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June 24, 2013
A Species With an Uncertain Future
If one were to bet that our species will survive its current dilemma, the odds should be solidly against us. That's entirely speculative, of course. However, it's also true that we've never been in a tighter predicament than the one we now face: overpopulated, addicted to energy, and warming our planetary environment without a viable alternative we can even discuss.In Medical parlance, the prognosis for human survival seems somewhere between "guarded" and "hopeless;" not news anyone wants to hear; precisely why we almost never hear it discussed publicly.
Ironically, our highly evolved brain, the crowning glory of human evolution, is the source of that dilemma. We have simply become too clever for our own good. In a real sense, the cause of our trouble is that our behavior has continued to be governed by competition and a perceived need to control, which throughout "recorded" history had always generated warfare between rival states. Just because we didn't discover literacy until relatively recently does not negate that assertion, the available evidence from prehistory (Archeology and Paleontology) simply confirms that the planet is old enough to have evolved along the lines suggested by Darwin and amply justify his notion that life is a struggle to survive.
Science also tells us we live in a Universe that's literally too large to measure (more galaxies than grains of sand on all the world's beaches) made up of components literally too small to see (subatomic particles) and obeying "laws" too complex to be understood (black holes).
In stark contrast to our modern command of information is the inexplicable fact that cannabis is still illegal under both US and international law.
Last night, CNN aired a special by Morgan Spurlock that I both watched and recorded. I've now seen it all (some parts twice) and plan to review it in the next entry.
Doctor Tom
Posted by tjeffo at June 24, 2013 05:14 PM