The Spider And The Human

There once was a human and a spider. "Let's play a game," said the human. "Let's compete to see who the best inventor is." The human was very selfish and thought he was superior to the spider. "I'll play with one condition," replied the spider. "We'll decide who the best inventor is according to our genes." "Deal," said the human. He was sure he would win the game. "I'll start with something easy. I don't want to make the spider feel too bad," he thought. "I think I'm the greatest inventor here because my species figured out how to make fire." "Nice. But I think my genes are greater inventors because I don't need fire. My eyes are designed so I can see in the dark. I see you have glasses. According to that, you can't even see in daylight!" "Fine. Your eyes are better than mine. But what about my ability to hunt? My species has created amazing weapons. I can shoot a bird no matter how far away it is. As long as I see it with my eyes, I'll be able to hit it." "You poor human. We spiders have many effective ways of hunting too. We don't need a gun to hunt accurately. Some of us dig holes and cover them with dirt as traps. Others wait and catch bugs near by. There's also our web strategy which you're well aware of. Do you know how accurate we have to be? Do you know how fast bugs are? I believe in hunting, we aren't as bad as you think." "Yeah? Well try to beat this spider. We humans have created art masterpieces. We have amazing buildings, intelligent minds, and our kids go to school. I don't see you accomplishing any of these things." "First of all, my offspring don't need to go to school. Everything they need to know comes to them with time. Besides you're quite wrong. We spiders, are great in math, specially geometry. We spin delicate thread into webs; our greatest form of art. This is not only artistic and mathematic; we can move swiftly through the web and catch our food. I'm sorry human. I think I win." Idea from chapter thirteen of The Selfish Gene. Pages 238-9