A house is not natural. Just becuase it has natural ingredients does not make it a natural product. That's like saying 1+1 = 1.

I belive Althane meant that we are above natural selection becuase we are no longer in an enviroment where weakness and luck can cause an extinction of a genetic line. Our extreemly vairied speicies is testament to that. A child with next to no imune system can live to die of old age thanks to medicen and the like, whereas they would die nearly instantly in the wild. Humanity specificaly.

And eventualy we may well find a way to control the weather, cure disease, and maybe stop aging (Lets hope not on that last one). We don't know yet. and with those out of the way, what trump card has nature got over us?

Well, it could smash a meteorite into us. Better get off this planet then. Question: If we were on another planet, and terraformed it to make it inhabitable, would that be mastery over nature?

If that's true, then neither is a beaver dam.

I don't see the difference. As I said, toys are just as much a strength as claws or fangs or wings. Medicine included.

Again, nature doesn't give a crap about us as a whole. As long as the planet is still THERE, things would still go on as normal.

IF nature actually had a will and until now wasn't interested in killing us, but then descided we were in the way, we'd loose. If our control of the weather was perfect (something I doubt on levels you can't imagine. We can barely predict the weather as is), then nature could just pump out a hundred new, as of yet uncureable viruses at the same time. Imagine a thousand different variants of smallpocks and/or the black plague, each with it's own specific cure or vaccine. We'd be hit by all sides. Or how about something like the killer flu from Steven King's Last Stand?

If you want the worst possible ecological disaster, just get rid of the moon.

http://www.exitmundi.nl/moon.htm

Only if a beaver cutting down a tree is also considered mastering nature. So no, I don't believe so.

Again, we're not above nature. We're the next level of it.

I doubt anyone's going to assert that we've eliminated natural selection altogether, only that natural selection barely applies to humans, if at all.

I'm also not sure where you get the definition of humans and their products as being unnatural, or rather, everything but that which is human as being natural. It just seems like a very strange and arbitrary definition: what makes us stand out so much among everything else in existance?

Anyway, if we're using this definition, I don't see how we could possibly be masters of nature. Do we rule the universe? Of course not, we don't even rule the one measly little planet entirely. Moving on.

Let's say that somewhere in the universe is a race of aliens with intelligence similar to or greater than that of humans (considering the vastness of the universe, not a very ridiculous claim). But they're not human, so all of their technological products are labeled as "natural." They could basically be making the same stuff humans make, meaning that there would be no real distinction between the natural and unnatural, making the definition quite worthless.

Of course, it's also possible that no such race exists. My point was simply to show the folly in marking humans as unique in the universe without real justification, particularly since we know so little about what's out there.

I have no evidence of any alien races that even begin to get close to intelligence, or even of any alien races, so therefore I don't believe them.

(and the alien lovers will use the argument "Just because you don't believe in them, doesn't mean that they don't exist.")

So, to the extent of my knowledge, humans ARE unique in this universe.

Well.. yeah. I'm glad you agree.

thing is we have to work to make medicine. There's all sorts of extracting and combining and experimenting. Then theres the whole trial and error thing. Claws are included in the original package.

Yeah, flaw in your logic there. Nature isn't a sentient being or god. It doesn't decide things. It's just a process. Does a microwave suddenly decide never to irradiate another foodstuff again just for the hell of it? could all lawnmowers suddenly stage a bloody revolution against their human oppressors? These things don't even have minds, its not a possibility. Nature's just a description of natural things. Viruses don't just spontaniusly come into existance, they're all evolutions of the last strand, going back to the roots of life when everything was single celled. There's never going to "suddenly" be a virus that wipes out the world. If it comes to somethng like that, it'll be an evolution of a previous virus that became deadlyer. And to wipe out the world, it'd have to have human aid. We're way to wide spread to wipe out easily.

Yup, without the moon, we'd truly be uncomfy. Sorry If I don't think we'd be wiped out by it, Humans are extremly resiliant. Not by phisiology, we're like dominos there, but technologywise, we'd survive. Perhapse underground. Maybe with GM food. However it would be done, it'd be done. And maybe someday we'd fix the problem. I'm sure there's a planet nearby that can spare a moon.

I don't mean that sort of technology is anyware near our capabilitys today, but someday, who knows.

a bever making a damn if maipulating it's enviroment to produce artificialy crated comsequences. It may not be mastery, but it's a start. And we're alot further ahead in the dam making buisness than the beavers.

I could agree with that, as long as we have enough time to set things up. If it all happens at once, without us knowing till it's too late, we're fucked. We need time.

So am I. I prefer a "Neither or Both" form of agreement. So, their either both perfectly natural or both perfectly unnatural. So we technically agree. :P

I did say if. In All Caps even. IF. It was mostly hypothetical.

Besides, I'm sure there are some religions out there that probably dissagree with you. Not that I'm a member, but just so you keep an open mind on that subject if it should come up in another thread. But back to what we were doing.

Again, we agree.

So as to not sound like an "alien lover", I'll alow you that point. However, know that if you are proven wrong withing the span of our lives, there WILL be "I told you so"-ing. Just a heads up. ;P

...

How about this, if there are found to be aliens, I'll send you a copy of Independence day.

If not... er... well, put flowers on my grave?

Anyways, the beaver dam is a form of terraforming, granted, far, far below human ability, but does a beaver activily think of the consequences when it builds its dam, or does it just want a place to stay? Humans will look at the place, and decide if the the land is pretty enough to warrent building a house. (ok, not always, but why else would we build houses in some crazy places? Like that one waterfall house in Pennsylvania, or whatever. Cool house, but perched above a waterfall? Even a small one, eh...)

I guess I'm wondering more of the point "Are Animals comprehending what they are doing,or do they do it according to instincts?". Which just shows how far, far, FAR off course this topic has gone.

And I guess I'm actually a lot to blame. ^_^;;

I think we're already prepared. Not the general populace, but the highups almost certainly so. God knows there are paranoid people out there. Plus there are people whos job it is to prepare for any situations involving the end of humanity, even if it's just a slip of paper in a brown sealed envelope in a filing cabinet.
I may be putting to much faith in our goverments.

So we agree to disagree? Fair enough.

[QUOTE][I guess I'm wondering more of the point "Are Animals comprehending what they are doing,or do they do it according to instincts?". Which just shows how far, far, FAR off course this topic has gone.
/QUOTE]

We're bad, bad people. So, back on topic: By the time we run out of enough resources to sustain us, it's quite likely we'll have found more somewhere else, or found new kinds to exploit.

Then there's always the chance of an Ice Age. It won't whipe us out completely, but there are some contries that will be RAPED before hand.

Sort of like that. More like a compromise in this situation, but yea.

Deal.

I've been wondering that too. So I took up studying my cats. I don't know if it's just my cats or not, but I can't think "They don't even know they exist" and feel right about it.

They're not up to us in intelect, but that doesn't mean they're totally braindead and just operating on baseic drives. After all, they know to jump up to high places to reach the food that's there, so SOMETHING has to be moveing up there.

But in short, we can't read their minds. Yet. So we have no idea.

They could just be smelling the food, and following a possible path.

I have never seen my cats do anything that I couldn't explain to be instinct or something, but my dogs, on the other hand... they're crazy little buggers, so I don't know if that's just because they're domesticated, and hence act much more differently, or what...