Probably what I remember SJ Gould for most was his dogged attempts to combat the idea that humans are the best/most powerful/most important thing in the universe.
Although any designation of most salient features must reflect the interests of the observer, I challenge anyone with professional training in evolutionary theory to defend the extending tip of the right tail as more definitive or more portentous than the persistence in one place, and constant growth in height, of the bacterial mode. The recorded history of life began with bacteria 3.5 billion years ago, continued as a tale of prokaryotic unicells alone for probably more than a billion years, and has never experienced a shift in the modal position of complexity. We do not live in what older books called "the age of man" (1 species), or "the age of mammals" (4000 species among more than a million for the animal kingdom alone), or even in "the age of arthropods" (a proper designation if we restrict our focus to the Metazoa, but surely not appropriate if we include all life on earth). We live, if we must designate an exemplar at all, in a persisting "age of bacteria"-the organisms that were in the beginning , are now, and probably ever shall be (until the sun runs out of fuel) the dominant creatures on earth by any standard evolutionary criterion of biochemical diversity, range of habitats, resistance to extinction, and perhaps, if the "deep hot biosphere" of bacteria within subsurface rocks matches the upper estimates for spread and abundance, even in biomass. I will only remind colleagues of Woese's "three-domain" model for life's full genealogy, a previously surprising but now fully accepted, and genetically documented, scheme displaying the phylogenetic triviality of all multicellular existence (a different issue, I fully admit, from ecological importance). Life's tree is, effectively, a bacterial bush. Two of the three domains belong to prokaryotes alone, while the three kingdoms of multicellular eukaryotes (plants, animals, and fungi) appear as three twigs at the terminus of the third domain.
When bacteria - or anything else not human - can create art, culture, stories that make one laugh, cry, think, or feel, or anything else other than simply live, eat, and reproduce, call me. Til then, not impressed.
It's all in how you define "importance".
Great, now the zombie ants are posting on Paizo boards.
When bacteria - or anything else not human - can create art, culture, stories that make one laugh, cry, think, or feel, or anything else other than simply live, eat, and reproduce, call me. Til then, not impressed.
It's all in how you define "importance".
How do you know that bacteria do not?
I sort of think bacteria are so diverse that it is misleading to consider "bacteria" as dominant. Many different sorts of bacteria survive in many different ecological niches to be sure, but it seems to trivialize the concept of species* dominance to make the claim you are making. And if you are going to trivialize that, then you should be forthright about it.
You have to ask why the concept of species dominance is important before you go around assigning things as dominant. The answer could be anything from "the furtherance of control over the state of the universe" to "surviving" to "who cares?"
As far as "surviving" goes, plenty of unicellular organisms are good at that, yeah. Is that the only reason we care about stuff like this, though? Maybe, but probably not.
*I realize bacteria encompass more than a species, that's just the easiest term to refer to what I guess is lifeform dominance or something.
How do you know that bacteria do not?I've never seen them do any of that.
From a humancentric perspective, sure. But if you ask the bacterium whether they've seen humans exhibit similar behavior, I wonder what their take on the topic is. Perhaps we're the norm deviance?
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I prefer humans. We can, for instance, debate on whether or not bacteria are cool.
Bacteria only get to be microscopic jelly.
When bacteria can create culture...LOL!! Bacterial cultures! Bwahahahahah ... oh wait. ;)
THIS IS WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS
How do you know that bacteria do not?When bacteria - or anything else not human - can create art, culture, stories that make one laugh, cry, think, or feel, or anything else other than simply live, eat, and reproduce, call me. Til then, not impressed.
It's all in how you define "importance".
If it can't be communicated to me in any way, what difference is there between it existing but unable to communicate and not existing at all? ;)
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Oddly, people have the same debate about this God individual ... and tend to take the opposing conclusion.
I wonder if bacteria find the discussion relevant. ;-)
Touche. When the bacteria write a book I'll be sure to look into it ;)
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I think humanity sucks.
I think the edifice of human culture, however, is pretty awesome and needs to be preserved. Not on the backs of the rest of the global ecosystem though.
Touche. When the bacteria write a book I'll be sure to look into it ;)
Maybe they've gone beyond that stage of recording information to be passed along and we just haven't figured it out yet. Heck, we're just now getting a hang of this e-tablet format.
Maybe we're making this all too complicated?
Touche. When the bacteria write a book I'll be sure to look into it ;)Maybe they've gone beyond that stage of recording information to be passed along and we just haven't figured it out yet. Heck, we're just now getting a hang of this e-tablet format.
Maybe we're making this all too complicated?
Hustler comes pretty close.
Touche. When the bacteria write a book I'll be sure to look into it ;)Maybe they've gone beyond that stage of recording information to be passed along and we just haven't figured it out yet.
Welp then we're right back at square one. I'm starting to get a mite dizzy.
So I see how it really is!
You guys are just lobbyists for the Bacteria Conglomerate!
Yer not getting them wobbly microcellular apendixes on me money, ya prokaryotic sneeze aftertastes!
THERE IS NO ESCAPE.
Raddish is a meat.
Yay!! More SJG love!
When someone asked J.B.S. Haldane if a study of nature revealed anything about God, he answered "An inordinate fondness for beetles."
Hee hee!