"Synergistic evolutionary traits occaisionally combine to produce a new, more powerful feature than the sum of its parts, as in the beetle example. "
The beetle is not exactly a shining success in evolutionary terms though; and similarly intelligence has only been around for en eyeblink and already we are in trouble from several directions, mainly of our own making.
Thanks for the Calvin reference - it does look like a respectable, if minority, theory. ideas about intelligence evolving in response to social pressure from other humans still make more sense to me.
"Neanderthals may have gone extinct precisely because they lacked the same kind of intelligence to allow them to adapt to the changing climate, which was possessed by their modern human counterparts. "
Or they may have become extinct because they do have the same kind of intelligence.
We don't know either way. All we know is that all the other intelligent hominid species are extinct, and we are developing a number of highly creative ways to do the same to ourselves.
Fats:
"[Water crisis] This is a threat to civil order, civilisation and our political structure, but it isn't a threat to the survival of the species."
It is if, like oil, it triggers conflicts between well-armed nation-states.
"The Sahara is inhabited by many species.... including those good ol' adaptable humans in the form of the Bedouin. "
So we have turned it from a fertile, well-populated area with cities to one where a handful of nomads scratch out a meagre living. A scary image for the future of the planet.
Justin
"The ecosystem will surely recover from anything that we can do to it,"
Oh really?