What if humans never existed?

[WhyIsThatSo]

There is no evidence other than your wishful thinking that places a demand on the existence of humans or anything like them. Considering the age of the Earth, the age of life and our more recent arrival, our existence has no appearance of being ordained.

Our "more recent arrival" is in the form of an "animal" (flesh and blood), no doubt about that....
but this meat locker ain't you.

 

[Cooky]

Just to go any area on earth that's not inhabited by humans and you'll find your answer.

The only areas not inhabited by humans are on the outer fringes of the inhabitable zone. Basically no animals can live there.

We are at the top of the food chain. That's why our numbers are large. Likewise, the dinosaurs were too, and their influence on the world was likely similar to ours.

 

[SoyLeche]

If humans never came to be, what animal would have dominated the world? Because one animal has to be at the top of the food chain... And that animal will always overproduce - no escaping it...

Also, would the alternate animal have been more or less environmentally healthy, considering it's appetite, and what it would have eaten. Would the food chain have been altered for the better or worse?

...What about that animals waste? Would the planet be covered in feces? Because they surely wouldn't have waste management.

I reject your thesis. Your average animal has to deal with limits in the food supply. That also tends to put limits on the range of an animal, so many different animals can be at the top of the food chain.

Humans figured out a way around this when they came up with agriculture.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Our "more recent arrival" is in the form of an "animal" (flesh and blood), no doubt about that....
but this meat locker ain't you.

I have no idea what you are talking about.

 

[WhyIsThatSo]

Are you suggesting that we're aliens to earth, and thus unnatural inhabitants, wreaking havoc on the environment unnaturally.

"aliens" ?...absolutely
"unnatural inhabitants" ?.....that depends
"wrecking havoc on the environment unnaturally"...….sometimes, but "mother nature" does that too

 

[Cooky]

I reject your thesis. Your average animal has to deal with limits in the food supply. That also tends to put limits on the range of an animal, so many different animals can be at the top of the food chain.

Humans figured out a way around this when they came up with agriculture.

Well then how do you explain dinosaurs being at the top of the food chain, globally, for so long... They didn't have agriculture.

 

[SoyLeche]

Well then how do you explain dinosaurs being at the top of the food chain, globally, for so long... They didn't have agriculture.

Dinosaur isn’t a species. No species of dinosaur dominated like humans do.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Well then how do you explain dinosaurs being at the top of the food chain for so long... They didn't have agriculture.

Look at the size of them man. They were wicked huge.

I think you are confusing a position in the food chain with the position that humans have. It is true that, due to our intelligence and tool use, we are a top predator as well as a top consumer, but I do not know that either of those are prerequisites for global dominance.

 

[Nakosis]

If humans never came to be, what animal would have dominated the world? Because one animal has to be at the top of the food chain... And that animal will always overproduce - no escaping it...

Also, would the alternate animal have been more or less environmentally healthy, considering it's appetite, and what it would have eaten. Would the food chain have been altered for the better or worse?

...What about that animals waste? Would the planet be covered in feces? Because they surely wouldn't have waste management.

Our animal ancestors made choices which developed a larger brain. Homosapiens are just one branch among many. Other species are fairly well adapted to their environment so maybe wouldn't have to face the same choices mammals had to. Maybe from mammals a humanoid species is inevitable. So some other humanoid type species not particularly different from us. Or maybe none survived, Homospaiens made some random choices which allowed us to survive.

At any point could have made wrong choices which wiped out the species, still can.

Some maybe reptiles & insects would be around but I suspect the evolution of humanoids pretty unique.

Feces, no problem really. It's fertilizer basically. Humans have problems with it because of our choice of sanitation. Other animal sometimes even eat feces. Their immune system can handle it, ours can't anymore.

I suspect if not humans, some humanoid branch then just a bunch of reptiles and insects with not much more intelligence than what they have today. Intelligent life maybe a fluke.

 

[Father Heathen]

The only areas not inhabited by humans are on the outer fringes of the inhabitable zone. Basically no animals can live there.

We are at the top of the food chain. That's why our numbers are large. Likewise, the dinosaurs were too, and their influence on the world was likely similar to ours.

FFS I'm talking about undeveloped land like forests, jungles, swamps, the ocean, etc.

 

[Nakosis]

Well then how do you explain dinosaurs being at the top of the food chain, globally, for so long... They didn't have agriculture.

Probable would still be at the top if not for climate change.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Our animal ancestors made choices which developed a larger brain. Homosapiens are just one branch among many. Other species are fairly well adapted to their environment so maybe wouldn't have to face the same choices mammals had to. Maybe from mammals a humanoid species is inevitable. So some other humanoid type species not particularly different from us. Or maybe none survived, Homospaiens made some random choices which allowed us to survive.

At any point could have made wrong choices which wiped out the species, still can.

Some maybe reptiles & insects would be around but I suspect the evolution of humanoids pretty unique.

Feces, no problem really. It's fertilizer basically. Humans have problems with it because of our choice of sanitation. Other animal sometimes even eat feces. Their immune system can handle it, ours can't anymore.

I suspect if not humans, some humanoid branch then just a bunch of reptiles and insects with not much more intelligence than what they have today. Intelligent life maybe a fluke.

According to analysis of our genes, our species encountered a couple of bottleneck events that reduced our population to around 10,000 individuals as recently as 70,000 years ago.

Waste in natural environments is handled by nature. It is just our propensity to group up and over-reproduce that has lead to problems with waste handling. Not just bodily waste, but the waste that develops from a society of tool users and consumers.

Dung beetles have evolved to exist on the dung of a variety of vertebrate species. I am not sure that the OP is conceiving of the issue in complete sense of what occurs naturally.

 

[SoyLeche]

Our animal ancestors made choices which developed a larger brain. Homosapiens are just one branch among many. Other species are fairly well adapted to their environment so maybe wouldn't have to face the same choices mammals had to. Maybe from mammals a humanoid species is inevitable. So some other humanoid type species not particularly different from us. Or maybe none survived, Homospaiens made some random choices which allowed us to survive.

At any point could have made wrong choices which wiped out the species, still can.

Some maybe reptiles & insects would be around but I suspect the evolution of humanoids pretty unique.

Feces, no problem really. It's fertilizer basically. Humans have problems with it because of our choice of sanitation. Other animal sometimes even eat feces. Their immune system can handle it, ours can't anymore.

I suspect if not humans, some humanoid branch then just a bunch of reptiles and insects with not much more intelligence than what they have today. Intelligent life maybe a fluke.

I'm not an evolutionary biologist, but I don't think "making choices" had much to do with it

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Probable would still be at the top if not for climate change.

There are few authors of speculative fiction that have explored the idea of intelligence arising in the descendants of dinosaurs, sans the massive, rapid climate change of 65 million years ago.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

I'm not an evolutionary biologist, but I don't think "making choices" had much to do with it

I understood where he was going with his point, but that is correct. There would have been no conscious choice to develop larger brains. That was the result of selection on a varied trait.

 

[Nakosis]

I'm not an evolutionary biologist, but I don't think "making choices" had much to do with it

So, what I've read, the theory anyway, is that mammals started living in trees which provided some degree of safety which allowed them to sleep through the night. This extended period of sleep allowed the development of larger brains. So apes and chimps developed larger brains. One group decided to stick with the trees because they were safe but limited food supply. Another group decide to leave the safety of the tree. had to scavenge and broaden their diet, eating other animals and protein and fats. Further developing the brain.

Could have chosen not to go in trees, not to leave the tree later, no larger brain.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Well then how do you explain dinosaurs being at the top of the food chain, globally, for so long... They didn't have agriculture.

Were Campsognathus at the top of the food chain? What about Diplodocus, Brontosaurus, Triceratops and all the other plant eater?

Dinosaurs were a dominant group of vertebrates in size, numbers and diversity, but I do not know what you mean by top of the food chain? Everything dies, so bacteria, fungi, detritivores and saproxylic organisms would be numerically dominant over dinosaurs. In an acre of land there can be as many as 15 million invertebrates and enough bacteria to equal the mass of a couple of cows.

 

[Nakosis]

According to analysis of our genes, our species encountered a couple of bottleneck events that reduced our population to around 10,000 individuals as recently as 70,000 years ago.

Waste in natural environments is handled by nature. It is just our propensity to group up and over-reproduce that has lead to problems with waste handling. Not just bodily waste, but the waste that develops from a society of tool users and consumers.

Dung beetles have evolved to exist on the dung of a variety of vertebrate species. I am not sure that the OP is conceiving of the issue in complete sense of what occurs naturally.

From my understanding there were a number of catastrophic events that happened early in the history of earth, without which no life at all. It all seems pretty circumstantial the development of intelligent life. A rarity really. With upteen billions of solar systems, I suppose it was likely to happen somewhere.

A small change in our history, perhaps no intelligent life. We are here, so take it for granted a bit the development of intelligent life. Really though amazes me we made it.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

From my understanding there were a number of catastrophic events that happened early in the history of earth, without which no life at all. It all seems pretty circumstantial the development of intelligent life. A rarity really. With upteen billions of solar systems, I suppose it was likely to happen somewhere.

A small change in our history, perhaps no intelligent life. We are here, so take it for granted a bit the development of intelligent life. Really though amazes me we made it.

I know there have been attempts to determine the probability of intelligence evolving, but we have no evidence to test theory. Other than ourselves. It could be more common than we think, or less common. From the evidence we have, about all that we can say is that it is not probable that two different intelligent species of similar intelligence cannot evolve to dominate on the same planet. How many that may exist outside of this place is at best and educated guess.

We have to have developed intelligence just to be able to think about what it would be like not to be here or have evolved as we have.

Who knows what would have happened if the Chicxulub impact had not occurred. Maybe if you have evolution long enough, eventually intelligence will crop up. From a scientific standpoint, we got lucky. From the position of belief, we were ordained. Some beliefs anyway.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

If humans never came to be, what animal would have dominated the world? Because one animal has to be at the top of the food chain... And that animal will always overproduce - no escaping it...

Also, would the alternate animal have been more or less environmentally healthy, considering it's appetite, and what it would have eaten. Would the food chain have been altered for the better or worse?

...What about that animals waste? Would the planet be covered in feces? Because they surely wouldn't have waste management.

Most of your suppositions have very little to do with how nature works. There is no reason to suppose that only one animal has to be top of the food chain, unless you presume that disease can't kill off the top dog. You also mischaracterize animal waste, which is pretty generally recycled. It's only our human waste, non-biodegradable, that sticks around forever and poisons our world.