I can't agree with what Shook has to say, at all. I mean, what exactly would be the problem with recognizing all life as essentially equal? We're all made of the same stuff, and every living thing has at least basic senses. That by itself is reason enough to regard all life as precious and potentially conscious…

Don't worry—you'll find a way to articulate it. I'm sure even Einstein had to work at expressing himself sometimes—it happens to all of us! :)

I think it is; just not necessarily in math or physics—sure you have physics prodigies like Hawking and Einstein, but Bruce Lee, Mozart, Da Vinci, Shaq, Gandhi, Hendrix... all of these people and countless more were every bit Einstein's equal, just in different ways. I think we all have the potential to be just as…

Indeed—superbugs could be a serious problem (especially if everybody wants to be an Einstein or a professional athlete, etc.) when what we really need is people to sanitize telephones :) But really just about any sudden environmental change could be catastrophic if a species is too specialized. If the climate…

Indeed! and enjoy the video! Cheers :)

Well, maybe not a single common genotype, but it seems likely that there'd be "fashion trends" of sorts which would reduce diversity, although as someone else noted elsewhere in this thread, that might just lead to further speciation of humanity. So, much as I still think self-guided evolution may not be very wise, I…

How do you know?

That's a real possibility, for sure. I guess I'm just not convinced that we're really qualified to take over our own evolution. Not that reservations like that are going to stop people from trying, of course. I just don't think we're nearly as smart, as a species, as we like to think we are. Then again, maybe…

Wow. Uh... Thanks! :)

No worries—just a misunderstanding. Cheers!

Maybe, but it still leaves more surviving diversity behind than would occur if we started modifying ourselves to fit some rationally pre-determined estimate of what the future will demand of us.

Please think before you type.

Hate and greed were their motivating force, under a B.S. guise of rationality.

No. Of course not. I think most people just haven't had the right combination of opportunity and encouragement to discover their real potential. And anyway, chasing your talents, dreams, and passions is a very risky business. It almost always means sacrificing comfort, prosperity, and social standing while you…

But that's the thing. We all DO have his level of potential... just not all in the same domains of endeavour as him.

I certainly hope not. There's no way we can rationally predict the future, and so there's no way we can know which way to tweak the species. The best long-term survival strategy is diversity, which is best produced by random chance. If we start tweaking our own evolution so we can all be more like Einstein and…

I guess it depends on what one means by rational. I made the mistake of using "rational" in the last sentence of my previous comment... I should have said "civilized" or "reasonable."

I'd rather do all that in my original biological body though... I mean, if I had a garage, I would most certainly have a beer on the go while I moved boxes of junk around. That beer is just so much more tasty when one has worked up a good thirst :)

Point taken :)

"But, insofar as modern society actively reinforces the rational as the only legitimate scientific paradigm, and this reinforcement in turn affects how we think and interpret the world, it's not a stretch to say, that early humans were in fact less rational.