141–146 of 146 posts
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What would be the difference, in your view?
Evolution would be a change in the genetic foundation of that whole framework that makes an individual thrive in the environment. A change so big that it would ultimately lead to speciation. Adaptation is done using existing mechanisms, with no new genetic changes besides the usual background noise. It never leads to speciation.
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You cannot make sense of an emerging phenomenon by looking at century old records of superficially similar phenomena. The 3 year old case sounds like an outlier, regular coyotes getting at an unprotected child. The case of the 19 year old may be the canary on the coal mine. A fully grown adult should have scared off the coyotes, but that's not how it happened. We should be asking what was different in this case and w…
I don't see how you can call 1 case an emerging phenomenon. More over that there haven't been any other cases since. I don't think we should be afraid, as the OP mentioned, of coyotes stalking our children in the parks because of one isolated incident.
It is really easy, you start with one model of reality, then a piece of evidence comes that does not seem to fit the model.
The first step is to formulate hypothesis that explain that gap between the theory and the practice. Normally, the next step would involve gathering evidence that disproofs each hypothesis, and whichever you cannot disproof, it is the real explanation (which either will confirm your model or provide raw material to refine). Since I have no strong incentive to investigate this particular cases, I will just let be.
However, what I pointed out in my first comment is this: If you brush under the carpet every piece of evidence that do not seem to fit your model, you will end up with a broken model and a very bumpy carpet.
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Well in Australia, death by horse (including falls) accounts for about 20 people a year and death by bee accounts for around 10 .. I don't think there's much to worry about from this hybrid.
Not to be disrespectful, but after reading your comment I couldn't help picturing something like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCdbllHyX9o ;)
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Many pathogens and parasites are amazing creatures. Do you take the same stance with those, or are you only in favor of charismatic megafauna roaming wild? From my point of view, lions, crocodiles, wolves, etc... they're basically microencephalized sociopaths. It would be better if they never harmed any creature capable of suffering. That means either eliminating them or drastically modifying them. Granted, this is c…
"It would be better if predators where eliminated" Wrong idea; and the campaigns against predators in journals, just because this sells newspapers, are becoming a big problem in itself. Anybody people honestly worried by animal and human suffering should definitely welcome predators. Yes, is true that coywolves had unfortunately killed 1 women doing footing some years ago in a national park. One. But maybe we should…
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> It's quite likely because we don't want natural predators to get used to the taste of human flesh. What do you suggest to dispose of human cadavers other than burying them because other methods like incineration and the likes are not as economic as the former method?
Why would bronze age humans dispose corpses at all? Just drag them away so you don't get diseases. But every culture we know of disposed bodies in some way that wolves, lions and other big land predators could not eat them.
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I don't see how you can call 1 case an emerging phenomenon. More over that there haven't been any other cases since. I don't think we should be afraid, as the OP mentioned, of coyotes stalking our children in the parks because of one isolated incident.
> I don't see how you can call 1 case an emerging phenomenon. More over that there haven't been any other cases since. It is really easy, you start with one model of reality, then a piece of evidence comes that does not seem to fit the model. The first step is to formulate hypothesis that explain that gap between the theory and the practice. Normally, the next step would involve gathering evidence that disproofs each…
This is not emergence of a new phenomenon, this is an outlier[0]. There are always outliers. Claiming that a new phenomenon is emerging necessarily implies multiple data points to distinguish it from isolated statistical anomalies, which will otherwise be regarded as simple outliers caused by factors isolated to that incident.
There's an important difference between "brushing under the carpet evidence that does not seem to fit your model" and simply regarding such evidence, tentatively and in the short term, as an expected statistical anomaly until there is sufficient data to recognize a trend. There is no trend here, and until there is, it is completely reasonable to treat isolated incidents as outliers.