[Taxacom] when is a common species critically endangered?

Wed Jun 27 19:21:32 CDT 2012

Stephen,

You assume that Homo sapiens can make a collective decision regarding 
our impact on the world.  To drift into the metaphysical ;-), there is 
plenty of evidence that we are Homo sapiens, with no more ability to 
shape our future than any other species.  We have all sorts of advice 
from philosophers, religious leaders and political leaders, both past 
and present, of how we can be "human", but very little evidence we can 
can reach this "potential".

By the way, one definition of human from the Online Etymology Dictionary 
is "humane, philanthropic, kind, gentle, polite; learned, refined, 
civilized".  This definition doesn't seem to fit very well with any 
current description of Homo sapiens Linnaeus.

The "ability to destroy" issue is interesting.  I was under the 
impression that at some point the large dinosaurs were able to make 
significant changes to the landscape.  All the more reason to compare 
across clades instead of thinking that one lineage is special.  I would 
argue that Homo sapiens behavior will lead to the extinction of the 
species, but evidence of past "extinction events" suggests that life 
will survive beyond the end of the "naked great ape".

Given projections, Homo sapiens is a common species that is critically 
endangered!

Zack

Zack Murrell
Associate Professor and Curator of the Herbarium
Director, SouthEast Regional Network of Expertise and Collections (SERNEC)
Department of Biology
Appalachian State University
Boone, NC 28608

On 6/27/2012 7:43 PM, Stephen Thorpe wrote:
> There is clearly a lot of sense behind your opinion, and I share the 
> general sentiment. But I think you are getting the details wrong, 
> which may be putting you at odds with others unnecessarily. Homo 
> sapiens disturbance of habitat IS something different from the impact 
> of elephants, ants or beavers! For one thing, we can make choices 
> which will greatly affect the outcomes. Furthermore, neither 
> elephants, ants, nor beavers have the power to make such large scale 
> and radical changes to the environment as we do. At the extreme, we 
> have the power to destroy all life on Earth by nuclear means, they do 
> not have this power...
> Stephen
>
> *From:* Zack Murrell <murrellze at appstate.edu>
> *To:* Stephen Thorpe <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>
> *Cc:* "taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu" <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
> *Sent:* Thursday, 28 June 2012 11:26 AM
> *Subject:* Re: [Taxacom] when is a common species critically endangered?
>
> In general we tend to view Homo sapiens disturbance of habitat as 
> something different from the impact of elephants, ants or beavers.  We 
> view species that we purposely move (e.g. starlings in the USA) but 
> not species moved by others, as adventives/invasives.   We view 
> migrations along Homo sapiens' corridors of "disturbance" as being 
> somehow different from post-glacial migrations. On the other hand, 
> some scientists are using "invasives" to gain a general understanding 
> the genetic structure of species as they move across the landscape.
>
> To answer Mark's question "how long will it take before humans and 
> their artifacts are considered part of "nature"?", my knee jerk answer 
> is "when pigs fly" but maybe the better answer is that this will occur 
> when Homo sapiens stop putting their own species at the "top" of the 
> evolutionary tree of life.
>
> Zack
> Zack Murrell
> Associate Professor and Curator of the Herbarium
> Director, SouthEast Regional Network of Expertise and Collections (SERNEC)
> Department of Biology
> Appalachian State University
> Boone, NC 28608
> On 6/27/2012 6:13 PM, Stephen Thorpe wrote:
>> It doesn't necessarily lead to "twisted logic". If you were to take a 
>> "God's eye view" of the Earth, then you might have a hard time 
>> retaining such concepts as ethics/morality,etc. One animal gets 
>> killed by another ... big deal! One human gets killed by another ... 
>> BIG DEAL! The fact that we are humans cannot be ignored ...
>> Stephen
>>
>> *From:* Zack Murrell mailto:murrellze at appstate.edu
>> *To:* taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu <mailto:taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
>> *Sent:* Thursday, 28 June 2012 9:46 AM
>> *Subject:* Re: [Taxacom] when is a common species critically endangered?
>>
>> Mark,
>>
>> I don't think this is a naive question.  Our speciocentricism leads us to
>> categorize things as crops, invasives, weeds, natives and 
>> non-natives. Species have been moving across the planet since life 
>> began, yet we view
>> Homo sapiens migrations, along with those co-migrating species, as 
>> something
>> different.  I suspect this leads to all sorts of twisted logic in how we
>> view conservation, migrations and distributions of species.
>>
>> Zack
>>
>> Zack Murrell
>> Associate Professor and Curator of the Herbarium
>> Director, SouthEast Regional Network of Expertise and Collections 
>> (SERNEC)
>> Department of Biology
>> Appalachian State University
>> Boone, NC 28608
>>
>> On 6/26/2012 10:29 PM, Mark Wilden wrote:
>> > This is no doubt an incredibly naive question, but how long will it
>> > take before humans and their artifacts are considered part of
>> > "nature"?
>> >
>> > ///ark
>> >
>> > Mark Wilden
>> > Web Applications Developer
>> > California Academy of Sciences
>> >
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