But we are taking a lot out of the ground, coal, gas etc and sending it up in smoke. So might just even it out a bit.
Can’t be illogical Mups as I understand it perfectly 
It’s why I can’t agree when people say that humans are at ‘the top of the tree’ and that human life is precious, it isn’t - it’s just another life form but one that ravages all around it with little or no regard to what lies further down the line. I think animals are more in tune with the planet than we are 
That’s how I see it - well explained Mick.
One of the basic laws of science is, “Matter can neither be created nor destroyed”
It can however be transformed from one state to another - so chemicals in the soil are transformed into plants, plants are eaten and transformed into animals, animals die and are transformed into chemicals in the soil.
So, in a closed system, the weight of all the matter contained within it cannot increase or decrease.
The Earth is not a totally closed system however and matter can both come into and go out of it. Over millions of years, millions of tons of matter have been added to the Earth through meteorites etc. Some matter may also have escaped earth’s gravity and disappeared into space.
People and animals have very little to do with decreases or increases in the world’s weight.
It was just my imagination Mick - suddenly saw the world tip, due to excess weight …:-p
The trouble is that your or Mick’s opinion of what may or may not be the ‘fittest’ is neither here nor there, that is not how evolution works. Evolution decides which is the ‘fittest’ because they survive. Intelligence may or may not not be the best trait for survival, in a few thousand years we might know.
You are probably right Bruce. I think we (certainly I do) tend to associate evolution with an irrational, emotional concept of positivity and progress. As you say, intelligence may no longer be a survival trait and evolution may, over millennia, take humanity (or what is now humanity) into totally different directions.
I’m just rephrasing your post(s) to clarify what you are saying and adding my own perspective-POV- and terminology, or the terminology I’m used to hearing and reading.
Most people do not understand or do not care to understand evolutionary biology.
“The study of evolution is the unifying concept in evolutionary biology. Evolutionary biology is a conceptual subfield of biology that intersects with other subfields that are delimited by organizational level (e.g., cell biology, population biology), taxonomic level (e.g., zoology, ornithology, herpetology) or angle of approach (e.g., field biology, theoretical biology, experimental evolution, paleontology). Usually, these intersections are combined into specific fields such as evolutionary ecology and evolutionary developmental biology.”
Pardon my intrusion.
Intelligence is certainly an evolutionary adaptation.
Evolution advances in time. Advancement is not a qualitative term. The ‘superiority’ is simply the ability of the organism to adapt to the environment it exists in. If it cannot exist in that environment it will not reproduce because it can’t function properly. It can’t feed, it can’t stand the climate, it gets too much sunlight or too little. It simply does not survive to procreate.
Constant mutation provides the tools for adaptation or the organisms that can survive the change of the environment.
Some organism’s adaptations include the ability to manipulate their environment so they may survive. That could include clothing, structures or tools.
Oh, well pardon me!! Instead of sending a “congratulations” card to somebody who has a baby, I will have to tell them instead that they have no right to be happy and that they have done a heinous act by having a child.
Thank you for enlightening me Abby, to think I actually was HAPPY when my grandchildren were born, how wrong was I - I should have been disappointed.
Abby, I understand how hard it is for a child, especially if blonde and with a puppy, Yes people are fatter and bigger and more of us, but you cannot get something from nothing, only from what exists in one form or another. Ore changed to iron/steel for construction, we are still drinking water that has been used countless times, even our food in another form may have been nutrients for something. it is a wonderful world we live in.
[B]We are the guests at the table of life, but soon to be the hosts.:-D/B]
I get what you’re saying seth, so what is your answer to how humans are being recycled then? Do you believe we are made from countless re-used bits too?
Exactly - as I said in my post above: “chemicals in the soil are transformed into plants, plants are eaten and transformed into animals, animals die and are transformed into chemicals in the soil” … and around and around we go!
We are star dust.
Loverly … I feel ‘all twinkly’ now …
- What are the plants eaten by if there are no animals to eat them yet?
- How does a plant turn into an animal?
- What about cremated animals/humans, they don’t go into the soil, so do they not contribute anything to evolution?
- Humans come from eggs & sperm, not soil chemicals?
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If they are not eaten, they contribute to the “circle of life” by seeding, withering and dying and once more becoming part of the soil.
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It doesn’t “turn into an animal” it is absorbed by the animal and is used as fuel or protein for growth or is jettisoned as waste.
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They don’t contribute to evolution, but they do contribute to the “circle of life.” A burnt body gives up its water and its oxygen to the atmosphere (plants “breathe in” carbon dioxide and “breathe out” oxygen. Solid products (ash) find their way (eventually) back into the earth.
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We are what we eat. The food we eat (whether meat or veg) comes originally from the earth in the form of plants. A foetus gets its nourishment from its mother via the placenta. Once it is born it initially gets its food from its mother’s breast. Once weaned it eats food which down the line originates from the earth. Our bodies are made up from the nourishment we put into them (including the sperm and the egg). When we die, our bodies decay (or are cremated) and find their way back to the earth so that the cycle/circle of life continues.
Darwin Awards 2013 submission;
Ecco L’allegro Saldatore
2013 Darwin Award Nominee
Confirmed True by Darwin
(5 Feb 2013, São Paulo, Brazil) Mechanic Sérgio A. Rosa, 49, was welding a gas tanker that, curiously, exploded, sending his remains flying 400 meters through the air.
Comments: “A flammable materials tanker is like a gun.
Never consider it empty, or you’ll pay the price.”
“Did his life flash before his eyes?”
Typical response that can be expected from people who are not enlightened - pollute the earth and than not happy must also destroy nature, chop down trees so we can send a " congratulations card.
I think you have proved my point Jim 