Extinction (1 Viewer)

[enoilgam]

This part of the forums looks a bit dead, so I'll try and revive it (hopefully this topic is actually relevant).

Today's feature article on Wikipedia was on the Dodo and this reignited my fascination with extinction and in particular Holocene extinction. For some extinct species, it appears as if the growth of civilisation and their existance were mutually exclusive. So that begs the question, are some species simply doomed to extinction because we cannot co-exist?

 

[Carrotsticks]

This part of the forums looks a bit dead, so I'll try and revive it (hopefully this topic is actually relevant).

Today's feature article on Wikipedia was on the Dodo and this reignited my fascination with extinction and in particular Holocene extinction. For some extinct species, it appears as if the growth of civilisation and their existance were mutually exclusive. So that begs the question, are some species simply doomed to extinction because we cannot co-exist?

Yep, most certainly.

However, I don't think it's so much that we cannot co-exist. Rather, I think it's more to do with the attitudes of humans towards more unstable populations. What's even more concerning is that such populations may not even have to be unstable in the first place for us to 'light the spark' that initiates the cycle that leads to extinction.

 

[enoilgam]

Yep, most certainly.

However, I don't think it's so much that we cannot co-exist. Rather, I think it's more to do with the attitudes of humans towards more unstable populations. What's even more concerning is that such populations may not even have to be unstable in the first place for us to 'light the spark' that initiates the cycle that leads to extinction.

This is definitely something that surprised me. Like, most human induced extinctions occur in situations where the species is localised and already has a small population (i.e. the Dodo). But there are other cases where one action can bring down a large species extremely rapidly. Like the Rocky Mountain locust, which went from a population of several trillion to extinction in less then 30 years.

The situation with the RM locust is also where the issue of co-existance comes up. They went extinct primarily because of farming which ruined their breeding habits and life cycle - it might have been unavoidable given the overall importance of agriculture in the US which was a growing society at that point. I guess it also raises the issue of beneficial extinction, because they had large swarms which could decimate crops (some are estimated to have included several trillion insects).

 

[Carrotsticks]

Big news article today is the Western Black Rhino extinction. Officially declared back in 2011, but only being recognised by the media now... a bit worrying. Poaching primarily for the sake of the horn is considered the largest factor. How would that fit into your model of co-existence?

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/11/10/world/africa/rhino-extinct-species-report/index.html

There are several models which assist us in deducing causes of extinction.

 

[enoilgam]

Big news article today is the Western Black Rhino extinction. Officially declared back in 2011, but only being recognised by the media now... a bit worrying. Poaching primarily for the sake of the horn is considered the largest factor. How would that fit into your model of co-existence?

I think that's more of an extinction based on human greed and irresponsibility than anything else. With the RM locust, the farming was much more of a necessity.

 

[Emily Howard]

ugh

srsly u guise just take a fuckin course on this yer makin me cringe

 

[TheEntrepreneur]

Do you think homosexuality could eventually cause human extinction? srs

 

[Emily Howard]

no

ivf

 

[sinophile]

Do you think homosexuality could eventually cause human extinction? srs

Traits which reduce the ability of an individual to reproduce tend to get weeded out of the population, because obviously the person with that trait is less likely to have children and pass on that gene. Assuming there is a genetic basis in homosexuality, the prevalance of genes for homosexuality would decresae in a population because because only penis in vagina sex makes babies. However this assumes that homosexuality doesn't provide some other adaptive advantage. For example, a theoretical homosexual gene might persist in a population because, although the individual with that trait doesn't reproduce, they might become better carers of their nieces and nephews, which partly share their genetics and thus improve fitness of those children.