What if?

dam1953 · 07-08-2013, 10:51 AM

Originally Posted by TheOak

Its a "what if" scenario. However how do we know if they would all die if we keep pushing them back into the ocean? We may be obstructing the one survivor.

Evolution has been ion place for approximately 3.6 billion years and I am not sure at this point that man has allowed it to function naturally in the last few hundred years.

Life forms dies out for a reason.

My point, and I many not have made it well, was that the whales are not evolving by dying on the beach. If, in fact, whale beachings are an attempt by whales to become terrestrial mammals once again (because that is where they came from to begin with) environmentalists may actually be helping the evolutionary process by pushing them back in the water. There, they can continue to breed with each successive generation becoming better adapted. Kind of like a king-sized walking catfish.

I don't completely agree that man has disrupted evolution over the past few hundred years. In my opinion you need to stretch that back to maybe 10,000 years. Even primitive man did a number on quite a few species when he started showing up in new places. We have just become more proficient at it in the past 200 years.

It is amazing that environmentalists want the world to remain unchanged....as it exists today. They are against fossil fuels, GMO crops, vaccines, predator culls, etc. I'm not so sure that they would have had that opinion if they lived 500 years ago. It's hard to be an environmentalist when you're focussed on not freezing or starving to death, when half your family gets wiped out by disease or when the local bear or wolf pack considers you and your family to be slow moving appetizers.

Mankind in the 21st century is, to a large extent, a much better steward of the earth than at any time in history. That said, our population levels are stressing many ecosystems to the breaking point.

07-08-2013, 10:51 AM	#4
dam1953 1000 Posts + Join Date: Jan 2012 Location: SW Ohio Posts: 4,645	Re: What if? Originally Posted by TheOak Its a "what if" scenario. However how do we know if they would all die if we keep pushing them back into the ocean? We may be obstructing the one survivor. Evolution has been ion place for approximately 3.6 billion years and I am not sure at this point that man has allowed it to function naturally in the last few hundred years. Life forms dies out for a reason. My point, and I many not have made it well, was that the whales are not evolving by dying on the beach. If, in fact, whale beachings are an attempt by whales to become terrestrial mammals once again (because that is where they came from to begin with) environmentalists may actually be helping the evolutionary process by pushing them back in the water. There, they can continue to breed with each successive generation becoming better adapted. Kind of like a king-sized walking catfish. I don't completely agree that man has disrupted evolution over the past few hundred years. In my opinion you need to stretch that back to maybe 10,000 years. Even primitive man did a number on quite a few species when he started showing up in new places. We have just become more proficient at it in the past 200 years. It is amazing that environmentalists want the world to remain unchanged....as it exists today. They are against fossil fuels, GMO crops, vaccines, predator culls, etc. I'm not so sure that they would have had that opinion if they lived 500 years ago. It's hard to be an environmentalist when you're focussed on not freezing or starving to death, when half your family gets wiped out by disease or when the local bear or wolf pack considers you and your family to be slow moving appetizers. Mankind in the 21st century is, to a large extent, a much better steward of the earth than at any time in history. That said, our population levels are stressing many ecosystems to the breaking point. WhoDat!656 likes this.
	”It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” Charles Darwin