Blog Post

Are humans an endangered species?

Nik Money • May 25, 2017

Considered with the kind of objective methods employed by biologists to describe other animals, humans emerge as a most peculiar kind of primate. Our babies seem no smarter than other apes, but by the time we are toddlers the differences are profound. The descended position of the larynx along with other anatomical and neurological adaptations have allowed us to develop sophisticated communication methods ranging from our original African languages of clicking sounds to the extended vocal range required for “Muzetta’s Waltz” from La Boheme . Besides these, and other, biomechanical characteristics, attempts at an holistic description of Homo sapiens embrace our recurring cultural habits of agriculture, politics, trade, materialism, warfare, art, science, and religion.

The IUCN Red List places Homo sapiens in the conservation category of “Least Concern,” and offers the following justification: Listed as Least Concern as the species is very widely distributed, adaptable, currently increasing, and there are no major threats resulting in an overall population decline. The durability of this assessment should be considered along with this excerpt from a Latin description of our species that may be adopted by extraterrestrial taxonomists that visit earth in the twenty-second century: Homo sapiens: illa simiae species Africana ab origine quae adeo orbem pervastavit terrarum ut ipsa extincta fiat. Or, Homo sapiens: species of ape of African origin that devastated the biosphere and thereby drove its own extinction.


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Species perform life cycles by transmitting distinctive collections of genes from one generation to the next. Individuals contribute to this process if they serve as biological parents, but there is no cycle for each of them, each human being, just a beginning and an end. Cells behaving as amoebas are conductors for the whole journey, sculpting the developing fetus, protecting the body from bacterial and fungal infection, repairing wounds, and removing worn out cells. Amoebas also destroy cancer cells until they turn cancerous themselves, spread tumors across the body, and extinguish one in six of us. All of these amoeboid human cells dig deep into the billion-year-old instructions in their genomes to activate the machinery for forming pseudopodia and flowing and feeding from place to place. From birth to death, womb to tomb, the body calls on its ancient amoeboid ancestry, just as it relies on its ciliary history to make sperm cells and the hairy cells that line the lungs and other organs. We are gigantic amalgams of the single-celled microbes that learned to crawl and swim in the mud and sunlit pools of the Precambrian.
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As Homo sapiens races toward extinction, there is solace in recognizing that the rest of nature will be relieved by our departure. Adapted from The Selfish Ape which was published in 2019: If extraterrestrials had trained their microphones on Earth they would have detected a rise in the exclamations of animal life in recent millennia, building to a crescendo of moans and grunts from animals subjected to ritualized torture in stadia, bull rings and bear pits, augmented by the modern vivisection of rodents, cats and primates—terrified animals restrained in the lab and probed with instruments that would have taxed the pornographic inventiveness of the Catholic inquisitors. Factory farming is another way we torment the innocent. The philosopher Schopenhauer said: “Unless suffering is the direct and immediate object of life, our existence must entirely fail of its aim.” Today’s justifications for our loathsome behavior include the economic burden of treating animals more kindly and the medical necessity of experimentation. We rest, as always, on staggering hubris. It is always about us.
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