Does it matter if species become extinct?

droid said:

I'm going to shoot you in head and use this thread as evidence in my trial... 'act of nature M'lud.. he said so himself'...

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That's the defence that praying mantises use after biting the head of their partner off during sex.

What about emergent properties..? like culture and mass hysteria etc... Are these simply forces of nature or are they the sum of a lot of natural processes as parts? the answer seems obvious

nomadthesecond said:

What about emergent properties..? like culture and mass hysteria etc...

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...or ant hills, termite mounds, fairy rings, mass migrations of starlings, salmon, wildebeest...

nomadthesecond said:

Are these simply forces of nature or are they the sum of a lot of natural processes as parts? the answer seems obvious

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I assume the obvious answer is 'both'.

Mr. Tea I thought the obvious answer was that there is no one 'unilateral' explanation for what Nature is and does but ...

what I find really strange is how selective people are about what they're willing to call "natural" phenomena. cancer is just as "natural" as healthy cell reproduction. miscarriage is just as natural as ovulation. pain and death are as natural as pleasure and life.

what most people really mean when they refer to something as "natural" versus "unnatural" is usually that this is something I like and endorse as "good" or "positive" rather than something I dislike and wouldn't endorse as "good" or positive

best example i can think of being homosexuality

Or that the 'natural' is a smooth, uninterrupted, predictable process (for example, the creation of more humans to infinity) and the 'unnatural' any interruption of this process (failing to contribute to the creation of more humans by being homosexual).

IdleRich said:

Forgot to say though that if you do allow natural to encompass all acts of man then you are making the words natural and unnatural almost totally redundant - reducing the latter category to basically being the same as supernatural.

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Absolutely. Strictly speaking the scientific reductionists may be correct, but the definition that everything is natural reduces the term to meaningless (along with 'artificial' and 'unnatural' amongst others), and I don't believe its how the term is commonly used or understood.

As has been touched on already, the thing that sets humans apart from the rest of nature is consciousness and awareness of the consequences and results of their actions. You could argue that it is this consciousness which is understood to set human actions and creations apart from other phenomena within the natural world. Weather has no consciousness, animals and insects act though instinct, geology does not 'plan' its next earthquake. I would argue that the commonly understood or colloquial meaning of the word 'natural' is essentially: "Processes, acts or phenomena that occur without conscious agency or as a result of conscious agency". So when my insurance company says my house is not covered for damage caused by certain 'acts of nature' - this is what they mean.

I'm sure this could be teased out some more, and you could point to Gaia theory or the hive mind, acts of this nature that come about as a result of human agency or omission of such etc... as possible criticisms of this definition, but what I'm trying to get at here is some kind of commonly understood definition that does not include say... 'artificial intelligence', or 'the terminator' as a creation of nature.

nomadthesecond said:

what I find really strange is how selective people are about what they're willing to call "natural" phenomena. cancer is just as "natural" as healthy cell reproduction.

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Well yes, but I think a lot of people would draw a distinction between, say, a cancer that 'just happened' to someone who wasn't at obvious risk (therefore 'natural') and a cancer suffered by someone who worked at a chemical plant or was a heavy smoker ('unnatural', because (probably) due to man-made substances and activities).

I think droid's definition of 'natural' as 'due to unplanned or unconscious processes' is a good one - though of course it should be borne in mind that humans act by instinct and reflex too, so not every act is necessarily 'unnatural' just because it was performed by a human.

Slight tangent, but one thing that makes me laugh is when people assume that there's something 'natural' about a field of wheat or a pasture full of cows, whereas they obviously would never say that about a factory or an airport. As if merely being organic (to do with living things, I mean, not as in organic mung beans) makes a process natural!

IdleRich said:

Personally, my feeling is that regardless of whether it's natural or not (whatever that means) for a species to become extinct, if we have some chance of stopping it we should take that chance - unless there is a particular reason for not doing so eg the species in question is a disease that could kill us all (but maybe even then there might be an argument for preserving the disease for future medical science). Am I right to think this?

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If animals are becoming extinct because of us, then obv it is only good and proper to lay off the poor blighters. If a species is kicking the bucket for other reasons, then I say desist from micro-management and 'let nature take its course.' ;-)

To answer the original question:

I think it's important to remember that species are often very important components of ecosystems, and as such, their absence(s) can unfortunately lead to severe imbalances in an ecosystem that can in turn lead to further endangerment and eventual extinction of other species within that ecosystem. Many ecosystems overlap, as well, making one ecosystem's balance contingent on many others'.

The argument for preserving species to the best of our ability really hinges on deciding which species endangerment is caused by human damage to an ecosystem. Some species will of course become extinct and many have without human involvement in their ecosystem. If our industrial advancement is the cause of ecosystem damage and endangerment of a species or species plural, many worry that this will cause a chain reaction that will cause many species that would not have become endangered without the damage caused by humans to their ecosystem to become extinct. This will in turn put a huge strain on all ecosystems, and eventually it could mean humans would become extinct...

IdleRich said:

unless there is a particular reason for not doing so eg the species in question is a disease that could kill us all (but maybe even then there might be an argument for preserving the disease for future medical science).

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this is an aside, but interestingly enough AIDS most likely was passed on to humans from chimps (I think it was chimps...) through the immunizations and experiments of a scientist (would have to look up his name) who was using monkey DNA in his work because it was cheaper and more available

so there already are species that have diseases that could kill us all

IdleRich said:

Sure, I know that, I was wondering if it is acceptable to allow or cause to become extinct the small pox virus (not strictly alive I know), say, or something of that ilk. My point is that even in that case where it seems to be a good thing to totally eradicate it there is the argument that there may be a need for it in the future or it may be be useful for medical study.

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Ahh...well, it's not impossible to keep viruses in cold storage or whatever, and I'm sure it is important to keep them for research purposes...

Why is it so much more important (ethically-speaking, rather than practically) to preserve an animal once it becomes the last existing example of its kind?

This is diversity for the sake of diversity, I say - better to have a streamlined community of rampant successes such as fire ants and rhododendrons than pour money into sustaining a loafers' paradise for pandas and other evolutionary dead-ends. *toots French horn*

IdleRich said:

I think I just sympathise with the loafers.

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Hmm yes *sniffily* I would have thought you might do.

I always hesitate to admit this but I basically don't have any interest in animals (beyond an abstract biological one)--I cannot stand having cats around, dogs are equally annoying, birds smell awful and chirp. I always wonder to myself "if people love animals so much, why do they get a dog that will have to be trapped in a 500 square foot apartment all day, or why would they want them imprisoned in a zoo? I thought people built houses to keep animals out..."

They're interesting from a distance but I'd rather keep mine from them.