Do you believe Mother Nature prevents species from rising above their established position in nature?

Species become extinct all the time. The balance within the cycle of life in nature, the ecosystem, is constantly changing and adjusting.

I don’t know. Maybe they are born into a state of oneness with the world. We consciously choose not to be in harmony. That’s why they run when they see us coming. We annoy them.

You have to look at nature as a balanced system rather than as groups of adversaries. Survival favors those who fit in. In many cases predators serve to cull prey species and keep their population in check. Yosemite national park had gotten into a shabby state because the deer were wiping out trees. Then wolves were brought back and the park is now doing much better.

The ability to use simple tools, or bodily strength, do not equal a brain capable of processing militaristic tactical strategy.

Bison are bison. That is why they don’t go on siege missions. They aren’t GI Joe, they are cows.

They have no cognizant understanding of their place in the universe with regards to crop cycles or natural selection. Humans only started understanding natural selection about 150 years ago, and our species literally means “Same Smart-smarts”

@Seek

Well actually the “homo” in “Homo sapiens” means “man”, not “same”. Homo sapiens = “Smart/wise/intelligent man”, not “same smart”. Both Latin and Greek have the word “homo”, but they mean very different things. The Latin word, from which our species derives its name means “man” (example: the phrase uttered by Pilate in the Bible – “ecce homo” = “behold the man”). It is the Greek word that means “same”.

But great post otherwise.

Thank you for the correction. I am not awesome with classical languages, and mixed up the Greek/Latin thing.

Filed for future reference. ^_

In that case Homo sapiens sapiens would be “Smart, smart man”.

Nature is nature, there is no preordained egoic plot behind how nature unfolds. Adapt or die, that’s all there is. Well, minus the toll mankind is taking on nature, raping and pillaging species of all sorts, habitat loss and lets not forget poachers and the great white hunters that think hanging severed animal heads on their walls is indicative of how large their penises must be. lol

No species is trying to “win” at evolution. That’s not how it works. No one is jockeying for a better position on the tree of life. There is no such thing as an “upgrade”. We’re all just trying to persist and reproduce. Evolution is the consequence of that. Species do not really have “established positions”, they are not trying to “shift” into “better” ones. A few forces do nudge the direction of evolution: things like geology and mutation and natural selection. But even adaptation (which is not the only mechanism of evolution) does not make a species “better”, it only improves a species’ chance at persisting in the previous environment, not necessarily current or future environments. Evolution doesn’t plan ahead. It’s reaction, not preparation. So, there’s that.

Humans are still a part of this process, we just experience far less pressure now to adapt physically to our environment than we used to, because we can adapt technologically instead, or we can move easily to places where stresses are low. Those are the kinds of abilities that any species would need in order to deliberately counter evolutionary pressures, and I think that requires both self-awareness and the power to do anything about it. No species but humans is able to do what we do, and I think no species but humans can desire to do what we do. A bison cannot want to be in a wolf’s position. That is utterly beyond its capacities. We are not anywhere close to seeing even another primate species develop these abilities, and we are pretty much guaranteeing that they never will, by stomping them out of existence.

Nature doesn’t “assign roles” or “prevent” species from acting other than they do. Nature is not an intelligent agency that plans and acts with intent.

By the same token, I doubt whether harpy eagles nest in places that are convenient to capuchin monkeys. While you may be right that the monkeys could assault the nests and kill the eaglets – perhaps, if the mama birds left them alone long enough to permit it – I doubt whether it would be the work of a day. The monkeys may have to manage some kind of coordinated two-pronged assault: one attack to divert the nesting mother, and another entirely separate attack to kill the eagle chicks. And while it may not be entirely unnatural to kill the eagle chicks, because they could conceivably eat them, it’s highly unlikely that the monkeys could manage the high level conceptual planning and strategy necessary to mount a successful, coordinated, two-pronged attack. I’m not for a minute suggesting that monkeys are stupid, but what is being suggested is a far higher level of intelligence and prediction than they generally exhibit in the wild.

And by the same token, buffaloes are ruminants: they eat grass. They would have no ambition to attack wolves – who are not a primary buffalo predator, after all – because their actions do not demonstrate that they have the ability to form the conceptual thought that “we could wipe out these bastards if we wanted to”. Also, it’s far from certain that the buffaloes could actually accomplish the task of attacking and wiping out dens of wolves, when it is wolves who clearly demonstrate an ability to work and hunt in semi-coordinated packs, while buffaloes simply graze, migrate (and occasionally stampede) together, which is a far different kind of social act. The buffalo’s prime predator for the past 40,000 years or so in North America has been man, in fact. Even so, it was only “modern man and the rifle” (and the railroads) that brought them to the brink of extinction.

Your thinking on the topic needs some work. “Mother Nature” to use your anthropomorphized (and antiquated) term does not have “plans and intent” and is not “for” or “against” anything at all.

Ants and gorillas practice war on their own kind.

Lots of animals practice war on their own kind, and kill to win the right to mate @RedDeerGuy1. That’s not what he’s referring to, though.

@Dutchess_III Gorillas invade group attack other groups deliberately to protect ones territory. They even go out of the way to kill each other.

Yes, and they’ll steal females from other groups. So do lions and other animals. Even horses will fight to the death to protect their territory and their herd. They go after their own kind, especially the males, to create dominance.
The OP is talking about animals launching a planned attack on other species that can be a threat to them. He used the example of Capuchin monkeys vs harpy eagles.

Why isn’t “monkeys” spelled “monkies”?

@Dutchess_III Their is a monkey in the news that scared all of the male patrons of a bar put of it with a knife. It was last week I think.

Yes, I saw that. There is a town that is over run by these monkeys, and they’ve learned to live with humans AND steal their stuff. But monkey with the knife wasn’t planned. The monkey didn’t even know what to do with the knife, he was just waving it around, and people freaked out.

Not to go too far off subject, but groups of gorillas do not attack each other. A gorilla group is like a lion pride, with one dominant male, a group of females, and their young children. Outsider males may challenge the dominant male for control of the group.

It’s like this, consider the humble wildebeest, he may as well have meat buffet tattooed on his hind quarters. Spends his entire short lived existence roaming the plains, chewing the cud & being easy prey to many a predator.
Does he have the capacity to change this desperate life?
Does he have membership to the local gym?
Does he even know he’s a wildebeest?

The answer to these questions & more is a resounding no, he does not & so what does he do?
He gets on with it, completely unaware of his status, identity or place in the food chain, such is life.

I dont think they’ll go against nature unless highly threatened maybe. Cause when animals get threatened they attack or maybe give a warning to that thing or maybe human.

But I don’t think they will unless they go through a major evolution in there species. Which I think will take time.

But my own opinion still rides, I think someday it will be mother nature that will rule is all. Mother Nature has been fed up, she’ll snap soon. Sending tornadoes one way, hurricanes another, earthquakes, tsunamis, etc! Basically kinda a end of the world for humans and in the end only nature and animals exist. No humans to mess up the land anymore or kill of animals that obviously did nothing to you.

….Are you a vegtarian, @LazyMe10?

@Seek “In that case Homo sapiens sapiens would be “Smart, smart man”.”

Yeah, it’s a bit of a silly and redundant name, but there’s a practical purpose behind it. The designation of Homo sapiens sapiens is to distinguish us, fully anatomically modern humans, from an earlier, and now extinct, subspecies designated Homo sapiens idaltu – who were essentially modern humans that retained some archaic morphological features.

“Idaltu” means “elder/first born”. Apparently they couldn’t come up with a word meaning “latter” or “second born”, or even “modern” so they just stuck us with an extra “sapiens”.

@RedDeerGuy1 is correct about warring apes, but has the wrong species. It is chimpanzees which war. Make any argument you want, but She likely knows more on the subject than any of us.
these guys seem to be plenty happy with their rank in the world.

Oh, by the way, they know how to use weapons.
Some use weapons without being taught by humans.
If anyone cares, Chimps using tools, and medicines, of their own discovery, and hunting parties.

I think some species would ask, if they could, what you mean by rising above.
Personally, I have never seen any ambitions thwarted by nature. Complacency seems inherent with most animal species. Those which show ambition of any sort seem to me free to pursue those ambitions, and rise, or fall with the results each of their own manner and degree of success.

But they don’t plan complicated attacks on other species. That is the crux of the question. They may fight, spur of the moment with other species, for what ever reason, but chimps don’t get together and plan a coordinated attack, on, say, an annoying leopard. Neither does any other animal, except humans.

Oh, but they do.

A chimpanzee is almost a short hairy human. A bison is not. Nor is a toucan or a banana.

In another million years or so the chimps might have worked that military strategy stuff out.

I hope not, though.

@Dutchess_III

Ants are known to engage in large scale, coordinated warfare against other colonies.

@Dutchess_III no I’m not. Im just one of those people that think mother nature will be the one to wipe us out instead of some religious way that parents tell their children.

The. Way some people are killing animals I think personally they are interfering with natural evolution. I also believe that chimpanzees could take over. I love the planet of the apes but I don’t think the chimps would want the kind of power that humans have. I just think they’d just be able to populate the planet more and build more knowledge and live a happier carefree life than us

@Tinbobtina , perhaps in the case of bonobos, but many chimp troupes have been witnessed forming hunting parties, and war parties. Some have killed from their own family groups, and cannibalized the kills.
Chimps are capable of, and have demonstrated in their natural homes, killing and vicious behavior.
Bonobos are less menacing, but my gosh they do have a major distraction which would likely prevent them from pursuing a life much more intellectual than they now live.

@Tinbobtina “I just think they’d just be able to populate the planet more and build more knowledge and live a happier carefree life than us”

Ummm… based on what? Chimpanzees can be very violent animals.

Yeah, we’re really not that far removed from the other primates, we’re just clever enough to build slightly more sophisticated tools.

Chimps can be unbelievably and mindlessly violent. This “tame” chimp destroyed this lady’s face

I’d take a gorilla over a chimp any day.

You can’t really tame a wild animal, the minute you push that boundary it fights back and ends up being killed for that.

Well, over generations we tamed wild cats and wolves. And foxes. And horses. And cattle. And corn.

Ha! We’ve never tamed cats. They merely find us convenient. We are useful tools to them.

Yeah, I stand corrected on that! And I have the scars to prove it. :/