I sat at a stop sign. Across from me was a sidewalk, and a few white butterflies flew away from the sidewalk, fluttering up over the roadway that I was about to turn onto.
It was so beautiful. Then, a bird flew in and ardently tried to catch the white butterfly. For a few seconds, it was a silent dance. The butterfly leaping and twisting, the bird fluttering to keep up and have it for lunch.
Then a car sped through the airspace where the bird and butterfly did their dance of natural selection, killing the bird and departing in a quick spray of feathers.
-sigh-
Cartooniverse
So you’re saying that man, along with his activities and technology, are somehow not part of nature and lie outside the bounds of natural selection? What then, is the origin of man, and his knowledge, if not nature and natural selection?
On my way to work yesterday, I saw a dove sitting in the middle of the road.
Now, usually, things with wings get out of the road when they see a vehicle coming.
This one was so fat that his lift wasn’t quite adequate. I thought he was going to make it until it became obvious that he wasn’t. It was also too late to swerve at that point.
POOF
He hit right in line with me, on my hood just below my windshield. Looked like the puff of feathers in Shrek when Fiona was singing to the birds. Now there’s dove on my truck.
I can’t drive to school without seeing a dead fox or pheasant or pigeon or whatever. In fact over the last week I have seen a couple of animals doing some strange things.
First there was a squirrel standing in the middle of the road, sees my car approaching and suddenly develops a form of paranoia known only to heavy drug users. Luckily for him there was nothing behind me so I slow to give it ample time to freeze on the spot, dart out of the way, change it’s mind and run back to go all Kenievel on my ass, then scamper away like nothing even happened.
Second, a couple of days ago there was a pigeon just standing in the road, didn’t look injured or nothing, but not moving out of the way. Again nothing was coming so I just moved over and passed it. Now anyone who has driven by pigeons know that they will fly away at the very last second. But this one had guts, didn’t budge an inch as I passed, probably would have given me the finger if it had any. Shame that a truck probably came next and Blammo!
The use of technology is only accounted for in a handful of species, and while this isn’t the place to debate whether technology is natural you can’t say that it hasn’t had an influence on most other animals, that influence being to screw up whatever system would have continued without technological influence.
Not hardly. In fact, I am saying that man is a part of nature, but the very nature of man has elevated his influence beyond that of most other creatures on earth ( besides viruses but we will set that aside for the moment ). We have moved ourselves outside of natural selection. Some examples:
200 years ago, you would have been dead if:
You bled excessively during childbirth.
You didn’t breathe well when you were born.
You caught a nasty virus.
You caught a nasty bacteria.
You cut your foot on the rusty nail protruding from the edge of the steps leading from the barn.
You were shot with a bullet. ( Usually… )
It is in our nature to accelerate the pace of our advance. We are more advanced than 20 years ago, more than 100, 200, one thousand.
Furthermore, I am struck by the irony of the fact that I, a member of the species so advanced that we can kill a bird in mid-flight and not know it- am a member of the only species to recognize the beauty in the moment before the bird bought it, and ruminate over the sadness of the lost beautiful moment.
Species self-hatred? P’raps, p’raps.
A part of me hopes the butterfly made it.