Prev: Quantum Gravity 367.9: 3-Dimensional Generalization of Catalan Numbers By France (applications to Quark Triples)
Next: Reckless the Reason
From: Androcles on 23 May 2010 03:47

"1141" <japlin(a)gmail.com> wrote in message
news:476b8$4bf8bec7$40eeac9d$3946(a)gru.com...
|> | It's taking WHAT'S ALREADY THERE and KILLING OFF THE WEAK.
| >
| > False. All species survive until something kills them off. The mammoth
| > was not weak, it succumbed to environmental pressures. The Bengal tiger
| > is not weak, it is succumbing to environmental pressures. The strong,
| > cunning and fleet-of-foot fox is adapting to city life by foraging black
| > plastic bags of discarded food instead of hunting, leaving the weak
| > rabbits to multiply in the countryside as the fox gets fat.
| > Evolution is survival of the serendipitous.
| >
|
| It's a matter of terms; I chose a bad one. My point was, in any
| environmental change, such as an ice age, those least able to deal with
| the change will die out first. The "weakness" is only in regard to that
| circumstance. In an ice age, for example, those not able to survive in
| the cold or find food in the snow will be the "weakest" in that
| particular circumstance. The evolution here is those members of a
| species that are able to survive in the new conditions reproducing and
| passing on those genes which allowed them to survive, thus creating a
| population better suited to the current conditions.
|
| Similarly, human pollution and environmental destruction will kill off
| susceptible individuals and species, leaving the "stronger" (i.e., able
| to survive in these conditions) to reproduce and create "evolved" races.
| Seeing how even the worst of nuclear holocausts could never completely
| sterilize the planet, anything we do will eventually be overcome by
nature.
|
| Life goes on.
|
| 1141
The Darwinian view of evolution was that mutations which give an advantage
to individuals within a species would result in those individuals competing
within the species to pass on their genes. The strongest buck gets the
largest
harem of does, the finch's beaks are adapted to cracking nuts (strong short
and wide beaks) or plucking insects from the bark of trees (long and narrow
beaks). This is "survival of the fittest" and has nothing to do with killing
the weakest. The buck that loses the fight doesn't mate with a doe but
isn't killed, it will fight again in the rut next year and each year after
that until
it dies, and may well be successful when the older buck is feeble; the
finch with the narrow beak can't eat nuts and has to fly away to where
insects are plentiful. This is very different to your view of the extinction
of species, which is very much "unable to survive in the new conditions".
The dodo became extinct in Madagascar because man ate them and
they had evolved to be flightless. The species was unable to survive
in the new conditions. Man would wipe out the locust if he could, but
the locust is capable of surviving despite man's best efforts. Like the
shark, it has already evolved to a level where mutations cannot improve
the species within the available niches. Farm animals (and pets) are bred
for particular traits, so man is an influence on evolution and has been for
a million or more years.
Man's evolutionary success may turn out to be his destruction, we are
like the locust that eats everything in sight and multiplies uncontrollably.
In 100 years the world population will become 8-fold but the land area
on which to grow food will not. Like the locust, when there nothing left
to eat the swarm dies. We'll kill each other first, though, we lack the
intelligence to see beyond our own individual life span, and those that
do have that foresight will die before we can act upon it. That little girl
in a foreign land that you charitably gave to that she should have clean
water or other donation to improve her life will have two little girls of
her own in fifteen years, they'll also asking for your aid. Perhaps we
should kill off the weak now.





First  |  Prev  | 
Pages: 1 2 3
Prev: Quantum Gravity 367.9: 3-Dimensional Generalization of Catalan Numbers By France (applications to Quark Triples)
Next: Reckless the Reason