To the extent that we accept this view, we effectively mistake ourselves for highly dimorphic animals such as peacocks or deer. - Steve Stewart-Williams

It may be the fate of the universe to spend an eternity in darkness, save one brief flash of self-awareness in the middle of nowhere.

As memetic evolution picked up steam, humans were transformed. No longer were we devices designed solely to pass on our genes. Suddenly, we became hybrid creatures, torn between passing on our genes and passing on our memes. This vision of our species helps to explain much of what most puzzled the alien scientist: our moral systems, our religions, our art and music and science. Cultural evolution is the key to unravelling the deepest mysteries of the human animal.

We like to think that reason is the supreme adaptation; that rational animals deserve preferential treatment; and that nonhumans, because they don’t have reason, have no intrinsic moral value. However, after Darwin, this is no different and no more convincing than, say, an elephant thinking that trunks are the supreme adaptation; that animals with trunks deserve preferential treatment; and that non-elephants, because they don’t have trunks, have no intrinsic moral value.