If evolution is just change, then why do humans care so much about animals going extinct?
544104
I would agree with you that humans causing extinction can sometimes be defined as natural selection. However, our nervous systems have allowed us to have a different impact on the world around us. We are able to make decisions to avoid the extinction of other animals and have the capacity to take action a lot of the time. \n\nHope this helps.\n\nand as a side note "survival of the fittest" was retracted by Darwin when he saw that his cousin Galton was using it promote societal improvement. This is not what Darwin meant. Think of natural selection as selecting against  traits, characteristics, or behaviors that are harmful to the organism's ability to survive long enough to reproduce. Survival of the fittest just sounds like constant improvement.
475630
First, whoever told you that "humans evolved from apes" doesn't understand the theory ... humans and apes have a common ancestor.\n\nBut your real question (which nobody is addressing) is "if X evolves into Y because Y is more 'fit', then why doesn't X become extinct?"  That often does happen.  E.g. dinosaurs evolved into birds, and later went extinct ... why? because a global catastrophe happened for which the birds were better suited to survive, and the dinosaurs were not. Species become extinct all the time, leaving only their more 'fit' ancestors.\n\nBut it doesn't *have* to happen immediately, and it doesn't have to happen at all.  Just because Y is better than X at a certain task doesn't mean that X must immediately become extinct ... both X and Y may be quite successful.   X may be better at gathering fruit from trees at night.  Y may be better at moving around on the ground during the day.  Both may survive quite nicely in their different environments.  But soon X's will stop meeting Y's for mating purposes and they become different species, the ancestors of X and the ancestors of Y.  It's not that complicated.
530595
One huge misconception about evolution is that the sequence is fixed. The apes *are* evolving. They are changing in response to their environment. But that environment is different than the one our ancestors had 3-6 million years ago. So they won't change in the same way our ancestors did.
365026
Because we are the result of billions of years of evolution. We are the byproduct of living things that have struggled to survive throughout the eons. \n\nAs such, we are not perfect by any means. We are a self aware bald ape. Seeing how short sighted, greedy, petty, and vicious we can be reminds me that we are the result of evolution. \n\nHowever, we can also be generous, kind, loving, patient, and wise. This is our strength as a species. \n\nWe can also communicate and understand. When we strive to do so, we can achieve peace. The problem is that the world is controlled by a minority of people that are greedy, power hungry, and wish to dominate and control others. The majority are too busy taking care of their personal business to really put this minority down. \n\nPlus, the minority controls the guns.\n\nEither that, or God created a flawed species. Blame him for not being a better bioengineer.\n\nI choose the evolution argument.
192029
we change the chain to our own best interests\n\nTake for example a cow. Cows would not be around today if it were not for humans. If humans stopped breeding cows they would be extinct in 35 years. Since they are fat and slow (good for meat and killing) natural selection works against them. However, artificial selection (human selection) works towards them)...\n\n\nMoreover people kill animals disrupting the food chain.
237532
if the environment changes faster than the organisms ability to adapt to the changes, the species will go extinct. The reason, be it man made, or natural, is irrelevant. The point is, there is a change, and the organism cannot adapt.
461824
Extinct species, if not extinct by human activity (shooting them, cutting their forests down, etc.), have extinct for a reason - they did not fit well to the enviournment.\nRecreation of such species may destabilize the delicate balance of nature.\nMoreover, any human interferance with nature, whether trying to do good or bad, can only harm it.\n\nThere are two (1.5) reasons. I think you can start with these, and probably the rest will come to mind after writing this. If not, I believe that other people will have further ideas.\n\nGood luck!
467156
Animals and humans are practically one and the same, animals want to eat procreate, protect there young, humans are the same except for one thing, The ability to reason and ask a simple but important question..WHY? \n\nAsking that question has enabled humans to explore and expand,whether evolution or god had a say in that, is another question. But instinctly animals and humans are more similar than some people might like to admit to. \n\nOur behaviour can often be predicted following models based on animals. But the knowledge of our mortality and questioning of it, separates man from beast.
389820
The part of the body that are use more often, become more complex, in the same manner, part of the body that are less useful to survival will eventually be select against (It waste energy without generating enough benefit). Therefore mother nature tell us that, (Darwin's natural selection) we only have what we need. If we use this as an argument. We can assume that all animals today would use 100% of the brain, those who had use less than that would have been eliminated through the course of history. Unless it was beneficial to their survival, in that case, their brain will have "de-evolve" to maintain a lower energy consuming. The process of de-evolving would led them to use 100% of their brain...
193069
In fact we have no more time! \n\nJust think, as archaeologist Robert J. Braidwood wrote before, if we see all history as a one day, it is now one to midnight. Human groups living in Africa made first stone tools only one minute ago. Jesus was born just 1 second ago. Roman empire, Middle Ages all were in one second time. \n\nBefore that one minute, it was the evolution of mamalians, reptiles, other livin creatures. Before 3-4 hours ago, there was no life on earth. \n\nSo, we should understand that, we just see a small part of our earth's adventure. We think 70-80 years is a lot of time. Yes it is, but only for us. It's nothing for the earth, which is nearly 4-5 bilion years old. It's nothing if we compare human evolution. First humans apeared 2.5 milion years ago. \n\nDinosours lived the timespan between 180-65 milion years. That were their time. But the earth changed, and they disappeared. \n\nHuman will disappear too. The earth is changing faster. We change it. And it's not a success. We kill other living creatures. And everyday one specie disappears because of our pressure on the nature. \n\nAfter, 10-20 milion years, maybe a understanding creature will see our remains as a greyish ash layer in a geological statigraphy (as we see Miocene like this today). Maybe they will find atomic bomb explosions too. But we will disappear. But the life in earth will continue. I believe.
421839
Man is absolutely a part of nature, however it is the development of man that raises questions like these.  It is hard to answer why man is the way he is - I won't bring up the controversial subjects of Creation vs. evolution.  I'm not preaching here, yet as man progresses and his need for resources grows, the line become fuzzy.  It is hard to see the resemblances between man and nature at times, largely because of our seeming victory over most of what nature throws at us, yet we are much like our animal counterparts.  We like, all of life, need food first and foremost.  It is the complex nature of man, once this appetite has been filled, to move on to more satisfying things.  Take reality shows such as Survivor, and you will see just how primitive things get.  Man has become the decider, no question, over much of nature's more important environmental decisions.  It is now more apparent than ever, that bad choices in the past, due to economics, are plaguing the only planet that we can call home right now.  Therefore, we must reassert that we are not only a part of a nature but realize the power that we have and work towards the world of tomorrow.  Minute changes can make all the difference and it is because we are a part of nature that we should all care so much.
263791
Humans are designed to evolve; spiritualy, mentaly, and physicaly. Evolution takes place every generation and we are growing at a rapid rate.\nHere's an annalogy, a different type of being see's an infant human, and an infant hippo next to each other. The hippo can walk and defend itself right after birth, where as the infant human can do nothing but sit, cry, and roll around. It's obvious which would be "smarter" in the current state. Looking outside the "box of time" the human will grow to be smarted than a hippo in many ways when it reaches maturity because it evolves with time... hope i could help you feel better about everything, i feel like you've had a hard time lately... things will get better, just remember that.
1180129
definitely humans, no other species is known to cause so many other species go extinct or near extinct and change so large areas to worse. \n\nsome people say that human influence is natural influence because man is part of nature. than we have to face the fact that we are a perfect natural DISASTER, just like a masssive asteroid on collision course
989991
Most animals do not care about humans too much. Cats and dogs are different. They have been domesticated for so long and were mostly born and raised in a human environment that they have come to understand and be dependent on that environment.\n\nMost other animals find the environments we have created do not suit them. Exceptions are many, of course - everything from the flea, bedbug and cockroach to mice, rats, many birds and some larger animals like foxes and racoons.\n\nWild life in the city is much more than you would think at first glance. Use your eyes and take notice of the plants growing in the cracks in brickwork and on waste ground. Don't think of them as weeds, think of them as life finding a foothold. Look around for insects and bugs and anything small - lizards, for example. Don't  think of them as vermin. They are animals which have adapted themselves to the environment we have created. Some are there because it's not so different from a natural environment for them, some are there because humans generate a lot of waste which is easy pickings and some are there because we ourselves are their source of food!\n\nThe other animals you mention (cattle and horses) are herd animals and need very large areas of grass to survive, wolves live and hunt in packs and need forest and woodland. Vultures find us just too tidy with our large dead bodies which is what they feed on.
722420
Think of it this way (VERY simplified example here):\n\nIn Africa, the jungle borders on the plains. There's a population of ape-like primates that live in the jungle. The population gets too big, so another population branches off after a few thousand years, and lives on the plains. Thep lains are a whole diffeent story compared to the jungle. Different predators, different fod supply, different enviroment. It's very tough out there. Only the apes who have adaptations to living on the plains survive. These keep getting better and better at it, and eventually become humans.\n\nMeanwhile, th apes that stayed in the jungle also face changing conditions, though obviously not as big a change as jungle-grasslands. But, they keep getting better t what they do in more subtle ways (subtle since they don't have as ig a change to deal with). These eventually become modern apes. They look more like the original apes than humans do because they stayed in the ame environment, but eventually even those original apes all died out or became chimps, gorillas, etc.\n\nIt's possible that someday, some chimps might move out onto the plains. Maybe they'll evole some of the same adaptations that humans did, but they wn't BE humans any more than dolphins are sharks (just becasue they evolved in a similar environment and ended up looking sorta like sharks).
1036079
read this and diside for you self \nIt's understandable why some people think that humans evolved from ape-like creatures, but how is saying that complex life forms arose spontaneously from molecules floating around in the sea any more plausible than myth? There is no proven mechanism by which molecules can give rise to simple organisms that later give rise to more complex ones like dinosaurs, just because evolution can happen among very closely related species. A single mutation\nhas very little chance of benefiting an organism, so the chances that millions of organisms can have the right combination of mutations to adapt to their environment is pretty much none. If you try to write a working code for a computer program by wildy mashing buttons, you will not make any progress even if you had all the time in the world. Evolution is the default theory based on process of elimination, for lack of a better explanation without using religion. Evidence of evolution or religion doesn't always have to exclude the other.
81667
Evolution is the gradual change in a group of organisms based on surroundings and circumstances that make one population more favorable. Since we do not know what future events might select for homo sapiens, we cannot predict how they will evolve. For example, if we had a full out nuclear war, perhaps a small group of humans would survive that were very tolerant to radiation. There is no way to know. That being said, humans have somewhat overcome evolution because of our advanced medicine- we can let people live who would otherwise be selected against, like people with debilating diseases.