Why Special?

A response to a question a friend asked me a year or so ago.

Why Does the Human Think It Is Special?

One version of the story: ten to twenty billion years ago a particle with a density approaching infinity and a temperature in septillions of degrees began to expand. The history of the first ten-thousandth second of this expansion is poorly understood though most of the rules governing material interactions came to being in this period. The universe goes through several major existential epochs in its first second. The atomic age begins with the formation of hydrogen: a good 3.3 minutes later helium is first synthesized. A million years later galaxy clusters are condensing. A billion years later individual galaxies form. In one galaxy, one star among 100 billion forms 5 billion years ago. This star formed in the remnants of an earlier star. Most of the matter in our solar system comes from this star’s supernova. The Earth formed around four and a half billion years ago: exceptionally unique characteristics of this planet allowed it to harbor a most peculiar form of matter. Later life appeared; 550 million years ago complex invertebrates were ubiquitous. Four or five millions years ago hominids appeared. 200,000 years ago saw the advent of the modern human. Decades ago a historically unique variation of the 3 billion base pairs in the human genome came to being and took hold in the uterus of the human being’s mother. Months later the human being took its place among several billion cohorts.

this is what is up with this.