So you think you're special just because you're human. Why is that? Oh, because you have "a soul" and other animals don't. That's your claim? Fine. Then show me the precise point in human evolution when your distant ancestors had  souls," but their parents didn't. The line of our descent goes back unbroken in time to amoebas. So, just when was it that "souls" appeared?

Let's say you're intellectually honest. You probably aren't. Few are. But let's say you are, and you agree that you cannot reasonably defend the conceit that people have "souls," but other life doesn't. You need a fallback, since you're so desperate to assure yourself you're "special."

"Only humans create great art," you tell me. "Only we can compose 'The 9th Symphony.'" Yeah? So what? As good as Beethoven was, a chorus of robins in early spring sound infinitely finer. Even our "great composers" sought inspiration in birdsongs.

We are not special. We are not somehow apart from Nature. We are not "unique." We are only different. In truth, looking at what humankind has wrought, a good argument could be made that our specie is inferior to all others.

"But we write poetry!" you object. It's not even an animal. It's not conscious at all. Yet a gorgeous sunrise says more than all your metered rhyme or free verse ever will.

Wake up before it's too late, before such ignorance and vanity kills us all. But then, you don't care. You believe, even now, as we madly destroy Nature, that something, somewhere, will drop from the sky and save us all, or at least the ones who've abandoned reason in favor of ancient fantasies. Why will this something or someone do this? Why does it care?

"Because I'm special!" you cry.