Posts: 1,119
Threads: 57
Joined: Mar 2013
We should perform triage and allow some species to die out, because of 1) the extreme cost of saving them and 2) evidence that they do not play a critical role in their ecosystem.
This N.Y. Times article focuses heavily on Hawaii and lays out the issue well.
Better for researchers to spend time on pressing projects like
Rapid Ohia Death than to try to save some of Hawaii's obscure birds and snails, IMO.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/13/magazine/should-some-species-be-allowed-to-die-out.html?hpw&rref=magazine&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region®ion=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well
Posts: 1,858
Threads: 46
Joined: Apr 2015
Posts: 4,150
Threads: 93
Joined: Mar 2014
Species have come and gone with or without people involved.
Maybe our "saving" of any particular species will have a drastic unintended consequence in the future.
Posts: 2,151
Threads: 73
Joined: Mar 2007
Humans have shown a tendency at times to try to save the "cute" species such as pandas while not paying attention to more practical ones such as obscure insect crop pollinators. Fortunately, this seems to be changing.
Posts: 7,696
Threads: 681
Joined: Jun 2011
"Of all species that have existed on Earth, 99.9 percent are now extinct."
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/extinc...nt_03.html
Posts: 2,481
Threads: 10
Joined: Feb 2008
The dino-killing asteroid that hit the Yucatan Peninsula 66 million years ago was natural but I would do almost anything to avoid a repeat. So would all the rest of you. I have never accepted the "It's natural" argument, usually because it rarely is true but even so...
Posts: 1,402
Threads: 11
Joined: Oct 2016
quote:
Originally posted by leilanidude
Species have come and gone with or without people involved.
Maybe our "saving" of any particular species will have a drastic unintended consequence in the future.
Yeah, but they're going a lot faster with humans involved. Look up "6th mass extinction". It's likely that our "not saving" some of the particular species will have undesirable consequences for us in the future.
Posts: 10,066
Threads: 343
Joined: Apr 2009
"Darwinism works for me."
Darwin never really considered how humans would affect evolution. Evolution happens, sure, but we are changing things far too quickly for nature to handle things as it used to. We're intelligent enough to know this, but some of this so-called intelligence wants to make our island and the rest of the world uninhabitable in a couple of hundred years. In a way, I guess that really is Darwinism in action - we are killing ourselves.
Posts: 10,847
Threads: 744
Joined: Sep 2012
Maybe our "saving" of any particular species will have a drastic unintended consequence in the future.
...
some of this so-called intelligence wants to make our island and the rest of the world uninhabitable
Yes. What if humans "kill off" a particular species due to our extensive impact on the planet and atmosphere? A species that would not otherwise die out? Isn't it possible the human induced extinction of that species could have drastic unintended consequences for the future?
I said, ‘Wrong, Justin (Trudeau), you do.’ I didn’t even know. ... I had no idea. I just said, ‘You’re wrong.’ - President Donald J. Trump, 3/14/18
"I'm at that stage in life where I stay out of discussions. Even if you say 1+1=5, you're right - have fun." - Keanu Reeves
Posts: 4,150
Threads: 93
Joined: Mar 2014
What if humans "kill off" a particular species due to our extensive impact on the planet and atmosphere? A species that would not otherwise die out? Isn't it possible the human induced extinction of that species could have drastic unintended consequences for the future?
----------
What if "some species" kills off humans?
What is the difference?
