Are we the smartest creatures on Earth?
A simple and common analysis would have it that we are, yes.� For example, we:
- have a sophisticated language capability
- use tool to extend the range of our bodies� capabilities
- produce music, literature, art, drama and sciences
- modify our environment extensively
- have spread more widely across our globe than almost any other organism
- have left our planet � albeit in small numbers for short periods
But are we the wisest?
- we wage systematic warfare against our own kind
- we tyrannise and abuse members of our own society, based on superficial differences
- we hunt wild creatures to extinction for reasons no better than superstitions about the benefits of eating individual body parts
- we have developed sophisticated scientific understanding of our world yet cleave to superstition and magical thinking
- we are destroying our environment and many of the species with which we share it
- � yet many of us refuse to take meaningful action to reverse or even mitigate the damage we are doing
Smart to Wise . . .
As a species, we still have a long way to go.
