Agreed! Another case is when internet access to bank accounts requires installing an add-on supplied by the bank (a "security solution"). This has made me stick with FF 3.6. If it becomes unsupported, I will adopt Chrome or Opera as my main browser and use FF at most to access my bank accounts.

I totally agree with your last sentence!

When I said that intelligence is "not simply" another survival mechanism, I wasn't making a statement on its origin (I'm an atheist, I don't believe in ID), but only on how much more powerful intelligence can be, compared to other more basic survival mechanisms.

I don't agree, however, with the more general statement you made, implying that intelligence or behavior don't count as evolution, only biology does. I think evolution has no different rules depending on whether you get your competitive advantage from biology or from intelligence. The only thing that matters is if your genes are passed on, before you get killed.

So, I don't see a divide between the biological and cultural responses, when it comes to evolution. I just see layers upon layers, and evolution working not only on biological levels, but also on individual behavior, and colletive behaviour, to the extent that whole peoples or cultures end up being subject to the same rules of evolution vs. extinction.

I share part of your very rational rejection of anthropocentric views, but I cannot aggree that intelligence is simply another survival mechanism. If for nothing else, for breaking your axiom of "the faster you breed, the more quickly you can adapt". That could be true for purely Darwinian evolution, but intelligence and the passing of information or culture among individuals can take evolution to a higher level of (more than) Lamarkian evolution.

In other words, I think we adapted even quicker that plants, but putting on rad-suits or getting away from the area, and telling others about the danger. So, you see, sometimes our collective imagination and prejudices, as naive as they may seem, can still have significant logic.

But, of course, we shouldn't become too confident. The collective dumbness of many "simple" little plants is still showing new tricks to our individual and colletive intelligence.