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ARTE · Natural scienceCurated

An overrated species: Humans lose their place at the centre

Summary

Franck Courchamp and Clément Morin set human intelligence, inventions and importance against the scales of evolution, biodiversity, Earth’s history and the universe. ARTE produced the French series in 2018. The German TV premiere began on 14 October 2019.

Ideas

  • Human history covers only a tiny fraction of Earth’s entire history.
  • Other species solve complex tasks without human language or technology.
  • Many human inventions adopt principles that have already proven successful in nature.
  • Our civilisation remains completely dependent on ecosystems, water, air and food.
  • Technical effectiveness proves neither biological superiority nor cosmic importance.
  • Changing scales correct our species’ intuitive overestimation of itself.

Insights

  • Centrality is often a human narrative and not a property of nature.
  • Dominance and dependence can exist at the same time and even reinforce each other.
  • Humility towards natural systems supports responsibility more than self-contempt does.

Quotes

  • Und die meisten Erfindungen des Menschen sind von der Natur abgekupfert. (“And most human inventions are copied from nature.”) – ARTE

Habits

  • The documentary does not describe any personal routines of a single protagonist.

Facts

  • Clément Morin and Franck Courchamp directed it.
  • The series combines animation with biological and geohistorical comparisons of scale.

References

Critique

  • The pointed comparison uses selected scales and is itself a narrative perspective.
  • Comparisons of intelligence across species depend heavily on tasks and evaluation criteria.

Remarks

  • The provocative title does not deny human abilities but puts our claim to sole importance into perspective.
  • The official ARTE page offers individual parts, while the YouTube link shows the full version.

Recommendations

  • Check impressive figures against current scientific sources and definitions.
  • Also assess technical solutions by their dependence on living systems.
  • Use biological models without reducing their complex relationships to single effects.

Watch the documentary on YouTube

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