Hey -
This is a really stupid question and I'm sure that many people would laugh at the mere concept of it, but I would like to ask it anyway. If this isn't the right place to inquire, could someone point me in a better direction? I'm obviously new at this.
Anyway, here it is. So far as I understand it, bacteria (as a kingdom at least) is the ultimate form of life. Bacteria can live in every environment on earth and need almost nothing to survive. They reproduce at an amazing rate, mutating and evolving quickly - they adapt to everything. If there were a nuclear winter tomorrow, the last thing alive on this earth would be bacteria of some sort.
Ultimately, bacteria has the best survivability out of any organism on the planet (if that's not true, let me know). Now if that's the case, then why do any "higher" life forms exist? The sole purpose of evolution is to help organisms survive, right? At least, that's how I understand it; things mutate and if the mutation improves suvivability, it is passed on. Since bacteria is pretty much the pinnacle of survivability, it doesn't seem to make any sense to change... To evolve any further. They're already "perfect".
Since bacteria are fairly low on the evolutionary scale (being single celled organisms), there should be no such thing as "higher" organisms. Evolution would have just stopped there, when it had reached the epitome of survivability.
Yeah, I was just wondering.
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