Are we screwing with natures course?

[Kembudo-Kai Kempoka]

The planet has over 6 billion people on it currently. Prior to the 1950's, it had only had approximately a billion on it TOTAL since recorded history (estimated by sociologists).

So, our taxation on resources is exponential.

Nature has population checks in place. For prey animals, it's predators, and there are many examples of ecosystems gone awry when taken out of balance. For kicks & giggles, let's assume the human population is a predator out of balance with it's environment.

Medicine; United nations bringing food & relief to people in disaster zones; and so on, would all be examples of us blocking nature from doing what it does to moderate systems. Is humanitarian aid, in fact, a manmade aberration? Are we screwing with natures course by saving lives nature may have selected for extinction?

Regards,

Dave

 

[michaeledward]

I would check the claimed fact of the first statement.

I think you would be hard pressed to show a population growth of 500% in the last 55 years.

Once we have real facts to work with, we can begin to discuss your other assumptions.

 

[Kembudo-Kai Kempoka]

I would check the claimed fact of the first statement.

I think you would be hard pressed to show a population growth of 500% in the last 55 years.

Once we have real facts to work with, we can begin to discuss your other assumptions.

In my sociology 101 course, this was presented as fact in the lecture and course textbook. I questioned it via the following logic: Who, specifically, was there to count? The interesting part in the world-history-population graph was the dip in population that correlated with the plague in Europe. This seemed to me to be anglo-centric, as there were several other well-populated continents that were not influenced by the plague that hit Europe. There are also archeologic findings on other continents suggesting they had their own cataclysmic events, all but wiping out populations. No dip in the stats to reflect that.

That being said, I do recall that the world population was guestimated to be at 1 billion around 1954 (if I recall correctly). That was the whole point of the lecture on overpopulation. From 1 billion, to 6.5 billion in this few years.

D.

 

[BlackCatBonz]

Medicine; United nations bringing food & relief to people in disaster zones; and so on, would all be examples of us blocking nature from doing what it does to moderate systems. Is humanitarian aid, in fact, a manmade aberration? Are we screwing with natures course by saving lives nature may have selected for extinction?

Regards,

Dave

yes

 

[michaeledward]

That being said, I do recall that the world population was guestimated to be at 1 billion around 1954 (if I recall correctly). That was the whole point of the lecture on overpopulation. From 1 billion, to 6.5 billion in this few years.

But that is not the claim you made in the first sentence. You said

Prior to the 1950's, it had only had approximately a billion on it TOTAL since recorded history (estimated by sociologists).

1 Billion homo sapiens in 1954 does not equal 1 Billion homo sapiens in recorded history.

 

[michaeledward]

Medicine; United nations bringing food & relief to people in disaster zones; and so on, would all be examples of us blocking nature from doing what it does to moderate systems. Is humanitarian aid, in fact, a manmade aberration? Are we screwing with natures course by saving lives nature may have selected for extinction?

It has been suggested that the bread basked of the United States produces (or has the potential to produce) enough calories to feed the current population of the world.

As we fat, drunk Americans prefer beef to vegetables, we waste a tremendous amount of caloric production in creating a single serving of beef.

How many pound of grain does it take to produce a pound of beef?

So, before you go pissing on 'humanitarian aid' ... go vegan.

 

[FearlessFreep]

His point was that there are built in checks and balances in nature that lead to keeping animals from getting out of control and that in various ways we have stepped on those balances. Humanitarian aid is one way that creatures who would've died in natural cases do live on. One example I've always wondered about is that through oour social infrastrucutre, people that would've probably died off or at least not managed to reproduce, do in fact get the chance to survive and pass on their genes. I'm not talking about 'poor' people, per se because survival instinct under stress can be a good thing. I'm talking about geeks, for example, and other people who have no good survival traits but manage to survive long enough in our society to find someone equally as desperate to mate with.

 

[michaeledward]

You're working from the supposition that Homo Sapiens are somehow - apart - from nature.

There is no action you or I can take, or any group of similar people can take that is not intricately involved with 'Nature's Course'. We are not an invasive species to this planet.

That homo sapiens are clever enough to build sailing ships, in which bilge water transports aquatic species around the globe in ways never imagined, does not separate them from Nature.

Earlier this year, in a local pond in New Hampshire, a young man caught a Pacu - an Amazon River fish. Apparently some person bought the fish for their fish tank, but released it in the pond. Even those actions (However Stupid) were part of Nature.

So, how can we 'screw' with it?

 

[FearlessFreep]

You're working from the supposition that Homo Sapiens are somehow - apart - from nature.

Actually, he's working from the supposition that humans *should* be part of nature and normally would be, but that we've managed to rig the game a bit

So, how can we 'screw' with it?

Because humans have a few advantages. First off, we have a will and can contemplate the future and our part in it and what we want our part to be. Secomdly, we can have compassion, even empathy, for our fellow humans even if we have never seen or met them. Our intelligence has allowed us to develop cures for disease and defenses, and offenses, against animals that would seem to be higher on the food chain. More importantly, our social structures allow us to share those abilities with others. It's not that the strong can survive the predator while the weak do not, thus ensuring the passing on of strong genes. Now we have guns and nets and *anyone* can survive against the predator.

We no longer have any natural enemies that can keep pur population in check, we no longer have any natural boundaries (rivers, seas, mountains, deserts) that can keep our population contained, and for various reasons, disease and famine no longer weed out the weak from the strong but really only seperate the lucky from the unlucky.

All creatures face checks, controls, predators or famine that keep numbers in balance, geography and diet keep populations constrained.

The question being presented is, has our intelligence and our social empathy allowed us to make humans exempt from natural selection?

 

[michaeledward]

Firstly - How is having a 'will' and being able to 'contemplate' a future not part of nature? More and more study is showing that many other creatures are self-aware.

Secondly - Other creatures appear to have empathy. Whales beach in groups. Nature provides creatures with defense mechanism of wonderful variety. To assume that a gun barrel is not a Natural defense mechanism is hubristic. It may be man-made, but man is part of nature. His cleverness in forging steel is part of nature too.

If we no longer have 'natural enemies', why is the 'Bird Flu Pandemic' threat getting so much press? (currently, it is a scare tactic. the probability of migrating to human to human transmission is very low).

The question really is; is our intelligence and social empathy not part of Nature?

 

[Makalakumu]

The question really is; is our intelligence and social empathy not part of Nature?

Every single bit of it is part of nature. Our species has evolved to a point where the boundaries of our environment isolate us and exert pressure. In my opinion, we can expect another major punctuation to occur as soon as we leave this planet.

 

[michaeledward]

The planet has over 6 billion people on it currently. Prior to the 1950's, it had only had approximately a billion on it TOTAL since recorded history (estimated by sociologists).

Back to the original supposition, which I questioned. I took just a moment to type 1954 Global Population into Google ... found this ...

http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/worldpop.html

Year ...................................................................1950
Population.............................................................2,556,517,137
Average annual growth rate (%)................................1.47 %
Average annualpopulation change..............................37,798,160



P.S. I guess this thread brings us back to this comment on another thread, eh?

http://www.martialtalk.com/forum/showpost.php?p=448310&postcount=42

 

[arnisador]

One example I've always wondered about is that through oour social infrastrucutre, people that would've probably died off or at least not managed to reproduce, do in fact get the chance to survive and pass on their genes. I'm not talking about 'poor' people, per se because survival instinct under stress can be a good thing. I'm talking about geeks, for example, and other people who have no good survival traits but manage to survive long enough in our society to find someone equally as desperate to mate with.

But, then they obviously do have adequte survival capabilities for the environment as it currently is--which is all that matters!

 

[FearlessFreep]

More and more study is showing that many other creatures are self-aware.

How many creatures other than humans can contemplate global warming and seek to prevent it or at least attempt to endure it? How many creatures can contemplate the death of the planet and plan to escape it?

Whales beach in groups.

How many whales will donate their fish to strange whales thousands of miles away?

To assume that a gun barrel is not a Natural defense mechanism is hubristic

Many animals can use a weapon. Humans possess the capacity to share weapons and pass weapons to others, in community and in lineage, that allow the weak to survive against the strong.

That's the whole point that was being made, actually. The proposed question is really 'have humans made themselves immune to natural selection, to survival of the fittest'. Look at it this way, I have six children. Another man and woman with better genes in terms of strength and intelligence than my wife and I may have only one child, or none. The sucess of my genetic line over someone else's has become not a matter of better genetics and better survival traits but merely a whim or a decision. Does any other creature decide its number of offspring based on career decisions?

If we no longer have 'natural enemies', why is the 'Bird Flu Pandemic' threat getting so much press?

Back to the original point about disease and humanitarian aid. Our ability to help each other allows us to prevent the death of those who would die if their bodies were weak enough to succumb to the disease. Disease is less of winnower of the sick from the strong but more a matter of chance if you were in the wrong place and help didn't come intime, and thus disease becomes less of a tool for natural selection to operate with.

And most other creatures cannot save their brethren from disease.

Ironically, it's become a taboo to suggest that some should die and some should live, based on any criteria of 'fitness', while in a natural selection, some are more fit to live than others and it's considered good for the species that those less fit were to die off and not breed so that those 'better' would be able to increase the strength of the species by passing on their better genetic material

 

[FearlessFreep]

By the way, mostly I'm just trying to outline the meaning of the original question to point out that it's about a lot more than just 'fat Americans eating beef'. I really don't know if we've escaped the natural checks and balances that everything else on earth seems to be under

 

[michaeledward]

The real deal is, you can take the girl out of Kentucky, but you can't take Kentucky out of the girl.

Human beings are one species among thousands that inhabit a small planet in an insignificant solar system in a rather minor galaxy.

That they are clever, and figured out how to burn fossil fuels, or live in communities or study other organisms in the biosphere does not in any way separate them from that biosphere.

We are not aliens.

We can not take any action that is outside of nature. With the possible exception of the probes we have sent to other worlds; those probes could be upsetting 'Nature's Course' on those planets, moons, asteroids and comets. But, here on the Big Blue Marble, we're just part of the game.




If my posts seem on the snide side, it is because I interpret questions such as this as racist, as in 'Master Racist', egotistical, selfish and hubristic.

Half of the population of the globe lives on about 3 U.S. dollars a day, or less. And one of those lucky enough to live in this country is raising questions about humanitarian aid?

Please!

 

[FearlessFreep]

If my posts seem on the snide side, it is because I interpret questions such as this as racist

Because you're seeing the small picture. You're focusing on the issue of humanitarian aid in terms of "shouldn't we just let these people die" and that does indeed come across as rascist, or elitist.

I took a much larger view of the question. I took the question as being that humanitarian aide was just one simple example where we as humans could interfere with natural selection, and I named several others in how we overcome predators, geography, disease, even natural disasters in many ways.

I think that's a much more troubling issue because *if* we as humans have managed to make ourselves immune to nature's exercise of natural selection, of 'survival of the fittest', then we have two *big* problems. 1) we've reached an evolutionary dead end (no longer any real control on the quality of genetic material that gets passed on) and 2) with nothing to check our populations we could very possibly consume the entire resources of the entire planet, wiping out just about all life on Earth, including ourselves*

I don't at all think that the orignal poster was suggesting that we actually withhold humanitarian aide from those who need it. My interpretation was that he was indicating that our rapid expansion in population was an indicator that we had cheated the game, so to speak, and that humanitarian aide was just one example of one manner in which we had done that. The issue is not "well, you would've died if we didn't help but helping messes up nature so we'll just let you die...in an evolutionary sense, you deserve it anyway" The issue is "in the process of helping, have we cheated the game, and if so...where will this lead us?"

So the question really is "have we cheated the game...have we outstripped, out-paced, or out-maneuvered nature? and if so, where will that lead us". One other thing we have as humans is a sense or morality, and it's that morality, that humanity, that has allowed us to do some of the things that have led to the condition where we can ask these questions, things like medicine and aide. It's that same humanity that I think makes most of us not consider "what do we do about it?" with an answer of with-holding aide and letting each other perish but instead has us just asking "where will this takes us"

Look at it this way, I'm a very average person. 5'11". Naturally very skinny and none too strong. Pretty smart, I'm told, but certainly not a genius. I'm not really very good genetic material, I don't think. If I had to fight for my survival, fight for the ability to breed with my mate, compete for my food, I would soon be dead and would not have had a chance to pass on my genes to the next generation. Yet I have six children, which is more than most people around here. Society enabled what nature probably didn't care for, because or society has conspired to allow people like me to live and even breed; I'm all for it I've managed to outbreed, to 'out survive' people who would probably have been much better suited to keep their genes strong in the human species.

*In one sense that could be just a part of natural selection in eliminating a species run amock, maybe there will be enough microbes and such left around to start the whole 'life' thing over, but that's pretty wasteful and...well...we're still in trouble

 

[Makalakumu]

So the question really is "have we cheated the game...have we outstripped, out-paced, or out-maneuvered nature? and if so, where will that lead us"

Absolutely not. Here are a few things that could throw some major snarls in our species development...

1. An asteroid strike.
2. Global peak in oil production.
3. Supertsunamis.
4. Supervolcanoes.
5. A major solar/emp storm.
6. Overpopulation.

There is no particular order to this list and most of it is stuff we can do nothing about. Yet, it all could prune the branches so to speak. We can't outstrip or out maneuver it.

 

[michaeledward]

Look at it this way, I'm a very average person. 5'11". Naturally very skinny and none too strong. Pretty smart, I'm told, but certainly not a genius. I'm not really very good genetic material, I don't think. If I had to fight for my survival, fight for the ability to breed with my mate, compete for my food, I would soon be dead and would not have had a chance to pass on my genes to the next generation. Yet I have six children, which is more than most people around here. Society enabled what nature probably didn't care for, because or society has conspired to allow people like me to live and even breed; I'm all for it I've managed to outbreed, to 'out survive' people who would probably have been much better suited to keep their genes strong in the human species.

You have many assumptions throughout this post, and others, that need to be put aside to properly consider the question.

There is no 'good' genetic material. All genentic material is of equal weight. Random Mutuation allows traits to appear that may be beneficial to the species. If that RANDOM mutation actually is beneficial to the species and it gets passed on, then natural selection can occur.

It could be that 'naturally very skinny' - assuming this trait is genetic - does provide a benefit to the species. If it does, your offspring who have inherited this trait may be more prodigious, genetically, several generations hence, than those offspring that did not inherit this trait.

It seems you are interpreting that 'naturally very skinny' on a good or bad continuum. This is a false categorization based on your subjective view of genetics and evolution. You need to discard that good / bad paradigm, and refocus on the hypothesis.


The assumption that 'survival of the fittest' requires that you 'fight' for survival. Nature provides ways for species that are unable to 'fight' for survival to continue their existance. Off the top of my head, what about fish? the female lays eggs in the water - the mail adds milt to the water (fish don't have intercourse) - what keeps the species going when these eggs - fertilized and unfertilized are tasty treats for other fish in the ecosystem? The answer is the number of eggs. Nature allows fish to create thousands of eggs during the spawn.. Many of those eggs will hatch (some wont), many of those fry will grow (some wont), some of the parr will mature (some wont), eventually, the offspring may get to spawn (many wont). With fish, there is no fighting, as you describe it, is irrelevant. It just a matter of luck, and numbers.



We are a clever species. But is being able to examine micro biological life forms as clever as, oh, say, polar bears having white fur, fish swimming in large schools, or chameleons being able to change the pigment of their skin? I do not think so. Each of those traits are part of nature, and cannot be separated from nature. I see human existance in a similar view.

Everything we do, from filling swamps to make airport runways, (even though it is destructive to the ecosystem) to genetically modifying corn so that it is more insect resistant, is a part of nature, not apart from nature.

In some Eastern philosophies, they claim that we are all one. Is it so difficult to believe?

 

[Loki]

I think the source of contention between michaeledward and FearlessFreep stem from the definition of "nature". FearlessFreep is referring to nature as things that happen without concious intervention (theological debate aside), while michaeledward is talking about nature as the sum of all phenomena in existence.

I'd have to go with FearlessFreep's definition, since michaeledward's is reductio ad absurdum: if we expand the term "nature" to mean "everything", it loses all meaning. It's like saying all acts are selfish because they aim to serve oneself or that you always have a choice in any matter (when mugged, you have a choice between handing over the money or being shot, so you can't say someone forced you to give it up).

As for the original question, I'd say yes, we are screwing with nature's course. Imagine we weren't sentient. How many people who are currently alive would be alive within a year? Many people who we've kept alive, probably the majority of the global population. Modern medicine isn't a consequence of nature's course, it's product of human conciousness, will and action. Here's a telling anecdote:

Even at it's best, pre-modern medicine did not save many. Queen Anne was the last Stuart Monarch of Great Britain. In the last 17 years of the 17th century, she was pregnant 18 times. Only five children were born alive. Only one of them survived infancy. He died before reaching adulthood, and before her coronation in 1702. There seems to be no evidence for some genetic disorder. She had the best medical care money could buy.

Natural selection applies to us much much less than to the animal word. "Survival of the fittest" used to mean "physically fit" (in some human societies, this is still true, albeit even then it's not identical with the animal kingdom). It now applies more to "metally fit". A skinny and physically inept male would never survive in the wild. Today, he can become the most powerful man in the world.