Some two-bit publicity hound can die, and that’s all you can find on any of the television channels … a whole grand species can go extinct, and there’s almost nothing.
Say goodbye to the Yangtze River dolphin. It is officially extinct. The funeral will be poorly attended, and it will be forgotten, except in a few academic papers.
Will the publicity hound be fossilized though?
Wow. I’m not sure whether to be happy or sad that Douglas Adams isn’t here to witness this. (Sad, I think; the world with Douglas was better than the world without him.)
Are there any more freshwater dolphin species, PZ?
But PZ, I should say you are demanding too much. Could you ever imagine the media paying this dolphin a thousandth of the attention that they gave to Anna Nicole Smith?
Sad indeed but the writing had been on the wall for quite some time.
For those of you able to understand Portugues here is another sad story about ignorant greedy humans killing dolphins in the northern Brazilian state of Amapa.
http://www.seashepherd.org.br/ibama.htm
They are killed for their teeth and eyes which are purported to have special powers.
Maybe you can conatct the Brazilian Government through Seasheperd and help force them to put an end to this senseless violence against a fellow sentient creature.
No, that would be fully nothing. Not merely dead but really most sincerely dead. ;-)
The actual news is of course very sad. :-(
Yet, far from seeming obscure to me, it was about the only news I saw/heard at all today (and even out of the past several days) while missing other things which people expected me to have seen.
Guess I’ll have to throw out all my recipes.
Anna Nicole Smith? I thought he meant Tammy Faye Baker?
George Barlow, UC Berkeley Professor, ichthyologist and animal behavorist, passed away recently. He contributed so much, and his passing only got a brief mention in the local paper. Barlow recruited Dawkins to UC Berkeley in the 1960’s and greatly influence the science of sociobiology. And he was “the” expert on Cichlid Fishes.
As to the dolphin’s passing. That was expected. China cares little about environmental problems.
I mourn both the loss of Barlow and the Yangtze Dolphin. But I do take a perverse pleasure in the possibility that no one will be around to mourn the passing of the human race, when its time comes. All the other animals will just continue as if we never were.
This is not even the only species that’s been declared extinct this week, but one of the others has at least been noticed by the media. NPR is reporting the extinction of the Aldabra banded snail, which lived on the Seychelles Islands.
And why is NPR noticing a snail while disregarding a dolphin? Because the best possible attributable cause for the snail’s demise is the effects of global warming. It seems that the Seychelles have been plagued by increasingly hot summers, which the juvenile snails cannot tolerate; no juveniles, no species.
Of course, that really means that they were killed off by humans anyway, just like the Yangtze dolphins, but it seems that when we use the impersonal method of heating up the planet it’s worth notice but when we just bump the poor things off directly, it’s just normal. Even NPR falls into the trap, as shown by the very paragraph of their article on the snails:
And as we know, they haven’t mentioned at least one other extinction. Maybe if they did, people would get the idea that we’re losing something irreplaceable and that perhaps we might want to do something about that. Not that I’m holding my breath…I’d rather avoid extinction myself if I can help it.
Well I certainly saw the news in various places, so I wouldn’t say it was completely ignored.
The other thing is that its extinction has actually been in the news for many years. Unlike individual people, there is no exact moment when we realize a species is gone (unless the last specimen happens to exist in a zoo). Otherwise, it is a long slow process. Today’s news is just some scientist saying “yup, we actually think the last of them are gone. Probably.”
That said, it is very sad. I hope they are doing what they can to preserve dna and whatnot so in a hundred years or so we might see another, albeit in an aquarium.
For all our piety we are the single-most destructive species ever seen by this planet. It makes me glad to know that even evangelicals are actually starting to care for the environment and the myriad of species liable to go extinct, albeit for selfish reasons. They want to prove to Jebus that they’re good stewards just in case he comes back next sweltering spring.
And what’s really sad, I asked my 15 year old cousin, son of evangelicals, what he thought of this. “It doesn’t matter, God will just create more of them later if he wants to.” To be oblivious after 10 years of public education (in the bible belt, of course) is inexcusable.
I’m truly upset and winamp must be picking up on that as The Cure – This Twilight Garden keeps moaning in a lovesick way “No one will ever take your place.” We are barmy apes killing cousins.
To paraphrase Reagan, if you’ve seen one family of fresh-water dolphin go extinct, you seen them all.
“For all our piety we are the single-most destructive species ever seen by this planet.”
I thought that was god.
We’re a selfish species. Especially with, but not just because of, the idea that we are different from animals. That they are for our benefit and of no account without us promolgated in the bible…..As someone said above, we’ll kill out our species, but life will chug along. It’s funny how the global warming debate has people saying life on the planet is in danger. Bullshit, it was hotter in the Permian! What they really mean is Human life is in danger from global warming…..
By most people’s standards, being a “good steward” could involve converting the entire land biomass of Earth into human beings, and the entire oceanic biomass into plankton farms to feed the humans.
It’s one of the reasons why I have so little patience for secular humanism – ‘humanism’ needs to die before it destroys everything.
We are collectively guilty every time a species goes extinct.
We are terrible stewards of this planet.
Odd to consider that the best possible thing for the planet would be for humans to die off in some benign way, but it seems beyond doubt at this point. Not that I am volunteering or anything.
Brian,
If humans are no different than other animals than what’s the big deal? Why hold humans to a higher standard? I’m sure plenty of species have met their demise at the “hands” of other species who don’t happen to have hands.
That’s if I buy your premise. As a matter of fact humans are different than animals. Knowing that truth about the differences between humans and other animals is not the cause of the dophins demise. Those dolphins didn’t go extinct because we thought they were different.
Meh… They’re only fish.
Signed,
Secular Humanist.
Member of the Evil Order to Bring Narure to Her Knees (EOBNHK)
(dont’t hit me)
“All the other animals will just continue as if we never were.”
Actually, I think they’ll kinda party. In an animal sense.
(oh crap, NO I didnt mean party animals. I mean, like, expand to fill niches and stuff.)
mndarwinist asked:
There are still a few species left, including the Ganges River dolphin. Left for how long, though, is a good question. If I’m not mistaken, all freshwater dolphin species are considered at least threatened if not endangered.
Indeed, I am a secular humanist, and I routinely and purposefully kill every living creature I can find. Down with those sub-Homo infidels!
“If humans are no different than other animals than what’s the big deal? Why hold humans to a higher standard? I’m sure plenty of species have met their demise at the “hands” of other species who don’t happen to have hands.”
What a load of old cobblers. What species do you know of, that were pushed to extinction by other species? Not pushed to extinction by changing climate, but specifically by another species that wasn’t human?
“Those dolphins didn’t go extinct because we thought they were different.”
Yes they did. if we thought they were sentient animals with as much value as a human being we wouldn’t have destroyed them and their environment. It’s because we think we aren’t animals and are the only creature capable of suffering in any meaningful way that we don’t give a crap about other animals.
Humans are animals. Capable of thinking about the future and reasoning. But animals nonetheless. To say otherwise is just not based on any fact.
Geezus. The stupidity involved in these sad stories is just amazing. They declared it an ENEMY OF COMMUNISM? In the other case: they killed things for their MAGICAL powers?
Sigh.
My heart skipped a beat. For the first time in my life.
Sometimes mindless traditionalism has it’s place. From the article: During Mao’s “Great Leap Forward”, traditional veneration of the Baiji – nicknamed “Goddess of the Yangtze” – was denounced and the dolphin hunted for its flesh and skin.
It’s the evangelical religions which have no tie to localities that are particularly destructive.
In Throwim Way Leg, I recall, a field biologist ran into a New Guinea village with a new Catholic priest. The village was near a lake with good farm land around it which was unused because a demon lived in the lake. To help out his flock, the priest expelled the demon from the lake. The land around the lake was then farmed.
Fast-forward a few years. The farming on the surrounding hill sides lead to erosion, which then led to a landslide into the lake. Farming gone, forest gone, lake gone, hunting gone. Ecological nightmare and economic nightmare. Thank-you Jesus.
Traditional religions maybe wrong in terms of current empirical knowledge, but at least they’re linked to the land – they’re selected for fitness with the local people and countryside. But Christianity, Islam, Maoism, Communism, Capitalism, etc? Just viruses whose only redeeming features is a little bit of culture shuffling.
I read (and blogged) about this earlier today. I even postponed my blog about the study showing kids prefer carrots that come out of McDonalds bags to other carrots.
While I agree that there seems to be some coverage of this, it certainly hasn’t been mainstream. They’re an animal that most people don’t know about. To a lot of people a dolphin is a dolphin. It’s rather sad.
What saddens me more is that it seems to me that we are accelerating in the number of species we’ve doomed to extinction. I see our global ecology as a house of cards, and I wonder how long it will take before we set the whole thing tumbling around our ears.
Don’t worry: the loss of this petty animal was well worth all of the pollution caused by overpopulation and the making of six trillion McDonald’s play toys (that will later be recalled). Plus, as we pollute more and more of our resources and, oh, the only planet we have, we’re closer to the apocalypse. And that’s Caucasian Jesus’ plan.
Hardcore lefties might want to note that the Yangtze dolphin’s biggest hit was delivered by Mao. Just another piece of evidence that demonstrates the inherent destructiveness of collectivist ideologies to human and non-human animals alike. I’m not, of course, arguing that capitalism doesn’t have a long history of causing environmental damage.
I know that this is not going to go down well here, but anyway:
Some 95% of all species that have ever existed are extinct. I’m pretty sure that we weren’t responsible for most of those. Extinction is a perfectly natural part of evolution. And I don’t see many people objecting against the 15 species of mosquitoes that also probably went extinct this week. Natural selection is a heartless bitch – with or without humans. We are just another environmental factor that affects selection pressure. If all humans suddenly vanished, species would still go extinct.
I’m not saying we should go out of our way to kill off species and I do think that along with the great power of influencing selection pressure there should be responsibility. I’m just saying that this isn’t such a singular tragedy. A few species plus minus makes no difference compared to the situation where humans are not involved. If we just don’t put killing off species at a high rate into a system then the situation isn’t dire.
I submit that any large number of humans causes serious damage, any major concentration of humans causes serious damage, and increasing technology multiples this damage severalfold.
Any long-term solution will have to provide a way of reducing the population of human beings – probably forcibly, as the resource drain necessary to make the Third World as prosperous and infertile as much of the First would create massive ecological devastation.
The dolphins need to get boob jobs, get arrested for “drunk diving” and run fake-o ministries that defraud the gullible. Then they’ll be suitable for attention in People Magazine and Larry King. As long as they just die quietly, nobody’ll care.
Not to sound too cynical but – why do we get so upset about another species dying. It happens all the time and has been happening for a very long time. Won’t be a lot of commentary when homo sap stupids itself to death, either.
I saw a news story about this dolphin last night. It was Al Jazeera.
I didn’t know the Yangtze dolphin hated our freedoms.
I read about it on the BBC web site. Sad story.
Goodnight sweet prince.
The media reports on things that benefits them, human interest stories mainly. As bullshit as it is most people would just shrug off some species going extinct.
Isn’t there a freshwater river dolphin species in the Amazon as well?
Or is it extinct now, too?
Heterocronie:
Hardcore lefties might want to note that the Yangtze dolphin’s biggest hit was delivered by Mao. Just another piece of evidence that demonstrates the inherent destructiveness of collectivist ideologies to human and non-human animals alike. I’m not, of course, arguing that capitalism doesn’t have a long history of causing environmental damage.
Wow. I’m not sure if this is trivial, or asinine. If by collectivist you mean any political movement, since all involve turning over your thinking to some extent to the group leadership, well it’s trivial. If by collectivist, again, you mean stupid, short term thinking, once more trivial. Applies almost universally.
If by collectivist you mean an ideology that recognizes social goods, well that’s asinine. It wasn’t “collectivist thinking” that led to the ecological catastrophes in the New World, or Australia or New Zealand. It wasn’t “collectivist thinking” that led to the genocides in the New World, or the Irish Potato Famine.
Every specific ideology has it’s guilt to bear. But to say that the extinction of this river dolphin is somehow due to “collectivism” rather than the same kind of short term thinking that is characteristic of all forms of modern thought, from left to right and from top to bottom, is a monstrous fallacy. Both the modern left and right have each managed to commit atrocities of every form, color and manner.
How about some rational thought, rather than just one more knee-jerk “Commies are bad” or “Capitalists are bad”? Once we dump the Christians, I guess there’s another millenium of work to dump the Commies, the Libertarians, the Capitalists and every other pseudo-relgion.
Homo sapiens’ overwhelming success seems to be mostly due to an uncanny ability to exploit anything and eveything in the environment for our own benefit. While we appear to have been selected for this trait, we apparently have not been selected for the ability to recognize when we have gone to far and are actually destroying the very environment on which we depend. This has led to the downfall of various past civilizations and now apparently to the present, global, civilization. I personally find it very hard to watch and worry for our children and our childrens’ children. It seems like we’re watching the beginning of a total unavoidable, ugly, global calamity.
Well, rats that have been introduced into various isolated islands have an alarming tendency to kill off entire native species. And while in this case most were introduced through human activity, the phenomenon of alien flora and fauna invading and displacing endemic species is not exactly a rare occurrence.
This is, of course, just one example.
Stuff and nonsense. The native of Rapa Nui totally devestated their island making big stone heads. Ancient goat herders in africa helped speed up the deserification due to their goats tendency to crop vegitation down to the root. Putting “traditional religions” on a pedestal is nothing but patronozing, noble-savage bullshit.
Collectivist ideologies, like, say…environmentalism? Or do you plan on saving the planet single-handed?
“While we appear to have been selected for this trait, we apparently have not been selected for the ability to recognize when we have gone to far and are actually destroying the very environment on which we depend.”
Sounds like a virus. Agent Smith was right! (Matrix nod for the one person who hasn’t seen it. :)
“Sounds like a virus.”
More like bacteria in a petry dish.
Not that I am volunteering or anything.
Why not?
“Voluntary human extinction is the humanitarian alternative to human disasters.
We don’t carry on about how the human race has shown itself to be a greedy, amoral parasite on the once-healthy face of this planet. That type of negativity offers no solution to the inexorable horrors which human activity is causing.
Rather, The Movement presents an encouraging alternative to the callous exploitation and wholesale destruction of Earth’s ecology.
….Each time another one of us decides to not add another one of us to the burgeoning billions already squatting on this ravaged planet, another ray of hope shines through the gloom.”
Isn’t it said that 99% of all species that have ever lived are extinct? What’s one more?
“Well, rats that have been introduced into various isolated islands have an alarming tendency to kill off entire native species. And while in this case most were introduced through human activity, the phenomenon of alien flora and fauna invading and displacing endemic species is not exactly a rare occurrence.”
Good points. I guess I over did it. I was referring to autoconous species.
This is only one of the misdeeds of the totalitarian Chinese government, which is communist in name only. There is also slave and forced labor used for economic development; destruction of property and displacement of population in Beijing for the Olympic Games; dispossession of peasants in country areas; repression and jailing of journalists and dissenters.
Of course, China now holding 1.3 trillion dollars of U.S. debt has the Bush regime by the short and curlies. One small thing that can be done is to Boycott the Olympic Games. No American athletes or tourists should go to the Games.
Boycott the Olympic Games in Beijing, which can be compared to those in Hitler’s games in the 30’s.
Stwriley –
NPR did report on the Yangtze dolphin:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12590990
They are good on this kind of stuff; don’t beat up on them.
Very sad news. I originally heard about the Yangtze River dolphins about 20 years ago in “Last Chance To See”, presented by Douglas Adams. Apparently, they’re making an update to see the progress of the species in the programme. It’s heartbreaking that one of them has disappeared for ever.
I remember some years ago a scientist saying that the question of extinction could be put this way, “Is the world a better place without these species? I don’t think so.”
Here in the UK it made front page news on several national newspapers.
I get seriously sick of people who say “oh well, most species are extinct, one more doesn’t matter, the earth goes on regardless.” Mass extinctions, where there is a far higher rate of extinction than normal ecological churn, have been caused in the past by supervolcanism, meteor impacts, and catastrophic changes in the earth’s atmosphere — none of which involved intelligence or choice. I don’t know why you people think that it is such a great thing that a self-aware species with choice about the course of its actions causes as much death and destruction as mindless, random exceptional events. When a person is killed by a big rock falling on his head in a landslide, it is tragic but not evil; when a person is killed by another person dropping a big rock on his head, it is an act of evil. Being ok with being the cause of species destruction on a massive scale because mindless forces of nature sometimes do that to, does not in fact abrogate your responsibility, or the moral consequences of that responsibility.
I get rather more mildly impatient with all the people who think that eventually humans will disappear and the earth will go on, so it’s all going to be ok someday. News flash, guys: humans may not be all that forward-thinking, but they are clever generalists with a huge population, a remarkable flexibility of behavior and strategy, and an unprecedented ability to penetrate different ecosystems. Humans will be one of the very last species to go, and we will have stripped the planet by the time we do. We have a very good chance of outliving rats. Relying on some future extinction to save the planet from us is a complete cop-out.
This is an effing tragedy. Frankly, what is even more of an effing tragedy is the widespread willingness to treat it as a joke.
There seem to be too camps posting their reactions to this sad bit of news. Those that understand their place in the tapestry of life and are rightly concerned when they recognize that another thread has been pulled from it. And those that have their heads stuck so far up their asses that they’ve never even seen a rose let alone been able to smell one. So to those of you who fall into the second category have a nice day shopping for your plastic trinkets at Walmart.Your fundamentalist free market capitalist life style has not been shown to be any better than say Maoist communism when it comes to stewardship of the natural systems of our tiny little planet. We as a species have the capacity to observe and understand our impact on the world around us. The question is do we also have the will to implement fundamental change. Human history so far doesn’t seem to point towards a positive outcome in this regard.
An aside to the person who made a comment up post about hoping to get some DNA to clone a river dolphin so that they could be brought back to live in an aquarium. As someone who used to visit a pod of freshwater Amazonian river dolphins that were housed in an aquarium at a shopping mall in Sao Paulo Brazil I would suggest that you try living in prison for a few years so you might get some idea as to how the dolphins might feel about that. At least let them rest in peace.
Isn’t there a freshwater river dolphin species in the Amazon as well?
Or is it extinct now, too?
These are in the genus Inia and they are actually doing better than the other river dolphin species.
I agree with others that this isn’t a really a joking matter. The simplistic opinion (voiced above) that extinction is no big deal since nearly all species that have lived are extinct is really annoying, and ignorant. It shows no understanding of the depths of time and that rates of extinction matter. It is true that other species have caused extinctions, but I think it is safe to assert that no other species has been responsible for a mass extinction. Couple that with our capacity to be aware of the consequences of our actions and there is only one conclusion. We are culpable.
But, let’s rally and do something about it.
Each time another one of us decides to not add another one of us to the burgeoning billions already squatting on this ravaged planet, another ray of hope shines through the gloom.
I’m no childless baby-hater (really!), but reproducing yourself, especially if you’re an affluent academic type in the US of Acquisition, is not exactly a winning proposition for the environment. In the community of health science center faculty that I inhabit, I can’t think of one child who is not accompanied through postnatal development by mounds of disposable diapers, thousands of plastic Legos (or similar plastic toy bits), hundreds of juice bottles and Lunchables, dozens of batteries for various elaborate toys, etc. The way these kids are monitored, climate-controlled, sanitized, nourished, micro-managed, and ferried around in mini-vans or SUVs, you’d think they were the fostered offspring of potentially malevolent, yet extremely fragile, aliens.
Maybe some of these kids will grow up caring about the planet, but for most, the wilderness is something you drive through in the Expedition on the way to Disneyland or Sea World (how ironic…as if we care about the *real* Sea World, where the animals hide or flee, and aren’t devoted to doing tricks for our entertainment), and the ocean or lake is the place where all your plastic crap is sent for perpetual “retirement”.
And we’re even more high-maintenance as adults.
This thread is so depressing.
DSM, do you go to family funerals to mock the grief of your relatives? After all, what’s one human life out of six billion?
What’s one more extinction? Ok, you see it in the context of millions of extinctions, I see it in the context of none. One more means one less. These cetaceans were our cousins, relatively intelligent mammals with whom we ought to have been able to coexist peacefully. Human industry and nothing else, other than the dolphin’s inability to adapt to radical environmental changes with lightning speed, killed off this harmless and graceful creature.
As in the case of any passing, life does go on for the survivors, but our acknowledgement of it and of the emotions that accompany it, and our contemplation of its implications, are not a waste of time in any sense, particularly when we humans are primarily responsible for it.
Isn’t it said that 99% of all species that have ever lived are extinct? What’s one more?
Intelligent tinkering. Parts.
Airplane wing. Rivets.
Ecosystems. Coevolution. Interconnectiveness. Knock-on effects.
Aren’t you people listening?
Yay for US!
Only one in fifty YEARS?!? We clearly could work harder to make more animals extinct.
“Dumb all over, yes we are…dumb all over, near and far…dumb all over, black & white…people, we is not wrapped tight.” – Frank Zappa, Dumb All Over
This is heartbreaking. :(
There are four, er… three species of freshwater dolphins, all endangered.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platanistoidea
There are a number of fresh water dolphin species, 3 in the Amazon basin, 2 in the Gangees river system, another two or three in SE Asia, and yet one more (equally endangered in China). Finally, then a ‘secondary set of dolphins and porpoises that invade fresh water but also occur in salt water environs. One of these (Vaqueta) used to be found in the Colorado river and is now only in the Gulf of California– and is on the verge of extinction.
NPR did at least two stories on the Yangtze river dolphin. One was the straight news, the other was one of their ‘sound adventures’ series. They are quite good at keeping abreast of these things.
On the positive side, One poor little Snout butterfly, Libythea cinyras, endemic to the Seychelles and previously known from a single specimen collected in the 1870’s was rediscovered about 1996. There is occasional good news.
Sophist, you simple-minded poltroon. Of course some native cultures have failed, and they all to some extent degrade their local environment. But those which have survived for 10’s of thousands of years in the same ecological zone, by definition have come to some sort of accommodation with their local environment. Often this has occurred after an initial ecological catastrophe when the region is first colonized by humans, and then an adaptation by the culture that averts further catastrophe.
But the point of my post was that evangelical religions, in contrast, are uncommitted to any local ecology. Like a virus, after devastating a locality they move on to a new host, so there is no pressure to adapt to the local ecology over any length of time (at least until the entire planet has been devastated).
Native cultures fail worse when they either are new to the locale (Rapa Nui), and therefore their culture is expressly not adapted to local conditions, or they have the freedom to leave behind their ecological destruction for an extended period of time (goat herders moving across the savannah for millenia). That is exactly when they are most similar to evangelical religions and other parasitic infestations.
Piers Anthony’s Omnivore comes to mind. The omnivore of the title always struck me as a metaphor for mankind’s tendancy to consume, indiscriminantly, to the point of destruction.
Yeah, I know… I’m shallow… LOL
Ugh. People are so stupid.
To the “humans aren’t animals” people:
Yeah, we are. What’s more, we’re mammals, and primates to boot. I don’t know how anyone can claim we AREN’T animals. In what way aren’t we??? Gah. Stupid!
To the “99% of all species have gone extinct” people:
You do realize that we’re talking about 99% of all species since life got started on Earth, right?
Right?
On a similar note, I was very heartened to read of the rediscovery in the mid-1980s in Madagascar of a small population of the golden bamboo lemur (Hapalemur aureus), long thought to be extinct.
Because, as anyone knows, Hapalemur is better than none.
(seriously, the Institute for the Conservation of Tropical Environments is not only a great cause well worth supporting; it’s a much better thing for SUNY-Stony Brook to be known for than some of its more egnorant faculty of late.)
“I personally find it very hard to watch and worry for our children and our childrens’ children.”
I don’t think children should be having children, but that may be a bigger problem…
The tombstone for humanity will read “There was no profit in survival”.
frog: Whatever you say, Tweedledum.
Actually, most of the time the reason why native cultures seem to live in “harmony” with nature is because they lack the resources to build a technology base so as to do otherwise. Tribes deep in the amazon don’t generally refrain from damaging the environment because of some deep understanding of their place in the web of life, they do so because there isn’t any coal, or iron ore, or what have you.
It really is terrible. A whole species going extinct in today’s world.
How can anyone deny this world needs change?
Sophist,
You empty-headed excuse for a pseudo-intellectual. Who said that the “tribes deep in the amazon refrain from damaging the environment because of some deep understanding of their place in the web of life”?
Do the finches in the Galapagos require a deep understanding of natural selection in order to eat seed with their fancy beaks? Do they “refrain” from having differently shaped beaks, and predating on the tortoises? The function of a system can be completely decoupled from internal models of that system, dunderhead. Westerners, in general,
You do understand that the intentions of the individuals comprising a society can have nothing to do with the function of that system, and that natural limitations are a part of adaptation? You don’t say that “giraffes aren’t really adapted to herbivorous lifestyles, because if they had sharp teeth and a short neck they might be tempted to hunt.”
The problem, of course, is that Stephen Colbert chose to change the status of the elephant from endangered to common instead of choosing the river dolphin. It worked on the elephant; Wikipedia said so.
That said, it is a very sad day.
I understand quite clearly. The pertinent question is, do you understand that you are arguing against your initial claim vis-à-vis “traditional religion”.
I’m in mourning.
This is really depressing news. What a fascinating animal that was.
A considerable part of South American endemic mammals in the Pliocene?
Brian,
What species do you know of, that were pushed to extinction by other species? Not pushed to extinction by changing climate, but specifically by another species that wasn’t human?
Just to let you know I’m a biology buff, geek, whatever. If you understand evolution you can deduce the answer to this and if you do you are going to be embarrassed.
There are two interpretations I see to your “changing climate” exception. I’m not sure which you hold but all are invalid in supporting your position.
1) You were using climate change as a proxy for all types of unavoidable cataclysmic events.
2) You think that 99% of all species have died out because the weather changed faster than they could adapt (and would have regardless of the presence of competitors.)
Well if 1) is the interpretation then you must think that evolution is primarily driven by cataclysm. Unfortunately for you the mechanism by which natural selection operates could not generate ever more complex organisms if the selector is merely chance. After all meteorites, avalanches, and rapid weather changes are pretty much indiscriminate.
If you were speaking to 2) this again could not be a driving factor. If every single species that went extinct did so because of weather changes then all adaptations would be related to dealing with the weather. There would be various adaptations for things like fur thickness, sweating, mud wallowing, panting, coloration, or shade seeking. One wouldn’t however see adaptations for sharp teeth, claws, taste, predator avoidance, vining behavior, plant height, etc. That is there would be no competitive adaptations.
Now even in the case of a weather change there are organisms that would have had an easy time adapting to the change itself but cannot survive it when it happens in the presence of competitors. Many dry adapted or wet adapted plants can survive with more or less rainfall but lose out to other species occupying the same niche that are better adapted (or that adapt more quickly) to the changing conditions. If they are driven to extinction it is not the weather that did it but the competitors themselves.
The very fact that we see all these competitive adaptations is what indicates that most of the important extinctions have been driven by interspecies competition.
Now I could move further into the subject of speciation and show that it’s highly probable that it is usually the most closely related species that end up driving a species to extinction. An example of this is the extinction of all the other hominid species due to the evolution of Homo sapiens. This was an entirely natural process. Generally if two species are in the same exact niche one will tend to drive the other to extinction if it is better adapted to the niche.
Learn more about it and you will find that you are quite mistaken.
“Yes they did. if we thought they were sentient animals with as much value as a human being we wouldn’t have destroyed them and their environment.”
No, they didn’t die out for this reason, and, no, it wouldn’t have had that effect. Humans understand that other humans are sentient and yet they don’t value those others enough to bother preserving them much of the time. Muslims, National Socialists, Communists, Christians, were all aware that their human victims were sentient when they exterminated them in various pogroms, holocausts, and inquisitions and conquests. Saddam Hussein knew perfectly well that the marsh people were sentient and that didn’t save them or their habitat. In fact he drained the marshes specifically because they were sentient and they did not share his culture.
Native Americans were mostly driven to near extinction by microorganisms and not purely by the acts of Europeans. So it’s not just the human species killing off humans.
“It’s because we think we aren’t animals and are the only creature capable of suffering in any meaningful way that we don’t give a crap about other animals.”
Actually I think animals most are conscious. I just don’t think that’s a proper criterion for deciding whether they are edible. I also know (not believe) we are animals and it is not the reason why I give a crap about other animals. Frankly, I don’t give a crap about the fire ants infesting Florida, and it’s not because they are “non-native”. I like my dog and it isn’t native here at all. I like the wall lizards that live on Long Island but they are also non-native.
“Humans are animals. Capable of thinking about the future and reasoning. But animals nonetheless. To say otherwise is just not based on any fact.”
Your premise fails on other grounds. I never said that humans weren’t animals1. I said they were different from animals2.
Don’t be confused by the fact that the word “animal” has many meanings. You used meaning number two in your first post. You said, “Especially with, but not just because of, the idea that we are different from animals2.” I didn’t accuse you of thinking humans were not animals in sense number one. At least you weren’t so arrogant as to make this elementary mistake and then to call me stupid like the other fellow.
I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt here also. I hope you aren’t claiming that humans are no different from animals2 because humans are animals1. That commits the fallacy of equivocation (confusing different meanings of the same word) or some sort of category fallacy (believing a subclass shares every attribute of it’s super class). Just because computers are a subclass of inanimate objects doesn’t mean they behave like rocks and just lay there.
” I was referring to autoconous[sic] species.
That doesn’t help your position. I say great, since due to my location, I am not a member of a autochonous species then I guess I can slaughter at will and it won’t bother you. To save the rest of you from looking up this obscure word it means “native”. If you are human and don’t live in Africa you too pretty much count as a non-native species. In fact many species alive today are non-native if you go back far enough. I just read an article on the evolution of cats in Scientific American and you’d be surprised how much migration was involved. I am in particular non-native because I’m of European decent and I live in North America. So if a cat species killing off marsupials in South America doesn’t count then Europeans killing off Buffalo isn’t a big deal either. That is if we are no different than animals. Of course, I don’t share that premise.
BTW, I find fault with some of your other claims that seem to denigrate humans. Your statement, “As someone said above, we’ll kill out our species, but life will chug along.” can be applied to any species. It’s possible for most any species, under special circumstances, to overpopulate or over stress it’s environment and die out because of this. You also state, ‘We’re a selfish species.’ The notion that humans are unique in being selfish is also a falsehood. Given the opportunity most organisms will breed at the expense of both other species and the environment without consideration for consequences. Of course, you don’t define what it means to be as “selfish species”.
LM,
Yes, especially those who do not understand that the same word has multiple meanings.
I defy you to find anyone on the thread who said that. You are supposed to use quotes when actually quoting someone. You should have wrote, “To the people on this thread who believe humans aren’t animals:”. You give the false impression that someone actually wrote that statement. They didn’t, and by “they” I mean “me”.
I think you will find that this addresses the null set. See the end part of my post just previous to this one where I discuss the definition of the word animal.
You’d think that this sentence would give you a clue as to what I believe: “Knowing that truth about the differences between humans and other animals is not the cause of the dophins[sic] demise.”
You see I predicted someone like you would become confused with the English language so I specifically inserted a sentence that indicated I knew that humans were animals. Even with the explicit hint you didn’t get it.
I know someone who should feel stupid right now.
Math challenged too. Why are such people so arrogant?
That’s doesn’t include the kind of sophomoric dig the poster “km” made above about “children not having children”. I hope my children have children. Sophomorically all extinctions happen in the “past” although I don’t think you meant it that way. It’s still math challenged even with your intended meaning. I leave you to figure it out.
You know I expect the level of discourse to degrade when creationists enter a discussion. It’s disappointing when this happens in a discussion on the environment and it is caused by the very people who shouldn’t be causing this effect. This whole thread feels like the IQ level dropped a standard deviation for the pro-environmental side due to a select few individuals. I know that’s not possible but it sounds accurate in this case. :)
I suggest you use your real name to make posts. It will make for a humbler Tigger, er, LM.
Mr. Fernando Magyar,
You say:
I’m not in either of those categories. I think your vile and bigoted rant speaks to your character.
Just last week I volunteered at a local park to clean garbage. I’ve done this several times throughout the summer. No, this was not a special clean-up drive where I did it publicly. I did it by myself most weekends except when some kids happened to be there cleaning for a school project. BTW, I filled four trash bags in the time it took them combined to barely fill the bottom of one.
To my knowledge I was the first private individual in North America to construct an artifical snake den. This involved renting a excavator that goes for $150 an hour. I happened to have it there already on my nature preserve to construct a lake I was creating for amphibian habitat.
Yes, I am also one of the few people in the world to specifically design and build an artifical “fishless” pond.
I’m proud to say that there are more than two camps here and I’m not in your camp.
BTW, Go capitalism and down with socialist destruction of the environment!