words from Looking at Life on Earth, 1967
image by OzzieSweet

What makes man stronger than any other animal? He has no tusks, no horns, and no armor. When he stands beside an elephant or a rhinoceros, he seems to be very weak. Yet man is the strongest animal that ever lived.

Without his own wings, man learned to build machines and fly higher than a bird. Without fins or a tail, man learned to build ships and travel farther on the water than fish. Man can kill a lion or an elephant or a whale. Man can beat all the other animals. Man is the strongest of the animals because he does not use just strength. He can think!

Man is master of the world because he is smarter than all the other animals. He can think with his brain and make things to protect himself.

Man does not have to stay in one place. He can change things around him to suit himself. He can move to another place and change it so that he can live there.

In the long history of plants and animals on this earth of ours, man has been here a very short time. Yet he is master of the earth today. But we must remember that man cannot live without the plants and the animals around him. From them he gets his food, his clothing, and his shelter. And to the plants and animals man has given care, food, and shelter.

We all live together in a world that is changing from day to day. What will man and the other animals and plants be like a thousand years from now?