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Protect the last of the wild

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Re: Protect the last of the wild

#101

Post by sparrc »

arminiusreturns wrote: post #55
sparrc wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cattle are good for forests? I'm sorry but you're going to have to backup that statement.

One of the primary benefits is that cattle help clear underbrush, which therfor produces more productive stands of timber. If kept in one area too long though they will begine to damage trees, so proper rotation schedules should be followed. Split hooved animals also aerate soil which helps with natural seed planting and growth. There is an entire focus on the use of ranching and forestry together with lots of scienc…

Do you have any references for this? I've honestly never heard of cows or cow-like grazing animals living in forests. I've only ever heard of them in grasslands.

To your second point, native biodiversity is definitely destroyed to graze cattle, that happens in the US and everywhere in the world.

Re: Protect the last of the wild

#102

Post by arminiusreturns »

philipkglass wrote: post #94
arminiusreturns wrote: post #52

Having grown up with a national forest as my literal backyard, its amusing and sad to hear so much nonsense spewed in this thread. Yes, we need to protect the wild, and inculcate respect for it in those that live in and visit it. My issue is with the naivety of proposed "solutions". One of the best examples I can give, though I have many, is this: my grandfather was a logger and firefighter in this forest in the 70s.…

When I was growing up in Oregon the biggest forestry controversy was a halt to logging in national forests to conserve habitat for the endangered Northern Spotted Owl. Outside of the Portland area, it seemed like most news outlets and people were against this intervention. I kind of went along with adult sentiment and thought that the federal government shouldn't destroy our state's logging jobs with their meddling.…

Nobody talking about old growth logging... so many strawmen attacks today.

Re: Protect the last of the wild

#103

Post by gnosis89 »

village-idiot wrote: post #98
gnosis89 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Individuals can and do evolve, and then they pass that on to their children, that's how evolution works. Biological evolution is a very long and slow process, technological evolution is not. That's why our teeth are a poor indication of what we should be eating because of this revolutionary thing called cooking. Our teeth are records of our past evolution, not rules for our future or current evolution. The claim that…

Bzzzt, no. Individuals do not evolve new genetic features after birth. You will not change your teeth structure genetically in your lifetime, unless if you take up hockey or bare knuckle boxing. Your kids might have a mutation from you that’ll change their teeth, but statistically they won’t. There’s also an ongoing debate about to what degree humans face evolutionary pressures anymore. Without some selection to pick…

Now you're hopping from evolution to genetic features as though they are the same thing. I never mentioned that I have good teeth or that I was vegetarian, nor is it anecdotal that vegetarians have better dental hygiene. I highly doubt our teeth will change at all because people don't die from lack of a certain tooth. Teeth don't matter when you can literally have all fake teeth and get by eating just fine. In fact, we often remove teeth because we have too many. Again, individuals do evolve, which is not the same as suddenly getting new distinct physical features half way through your life, which actually can happen so you're also wrong about that.

Re: Protect the last of the wild

#104

Post by arminiusreturns »

sharkmerry wrote: post #92
arminiusreturns wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is just flat out false, anti-science disinformation. Fire suppression as a policy started in the 1930s and actually reverted in the 60's and 70's. No it's not. I didn't say fire suppression as a policy started then. I said they stopped listening to locals for advice about, primarily, the control burns, and the needs for forest thinning. You are attacking an argument I never made. Strawman fallacy.

But they did allow controlled burns, thats what his link says. So you created a strawman in the scientists. The 1964 Wilderness Act, Tall Timbers Research Conferences, and Southern Forest Fire Lab research demonstrated the positive benefits derived from natural and prescribed fire. As a result, national fire policy began to evolve to address both the economic and ecological benefits of not aggressively controlling, a…

I never said they didn't allow control burns at all either. They were stopping them too soon, doing them too little, etc. Which is why I said they stopped listening to locals for input on those policies, not that they stopped them completely. So no, I did no such thing, and in fact, it is you who created the strawman. That seems to be the theme of the day today, because I'm starting to sound like a broken record.

Re: Protect the last of the wild

#105

Post by dharma1 »

galangalalgol wrote: post #39
dharma1 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could not agree more with this. Evolution on Earth has had a very long time to develop super advanced nanotechnology, which we understand and utilise very poorly and are destroying forever - for what? More beef on the plate, palm oil for products no one needs and a bit of money for one generation? Beyond being critical to the survival of deeply linked ecosystems, and ultimately ourselves, it's just really stupid to d…

Natural selection is a greedy algorithm. Being forward thinking or altruistic rarely produces more surviving progeny over the short term.

I guess in the case of humans we have partly outpaced natural selection - nature hasn't had time to optimise for the reality we are creating, it's too slow. Short term impulses which have worked great (until now) still govern our behaviour.

It's not altruism to try to avert long term disaster beyond your own life span. It's in your own interest to ensure your progeny survives - even several generations in the future they still carry your genes. But I don't know if inbuilt mechanisms for this exist in evolution.

I'd like to think self-inflicted extinction isn't a likely outcome of evolution - but maybe it is once a certain species dominates.

Re: Protect the last of the wild

#106

Post by yeswecould »

dharma1 wrote: post #105
galangalalgol wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Natural selection is a greedy algorithm. Being forward thinking or altruistic rarely produces more surviving progeny over the short term.

I guess in the case of humans we have partly outpaced natural selection - nature hasn't had time to optimise for the reality we are creating, it's too slow. Short term impulses which have worked great (until now) still govern our behaviour. It's not altruism to try to avert long term disaster beyond your own life span. It's in your own interest to ensure your progeny survives - even several generations in the future…

All of the things that humans have done, which you are referring to - can be traced back to one thing - cheap energy - in the form of OIL.

Re: Protect the last of the wild

#107

Post by philipkglass »

arminiusreturns wrote: post #102
philipkglass wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was growing up in Oregon the biggest forestry controversy was a halt to logging in national forests to conserve habitat for the endangered Northern Spotted Owl. Outside of the Portland area, it seemed like most news outlets and people were against this intervention. I kind of went along with adult sentiment and thought that the federal government shouldn't destroy our state's logging jobs with their meddling.…

Nobody talking about old growth logging... so many strawmen attacks today.

I'm not trying to tell you what happened where you grew up. I'm describing what happened where I grew up. We're both just sharing anecdotes.

The PhDs and environmentalists forced changes on timber communities in the state where I grew up because locals weren't good stewards of the national forests. If the PhDs listened to the timber town Oregon natives, the remaining old growth forest would stay open to logging too, the owls would have lost the last undisturbed habitat, and the post-timber economic cratering would have only been delayed for a bit.

People who have grown up near extractive industries may have a lot of experience of how those industries work that PhDs lack. But people who grow up around extractive industries may also be poor judges of the sustainability of those industries. Anything you grow up with seems "normal" and it's comforting to believe that there's a good, familiar kind of job waiting for you when you grow up. Locals may see things very unclearly when clear vision would reveal big challenges and changes ahead.

Re: Protect the last of the wild

#108

Post by dharma1 »

yeswecould wrote: post #106
dharma1 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess in the case of humans we have partly outpaced natural selection - nature hasn't had time to optimise for the reality we are creating, it's too slow. Short term impulses which have worked great (until now) still govern our behaviour. It's not altruism to try to avert long term disaster beyond your own life span. It's in your own interest to ensure your progeny survives - even several generations in the future…

All of the things that humans have done, which you are referring to - can be traced back to one thing - cheap energy - in the form of OIL.

It is curious how carbon based life that existed in the past (dead plants and animals in the form of oil) is the catalyst for carbon based life wiping itself out in the future.

I wonder if this ultimately also happens on other planets with carbon based life (if they exist) - a short period of hyper growth once life learns how to unlock energy from the past, followed by extinction.

Re: Protect the last of the wild

#109

Post by [deleted] »

gnosis89 wrote: post #103
village-idiot wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bzzzt, no. Individuals do not evolve new genetic features after birth. You will not change your teeth structure genetically in your lifetime, unless if you take up hockey or bare knuckle boxing. Your kids might have a mutation from you that’ll change their teeth, but statistically they won’t. There’s also an ongoing debate about to what degree humans face evolutionary pressures anymore. Without some selection to pick…

Now you're hopping from evolution to genetic features as though they are the same thing. I never mentioned that I have good teeth or that I was vegetarian, nor is it anecdotal that vegetarians have better dental hygiene. I highly doubt our teeth will change at all because people don't die from lack of a certain tooth. Teeth don't matter when you can literally have all fake teeth and get by eating just fine. In fact,…

[deleted]

Re: Protect the last of the wild

#110

Post by village-idiot »

gnosis89 wrote: post #103
village-idiot wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bzzzt, no. Individuals do not evolve new genetic features after birth. You will not change your teeth structure genetically in your lifetime, unless if you take up hockey or bare knuckle boxing. Your kids might have a mutation from you that’ll change their teeth, but statistically they won’t. There’s also an ongoing debate about to what degree humans face evolutionary pressures anymore. Without some selection to pick…

Now you're hopping from evolution to genetic features as though they are the same thing. I never mentioned that I have good teeth or that I was vegetarian, nor is it anecdotal that vegetarians have better dental hygiene. I highly doubt our teeth will change at all because people don't die from lack of a certain tooth. Teeth don't matter when you can literally have all fake teeth and get by eating just fine. In fact,…

You keep asserting, sans proof, that individuals evolve. Unfortunately for you, the experts disagree[0-2]. Evolution is something that happens to a population, not an individual.

> I highly doubt our teeth will change at all because people don't die from lack of a certain tooth.

Yes, I made this point. But that was not true when humans evolved into our current form, right around when the rest of us evolved. Until relatively recently, humans did die from dental cavities, and we haven't changed significantly in 1,000 years, so the point stands.

> nor is it anecdotal that vegetarians have better dental hygiene.

Which would be a good point if I was trying to claim that. I said they had worse health, which is diet and behavior related.

The big one for me is K2. There is only one vegan source of K2, natto, all other sources are either animal or meat based. K2 is critical for a lot of things, including tooth cells.

Vegans and vegetarians are showing higher rates of tooth decay (not cavities, I misread) than the rest of the population[3]. Doesn't really matter how much they're brushing, it's diet driven.

> Again, individuals do evolve

[Citation needed]

> which is not the same as suddenly getting new distinct physical features half way through your life

You're right that meaningful mutations might be at the protein level, but you're not going to start synthesizing brand new proteins either.

0. http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/21st_century_science/lectures/l...

1. https://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/misconceptions_faq...

2. https://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/53371/what-is-me...

3. https://www.deltadentalwa.com/blog/entry/2018/07/vegan-diet-...

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