Mar 17 2012: Here's a good example of humans attempting to "fix" something: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48_X6gA8S18
Because the cane toad has already established and is hard to remove these folks have targeted one of the negative effects that it has and is trying to alleviate it. Some may say that they are unethically interfering with the quoll's behavioral evolution, but I believe it can actually be for the better because we have the capability to recognize if things are heading in a bad direction and we can "nudge" other species towards different evolutionary paths.
Mar 17 2012: This sort of debate reminds me a lot of a movie by Kiyoshi Kurosawa entitled Charisma (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charisma_(film)), which portrays the conflicting views that humans tend to have toward nature. In it, the protagonist encounters a mysterious and toxic tree over which different parties are quarreling over. One man wants to preserve it, even if it means the death of all the rest of the trees. He wants to step back and let nature take its course. Another woman, a biologist, wants to remove the toxic tree as soon as possible before the rest of the trees become dead from it. She wants to protect the current forest.
I think that both of these conflicting views equally value nature, but their differences stem from a difference in definition of nature. One view defines nature as this on-going and continuously changing process, while the other view defines it more as a certain point along the timeline of evolutionary history. In a sense these two perspectives are the same thing, only in different dimensions.
Do you choose to define yourself as who you are this very instant, or as the culmination of all your experiences- past, present, and future?
Mar 15 2012: Rishi, you bring up some interesting points that look at this in a more realistic manner. Since at this point and time we don't necessarily know what to do about the situation, maybe the most important thing that we can do is learn something from this situation instead of wallowing in fear and not accepting the notion of change. Perhaps this will show us the dangers of relying solely on one species and lead us to construct our diets around a more biodiverse cast of food-players. Or maybe new species will even come to fill the newly opened niches and spur the evolution of new species of food plants that end up providing an unimaginable wealth of nutrition, who knows. I think that sometimes the notion of preserving a snapshot of the Earth without regards to the evolutionary plasticity that all organisms experience can be somewhat dangerous. While it can definitely "suck" for something that we're so used to to not exist anymore, I think sometimes we are held back by these emotional connections to familiarity that we have instead of being open-minded to the near-infinite array of possibilities that the future can hold for this planet.
Mar 13 2012: In my opinion, the fact that so much about CCD is shrouded in mystery should serve as even more incentive for figuring out the causes for such a disorder, because it can have devastating impacts on both economic and ecologic processes that we so often take for granted. For example, this graph (http://rs.resalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/bees.gif) shows the percentages of various crops that rely on bee pollination services. What would our society do if there was all of a sudden either no almonds, blueberries, or apples? Or what if these kinds of food-items suddenly cost an exorbitant amount of money because instead of having populations of bees pollinate them naturally, we have to waste the time and effort of farmers to manually pollinate each tree by hand?
If there were more attention surrounding this issue the causes of it could more easily be identified and possibly prevented, and we can continue to have [relatively] cheap almonds!
Mar 8 2012: I thought I'd be the first to mention the Kony meme, but you posted this while I was writing my response!
Perhaps the "great minds think alike" meme is true?
Mar 8 2012: I totally agree. If it is possible for some people to not be at risk for HPV, it does not make sense to mandate everybody to get the vaccine. Only something that truly affects everybody should require a government mandate, in my opinion. Information about HPV should be available for those who do not choose to engage in abstinence or monogamous sexual activity, and ultimately they should be able to choose whether or not they want to protect themselves from it.
Mar 8 2012: Since this question has been posted, I have noticed a very powerful meme being rapidly propagated throughout the vast expanses of cyber space, in the form of Invisible Children's "Kony 2012" video. The video was posted to Youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4MnpzG5Sqc) two days ago and it already has racked up over 22 million views. The power in this meme lies not in the humanitarian effort that it presents, but more-so in the idea that we, as global citizens, can all come together and make change happen. Through the use of the internet and social networks, we have the power to spread awareness of issues and demand that our governments do something about it. For so long the avenues for mass mimetic transfer (the media) have been in a stranglehold by a relatively small group of people, who may or may not have ulterior motives in filtering the memes that actually reach the populace, but the advent of the internet has opened the floodgates for memes of any type to reach any number of people. If looking at memes as a virus, the internet takes the contact rate of an infected individual and raises it exponentially. The folks at Invisible Children take full advantage of this, and not only have they successfully raised awareness of this specific Ugandan war criminal, but they have raised awareness of the potential for raising awareness in our digital age. This idea/meme, that we have the capability to communicate and organize on a global scale and create meaningful change, is what I think will aid in propelling us into a more sustainable future.
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A reply on Conversation: Are you concerned about the spread of invasive species?
Because the cane toad has already established and is hard to remove these folks have targeted one of the negative effects that it has and is trying to alleviate it. Some may say that they are unethically interfering with the quoll's behavioral evolution, but I believe it can actually be for the better because we have the capability to recognize if things are heading in a bad direction and we can "nudge" other species towards different evolutionary paths.
A reply on Conversation: Are you concerned about the spread of invasive species?
I think that both of these conflicting views equally value nature, but their differences stem from a difference in definition of nature. One view defines nature as this on-going and continuously changing process, while the other view defines it more as a certain point along the timeline of evolutionary history. In a sense these two perspectives are the same thing, only in different dimensions.
Do you choose to define yourself as who you are this very instant, or as the culmination of all your experiences- past, present, and future?
A reply on Conversation: Where would you place Colony Collapse Disorder in relation to the many other problems facing our society?
A reply on Conversation: Where would you place Colony Collapse Disorder in relation to the many other problems facing our society?
If there were more attention surrounding this issue the causes of it could more easily be identified and possibly prevented, and we can continue to have [relatively] cheap almonds!
A reply on Conversation: Are memes important for our survival? How can we draw on memetic theory to inspire ideas of sustainability that go viral?
Perhaps the "great minds think alike" meme is true?
A reply on Conversation: When it comes to vaccine intervention for disease control, should personal liberty go before the benefit to society?
A comment on Conversation: Are memes important for our survival? How can we draw on memetic theory to inspire ideas of sustainability that go viral?