Personally I’m torn between the leopard and the sea monkey.
Leopards, of course, have been instrumental in the very evolution of the human species by encouraging us to stop living in trees and develop sophisticated leopard-killing technologies such as fire, spears, domesticated wolves and the Tomahawk missile. Our global culture has also been enriched by the presence of decorative leopard-skin products in Tarzan movies, Las Vegas novelty suites and Eva Gabor’s wardrobe.
The full impact of the sea monkey on human history has yet to be witnessed, but even now we can see the first glimmerings of the revolution in global consciousness to be wrought by this remarkable primate. From ancient Greece to the Industrial Revolution, the values of science and critical thought have been the province of a select, educated elite. All this changed in 1957, when the world was shocked by the launch of Sputnik. * That same year,* Harold van Braunhut devised and marketed the first sea monkeys. COINCIDENCE?! The influence of the sea monkey on the intellectual development of 20th-Century Western youth cannot be overstated. Previously, children had been encouraged to place unwavering faith in their elders, in church and society. Now, entranced by four-color advertisements of happy, smiling anthropomorphic amphibians in an idyllic submarine setting, they cheerfully sent their money away, to recieve in return… NOTHING! What the hell are these things? They’re swimming lice! Where’s the nuclear families? The advertisement was a total lie! Yes, Western youth had been forcefully introduced to the value of skeptical thought, replacing their former dewy-eyed innocence with a hard-won realism. As this generation matured, mankind walked on the Moon and the Global Information Era began.
I agree with those who have argued that the domestication of the dog allowed the domestication of the other animals. The argument suggesting that humans survived without dogs applies with greater force to any other domestic animal.
War dogs, good or bad? I’ve yet to find any examples of a dog in command launching attacks on its neighbors. To the extent that dogs aid humans in our endeavors, good or bad, they are influential. The best example would be the German shepherds on the bridge in Selma. Influential? Yes. Unforgettable images? Yes. Good? Not unless you are for setting attack dogs loose on peaceful protesters. Put me down as a “no.” OTOH, using the dogs may have been instrumental in turning fence-sitters against the authorities. Not to say that accidental benificial ends justify horrific immoral means.
Terrifel, if you run for office be sure to let me know so I can vote for you.
Nope. The gorilla is a contemporary animal. We have a common ancestor, but that goes back a couple of million years.
The thing is, a large part of the science community is nowadays arguing that those humans that didn’t use dog, did die out. Not as a species, obviously, since we’re around, but putting it another way - had we not used dogs, we would never have evolved to homo sapiens. Taming the dog showed us the way in taming other animals. First cattle, then sheep and then others. Remember that agriculture is not only keeping livestock, it’s farming. A lot of poster here have 20/20 hindsight, but owning a cow was a big deal 11.000 years ago. It’s not as if keeping livestock was the major point of settling down to an agricultural society. People farmed and got their meat from hunting. Cows were kept for milk rather than as a source of meat.
Horses were very important, and brought about great changes. However, this was for a relatively small group of people. Dogs were everywhere, on all continents, and were domesticated independantly by different groups of people. Horses wsere domesticated in one place and the use spread. However, it didn’t spread everywhere.
Anyone arguing about the rise in power of Egypt, Greece or Rome and eventually Europe, could make a very strong case for the horse. That seems a bit geocentric, though, IMO.
Are you really saying that dogs were domesticated before the evolution of Homo sapiens, i.e. over 200,000 years ago? Do you have cites for this and for “a large part of the science community”?
And the horse was very important in the conquests by the Asian hordes, not just the European and Egyptian empires.
It wasn’t exactly the expense, but the cost-benefit ratio that was important here.
The key invention that made horses worthwhile as work animals was the horse collar & hames type harness, replacing the older breast collar type harness.
With a breast collar harness, a horse can do about 2 times as much ‘work’ as a human (but since a horse eats about 2 times as much feed as a human, no great gain here). However, with a collar & hames harness, a horse can do about 6 times as much ‘work’ as a human, while still consuming only 2 times as much feed. Now horses are obviously very efficient, and using them as workhorses (and breeding big ones for that purpose) is worthwhile.
I don’t understand why warfare is seen as so important in terms of influencing us. Ok, two countries want to war. If they have horses, they ride out and war. if not they walk out and war. The horse simply made warfar faster. But I don’t think it promoted it in some positive way. The only way I can see it having influence is where it cause one side to win over another because they had horses. And even then it’s VERY recent.
I think we look as horses as important because they have been so usefull recently. Yet and animal like the dog or sheep has been around doing it’s thing for so long we don’t see those things as important, or as important.
I think it would be nice if someone could list many civilizations around the world and then list whether they had dogs, sheep, horses, or cattle.
My vote still goes for the dog. During a crucial time in developement for humans, they gave us all the animal instinct and skills we had lost so we could have big brains.