, also. Those two sources of information on the history of our species make our origin in both time and space arguable. Roughly, however, we can trace humanity back more than 200,000 years, farther if we want to include related species and precursors.
If, as David M. Raup argues in his book Extinction: Bad genes, or Bad Luck? Earth has housed as many as 50 billion species over the past 3.8 billion years and that as many as 40 million species exist today, then humans evolved on a rather risky planet. The risk reveals itself not in the surviving species, but rather in those that have gone extinct. Raup estimates that only one in 1000 species that ever existed is now alive. He also estimates that the average lifespan of a species, from horseshoe crabs to fruit flies, is about 4 million years, the origin of the former going back to a time before the dinosaurs with the species undergoing little change, whereas the origin of the latter might date to only 40 million years ago with many species variations. In short, species don’t survive long on average. Horseshoe crabs are unaware of their good fortune. How aware of that 200+millennia-history are humans? We’ve survived as a species some harrowing events, losing many species members in each.
Causes of extinction vary. Destruction of habitat probably heads the list of causes, but over-predation, disease, and competition for resources also play extinction roles in Nature. Our ability to adapt and our geographical distribution afforded some protection from natural extinction, but neither of those is a guarantee against extinction by our own hands.
Why Bring This to Your Attention? Suicides, Murders, Wars, etc.
As I skimmed through headlines the other day, I paused on two stories, one about a murder, and the other about a suicide. The juicy details? Not really important here. Daily papers are replete with such tales. You can substitute any names you want in the stories of the recently deceased. With the exception of loved ones, few will think about them a month from now—even when the details are “noteworthy,” as in the deaths of the “famous,” say, Hollywood stars and political leaders.
Anyway, in recent years in the USA alone nearly 50,000 people committed suicide annually. The country adds about 15,000 to 20,000 murders to the annual list of deaths. The total numbers of such deaths—both self-inflicted and other-inflicted—pale in comparison with total deaths from all causes, but they are significant enough to keep suicides and murders in daily headlines, overwhelming our brains with too many to remember. Think about it: About 65,000 deaths reported over the publication of 365 daily papers, or 178 deaths per day. Who can keep individuals in mind?
And these numbers derive from a single year in a single country. Worldwide suicide rates vary from under 5 per 100,000 (mostly Third World countries) to more than 15 per 100,000 (developed countries). That sums to a big absolute number of self-inflicted extinctions in a global population of eight billion humans.
Add wars, usually dozens of them every year. Lots of deaths annually. Seems we humans truly have an extinction-wish. The only saving property is our proclivity for procreation—and even that is marred by elective abortions and biological weapons like COVID. Add fanatics’ desire for various genocides to the extinction drive. Gosh! How have we survived?
A hundred billion humans over the past 200,000+ years; only 8% of them are alive, and they are destined for increasing risks of annihilation as more killers (self and others) arrive on the planet. Some kid under control of a terrorist group is at this very moment being trained in extinction protocols, such as murdering others—even at the expense of his own life.
Scared?
Frightened or depressed by all this? Realistically, you should be. But so far you—and by extension your species—have survived. Earth still has a human population. Hold on, no matter what it takes. The species is counting on you to prevent the same kinds of oblivion that eradicated between five and fifty billion previous denizens of Earth.
Humans are the universe conscious of itself. When we’re gone, we take that awareness with us. Without that consciousness, the Cosmos is meaningless. So, your survival and the survival of the other members of your species are potentially the only ways that meaning itself survives.
Alive today? The universe thanks you, which is equivalent to your thanking yourself.
Fossil evidence is good, but not perfect. Radiometric dating has some limitations, also. Those two sources of information on the history of our species make our origin in both time and space arguable. Roughly, however, we can trace humanity back more than 200,000 years, farther if we want to include related species and precursors.
If, as David M. Raup argues in his book Extinction: Bad genes, or Bad Luck? Earth has housed as many as 50 billion species over the past 3.8 billion years and that as many as 40 million species exist today, then humans evolved on a rather risky planet. The risk reveals itself not in the surviving species, but rather in those that have gone extinct. Raup estimates that only one in 1000 species that ever existed is now alive. He also estimates that the average lifespan of a species, from horseshoe crabs to fruit flies, is about 4 million years, the origin of the former going back to a time before the dinosaurs with the species undergoing little change, whereas the origin of the latter might date to only 40 million years ago with many species variations. In short, species don’t survive long on average. Horseshoe crabs are unaware of their good fortune. How aware of that 200+millennia-history are humans? We’ve survived as a species some harrowing events, losing many species members in each.
Causes of extinction vary. Destruction of habitat probably heads the list of causes, but over-predation, disease, and competition for resources also play extinction roles in Nature. Our ability to adapt and our geographical distribution afforded some protection from natural extinction, but neither of those is a guarantee against extinction by our own hands.
Why Bring This to Your Attention? Suicides, Murders, Wars, etc.
As I skimmed through headlines the other day, I paused on two stories, one about a murder, and the other about a suicide. The juicy details? Not really important here. Daily papers are replete with such tales. You can substitute any names you want in the stories of the recently deceased. With the exception of loved ones, few will think about them a month from now—even when the details are “noteworthy,” as in the deaths of the “famous,” say, Hollywood stars and political leaders.
Anyway, in recent years in the USA alone nearly 50,000 people committed suicide annually. The country adds about 15,000 to 20,000 murders to the annual list of deaths. The total numbers of such deaths—both self-inflicted and other-inflicted—pale in comparison with total deaths from all causes, but they are significant enough to keep suicides and murders in daily headlines, overwhelming our brains with too many to remember. Think about it: About 65,000 deaths reported over the publication of 365 daily papers, or 178 deaths per day. Who can keep individuals in mind?
And these numbers derive from a single year in a single country. Worldwide suicide rates vary from under 5 per 100,000 (mostly Third World countries) to more than 15 per 100,000 (developed countries). That sums to a big absolute number of self-inflicted extinctions in a global population of eight billion humans.
Add wars, usually dozens of them every year. Lots of deaths annually. Seems we humans truly have an extinction-wish. The only saving property is our proclivity for procreation—and even that is marred by elective abortions and biological weapons like COVID. Add fanatics’ desire for various genocides to the extinction drive. Gosh! How have we survived?
A hundred billion humans over the past 200,000+ years; only 8% of them are alive, and they are destined for increasing risks of annihilation as more killers (self and others) arrive on the planet. Some kid under control of a terrorist group is at this very moment being trained in extinction protocols, such as murdering others—even at the expense of his own life.
Scared?
Frightened or depressed by all this? Realistically, you should be. But so far you—and by extension your species—have survived. Earth still has a human population. Hold on, no matter what it takes. The species is counting on you to prevent the same kinds of oblivion that eradicated between five and fifty billion previous denizens of Earth.
Humans are the universe conscious of itself. When we’re gone, we take that awareness with us. Without that consciousness, the Cosmos is meaningless. So, your survival and the survival of the other members of your species are potentially the only ways that meaning itself survives.
Alive today? The universe thanks you, which is equivalent to your thanking yourself.
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