this (a short history of nearly everything) was a great book because, not only did it entertain, teach, and make me laugh, but it's been provoking thought and challenging my worldviews for the past week or two.
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wanna see my mind blown and worldview obliterated? )
oh, i can't imagine the number of animals we don't know about that emerged and died out but didn't last as long as we have, or even who survived longer. i'm sure the majority of really dumb animals died out quickly, but in order to emerge as a species, wouldn't you think they'd have SOME sort of survival instinct? dodos died out cause a foreign animal (us) was introduced to their island environment. a lot of extinctions happen that way. i guess that the situation is just that most of the organisms we know of that lasted a long time don't appear to have been high on brain power, and not many organisms that were smart lasted very long. were the mice decendants of today's mice, or just mouse-like? but that's not to say there weren't exceptions. apparently neandertals appear to have had LARGER brains (in proportion) than us. the snobbery of science, not wanting to admit another unrelated-to-us creature might've been smarter than us, says their brains must've been less efficient than ours, but they did manage to survive in a crazy-hard-to-live-in world for a million or two years.
i'd never heard that about birds. isn't it difficult to wrap your mind around the idea that some totally non-human creature could possibly be smarter than us? it's so anti-everything-we've-ever-been-taught. in douglas adams books, both dolphins and mice are smarter. his underlying philosophy in adams' books is really interesting. his humans think the evidence that they're obviously superior to all else rests in unparalleled acheivements such as digital watches. i bet he had a subscription to discovery magazine:)
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i'd put my money on things like maybe wedding rings or bank vaults lasting, personally.
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