Because these are good questions, I'll answer some;
Physically weak
Humans are incredible long distance runners. We did a lot of hunting by "Chase it until it collapses"
9 months/15 years
Our brains take a loooooong time to mature, but it's worth it. We can plan ahead without relying on survival instincts, and we keep making amazing discoveries like fire and clothes
Great long distance walkers too. With some adaptation time, about anyone can walk about 30 km a day, for weeks. For proof, the tens of thousands of people of all fitness levels walking the Camino de Santiago de Compostela pilgrimage every year.
Proud to say I accomplished that! My dad trained a fair bit. I did like 1 10km walk the week before we started, and I finished the 800kms with no real dramas, except the first day which was a massive climb. After 5-6 days my body was totally accustomed to the task at hand.
(Super irrelevant to the post but it was an awesome experience and I would advocate anyone to undertake it, regardless of your thoughts on religion. I am not religious but did find it spiritual in a way. I did it about 6 years ago and still think about it every week.)
>developes precise eyes
>doesn't know where to put the blood vessels
>"fuck it, we'll put them in front of the receptors"
>blood vessels always visible
>"we'll fix it in post"
>actually works out
>MFW they have to add a blind spot for vessel/nerve management
Which, incidentally is about as much intelligence as it takes to "make a difference". Anon is here assuming you need an engineering degree to outsurvive a moose, when all it takes is "hey, if put bad potato underground many good potato come up later".
You make it sound like discovering agriculture is child's play. It probably was the brightest minds of the day who figured stuff like that out. It was revolutionary. The entire society had to be redesigned around growing enough good potato to get through a winter.
We spec'd for stamina, which turned out to be a hard counter to the current meta. We also have a flexible diet, fine motor control, excellent heat regulation, intricate vocalizations, and arguably best-in-class intelligence (although neanderthals did have larger brains, and other apes have better working memory).
But we are suffering from our success really. We were able to dominate even with an unoptimized build. So we have things like an appendix and other vestigial structures. Our spines are serviceable for bipedalism but are prone to developing issues and stress points. And our teeth don't last nearly as long as much of the rest of our body without frequent external maintenance. And our young take a very long time to develop, to the point the actual birth happens basically as late as possible without being a guaranteed death sentence for the mother rather than when the child is ready for the world. Also, humans have a tremendously high ratio of penis to total body mass among primates, making you wonder what kind of freak was behind our character creation.
I think thats a thesis that hasn't been properly peer reviewed (though it does have some clinical evidence), which is to say its not widely accepted as a reason for it to exist (but that that may be changing).
Female specimen bleeds once a month and is plagued by hormonal fuckery that makes life unbearable at times. Emotional regulation: hahaha fuck you. Physical discomfort: yessir. Terrible pain from cramps, hormonal migraines and other such hormone related pains: amazing. Acne, oily hair, skin, smelly sweat and bloatedness when hormones go brrrrr: cool.
Vag-hole too small to squeeze out baby head and will often rip open. If unlucky, female specimen will bleed to death after giving birth, leaving baby without protection and food source.
Female specimen only has a very small window to procreate and is most fertile when her brain is the least developed post puberty. When her brain is finally catching up in maturity, her body is starting to regress in fertility and getting pregnant is now a risk to her and the baby. Is somehow blamed and often punished for her biology literally fucking with her from the age of 9 to menopause.
I would fucking love if my biggest problem was that my reproductive organs were dangling between my legs and got a bit hot once in awhile.
I would fucking love if my biggest problem was that my reproductive organs were dangling between my legs and got a bit hot once in awhile.
i mean, men are historically pre-disposed to dying earlier than women. Though i wonder if that actually changes at all going back historically, so at least you have that?
Adam was made from clay. Eve was made from Adam's rib and had the audacity to eat some goofy apple. As punishment, all women were doomed to be in horrible pain during childbirth and since they were made from Adam's rib, they are also a man's property. Religion is so kind to us, lol.
That's one of the many reasons why I am a bigger fan of science. It makes more sense and is impartial. If anything, the laws of nature is brutally indifferent to who or what you are and will fuck you over or bless you at random. I can deal with that.
There's a lot of good, but the devs def screwed up with the whole shared breathing / eating tubing. But at least the playing ground is partially even, with other species also at risk of randomly dying from the simple act of food intake.
The most screwed up one is the octopus, for some reason that brains are below their mouths so the esophagus goes through their brain. If they eat something too big they can give themselves a concussion.
'What a piece of work is a man! How Noble in reason! How infinite in faculty! In form and moving how express and admirable! In Action, how like an Angel, in apprehension, how like a God! The beauty of the world, the paragon of animals—and yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?'
The OP kinda used bad faith arguments, so everyone is pointing out ways that humans excel. They have a good point however. Humans are not superior. We are not the best species. Just about every animal, insect, or parasite can kill us or seriously harm us. Our bodies are not resilient, and have about a thousand built in flaws. Our 'intelligence' just creates new dangers that kill us.
Humans are great in many ways, but we do not sit at the top of everything. We are great at what we do and that's it.
Edit: A lot of people aren't too happy with me talking about the human race in the light I did. The point of the comment was not to say humans are trash and weak. It's to say that we excel at many things, but we are still way behind other animals in many other ways. There is no one species that is the best. They all excel in many different and special ways. We aren't the best species.
A group of fit humans who know what they're doing can kill any animal on earth with sharp sticks.
This includes things like whales and woolly mammoths, which we hunted to near extinction or complete extinction using pointy sticks. Keep in mind that these animals were not only thousands of times stronger than a human, but the environments in which they lived were also completely alien to the one we evolved in. The ocean and the taiga can kill an unprepared human in just a few minutes simply by them existing in it, while the native animals are perfectly adapted to live there.
And despite all that we went onto their home turf and killed them all with pointy sticks.
Have you ever observed crows? They're very intelligent according to a lot of studies. If you observe them for some time, you'll notice how the intelligence gives them an edge. Basically, crows will try and steal from every other species around. Mostly food, but also other stuff they deem useful.
Now, with that knowledge, observe humans. The early humans also stole stuff from every other species. You could also argue that the most successful humans (in terms of wealth) also tend to steal everything, but that's beside the point, just view those as lagging in terms of evolution.
No species is the "best." Some are the best in certain aspects. Ours is the ability to manipulate our environment, which is also a double edged sword as we're now killing ourselves with climate change.