Very cool infographic from National Geographic - how many species have been identified, and how many do we think there are left to discover?So much for the ignorant right wing premise....expressed by Ann Coulter, back in October 2000:
More info: http://bit.ly/UJ75oj
The ethic of conservation is the explicit abnegation of man's dominion over the Earth. The lower species are here for our use. God said so: Go forth, be fruitful, multiply, and rape the planet — it's yours. That's our job: drilling, mining and stripping. Sweaters are the anti-Biblical view. Big gas-guzzling cars with phones and CD players and wet bars — that's the Biblical view.Take a look, reconsider; we're only one species on this planet. What is hazardous for those other species is ultimately hazardous for us, too. We share in many cases more than 90% of the DNA of other species of animals; and we share some >50% of the same DNA as bananas, and even higher percentages with other species:
Humans and banana trees share about 55% of the same DNA.
As you look farther back down the evolutionary line to things like bacteria, we share around 40% of their DNA. As you slowly get closer to humans, we begin to share more and more. We share over 60% of our DNA with insects, 75% of our DNA is identical to reptiles, most mammals have 90% of the same DNA as us, and we share 98% of our DNA with chimps, our closest relatives.And as the info-graphic notes - these are just the approximate percentage of the species we've discovered so far.