Are humans dominant?

Question

We are a powerful species, but are we dominant? Please answer here and become part of the growing debate!

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Answer 1

there is only one living organism and it completely dominates; that is, the entire earth itself, Gaea, the biosphere, mother nature, however you may call it, of which mankind (man-unkind) is merely another part, neither more nor less than any other aspect of life, except to ourselves in our overweening imaginations.  

man can delude himself and think he is the dominant species because he can "wipe out" other species, but this is a very stupid form of dominance because all this kind of behavior can do is NOT destroy the world, but only to undermine the living conditions which make our civilization possible and our existence possible. many other living ecologies are possible for planet earth. would the earth miss us if we were gone? that's like asking did the earth yearn for humans to evolve in the age of the dinosaurs. perhaps our romantic hearts and minds would like to think so, but i don't see it that way.

there is the whole "microbe" issue, which really hammers down scientifically that we are part and parcel of something way larger than ourselves. 90% of the cells in a human body are distinct viruses, bacterias and protozoas, without which, we, as individuals, could not survive upon this earth. each human is a host to a world of creatures. humans themselves seem to be elaborations of bacteria which formed colonies in the beginning and evolved from there. we walk around blind each day to the sea of microbes in which we swim. in every place man has ever explored upon this planet, from the thermal vents miles deep in the ocean, from the deepest mines and drill holes into the crust, from the highest mountain, to the iciest region at the polar caps, in the statosphere, inside solid rock, science has discovered life.

i submit our civilization to the judgment of the earth. if we fail, it will be because we deserve it. we know what to do in order to live in accord with the earth both scientifically and religiously and socially. we live below our level of knowledge because we chase artificial goals, to whit, the almighty buck.

the sad thing is, when we can't get the almighty buck, we will war and take it from others. that's what keeps the politicians hand's tied. they fear present day social unrest far more than distant ecological disaster.

we think we are dominant, therefore we are! (only undermining the very ground of our being as children of earth, brother and sister to tree and bird and fish and cow)

mother earth, Gaea, the biosphere will deal with our so-called "dominance" over time. read Ozymandias by Shelly. observe the number of species that have suffered extinction. yet life on earth continues.

we all know we must live in accord with earth's ways or perish. in our present state of mind, we can only do this if it is profitable. i make no claims to know how it will all work out, except that in the end, the earth will prevail, either keeping us as one of her children, or destroying us because we got too big for our breeches.

you might find it strange that i find this comforting. but i do. and today, i will go down to the tide pools at the afternoon minus tide and worships the processes of nature, and laugh at my own pretensions of dominance. let me have instead, reverence and awe.

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Answer 2

Personally, I think it would be hard to make a case that bacteria are not the dominant organisms on our planet - they've been around longer than any other organism that we know of, we cannot live without them, collectively they form more biomass than all the humans on earth put together, and no matter how we try to get rid of them (antibiotics, antiseptics, radiation), they just keep surviving and prospering!

Answer 3

YES.

Well as far as we know. And people who say 'there must be life somewhere else, it would be a bit of a coincidence if we were the only ones..'

have you thought about it like this, microbes, or wherever we came from, have landed on loads of planets however the only planet livable was ours,

Answer 4

Yes, in an evolutionary sense we are, since among complex life forms (excluding bacteria which don't really have species), our species occupies the most number of niches. This might not be that big of a deal, but evolutionarily we have succeeded in this regard.

Answer 5

You say that we are powerful like it is so obvious yet you wonder wheather we are dominant?We don't rule the world because of our intelect but mostly because of our greed and arogance.Yes we are the most dominant species on Earth.

Answer 6

Yes, we have the superior authority & ability to determine our own fate and that of other organisms on earth.

we're more thatn powerful.

A bear is powerful, it can kill a human being but can not determine the fate and destiny of the ecocystem in which it lives.

We on the toher hand can have the power and dominion over the earth and if u look at it, we can impact the eart at any rate we want. We can accelerate global warming, degradation or the destruction of the ozone layer if we want.

Wasn't the bomb in Hiroshima in WW2 & the effects of WW1  enough to convince any1 of man's dominance on earth?