Anthropocentrism ought to be valued above biocentrism

I accept the definitions. To begin my arguments, I would like to refute my opponents points. My opponent offered the criterion of "ethical egoism. " He goes on to say that humanity has survived through so many eras of living. I would like to point out that us humans are, so to speak, the "new kids on the block," and that dragonflies, stupid as they are, survived since the beginnings of the dinosaurs. So based on his "ethical egoism," we should bow down befor the dragonflies. In a sense, you are saying that the so called "elders" of the world (dragonflies) should bow down to the new uneducated humans, representing the "baby. " I think this is quite a funny thought. As for his observations on "definition clash," I do not worry about this at all. In fact, what he is saying s completely unrelated to the topic. The topic is not "anthropocentrism and biocentrism are opposite. " Anthropocentrism simply means we should act to our own thoughts, because we are more prominent then the rest. What biocentrism means is that all species are equal and we, as humans, should not consider ourselves more than another specie. I do declare that that point was completely invalid. His quote to support his first contention is quite off compared to what this debate is about. He said that the "increasing amounts of Earth's biological and environmental resources that are being appropriated to sustain the human species. " Is this not what every specie is doing, from a tiger devouring its prey to a rabbit eating grass? There is nothing that suggests anthropocentrism. But what we are doing to the animals - not for our benifit, is animal cruelty, or anthropocentrism. We lock animals away in zoos, just for the money, not for the well being of the animals. I must bring in the example of the dodo bird. The dodos died out because as soon as they were found, zoos wanted them to be cramped into the cages. In fact, a small island that successfully bred the dodos was found and the dodo's living there were completely wiped out. Is this, as the "leaders of the world," moral? As I read his second contention, I realize that his reasoning is flawed. As the top-of-the-food-chain creature, we are allowed to use animals, as we can "devour" species as a lion devours its prey. This does not include, however, cramming them into cages and wiping entire species off the earth, as we did to the dodos. ANtibiotics made from organisms are simply for our survival solely, and its intentions are completely different than selling endangered animals' leathers, or poaching them and selling them illegally. This does not include killing off an entire species for our own entertainment or ambitions, as the dodo bird shows. His third Contention is that humans are the leaders of the world. This is completely innocent, but what a leader must do for the people is different than what we are doing. A leader puts his peoples' needs in front of his own. We are killing species for our entertainment! Again, we aren't talking about devouring animals, as all animals do that, but at least not taking the next step of arrogance and mistreating animals for fun! for entertainment! This leads to my example of the Roman gladiator battles. An entire mass of elephants and tigers were wiped out from Arrica that day- and to what purpose? FUN. We can easily survive without capturing animals- such as the Native Americans. They didn't cage animals. They still survived until Europeans came to America. Contention 1: Humans can not claim ownership for all the animals. On the moral perspective, we did not create the animals. They are simpy not ours to command. There are so many animals out there, some of which we didn't even know. How could us, humans, the new kids on the block, claim ownership to a majestic world that we don't fully understand. On the scientific perspective, we all evolved from one single cell. This puts us humans on the same platfrom as everybody else. WE have special traits- thats it. We cannot take advantage of this, and control our equals. Contention 2: Its natural for humans to be euqal. Europeans are normally the wasteful ones. For example, the cave men had cave paintigns of animals, and the Egyptians worshipped the cats. In both these circumstances, humans are not the dominant ones. We are the same as all the other animals. But Europeans invented the car, the gas usage, and we have been polluting the world. That's when this idea that humand were the "center of the world" spread. We made an excuse to cover up the fact that we were destroying the world. I look forward to the next round (BTW, this is my first debate. )