Saturday, August 13, 2016

Dumb Unevolved Extinct Dinosaurs

How long were the dinosaurs around? Some 200 million years? And all they did is go extinct. Supposedly because of a gigantic meteor strike. Then we, here only for a tiny fraction of the time dinosaurs were, evolved so rapidly we’re now sending unmanned spacecraft to the edge of the solar system and manipulating atoms.

Why didn’t the dinosaurs evolve? They had plenty of time. For that matter, why not dogs and cats, who’ve done nothing except become our pets? And we’ve manipulated the genes of wolves to turn them into Chihuahuas.

Which reminds me. Larry Niven, a science-fiction writer, wrote novels and short stories about a race called the Kzin, who evolved from very large cats. Something like tigers. They weren’t very nice. They also weren’t from Earth.

I know all the arguments about the Anthropic principle and the parallel universes and the Many Worlds concepts, but when it comes right down to it no one knows. What is it about our universe that mammals evolved but everything else didn’t?

For that matter there is not the slightest clue there is life anywhere else in the universe. Are we it in the entire visible universe of 18.2 billion years across?

For that matter, how did we evolve into being such idiots? We’ve got all these technological brains but morally we’re kinda of idiots – that’s how, in the Western world, the concept of Original Sin originated.

It’s astonishing how many people have been killed by other people. Hundreds of millions. Animals don’t go to war. They don’t commit genocide on each other.

I used to own a pug that would eat birds. But I never saw him attack another pug. Mostly he just wanted to hump them. And he was astonishingly stupid (I once saw him walk into a puddle and just stand there, unable to figure out he should just walk out). No evolving for him!

Supposedly the only left-over dinosaurs are birds (a pug eating little flying dinosaurs!). And all they do is fly around and crap on everything (I know a guy who once got it right on the top of his head). It sounds like dinosaurs have devolved.

It’s getting very close to the point we can manipulate our genes. What are we going to do with it? Create Blade Runner replicants? You know what happened with them.

Supposedly 99% of the species that ever existed are now extinct.

When I was a little kid I remember seeing the original “Outer Limits,” the one in which David McCallum was a Welsh coal miner who got put into a machine that evolved him about a million years into the future. He ended up with a huge hairless forehead, pointy ears and six fingers on each hand. The name of the episode? “The Sixth Finger.” Yet he was still full of rage and hate and actually murdered a woman.

It actually sounds like he wasn’t really evolved at all.

Makes me wonder we’re going to be in 500 years.

5 comments:

Henry said...

Bill Gaede gives his opinion on mass species extinctions in a 9-minute video. I found it thought-provoking.

Gaede is considered a nut for his physics opinions (on Youtube). Whatever anyone thinks of him, He almost always gets to the point, and is at least a first-class heretic.

Anonymous said...

We need more white people. Future President Camacho said so:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnwAFoQ8o1U

Glen Filthie said...

Well Bob... Why don't you and Hillary Clinton go make peace with the moslems then? And no cheating! If you push that fat old bitch down the stairs we'll know it!

George Bush and I will sit here, drink beers and make notes while you two show us how it's done!

Unknown said...

No Muslims in the West, no problems.

Anonymous said...

"For that matter, how did we evolve into being such idiots?"

We are not idiots at the only thing evolution cares about: surviving and reproducing. Humans outweigh every other large animal. There are more tons of humans than there are of elephants. Of cows. Not sure about ants, and bacteria outweigh us. But bacteria is a whole kingdom of the tree of life.

People always yammer on about how Bangladesh (for instance) is "overpopulated". If it's overpopulated, how come everyone there is still alive?