Edward Kat IV, the greatest of the philosophers of our time, devoted much of his time to the study of lesser life forms, notably, the humans and dogs. As a result of his extensive studies on the subject, he proposed four theories about a phenomenon which he called "retroevolution." These theories, simply stated, are:

1. At some point in the far past, humans, dogs, and the like were well-developed animals whose intelligences were comparable to those of the modern-day Kats.

2. Due to some unusual processes, it happened to pass that the most intelligent of these beings became unfit for their environment and did not survive. The less intelligent of the dogs and humans survived and propagated, retroevolving into the senseless brutes we observe today.

3. This retroevolutionary process, having continued to the present, is very likely to continue into the future, producing humans and dogs with positions on lower and lower rungs of the intelligence ladder.

4. At some point in the future, the retroevolutionary process will come to an ultimate end and the dogs and humans will cease to exist for their utter stupidity and inability to compete with the well-developed, intelligent Kat race.

During the immediate years following Edward Kat IV's introduction of these theories, there was much disagreement with his findings. Today, however, his theories are accepted by the general scientific Kat community. As all observations seem to uphold his four theories, they are now established firmly in the science and biology books.

Edward Kat IV studied humans and dogs with minute detail in order to establish his four theories of retroevolution. Much of his material was gathered from observation of his pet human and his pet dog. He explains some of his observations in his large and monumental work, The Ultimatum of Species, in which he writes:

Perhaps the most aberrant behavior of my human is his obsession with paper. No other organism depends on this material for its survival as much as does the human being. Each community of humans has a designated member dubbed the "paperboy" who commutes each morning on a two-wheeled, sinister-looking apparatus and distributes tightly-rolled batches of papers to the other members of his community. He does this by riding the apparatus down the streets and throwing these paper-batches at the abodes of his neighbors.

In response to this puzzling action, the humans step out of their homes, collect the batch from the ground where it has been deposited and step back into their homes. What is equally difficult to comprehend and explain is what ensues within their homes.

While engaging in the activity of eating their morning meal (humans elect to carry out their activities in the unpleasant heat and brightness of daytime), they proceed to unroll the batch of papers and to separate its various layers until the entire roll has been dismantled into its smallest components. At times, the humans peer over these sheets, which are covered with unintelligible markings and occasional illustrations of other humans engaging in strange activities. Once this process is complete, the humans gather these sheets together and compress them into a large crumpled ball. They deposit this ball in one of several tall receptacles located in stratetic areas of their homes.

Once these receptacles are filled to their capacity, their contents are removed and placed at the edge of the street outside their homes. Other humans in large vehicles arrive, gather these packets of papers, and drive away.

There is no explanation for this behavior. It may be due to the intelligence restrictions of these beings.

Yes, the frequent use of paper by humans bothered Edward Kat IV the most. He conducted various experiments with humans and paper. In one experiment, he temporarily suspended the supply of paper to his human. Much to his surprise, his human ceased to function normally and had difficulty carrying out any of his daily activities. Once the supply of paper was restored, the human immediately returned to his normal daily cycle.

In another experiment, the human's entire collection of papers was completely rearranged in a random pattern. When he became aware of this reorganization, the human threw a fit of rage as he tried vainly to restore the papers to their proper order. The task, however, was beyond his ability and therefore Edward Kat IV took it upon himself to reverse the effects of the experiment. Once this task had been accomplished, the human became pacified and happy.

In a third experiment, a book (a bound volume of papers) that the human used frequently was removed. The human searched his entire home several times over for the book. Unable to find it, he left his home and returned later with a perfect duplicate of the removed book.

These three experiments, and the many others that Edward Kat IV carried out, strongly reinforced the theory that humans cannot survive without their precious papers.

Edward Kat IV was certainly a Kat devoted to his profession. He spent many a sleepless hour studying his human and dog subjects. While humans displayed a love of paper, this trait was not shared by the dog species. Rather, the dogs seemed to be profoundly obsessed with bones. Edward Kat IV writes in his Ultimatum of Species:

It seems that the obsession with paper exhibited by the human species is in a way paralleled by the dog's love for bones. In short, humans consume only soft meat, leaving behind all bones and other hard components. These items they present to their dogs, who slobber and pant as they devour the bones, sometimes without even chewing them. The sight of this consumation is grotesque and uncivilized; quite repulsive.

At times, it happens that a bone is simply too large for a dog to consume. Rather than rejecting the offering, the brute buries the bone underground outside of his human's abode. There seems to be no point in this action, since the dog never reclaims it from the ground. Whether this process has a positive effect on the cultivation of the soil is as of yet not known.

Edward Kat IV often commented on his perplexions to his close colleague, Dr. Ludwig von Kat. Dr. Ludwig did not know what to make of the information presented to him by Edward Kat IV, but he did propose one astouding theory. Dr. Ludwig wrote in a letter to Edward Kat IV:

In response to your concern as to the unexplained process of bone-burial by dogs, I wish to propose the following explanation: the dog, wishing to save the bone for a later meal, buries it underground where he can later easily find it. However, you must take into account the utter stupidity of the creature; soon after he buries his bone, he forgets about the incident, and so the bone remains in the ground unless it is by chance unearthed in the course of another burial.

Edward Kat IV also noticed the extent of the human being's pitiful helplessness. Edward observed that the human's food required extensively complex processing prior to consumption. He also realized that, due to the poor construction of the human body, the human had to clothe himself in strangely-colored garments of varying shapes and sizes. He also noticed that humans had such undeveloped eyesights that they required artificial lighting in areas anywhere short of bright.

Furthermore, Edward Kat IV became aware of the fact that humans were unable to withstand environmental changes and had to live within laboriously-constructed abodes. He noticed that because they posessed such poorly-insulated bodies, they required a source of heat on colder days. Some humans discovered the mysterious process by which ordinary matter such as wood and paper could be converted into heat, leaving behind a dustlike substance. Each winter, Edward Kat IV observed humans consuming vast amounts of organic material, which through their incineration process they converted into the dustlike substance.

In his great, aforementioned work concerning the odd creatures we call humans, Edward Kat IV commented briefly on an elaborate apparatus used by the human for seemingly trivial pleasure. Kat IV writes,

The apparatus is elaborate indeed, consisting of a tall, plastic structure with a display area and a touching device. The human spends hours at this contraption, randomly pressing various buttons on the touching device. The machine responds to these stimuli by displaying strange markings and pictures on its display screen. These displays often engross the human being to the point that he stabs the buttons with great force. At times the contraption also emits hair-raising noises, to which the human answers with shrieks and laughs.

Perhaps we Kats shall never be able to peer inside the mind of a dog or a human to learn all that there is to be learned about these queer creatures. The laborious works of Edward Kat IV, however, have given us some insight into the laws of behavior that they follow. Perhaps a greater understanding of the lower organisms shall stem from the present day's ongoing research in this field.