Mice, insects, spiders, snakes (even the non-venomous) are just some examples. Even if they stand no chance at hurting us, they make us uncomfortable to downright fearful. Why is this?
In: Biology
small animals are usually carriers of highly infectious diseases (black plague, etc.) and if you see a spider or a snake youre not gonna take a closer look to see if its venomous or not, so our instincts kick in and tell you to get the hell away from it to stay safe. we didn’t have antivenom or modern medicine back in our primal days, so we had to be extra careful of anything that might hurt us.
Because the food chain is more of a food web. Nothing actively predates us (at least now that bears and wolves have largely been driven extinct around places of civilisation), but we can still be defeated by the smallest of things – things so small they get inside us and eat us from the inside out: Diseases.
Mice and most insects are pests. When you can see these, it means there’s a lot more you’re not seeing, and if there’s a lot more you’re not seeing then you have some kind of infestation, and if you have some kind of infestation then there’s likely something unsavoury hidden somewhere you can’t see, like mouldy food. Insects also contaminate your non-mouldy food with any diseases they’re carrying, so we learn to associate insects with the possibility of our food now being bad.
A big part of what we find unnerving about animals is their unpredictability. The less predictable an animal’s behaviour is, the less we like it. Insects and spiders move very quickly and very erratically. That’s unnerving to us because it’s uncomfortable not knowing what they’re going to do. Snakes and other more dangerous animals don’t move as erratically, but they may attack us at any time. This isn’t going to kill us, but it can hurt like hell and they may carry diseases, so we find them unnerving because that sensation of unnerving-ness causes us to be careful around them – to avoid making them want to attack us.
They may not want to eat us, but they very well can hurt us. Ticks and mosquitos are both disease-carrying parasites. Many small creatures can be fairly poisonous or venomous.
They’re tiny and, for their size, very dangerous. There’s little benefit to tolerating them, so we don’t.
Well a snake or spider might not do much damage to you but you certainly don’t want to experience thatso you just avoid it. Which is common sense. It’s also subjective, some people aren’t afraid of bugs, others are.
Yes, humanity is an apex predator, no animal can seriously damage our numbers, or drive us to extinction.
But none of that helps *you.* Your basic imperative is to spread *your* DNA, and you can’t do that when you’re dead. Your instincts were made tens of thousands of years ago, when getting sick or injured was often a death sentence, and there were no treatments available. So humanity is inclined to be cautious or fearful around creatures that could cause those sorts of injuries.
*Maybe* this spider is harmless, but I don’t know, so let’s just avoid all spiders just be sure.
Now, venom and disease are largely treatable and most of those creatures are more of a nuisance than a threat, but you’ll need another 50,000 years to change your instincts on the matter.
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