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Extinctions by natural means are a part of life. Extinctions caused by man's carelessness and greed are an abomination on the planet. There is an interconnectedness that runs through life on this planet and when a species vanishes there are almost always implications however minuscule they may be.
For example, the Grey wolf was nearly hunted to extinction. That in turn caused a population explosion in the larger grazing animals like elk and deer as well as smaller prey. The elk in turn nearly ate the willows and other water loving plants into extinction. The birds who used those plants for food and cover started to disappear and mosquito populations thrived.
The Earth, it can be argued, is a delicately balanced organism. The web of biodiversity exists for a reason. Whether you subscribe to a higher power or just a lucky cast of the universal dice, it took a long time for all the right things to come together to form the environment in which we exist. Destroying any part of that web can have far reaching implications that we don't even understand yet.
Aren't humans natural? The dinosaurs, its postulated, were going extinct long before the asteroid that hit the earth 65 million years ago. Some explanation for that is that they over adapted to one type of climate, or had a mass viral outbreak due to their status as apex species. Now if they could think, you would equate that to "carelessness" because they didn't think their way out of the situation.
The Earth will be just fine, and if we kill things off that we need to survive, then we will die or adapt as a species. We are a natural part of this planets evolution. You can change your actions, but changing the actions of 6 billion other free thinking people is impossible for one person to do.
As far as i know - and I do - Homo sapiens are also a natural part of this world. As a matter of fact, we are one of the newest (in geological terms) species on the planet.
Now, please understand this: to assume that one species (besides man) does not cause another species to go extinct is showing a complete and utter lack of knowledge in biological systems. This has been going on for as long as there has been competition for resources 4 billions years ago, and will continue to occur long after another species puts us sapiens into the fossil record. So to say that it is unnatural for us human to cause extinctions is absurd.
Yes, we should be better stewards to the earth. Yes, we should metaphorically and literally clean up our act. But, please... let's lay off the hyperbole about us causing the earth's destruction, please.
Survival of the fittest. Humans are the apex predator on this planet,
Since when? Such a short blimp of human dominance doesn't justify the use of the word "evolution".
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We will continue to expand until we have no where else to go,
we don't have anywhere else to go.
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then we'll probably start looking for other planets to colonize. Thats just how we role. Its how evolution made us.
From standpoint of the cutting edge physics space colonization is pure fantasy, we have no ideas how to conquer space travel, we need to go outside of realm of the electromagnetic forces to achieve that and so far only cranks mastered "torsion fields" . Our chances to mimick yeast drowning in its own waste are much higher.
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Want to know why **** roaches and mice survive and evolve quickly? They have lots of babies, lots of generations, so they respond relatively quickly to genetic and environmental change. Its hard to get Panda's to breed at all, and they have one or two cubs per bear. Survival of the fittest. Some animals, even with human intervention, were just meant to go extinct. Maybe we'll go extinct, we aren't exactly the fastest changing species on the planet.
Since technologically armed humans tend to exterminate (or undermine) the most "competitive" species, the most useful species, the most aesthetically appealing species and so on, the language of fitness doesn't apply. Fitness to what environment exactly? A non-farmed specie well adjusted to a world teeming with locust minded humanoids must feed on human scraps, tolerate human made pollution and breed profusely, those are a must for a "fit" species. Sooner or later we'll degrade our environment to those species (if we'll not self-destruct before that).
Human hunters tend to kill the healthiest, the largest and the strongest animals. We kill the fittest, the weakest have better chances to survive. African elephant' gestation typically lasts around two years, yet there is remarkable shrinkage of elephant' tusks due to the strongest and largest elephants being killed by poachers looking for large tusks.
Last edited by RememberMee; 09-12-2013 at 09:18 PM..
I think from the standpoint of us being sad that a particular species is not around any longer it is sad, but I too wonder if it really makes any difference in the overall scheme of things. For example, the Dodo bird is extinct and as far as I can tell it hasn't affected the balance of nature a whole lot.
But yes, as humans we work to try to prevent plants and animals from no longer existing because it seems the right thing to do. It is just in our nature to do so.
But you missed my point, if tigers were already endangered, the deer would have to have had another predator or disease to balance the system up to that point. And barring mass hunting escapades or something drastic like that, a critical species, like fox or deer, won't go extinct by natural causes because there are too many of them to many places for one event to take them out.
How do I know that ecosystems haven't collapsed? Because collapse would entail that the ecosystem turned into bedrock. Short of bedrock, or desert, a damaged ecosystem will come back as a less productive version, albeit a still functioning one. Take for instance a large forest is clear cut. There will be grasses or something that will grow there after the deforestation. A grassland may not be as productive as a forest, but that doesn't mean the ecosystem collapsed. I live in Black Forest in Colorado. It was clear cut 90 years ago, aka a species was removed. Today it is once again a forest and is returning back to the state is was in before the clear cut, although the forest would be much less healthy if people didn't thin their trees.
Oh, and dinosaurs = mass extinction. I don't know why my other post got deleted.
No, I think I got your point. You forget that tigers have only been considered endangered for the past 40 years or so...this isn't long enough to truly measure the long-term effects of the change in population of prey species. How do you know that there isn't an over-abundance of deer in former tiger habitat? Indeed this has actually been observed. Yes, true, leopards or bears might benefit from less competition, but they are still not the same creatures, not as well adapted for preying on deer as the tiger.
Eco-system collapse like you're talking about - the complete destruction of the eco-system - is another matter entirely. A forest might appear like a thriving forest but be biologically quite 'dead.' You're confusing environment with eco-system, they're not quite synonymous.
Aren't humans natural? The dinosaurs, its postulated, were going extinct long before the asteroid that hit the earth 65 million years ago. Some explanation for that is that they over adapted to one type of climate, or had a mass viral outbreak due to their status as apex species. Now if they could think, you would equate that to "carelessness" because they didn't think their way out of the situation.
The Earth will be just fine, and if we kill things off that we need to survive, then we will die or adapt as a species. We are a natural part of this planets evolution. You can change your actions, but changing the actions of 6 billion other free thinking people is impossible for one person to do.
As far as we know, we're the only species capable of utterly altering the very nature of the entire planet. We hold life itself in the palm of our hands. Now this is either a unique event in the history of the earth, or divinely ordained. So even if you argued that us causing the extinction of others was technically NATURAL, wouldn't it behoove us to try and best preserve the earth for the plants, animals AND our species?
The argument that it's natural so it's perfectly acceptable is disengenious.
This is the way I think about this planet and various flora and fauna going extinct. How long before the balance of nature is so upset, it is too late for the current system to survive and we become a dead planet except for giant snakes, invasive sea life and nothing but rats and roaches on land. What will the mutations be like ?
And your view of a potential future wolrd is so extreme as to be the very hyperbole I was refering to earlier.
Every single organism on the planet is full of mutations. It's one of the very basic driving forces of evolution - changes in the DNA, which could lead to changes in the allele frequency, etc.
And what balance of nature? Again this shows a lack of understanding of basic ecology and environmental science. To talk about "balance" assumes a net static environment. Which doesn't exist. The environment, climate, tectonic plates, volcanism, and food webs, etc are all constantly changing, shifting, re-shifting - sometimes on a time-scale we can see, sometimes on a geologic scale. And to assume that one species can "upset" a non-existant balance to the point of a "dead earth" is ridiculous. It might be "dead" for our current species, but others will just step in and take over - like has happened for billions of years.
This earth doesn't exist to be our plaything and bend to our will. It's existence pre-dates of on an enormous order of magnitude and will continue long after our last fossils are destroyed by time.
As far as we know, we're the only species capable of utterly altering the very nature of the entire planet. We hold life itself in the palm of our hands. Now this is either a unique event in the history of the earth, or divinely ordained. So even if you argued that us causing the extinction of others was technically NATURAL, wouldn't it behoove us to try and best preserve the earth for the plants, animals AND our species?
The argument that it's natural so it's perfectly acceptable is disengenious.
Again, more hyperbole. We may be able to alter the planet for a small window of (geologic) time in the earth's multi-billion year lifespan, but we will not destroy the entire planet. It will bounce back with new species and food webs, eco-systems, etc, and move on. Wit out us, probably, but let's try not to take on airs. We are only important in our own heads.
As for holding life in our hands, I'd like to introduce you a few words: prions, antibiotic resistant pathogen, viruses - all of with outnumber us tremendously. And while we have methods of treatment and continuing research to fight against them, they will just evolve like every other organism in order to survive. And they will continue to kill us just as efficently as we kill others.
As for the argument that "natural" extinction is prefectly acceptable - I doubt anyone in here is actually using those words, but it's for more 'natural" than some are willing to accept.
But, still doesn't change the fact we should try to be better stewards.
Since when? Such a short blimp of human dominance doesn't justify the use of the word "evolution".
we don't have anywhere else to go.
From standpoint of the cutting edge physics space colonization is pure fantasy, we have no ideas how to conquer space travel, we need to go outside of realm of the electromagnetic forces to achieve that and so far only cranks mastered "torsion fields" . Our chances to mimick yeast drowning in its own waste are much higher.
Since technologically armed humans tend to exterminate (or undermine) the most "competitive" species, the most useful species, the most aesthetically appealing species and so on, the language of fitness doesn't apply. Fitness to what environment exactly? A non-farmed specie well adjusted to a world teeming with locust minded humanoids must feed on human scraps, tolerate human made pollution and breed profusely, those are a must for a "fit" species. Sooner or later we'll degrade our environment to those species (if we'll not self-destruct before that).
Human hunters tend to kill the healthiest, the largest and the strongest animals. We kill the fittest, the weakest have better chances to survive. African elephant' gestation typically lasts around two years, yet there is remarkable shrinkage of elephant' tusks due to the strongest and largest elephants being killed by poachers looking for large tusks.
It doesn't matter how short a time, we are the apex predator on the planet. T-Rex got eaten by other stuff sometimes, but they were still at the top of the food chain. Orca's eat Great White Sharks, but they are seen as top of the food chain. We evolved, we did it quickly, and we are at the top thanks to our large brains and a lot of luck, thats evolution.
We do have plenty of places to go. There are large swaths of land that are uninhabited. Not because they can't be lived in, but people don't want to live there because they are cold or dry. We also have the oceans to colonize.
I said we would go to space when needed. And necessity is the mother of invention.
How have we exterminated or killed off roaches and mice? We try, but we can't keep up with their birth rates.
Elephants are another prime example of a species who is going to die off, because they don't produce enough offspring fast enough.
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Originally Posted by timberline742
What things do we need to kill off to survive? And if we needed it to survive, how could killing it off be beneficial?
I didn't say we need to "kill things off to survive" I said if we kill the things off that we need to survive, then we would die. I give you, the honey bee.
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Originally Posted by The Postman
As far as we know, we're the only species capable of utterly altering the very nature of the entire planet. We hold life itself in the palm of our hands. Now this is either a unique event in the history of the earth, or divinely ordained. So even if you argued that us causing the extinction of others was technically NATURAL, wouldn't it behoove us to try and best preserve the earth for the plants, animals AND our species?
The argument that it's natural so it's perfectly acceptable is disengenious.
As far as we know, and actually we have far less impact on the climate then you might think. Most scientists believe climate change is happening, but the few that think its directly human related are actually pretty small, and there is little evidence of that.
Even if we nuked the entire planet, life would survive. It would take millions of years to develop the biodiversity we have today, but mass extinction events are prevalent throughout the Earths history. Humans, for all we have accomplished, are quite small on the map of time of the planet.
While I agree with your gist, I would say we know that algae is/was capable of this as well, as its rise led to the creation of the relatively oxygen rich environment of earth that led to other animals evolving. But yes, there are few other, if any, animal species that can manipulate the environment for our suiting like humans,
It was actually a major extinction event around the advent of Oxygenation of the oceans. We have found geologic examples of this, where bacteria and plant life created so much oxygen, that many creatures died. Those that survived learned to adapt. Oxygen lead to the evolution of much larger creatures, because methane, and some of the earliest atmospheric gases are quite simple, and its why simple bacterial life thrive on those. Oxygen was needed for more complex chemical reactions, which lead to more complex organisms, including ourselves.
The planet will be just fine without us, if/when we are gone.
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. Our chances to mimick yeast drowning in its own waste are much higher.
