How Humans Evolved to Dominate Earth

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Video narrated and produced by Bryce Plank
Video editing by Robin West

Music:
"For Originz" by Kevin MacLeod, YT Audio Library
"All This - Scoring Action" by Kevin MacLeod, YT Audio Library

Script:
“Beginnings, it’s said, are apt to be shadowy. So it is with this story, which starts with the emergence of a new species maybe two hundred thousand years ago. The species does not yet have a name—nothing does—but it has the capacity to name things.

As with any young species, this one’s position is precarious. Its numbers are small, and its range restricted to a slice of eastern Africa. Slowly its population grows, but quite possibly then it contracts again—some would claim nearly fatally—to just a few thousand pairs.

The members of the species are not particularly swift or strong or fertile. They are, however, singularly resourceful. Gradually they push into regions with different climates, different predators, and different prey. None of the usual constraints of habitat or geography seem to check them. They cross rivers, plateaus, mountain ranges. In coastal regions, they gather shellfish; farther inland, they hunt mammals. Everywhere they settle, they adapt and innovate. On reaching Europe, they encounter creatures very much like themselves, but stockier and probably brawnier, who have been living on the continent far longer. They interbreed with these creatures and then, by one means or another, kill them off.

The end of this affair will turn out to be exemplary. As the species expands its range, it crosses paths with animals twice, ten, and even twenty times its size: huge cats, towering bears, turtles as big as elephants, sloths that stand fifteen feet tall. These species are more powerful and often fiercer. But they are slow to breed and are wiped out.

Although a land animal, our species—ever inventive—crosses the sea. It reaches islands inhabited by evolution’s outliers: birds that lay foot-long eggs, pig-sized hippos, giant skinks. Accustomed to isolation, these creatures are ill-equipped to deal with the new-comers or their fellow travelers (mostly rats). Many of them, too, succumb.

The process continues, in fits and starts, for thousands of years, until the species, no longer so new, has spread to practically every corner of the globe. At this point, several things happen more or less at once that allow Homo sapiens, as it has come to call itself, to reproduce at an unprecedented rate. In a single century the population doubles, then it doubles again, and then again. Vast forests are razed. Humans do this deliberately, in order to feed themselves. Less deliberately, they shift organisms from one continent to another, reassembling the biosphere.

Meanwhile, an even stranger and more radical transformation is underway. Having discovered subterranean reserves of energy, humans begin to change the composition of the atmosphere. This, in turn, alters the climate and the chemistry of the oceans. Some plants and animals adjust by moving. They climb mountains and migrate toward the poles. But a great many—at first hundreds, then thousands, and finally perhaps millions—find themselves marooned. Extinction rates soar, and the texture of life changes.

No creature has ever altered life on the planet in this way before, and yet other, comparable events have occurred. Very, very occasionally in the distant past, the planet has undergone change so wrenching that the diversity of life has plummeted. Five of these ancient events were catastrophic enough that they’re put in their own category: the so-called Big Five. In what seems like a fantastic coincidence, but is probably no coincidence at all, the history of these events is recovered just as people come to realize that they are causing another one. When it is still too early to say whether it will reach the proportions of the Big Five, it becomes known as the Sixth Extinction.”

-Elizabeth Kolbert, The Sixth Extinction (Prologue)

[Frankiigii]

Most unnatural thing about us is not that we can so severely alter the landscape, I feel like if it wasn't our species it would likely have been another, but that we have the capacity for foresight. And to some degree, the ability to forcibly change our behaviours. Kudzu can't choose to choke the like out of a tree or to be merciful and spare it.

[danb]

This vid is what It would be like an alien learning about humans

[Aamie]

Extinction is a natrual part of evolution and everything we do is a natrual because humans are animals just like other animals, so i don't think we're doing anything wrong because its all a part of the evolution

[bradistic]

I liked the 3rd person. Made me feel like an alien judging foolish humans, much like we judge foolish animals.

[michaeldaugustine]

This isn't the first time life has caused a mass extinction, it's only the first time a single species has caused one. Photosynthesis caused one of the great 5 mass extinctions by "polluting" the earth with oxygen, most organisms couldn't adapt to the toxic oxygen rich atmosphere.

[vmwindustries]

Fantastic video, I wish it was a bit longer.

[turtlesroast]

Ever notice that humans have this innate feeling of wanting are eventual downfall

[wolfrick]

I'm a simple man I see a giant sloth I click

[alexgatillofull]

Its scary to know what we are on a path to self destruction

[Chris]

We need to work on Globalization. Every county working together to become a better planet overall.

[fofo-fawan]

I really hoped that there are more people like you the earth was saved and there will no climate changes and no global warming and prevents endothermic change to the south and North Pole

[Orange_Laowai]

Do you plan to do a video on the inhabitants north sentinel island?

[treasuretrails]

Ate fish and chicken burgers while watching this, humans are unstoppable.

[colemanwalsh]

Um..Umbrella... humans not strong.... are you kidding me we have adaptations that help us throughout the years in our beginning. One of them being one of the strongest distant runners in mamal history

[Smoke-tfxk]

The fast answer is this: Humans used to evolve weaker in strength but more intelligent. Muscles mass from muscles was used to make human brain more powerful. We became smartest animals on Earth and that helped our civilization to rule over the world.

[Leon-nmwn]

You should do an update on the 10 new energy sources of the future video

[nobodyfromnowhere]

I personally think that we should take total control of planets climate and biosphere and finally put a period on the being a pinnacle of evolutionary process on this planet and begin expanding outwards.

[meepster]

What if we all evolved from one really complex chemical? Think about that, we may have used to been simple molecules.

[danbreckenridge]

you didnt even talk about farming? The birth of all organized civilization?

[phantompage]

This guy loves Islam yet contradicts things within the quran!