[Taxacom] Conservation => not a Science

[Chris Thompson]

Wonderful, Fred,

The key point is simply "... that conservation biology isn't ... a science."

As scientists we should recognize that evolution is a real phenomenon, that 
change is nature.

But conservation is on the other hand a religious concept, that is, the 
responsibility to preserve things as "God" created them.

So, the public unfortunately see preserving a single giraffe is critical, 
see preserving a species (such as whooping crane) that is a relict from 
thousands of years ago with woolly mammoths and sabre-tooth tigers roam the 
earth as critical, etc.

As death is a natural event for individuals, so is death a natural event for 
species.

The real question for man, is not saving the whooping crane, but asking what 
kind of environment, what kinds of biodiversity we want as a species, and 
then working to try to change various factors, like climate, to make that 
happen, etc.

Wasting a reported $75 million dollars on a spurious sighting of the 
Ivory-billed woodpecker is simply waste ...

But making a rational decision about a single giraffe is good science given 
that all the variables were properly considered.

Oh, well ...

Chris
from home

-----Original Message----- 
From: Fred Schueler
Sent: Monday, February 10, 2014 2:55 PM
To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Killing of zoo giraffe to avoid inbreeding

Quoting Kim van der Linde <kim at kimvdlinde.com>:

> I think it was the right decision not to take a spot of a genetically
> more valuable giraffe at another institution. The only reason we see
> this outcry is that it was a giraffe.

* it's also that conservation biology isn't seen as a science. If this
had been a case of veterinary pathology calling for the elimination of
a herd or animal, nobody would have sqwacked, but because conservation
biology isn't seen as a science, all the public saw was killing an
individual of a species not widely held in captivity (I wonder how
much of the sqwacking was by Danes, and how much by mush-headed folks
not descended from Vikings?).  We've had this trouble locally with
limnology and forest ecology - the simplest predictions about the
relationships between nutrient status and growth of different kinds of
organisms are *just not believed* - and when the predictions of the
theories are confirmed by the outcomes, it's denied that the outcomes
had been predicted.

Physicists have such an easy time whooping their theories!

fred.
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          Frederick W. Schueler & Aleta Karstad
Bishops Mills Natural History Centre - http://pinicola.ca/bmnhc.htm
Mudpuppy Night in Oxford Mills - http://pinicola.ca/mudpup1.htm
Daily Paintings - http://karstaddailypaintings.blogspot.com/
          South Nation Basin Art & Science Book
          http://pinicola.ca/books/SNR_book.htm
     RR#2 Bishops Mills, Ontario, Canada K0G 1T0
   on the Smiths Falls Limestone Plain 44* 52'N 75* 42'W
    (613)258-3107 <bckcdb at istar.ca> http://pinicola.ca/
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