HUMAN LONGEVITY: IS THE JURY STILL OUT?

What is the meaning of human life?  My answer is that human beings (Homo sapiens sapiens) are an experiment by nature to see if an animal capable of rational thought can survive and that the jury is still out on that. Perhaps you say that human beings will be around for a long time.  But that is in a human time frame.  In geological terms, we are still at the beginning of the beginning.  The genus Homo originated only about 2.3 m.y. ago.  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human)  Can we even make another million years?

Consider the cockroach which has been around for 350 m.y. and you will see what I mean. (https://mail.google.com/mail/?shva=1#inbox/13ee3c8f4ee1fd94?compose=13ee7c4b633889c9)  The horseshoe crab has been around even longer at 445 m.y. (http://www.wisegeek.org/what-is-the-oldest-living-animal-species-on-earth.htm#slideshow)  If you want to go beyond major animals, the longest living thing is probably the cyanobacteria at 2.9 b.y. (billion years). and jelly fish are no slouch at 505 m.y. (http://www.ranker.com/list/the-top-10-oldest-living-things-on-earth/analise.dubner?format=SLIDESHOW&page=1)  Even sturgeon have been around for about 200 m.y.

And remember the next time you are eating chicken, you are eating a dinosaur. (http://www.amnh.org/explore/science-topics/birds-are-dinosaurs)