Thread: Bio Rant

Probably contains a few misconceptions.

Now that humanity has evolved with all its attributes of intelligence, the world is undergoing massive ecological & environmental upheaval. The two go hand in hand. Many things we do have changed the environment for the life we share the planet with. Can we look at all the species that have gone extinct since mankind took over as merely collateral damage from our arrival. Man is a product of nature, endowed with Earth changing power, so it shouldn't be surprising that unless a species is equipped to deal with us that they go extinct. What I'm trying to say is: Although we feel responsible for all that's happened recently in the biosphere Earth, well, is that not nature taking its due course? Naturally, when you can't cope to survive, you die. I, like many people, don't wish it but it does seem like extinctions are an inevitability. This is what happens when one species dominates a planet, either conform to them or die.

It's not the fault of species who just happen to lack the adaptive ability to live amongst us, so is it really our responsibility? Hell, are we not just following a path that was forged millions if not billions of years ago? The fact that we are taking note of the consequences of our actions may help save some species but all in all there are more extinctions on the way. Our being here is a natural result of the evolutionary process. Nature will remain as it is, it won't change to suit us. Eventually we may be held accountable by it. If that happens then we will be the ones unable to cope and thus perish. Doomsday prophets may have a better grip on what might happen to us but it will be natural. It's like we think we know everything about nature but might not be even close to realizing what it can do.

When an elephant has knocked down the last tree on a savana does it look back in regret?

Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie,
O, what a panic's in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty
Wi bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee,
Wi' murdering pattle.

I'm truly sorry man's dominion
Has broken Nature's social union,
An' justifies that ill opinion
Which makes thee startle
At me, thy poor, earth born companion
An' fellow mortal!

I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve;
What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!
A daimen icker in a thrave
'S a sma' request;
I'll get a blessin wi' the lave,
An' never miss't.

Thy wee-bit housie, too, in ruin!
It's silly wa's the win's are strewin!
An' naething, now, to big a new ane,
O' foggage green!
An' bleak December's win's ensuin,
Baith snell an' keen!

Thou saw the fields laid bare an' waste,
An' weary winter comin fast,
An' cozie here, beneath the blast,
Thou thought to dwell,
Till crash! the cruel coulter past
Out thro' thy cell.

That wee bit heap o' leaves an' stibble,
Has cost thee monie a weary nibble!
Now thou's turned out, for a' thy trouble,
But house or hald,
To thole the winter's sleety dribble,
An' cranreuch cauld.

But Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men
Gang aft agley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!

Still thou are blest, compared wi' me!
The present only toucheth thee:
But och! I backward cast my e'e,
On prospects drear!
An' forward, tho' I canna see,
I guess an' fear!

We may just be the most adaptable species to ever roam this earth.
Is regret a new emotion?

With intelligence comes rational thought. With rational thought comes the ability to develop a system of morality and ethics. Other organisms can be excused for any ecological destruction that they cause because they are not rational-ethical beings. I don't think we ourselves, as rational-ethical beings, can play that card. If you know something is harmful and destructive to others, then why do it? Saying it's just natural is a poor excuse in my opinion.

Natural? I would think that when you dump billions of tons pollutants that are man made you are not being "natural" in doing so. Same with hunting animals with guns to kill them for "sport" that again isn't a "natural "act. Whenever man made products, unlike natural ones, are used there's always a bad result with contamination from those products entering the food chain and eventually ending up in humans bodies one way or another.

Trying to use renewable energy, renewable food sources and controling the pollution so that there isn't any to harm nature would be a better way to go about things but instead humans many times try to enhance nature by modifying it to suit whatever humans needs might be. Humans can find ways to be better caretakers of this planet but onlt if many of them demand that to be done.

demand nothing
lead by example

I like this idea. Not just because it passes the blame, so to speak. The question of where the natural to man-made/ unnatural divide is located is a difficult one in a way. It might not even exist, depending on how you want to answer it. In response to Cosmictraveler, I would still call mass pollution or hunting using machinery natural. I think that it would be impossible for us to do anything unnatural really as we are ourselves a product of nature. Just because something is seen as negative or has a negative repercussion on the world, it does not make it unnatural, as long as nature is doing it. We are just horrible weird products of nature. A volcano eruption, an asteroid collision, or the inevitable expansion and death of the sun are all unpleasant events that are completely natural.Excuse me if this may read badly but I am typing on my phone and it's making scrolling back, proof-reading and editing rather laborious. Also, my points may be wrong of course.

Originally Posted by Gritty

I like this idea. Not just because it passes the blame, so to speak. The question of where the natural to man-made/ unnatural divide is located is a difficult one in a way. It might not even exist, depending on how you want to answer it. In response to Cosmictraveler, I would still call mass pollution or hunting using machinery natural. I think that it would be impossible for us to do anything unnatural really as we are ourselves a product of nature. Just because something is seen as negative or has a negative repercussion on the world, it does not make it unnatural, as long as nature is doing it. We are just horrible weird products of nature. A volcano eruption, an asteroid collision, or the inevitable expansion and death of the sun are all unpleasant events that are completely natural.Excuse me if this may read badly but I am typing on my phone and it's making scrolling back, proof-reading and editing rather laborious. Also, my points may be wrong of course.

Yes humans are doing what is in their nature to do and all those animals that we call pets are doing better than they ever did in the wild. But I do believe we need to do more as a species to maintain our biosphere so it won't impact us in a major negative way. But humans have a nasty track record of not doing anything until the body count demands it.

PS- Welcome to the forum.

Originally Posted by Bad Robot

... ... But I do believe we need to do more as a species to maintain our biosphere so it won't impact us in a major negative way. ...PS- Welcome to the forum.

To my understanding we as a species only act(if you believe jung) with a collective unconscious.

so I would rephrase that thusly:
we need to do more as individuals to maintain our biosphere so it won't impact us in a major negative way

(shades of the Camus x Sartre division) (anyone wanna guess with whom I stand?)

Yes Humanity is this epoch's giant meteor. Future archeologists will marvel at the fossil evidence of the great biologic bottle neck and extintion that occures coincidently to the bloom of humans in earths biosphere. They will no doubt ponder the relationship between the two.

It's not the nicest thought, that we may be part of an inevitable and potentially excusable line of behaviour. However what may happen to us could just be a vastly scaled up and more catastrophic version of the "natural" population fluctuations that are seen in other species. I think that I am right in saying that other populations of animals have experienced oscillations in their numbers as food increases or some other event that allows the population to flourish, followed by a flourishing population causing increased pressure on itself leading to a decreased population. This decreased population may then have relatively abundant food/ shelter/ resources to allow for another numbers boom... A repeating cycle. Can we be so arrogant as to assume that we will never be subject to a similarly "natural" sequence of events in the order of things? It does worry me slightly.

I'll continue for a little bit. As I intimated earlier, I stand to be corrected. But this is part of a rant, generally regarded as ignorant or devoid of pertinent information.....

Look what evolution has accomplished. I find it simply amazing. A mammal is the dominant life form. I don't think that one animal group being dominant is unnatural given the history of life on Earth. My ancestors had to adapt to a dominant reptilian world, not for thousands of years, but for millions. Nature is following its course

However, intelligence such as that which humanity possesses is something new. Still, 16 metric ton brontosaurus weren't exactly the norm for millions of years. I think we can draw similar comparisons for every epoch of life. Certain special evolved attributes demand adaptation from other life. How fast it happens is irrelevant, extinction is extinction, a thousand years or a million years the result is the same. How is this not natural?

Our intelligence for all intents, is in its infancy on this planet. It may be the first time in the world's history that an animal possessing an evolved trait has to adapt to it themselves. Perhaps the next evolutionary step is the development of an intelligence that understands the responsibility of being intelligent....I don't know.

Originally Posted by zinjanthropos

I'll continue for a little bit. As I intimated earlier, I stand to be corrected. But this is part of a rant, generally regarded as ignorant or devoid of pertinent information.....

Look what evolution has accomplished. I find it simply amazing. A mammal is the dominant life form. I don't think that one animal group being dominant is unnatural given the history of life on Earth. My ancestors had to adapt to a dominant reptilian world, not for thousands of years, but for millions. Nature is following its course

However, intelligence such as that which humanity possesses is something new. Still, 16 metric ton brontosaurus weren't exactly the norm for millions of years. I think we can draw similar comparisons for every epoch of life. Certain special evolved attributes demand adaptation from other life. How fast it happens is irrelevant, extinction is extinction, a thousand years or a million years the result is the same. How is this not natural?

Our intelligence for all intents, is in its infancy on this planet. It may be the first time in the world's history that an animal possessing an evolved trait has to adapt to it themselves. Perhaps the next evolutionary step is the development of an intelligence that understands the responsibility of being intelligent....I don't know.

I'm not really understanding why this is regarded as ignorant or devoid of pertinent information. The argument makes a lot of sense to me and is something I've been half trying to explain to people recently that make the mistake of politely listening to me in the pub/ other social arena's more appropriate for this kind of chitchat.

Also, your final line reminds me of an Einstein quote that I just went to look up: "The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophes." I don't think that nuclear danger is necessarily the point that you were getting at, but it fits the "adapting to ourselves" nicely.

Also, Just a quick thought. Evolution can be seen as the ability for a species to adapt to it's environment, whatever that may be. It seems that in the first case in the planets history, one species is the environment rather than just living in it. To adapt to the environment now means adapting to ourselves, backing your point.

Originally Posted by Zwirko

With intelligence comes rational thought. With rational thought comes the ability to develop a system of morality and ethics. Other organisms can be excused for any ecological destruction that they cause because they are not rational-ethical beings. I don't think we ourselves, as rational-ethical beings, can play that card. If you know something is harmful and destructive to others, then why do it? Saying it's just natural is a poor excuse in my opinion.

Unfortunately, other far less desirable abilities seem to have gotten in the way historically. jocular

Originally Posted by Sealeaf

Yes Humanity is this epoch's giant meteor. Future archeologists will marvel at the fossil evidence of the great biologic bottle neck and extintion that occures coincidently to the bloom of humans in earths biosphere. They will no doubt ponder the relationship between the two.

Maybe just a tad on the negative side?

Originally Posted by Sealeaf

Yes Humanity is this epoch's giant meteor. Future archeologists will marvel at the fossil evidence of the great biologic bottle neck and extintion that occures coincidently to the bloom of humans in earths biosphere. They will no doubt ponder the relationship between the two.

Jesus H! Yet another "ponder" for my list of imponderables! This is unending! jocular

Originally Posted by sculptor

Originally Posted by Sealeaf

Yes Humanity is this epoch's giant meteor. Future archeologists will marvel at the fossil evidence of the great biologic bottle neck and extintion that occures coincidently to the bloom of humans in earths biosphere. They will no doubt ponder the relationship between the two.

Maybe just a tad on the negative side?

Come to the dark side, we have cookies.