[extropy-chat] Animals

[Spike]

> On Sun, 8 Feb 2004, David Lubkin wrote:
> 
> > (a)  Migrate people and industry off-world, and turn the 
> > planet into a nature preserve...


Here's a thought experiment: imagine suddenly removing
all humans from earth but leaving it otherwise unharmed.
Would not that open a huge ecological niche into which
would rush some other beast?  Those who understand the
mechanisms of evolution, would that cause evolutionary
pressure for chimps, gorillas or bonobos to evolve sentience?  
Or would it actually remove ecological pressure, since humans
are actively selecting for intelligence in dogs, cats,
and perhaps to some extent primates?

spike