Human Superiority. Man is the most intelligent species on the planet etc...

I will address it in order that is presented, since I believe that any organizational structure in our arguments has been lost, though I will try to organize as best I can without getting things too mixed up. 1) Increase in average life expectancy. My opponent breaks this into three parts. A) Rich vs Poor living conditions, B) New Diseases, and C) Ancient Egypt. A) Is easily shown to be meaningless, since the average life span of the poor has increased as well, while not as much as the rich, it is still increased [1]. Some reasons for the gap increasing is because the poor are more likely to smoke, heavily drink, and use hard drugs. B) First, It is a logical fallacy to compare 1930 USA to 2010 Third World Countries, so that can be tossed out. Talking about "stronger" diseases, this is simply false. They are not stronger, merely different. Every year, a new flu virus forms, it is not some "stronger" virus, merely a different strain that the old vaccines will do nothing against. The reason that we are finding new diseases is because we are finally living long enough to get them. Back in the day, there was no Dementia or Alzheimer, simply because no one lived long enough for those conditions to develop. Likewise, cancer was extremely rare because you wouldn't live long enough for it to take root. C) An "ideal life span" has nothing to do with the reality of the average life span. True, my opponent can point to a single being in ancient time that is believed to lived 100 years old (some scholars believed it was only 70 years old, based on that he was not mentioned in those last 30 years anywhere, just seemed to disappear and 30 years later, someone else was pharaoh), while the actual nation was about half that. 2) Animals living in multiple locations. My opponent is distorting the argument by taking it out of context before addressing it. Obviously we are not talking about different, yet similar locations. We are talking about the different extremes. From round 2, ". .. from the depths of the bottom of the ocean to the peak of Mount Everest. Or from the Poles to the Equator," and round 3, ". .. all corners and all climates on this planet. .. " My opponent then goes on to make that exact same mistake as last round. My opponent does not list a species but families and classes. This would be like arguing that Michael Jordan is the best basketball player of all time and pointing to his average points per game, 38.3, and my opponent saying the Portland Trail Blazers averaged 97.2 points per game just this last year, so they are better. It's a bad comparison and dishonest. If animals could survive anywhere they wanted, as my opponent claims, then none would go extinct (unless, of course, they wanted to). 3) Rocket engines are destroying the atmosphere. This one is getting horribly off topic. I will be more than happy to debate the net benefits or harms of space travel and rocket engines or probably any other form of modern tech (like nuclear power), however, whether it is a good idea has no bearing on if it is Intelligent. The word my opponent is actually looking for is "wise. " Again, I would disagree with my opponent, but that is for another debate. Regardless of that, being able to do it is a clear sign of a high degree of intelligence which no other animal has. 4) Evolution vs Intelligence My opponent is correct. Our thumbs are not a form of our intelligence, they are not our creation, but the creation of evolution. However, what we have done with them, does belong to us and the intelligence that we've demonstrated with these tools called thumbs are all for us. My opponent later goes on to say, "all things productive should be considered Intelligences and destructive actions as stupidity. " This is a perverse definition of the word. As provided in round 1 (and never challenged until now, round 4), intelligence is (which 3 links to different dictionaries), "the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and/or facts. [2]" 5) Understanding the planet. My opponent states that "Salmon and Turtles find their way over 100,000 km. " Unless they are going in circles for over 84,000 km of that, then this number is not true (the circumference of the Earth is only 40,000 km [3]). Actually, Salmon only travel 4,000 km [4] (and many of them don't even travel 1,000 km) and Turtles (namely the Leatherback Sea Turtle, the current record holder) only travels 16,000 km [5]. When it comes to predicting weather, humans have been able to do it far more accurately than animals. We can see hurricanes coming long before animals (we just simply choose not to get out of the way). That is thanks to our satellites in outer space. We can see where a hurricane will hit, when it will hit, and how hard it will hit. While animals know that winter is colder and rainier than summer, so does everyone older than 4. My point about humane killings is completely ignored. While only a handful of the 7+ billion humans on Earth are pointed to as inhumane killings (Private Contractors), while entire industries are shown to go to huge extremes to allow for humane killings (pretty much every animal farming industry in developed nations, executions, animal hospitals, etc) while no animals do such a thing. They ALL kill without regard for other life (sure, some may be worse than others by playing with their food before killing them, but none make a conscious attempt to kill with minimal harm). As we approach the end of this round and get ready to move to the final summary round, I find it comical that my opponent near demanded that I ask them questions in the last round and in this round, they don't bother to answer them, so I shall re-ask them now and hope for an answer. My opponent stated that "The building will never be better shelter than the cave. " I must then ask, does my opponent live in a building or a cave? My opponent also stated, "The betterment of our species is merely a side effect [of technology] which barely occurs. .. " I must also ask if my opponent is debating on a piece of technology and if they believe that technology, which they voluntarily choose to use, is a net positive or net negative for our species? Now, in closing for this round, I would like to remind everyone of the title of this debate, "Human Superiority. Man is the most intelligent species on the planet etc. .. " My opponent made their opening argument (and only argument in R1) under the sub-title of "Man is the Most Intelligent Species on the Planet. " It was clear from the OP that this debate would be about the intelligence of man vs other species. I thank everyone and look forward to the final round. [1] . http://www.cbo.gov... [2] See Pro, R1, Paragraph 3. [3] . http://geography.about.com... [4] . http://www.fws.gov... [5] . http://www.seeturtles.org...