pittguy579 said:
i am using criteria most intelligent and rational people would use i.e what are the capabilities of that organism, capable as is capable of the largest number of tasks.
This is not a biological factor though. How capable a life form is is defined by its evolutionary success. Bacteria rules both in terms of reproduction and survivability. Its totally irrelevant if we can create roads, planes, travel to the moon and make artwork. Just like Steven J Gould, which you have been channeling recently, said it is bacteria that rule.
"...the most outstanding feature of life's history is that through 3.5 billion years this has remained, really, a bacterial planet. Most creatures are what they've always been: They're bacteria and they rule the world"
and heartiness doesnt equal more complex and more capable,
Not more complex, no, but more capable yes.
at least the definition of capable i am using which should be pretty apparent
The definition of capability you are using is irrevevant to biology. Bacteria is a more capable evolutionary life form while still being the simplest.
ok fine we are making progtresss
You say that as if I had been saying that bacteria was more complex than humans.
and i dont really care if i can survive a nuclear war and sea vents
You might not care, but after humans are dead and gone bacteria will still live on. Climate change is a very real threat for us now, but it wouldnt hurt bacteria in the slighest. Thats becuase it may be less complex, but its is a much more capable biological organism in terms of evolutionary success.
If we are looking at the life forms that evolution has created over billions of years of life, which can we say is the most successfull?
1. In terms of reproductive success and survivability? Bacteria wins on all counts. Simple organisms seem to be the most successfull design in evolutionary terms.
2. In terms of how far complex the brain has developed in an organism? Humans wins hands down.
In biological and evolutionary terms bacteria rule us, which is what Gould said. We live in the age of bacteria, he said, not humans. See you keep channeling Gould, but
he's the one that said that. You say you agree with him, so you shouldnt pick and choose his words.
heartiness doesnt equal more complex. more complex was my original term. it is clear which context i was using it in, not in terms of heartiness but overall ability that is clear.
I thought we just cleared up the fact that I know bacteria are less complex than humans? Why cant you argue against what Im actually saying?
and out brains are biological in nature and give us abilitry beyond any other creature, other than maybe living in sea vents.
You keep misrepresenting bacteria. (never thought I'd ever say that to anyone) I already said bacteria are more successful for more than just living around sea vents and I gave examples and I went over them again later in this post as well.
Please try and understand my point because you keep showing you have no idea what Im saying, and your misrepresentation and strawmen are getting boring:
Our
brains are biological in nature, but that is the only part of our body that truly rules over every other species's brain. Other than our brains, biologically we are far less complex than other life.
But we can use our brains to make up for our bad eyes, our crummy hearing, and our slow legs, compared to the hawk, the whale or the speed of the cheetah. Because of our technology, we can build cars, planes and boats. We can build nightvision goggles and telescopes. But all these advancements stem from our brains, the only biological organ that is really more advanced than all these creatures.
So becuase of our brain power, we rule over those life forms. So we are more
capable than they are to survive. Our advanced brains has given this capability.
However...
With bacteria,
they rule over us even if we include our technology. We may be more complex than they are in every way, but they are still the more biologically capable a form of life.
Now if you are going to argue against me again, please try to argue against what Im actually saying.
yes it does if you are talking in terms of capabilities. which creature is capable of the largest number of complex tasks, capable of altering the environment, is actually conscious, can solve problems. .
See, the ironic thing you apparently dont see is that if we went to another planet and started terraforming (the ultimate example of "altering our environment"), BACTERIA would be the main ingredients to help us! We would require them, because like I keep telling you, without bacteria we wouldnt be able to survive ourselves.
"
NASA is considering launching probes to specific Martian sites. This allows consideration of the use of extremophile organisms such as D. radiodurans to begin microterraforming small surface areas. The bacteria could begin transforming the harsh and uninhabitable Martian terrain in such a future scenario into one capable of sustaining human life. At its most fantastic, terraforming involves the alteration of an entire planet's environment"
-
Amerian Scientist: Might bacteria prepare Mars for human habitation?
We require bacteria to survive, but bacteria does not require us at all. As I keep telling you we are far more likely to find bacteria on another planet as bacteria has been shown to live in some of the most harshest environments on earth we previous thought could never ever support life.
heck even on a biological level we are more complex than bacteria
Once again, I never said bacteria was more complex than us. Please stop acting like I have.
we are talking in terms of capabilities. ie. swimming, hearing. what can a bacteria do better than us other than kill us??
Survive, reproduce, adapt to changes in climate. They do that far better as a life form than we do. In evolutionary terms, nothing else matters.
If it were that easy to kill all bacteria they wouldnt have survived for billions of years and remain the dominant form life on this planet that reside in the most extreme and inhospitable environments on earth and in other life forms which
require them to survive themselves. And if we ever left the planet we'd
have to take the bacteria with us in order to terraform that planet. We cant do it without bacteria. And when we, the hosts, die out completly these bacteria will continue to live on. We need bacteria, bacteria dont need us.
Thats very naive, especially as how your new favourite authority Gould says how they rule this planet. Why would he say that if bacteria cant do anything better than us other than live on deep sea vents?
but i would argue if we really wanted to kill ourselves we could do a much more efficient job than bacteria, hence we even beat them there,
So we are more capable than bacteria becuase we can kill ourselves, but bacteria cant? You think thats a good measure of evolutionary success do you? That a species has evolved to the point that it can make itself go extinct?
No. You are successful form of life in evolutionary terms if you can survive long enough to reproduce successfully. Thats what its like on an individual scale in a population and its no different when we are looking at whole species like humans or other kinds of life like bacteria. Bacteria in evolutionary terms is the most successful form of life on this planet. Therefore it is the most capable from a biological perspective. Which is why Gould said "
The most outstanding feature of life's history is that through 3.5 billion years this has remained, really, a bacterial planet" and that,"
bacteria... rule the world".
he said we were the most complex creature and capable of living in sea vents, not capable in terms of tasks.
No he said we were more complex than "
bacteria", "
jellyfish..." "
a trilobite.." and "
a fish". And then he said this planet has remained a bacterial planet for over 3 billion years, and that they rule the world. Why do you ignore that part? Quote mining isnt clever you know.
And even if Gould really did mean that we are the most complex organisms in the entire world, he still understands that we arent the most capable even with our technologly.
Yes, and this brain power makes us a more "capable" an organism.
finially agree
If you read the rest of what I wrote instead of cherry picking again, I said brain power makes us more capable to rule over animals with other more complex organs like hawks, whales and cheetahs. But that even with our awesome brains we are still second best to bacteria which still are still the dominent form of life on this planet.
well our brain is more complex than any other creature. it gives us abiloties to do things no other creature can fathom.
Logically when we look at the complexity of the biological make-up of an organism, we are
not looking at the "capability" of the organ,
we are obvioulsy looking at how complex that organ is. So we can say that our brain is more complex than a whale or a hawks brain. Similarly we can also say that hawk has more complex eyes, or a whale has more complex hearing than us.
But the reason why we are more capable as a species than they are is beucase of our big brains, our big brains give us a huge advantage over those animals. That doesnt mean we are more complex biologically in any other way other than with our big brains.
the only thing other creatures have that are better than us are physiological features such as running and seeing but we have the edge in those areas becuase of intelligence
And that isnt true either. Just one thing
unique to apes which includes us, is our inability to synthesize our own Vitamin C and have to get that from fruit or suppliments. This is just another example of how saying we are better than all other life forms in every way is just not correct.
so maybe in those we are equivalent to alot of other creatures, but our brain is more complex and hence that puts us over the top in terms of biological complexity
No, it puts us at
around the top in terms of biological
capability.
If you want to say that our brains are measurably more complex than all other animals in every way, in order to say we have more "complexity" points or something, go ahead. But you need to come up with a scientific way of determining that or you cant objectively state that is the case, and to do so anyway would just be stating an unsupported opinion.
i agree there is less to break on them, but if we dont find them there, then we are more capable
What a ridiculous test. You are seriously saying you think we are more likely to find other forms of life on other planets without finding bacteria? You seem to be unaware of how amazingly adaptable bacteria is, and you seem to be unaware of the fact that other life such as us cannot exist without bacteria.
however, thats what i did say and people were saying I was being subjecting
I think you mean subjective. They were saying you were being subjective because you said we are the most advanced form of life and most complex in every way, and the most capable in every way. The way you were making your statements, yes, you were being subjective because that is the way you were using your terms.
we are more advanced than any other life form in terms of biology and abilities. we are more capable in terms of capabilities than any other life form
Even though we rely on bacteria in order to do do even the basic of process' of breaking down food. Even though we and other apes are unique in our
inability to synthesize Vitamin C. Even though if we ever wanted to terraform another planet we would have to take bacteria with us, because they are most durable adaptable life form and only form of life capable of existing and changing the harshest environments to suit our picky and specific needs where the sighest change results in sickness and death.
If bacteria were sentient, it wouldnt care if we all died tomorrow. Its been around for 3 billion years and it will be around for lot longer. Life on earth requires bacteria in order to survive themselves, including us. We need bacteria, bacteria doesnt need us. We walk around thinking we are the rulers of this planet, but unseen and invisible bacteria are the true rulers and dominate this world, and is evolutions most successful design..
Bacteria rule the world, not humans.
"The most outstanding feature of life's history is that through 3.5 billion years this has remained, really, a bacterial planet. Most creatures are what they've always been: They're bacteria and they rule the world."
- Steven J Gould
