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A lot of the discussion that I have read has stemmed from what Dennett has described as our ability as humans to synthesize what is around us. I have always believed prior to this that what makes us the most superior beings is our ability to recognize what evolution is. After scientific breakthroughs, debates, intense research and much forethought and afterthought, the process of evolution has become somewhat understood by humans and we can determine the "facts" (as Mayr would put it) behind the process. However, I stopped paying attention to what I was reading in Dennett when I came to realize that what makes us human - our use of language, our innate love of arts, our perception - and thus what makes us superior, is just what we see. We are so blinded that only we are what matters - for instance, that we are the only species using a complex language of words - that we fail to acknowledge or perhaps even comprehend what is around us. We don't understand what squirrels are doing when they chase each other, or what birds are saying to each other when they chirp incessantly. I believe that this anthropocentric attitude is our downfall - our failure to appreciate, let alone acknowledge, the organisms and species existing around us is what fosters our attitude that we are the most important event in the process of evolution.

With this in mind, I regress to the topic of our existence being a result of a series of random events. The more I think about it, the more I am actually put off by dismay at this idea. No, the earth wasn't created just so that we could exist. No, our destiny wasn't necessarily to take over the earth and develop into the major species. It just turned out that way because that's the way the evolutionary cookie crumbled, and I fail to see how that is a discomfort. I am put at ease knowing that I may not be here had an instance of minutia gone differently in the process of evolution thousands of years ago, something as insignificant as a pin dropping could have changed our existence as a race altogether; rather, the fact that it did not means that we beat incredible odds.