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The Forum > Article Comments > The case for re-naming the human race > Comments

The case for re-naming the human race : Comments

By Julian Cribb, published 22/8/2011

It is time the human race had a new name. The old one fails to reflect our wisdom when it comes to the environment.

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Excellent article thanks Julian. Given that population growth has contributed to species extinction, carbon emissions and global warming, ocean acidification, food insecurity, the manufacture and release of toxic chemicals and the illnesses they cause, nitrogen and phosphorus pollution of rivers and oceans, loss of fisheries, soil erosion and degration, pollution and depletion of groundwater and surface water, peak oil, scarcity of mineral nutrients, energy shortages, and the nuclear threat, may I suggest that Homo sapiens sapiens be renamed Homo fecundus stultus (fecund, stupid man) or even Homo fecundus stultissimus (fecund, very stupid man)
Posted by popnperish, Monday, 22 August 2011 9:06:15 AM
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Renaming homo sapiens?

Well, who developed the nuclear weapons, pollution belching cars and power stations, synthetic chemicals, oil wells, artificial fertilizers etc?

Nearly all has been developed by people in the science area, and almost all of whom were educated in universities.

Renaming universities or renaming science would be more appropriate than renaming homo sapiens.
Posted by vanna, Monday, 22 August 2011 9:10:12 AM
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Vanna

You're mostly wrong. These nasties were either developed by the military-industrial complex or by profit-oriented businessmen. Meanwhile the universities and research centres produced a whole lot of goodies like penicillin. But we're all implicated. Man as a whole is wrecking the planet and we have to turn the situation around.
Posted by popnperish, Monday, 22 August 2011 9:22:32 AM
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One can listen to Julian Cribb's Science Show version of this article, which aired yesterday: http://tinyurl.com/3av5l8f
Of course the Pangloss's of OLO will dismiss Cribb's round-up of modern anthropogenic destruction as hysterical, or they'll rationalise it in geological and fatalistic terms; this is a sub-species of homo sapiens I fondly call "minimifidianists". For the species overall, what's the Latin for "idiot savant"?
Posted by Squeers, Monday, 22 August 2011 9:23:46 AM
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I think Homo accumsan will do nicely. It doesn't matter who did the inventing, who did the weaponising, it's who does the CONSUMING. And the dominating species on the planet are consumers. The human section of those are the ones doing it without regard. That does imply an anthropomorphic characteristic to species that consume things but do it in balance, but it fits the dominants amongst us.

If the subsisting part of the human race is offended, we can devise a sub-species name for the human dominants.
Posted by renew, Monday, 22 August 2011 9:36:24 AM
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I agree that some of the posters have many reasons to think themselves as 'stupid'. However if one understands the history of this planet you would find that before the evolution of those we call homo sapiens there were many changes caused by living beings that impacted the environment significantly more than we can imagine.

In the Proterozoic era, single celled organisms produced a huge amount of a waste product (known as oxygen) which would have caused mass extinction of the majority of existing life on earth. However these mass extinctions also resulted in the proliferation of many species that exist today. The same proliferation of species followed the mass extinction event that wiped out the dinosaurs.

The point I am making is that our effect on the environment should not be judged by our effects on irrelevant ecosystems, rather we should judge our success as a species based on our continued survival. While many may point out the negative aspects of our existence I believe you 'cannot see the forrest for the trees'. At no point in human history have we had it as good as we do now. Life expectancy, quality of life and the proliferation of our numbers (often used as a negative) all suggest that we are more successful than ever.

I agree that as a species we also collectively have some negative effects on our future chances of survival, and I am not denying that many of the points the author makes are valid. However we are 'only human', and we will be judged by future generations - which will exist because we are such a successful species.
Posted by Stezza, Monday, 22 August 2011 9:48:47 AM
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