In as much as a dog cannot get beyond being a dog in terms of how it behaves and interacts with the world, similarly, when it comes to human beings – Homo sapiens -we cannot get beyond ourselves in the way we are in the world. In that sense we will always be limited by our ability to perceive the world and interact with it as well as with each other. Those limitations are determined by what we are; they define us and are a function of our genetic disposition as determined by our place on the phylogenetic tree.
Science tells us that Homo sapiens, the first modern humans, evolved from their early hominid predecessors between 200,000 and 300,000 years ago and began moving outside of Africa starting about 70,000-100,000 years ago.
And so I have this simple question: Preceded by Homo erectus and Homo neanderthalensis, do we have any reason to believe that we, Homo sapiens, are the end of the line when it comes to the evolution of the humanoid species?
To answer this in the affirmative is a little presumptuous, don’t you think? I can only speak for myself when I say that I don’t believe we are the finished product that evolution had intended us to be – and not by a long shot – and that it is entirely conceivable that we will be superseded by a superior edition of Homo sapiens . And they might well look back at the current edition of the species as Homo ignoramus or perhaps Homo perniciosus – given the amount of planet-wide environmental destruction our iteration of the humanoid species is leaving in its wake.