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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (7604)	3/6/2001 12:41:52 PM
From: cosmicforce	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

I think from a theoretical and practical basis it is difficult for one intelligence to assess the relative intelligence of another. There is no metric that is not biased. This is the argument against IQ tests which are highly situational. If you don't have a common set of situations, then it becomes meaningless. At being a photosynthetic community that forms a basis of an entire food web, a single blade of grass means nothing. But as a collection of 10E14 blades of grass, they are very "smart" at this. Grass is a good example. It evolved recently and caused an ecological collapse of the former, less competitive plants that inhabited the land. Most people would be surprised how recent grasses are in terms of evolution. In terms of genetic complexity, polyploid corn can have more genes than a person. Polyploid people die while polyploid corn thrives. Who's "smarter" in handling this common genetic occurrence? I believe it is the ultimate in hubris (and guarantees your extinction) to go through life thinking (or acting) as if you're the best thing in the world. People and animals that do this become extinct. That is why I talk about being "circumspect". Before man, the large mammals owned this planet. Cave bears could eat Kodiacs for breakfast. They are extinct. Why? They overspecialized and became so high on the food chain that a little upstart (humans) probably ganged up on them and killed every one. People are acting a lot like cave bears used to act.