08-14-2010, 08:10 PM | #21 | ||
The Chocoholic Sea Elf Administrator
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: N?n in Eilph (Belgium)
Posts: 14,363
|
Quote:
Quote:
But unless you can produce this instant say, a triceratops or a thylacine, -heck I'll happily take any golden toad- extinction is quite a reality whether it fits in one's philosophy or not. Now, we can happily (and even productively) argue about the thylacine being effectively extinct or not, the same goes maybe for the golden toad. But I'd love to see someone willing to argue that the triceratops is not well and truly extinct.
__________________
We are not things. |
||
08-14-2010, 11:24 PM | #22 |
Elf Lord
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: sikeston, MO, usa, earth, sol
Posts: 3,114
|
#18, Earniel, is what I was wanting to know.
link the first... "Estimates of the number of major mass extinctions in the last 540 million years range from as few as five to more than twenty. These differences stem from the threshold chosen for describing an extinction event as "major", and the data chosen to measure past diversity." 17-53% of all families, 48-84% of all genera, and 50-70% of all species diappearing rapidly seem to be the definition for all 5 major extinction events, if I read the article properly. "The gaps between mass extinctions appear to be becoming longer, while the average and background rates of extinction are decreasing. Mass extinctions are thought to result when a long-term stress is compounded by a short term shock.[16] Over the course of the Phanerozoic, individual taxa appear to be less likely to become extinct at any time,[17] which may reflect more robust food webs as well as less extinction-prone species and other factors such as continental distribution.[17] However the taxonomic susceptibility to extinction does not appear to make mass extinctions more or less probable.[17] The idea that mass extinctions are becoming less frequent is rather speculative – from a statistical point of view a sample of about 10 extinction events is too small to be a reliable sign of any actual trend." Ergo, my question, aren't we being a wee bit overly dramatic? "Arens and West (2006) proposed a "press / pulse" model in which mass extinctions generally require two types of cause: long-term pressure on the eco-system ("press") and a sudden catastrophe ("pulse") towards the end of the period of pressure.[23] Their statistical analysis of marine extinction rates throughout the Phanerozoic suggested that neither long-term pressure alone nor a catastrophe alone was sufficient to cause a significant increase in the extinction rate." Multiple causation, hmmmm............... link the second ... "Background extinction rates are typically measured three different ways. The first is simply the number of species that normally go extinct over a given period of time. For example, at the background rate one species of bird will go extinct every estimated 400 years [5]. Another way the extinction rate can be given is in million species years (MSY). For example, there is approximately one extinction estimated per million species years [6]. From a purely mathematical standpoint this means that if there are a million species on the planet earth, one would go extinct every year, while if there was only one species it would go extinct in one million years, etc. The third way is in giving species survival rates over time. For example, given normal extinction rates species typically exist for 5–10 million years before going extinct. [7]" The fact that we do not currently know the total number of species, in the past nor the present, makes it very difficult to accurately calculate the non-anthropogenicly influenced extinction rates. As a rate, it is essential to know not just the number of extinctions, but also the number of non-extinctions. This fact, coupled with the fact that the rates do not remain constant, significantly reduces accuracy in estimates of the normal rate of extinctions. This inaccuracy was what my gut was responding to, by the way. Thanks for the information. I would say that your use of "extinction event" was, in my estimation, a poetic (indeed, hyperbolic formulation, to be precise) way of expressing your emotional response to the loss of amphibia you hold dear. It was not intended, I gather, to be a precise statement. Am I correct?
__________________
Inked "Aslan is not a tame lion." CSL/LWW "The new school [acts] as if it required...courage to say a blasphemy. There is only one thing that requires real courage to say, and that is a truism." GK Chesterton "And there is always the danger of allowing people to suppose that our modern times are so wholly unlike any other times that the fundamental facts about man's nature have wholly changed with changing circumstances." Dorothy L. Sayers, 1 Sept. 1941 |
08-15-2010, 12:59 AM | #23 | |||
Elven Warrior
Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: United States
Posts: 401
|
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
__________________
Elleth Valatari "We have come from God, and inevitably the myths woven by us, though they contain error, will also reflect a splintered fragment of the true light, the eternal truth that is with God. Our myths may be misguided, but they steer however shakily towards the true harbour, while materialistic 'progress' leads only to a yawning abyss and the Iron Crown of the power of evil." — J.R.R. Tolkien |
|||
08-15-2010, 01:04 AM | #24 |
Dread Mothy Lord and Halfwitted Apprentice Loremaster
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: Thomas Aquinas College, Santa Paula, CA
Posts: 10,820
|
It's really not necessary to think that it's absolutely and definitively an extinction event. EV's point did have some validity: our awareness of the number of species in the world today is exponentially higher than it ever has been, and so it's really difficult to say definitively that what is going on now is equivalent to anything before which has been called an extinction event. However, it is possible that there seems to be a pretty good chance of this, based on the evidence we have; if our certainty is not absolute, it does seem to be enough that we should act as though it were, rather than taking a complacent inaction.
__________________
Crux fidelis, inter omnes arbor una nobilis. Nulla talem silva profert, fronde, flore, germine. Dulce lignum, dulce clavo, dulce pondus sustinens. 'With a melon?' - Eric Idle |
08-15-2010, 01:04 AM | #25 |
Elven Warrior
Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: United States
Posts: 401
|
I disagree. As I said in the post before this, logical philosophy (Isaac Watts, anyone?) can only work perfectly in a perfect setting, in the same way as how an accurate science experiment must have controlled variables. Not impractical, just seldom used, and used correctly.
__________________
Elleth Valatari "We have come from God, and inevitably the myths woven by us, though they contain error, will also reflect a splintered fragment of the true light, the eternal truth that is with God. Our myths may be misguided, but they steer however shakily towards the true harbour, while materialistic 'progress' leads only to a yawning abyss and the Iron Crown of the power of evil." — J.R.R. Tolkien Last edited by EllethValatari : 08-15-2010 at 01:05 AM. |
08-15-2010, 01:47 AM | #26 |
Dread Mothy Lord and Halfwitted Apprentice Loremaster
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: Thomas Aquinas College, Santa Paula, CA
Posts: 10,820
|
The difficulty is that we don't live in a perfect setting. In a perfect setting, the planets should trace out circular orbits, but they don't.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of philosophy, and I believe that it is the greatest (or second greatest) human endeavour. I just think it's also important to be very aware of its inadequacies, and to not see in it a system that will infallibly describe the real world, as though we were able to completely grasp everything going on in reality. Don't think that there is no middle ground between simply dismissing philosophy and using it as a textbook to guide our interactions in the real world. Understanding philosophy as flawed does not in any way detract from the possibility of esteem, or even reverence for it.
__________________
Crux fidelis, inter omnes arbor una nobilis. Nulla talem silva profert, fronde, flore, germine. Dulce lignum, dulce clavo, dulce pondus sustinens. 'With a melon?' - Eric Idle Last edited by Gwaimir Windgem : 08-15-2010 at 01:49 AM. |
08-15-2010, 02:06 AM | #27 |
Elven Warrior
Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: United States
Posts: 401
|
Is philosophy flawed, or is the world flawed and thus a mode of thought designed for a perfect circumstances rendered impractical?
__________________
Elleth Valatari "We have come from God, and inevitably the myths woven by us, though they contain error, will also reflect a splintered fragment of the true light, the eternal truth that is with God. Our myths may be misguided, but they steer however shakily towards the true harbour, while materialistic 'progress' leads only to a yawning abyss and the Iron Crown of the power of evil." — J.R.R. Tolkien |
08-15-2010, 02:31 AM | #28 |
Dread Mothy Lord and Halfwitted Apprentice Loremaster
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: Thomas Aquinas College, Santa Paula, CA
Posts: 10,820
|
Both. Certainly, the world is too complex and multiform, and indeed flawed, for us to ever attain a full understanding of it. But at the same time, philosophy does not exist in a vacuum; it is the attempt of an intellect to engage the world rationally, and those intellects are themselves flawed.
__________________
Crux fidelis, inter omnes arbor una nobilis. Nulla talem silva profert, fronde, flore, germine. Dulce lignum, dulce clavo, dulce pondus sustinens. 'With a melon?' - Eric Idle |
08-15-2010, 09:09 AM | #29 | |||
The Chocoholic Sea Elf Administrator
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: N?n in Eilph (Belgium)
Posts: 14,363
|
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Nor am I the only one to consider modern-era extinctions as an extinction event. There have been many biologists from different fields saying the same thing. So I take my cue from several different sources. There is scientific concensus. The name 'anthropocene extinction' is even mentioned in several of places (although the definition and scientific acceptance of anthropocene as a new geological era is still under discussion.)
__________________
We are not things. |
|||
10-01-2010, 02:01 PM | #30 |
Elf Lord
Join Date: Dec 2000
Location: Fountain Valley, CA
Posts: 6,343
|
This is a cool thread .
Thanks for those sources, Eärniel, they're very interesting.
__________________
If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." |
10-02-2010, 10:14 AM | #31 |
The Chocoholic Sea Elf Administrator
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: N?n in Eilph (Belgium)
Posts: 14,363
|
You're welcome, Lief.
And ahem, moved all the welcomes to the Welcome thread.
__________________
We are not things. |
10-04-2010, 06:28 PM | #32 |
Elf Lord
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: sikeston, MO, usa, earth, sol
Posts: 3,114
|
Frogs and suburbia ...
http://sciencenews.org/view/feature/...s_face_threats Some rather unexpected findings, it seems.
__________________
Inked "Aslan is not a tame lion." CSL/LWW "The new school [acts] as if it required...courage to say a blasphemy. There is only one thing that requires real courage to say, and that is a truism." GK Chesterton "And there is always the danger of allowing people to suppose that our modern times are so wholly unlike any other times that the fundamental facts about man's nature have wholly changed with changing circumstances." Dorothy L. Sayers, 1 Sept. 1941 |
10-05-2010, 07:52 AM | #33 |
The Chocoholic Sea Elf Administrator
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: N?n in Eilph (Belgium)
Posts: 14,363
|
What did you find unexpected?
__________________
We are not things. |
10-05-2010, 07:10 PM | #34 |
Salt Miner
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: gone to Far Harad
Posts: 987
|
Does this link to the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement go here or in the Global Warming Thread?
|
10-05-2010, 08:19 PM | #35 |
Elf Lord
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: sikeston, MO, usa, earth, sol
Posts: 3,114
|
"After almost a decade of hot debate over whether atrazine, a common agricultural weed killer (SN: 2/27/10, p. 18), is creating frogs with both male and female characteristics, some scientists have taken a step back to survey such intersex frogs in a wide variety of landscapes, including pristine woodlands, urban areas and suburbia. Ecologist David Skelly of Yale University, for example, has found that — counter to usual assumptions — percentages of mixed-sex green frogs may be higher in the suburbs than on agricultural lands."
The same the research showed: "COUNTER TO USUAL ASSUMPTIONS". You know, that data thingy screwing around with the hypothesis stuff.
__________________
Inked "Aslan is not a tame lion." CSL/LWW "The new school [acts] as if it required...courage to say a blasphemy. There is only one thing that requires real courage to say, and that is a truism." GK Chesterton "And there is always the danger of allowing people to suppose that our modern times are so wholly unlike any other times that the fundamental facts about man's nature have wholly changed with changing circumstances." Dorothy L. Sayers, 1 Sept. 1941 |
10-06-2010, 05:58 AM | #36 | |
The Chocoholic Sea Elf Administrator
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: N?n in Eilph (Belgium)
Posts: 14,363
|
Quote:
Besides, isn't science all about testing hypotheses?
__________________
We are not things. |
|
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
Mass Extinction | Lalaith_Elf | General Messages | 53 | 05-19-2004 07:15 AM |
A series of Unfortunate Events | Eowyn, Lady of Rohan | Fantasy and Sci-Fi Novels | 1 | 03-05-2004 10:05 AM |
This is SAD! Orangutans Face Extinction in 20 Years... | Dúnedain | General Messages | 5 | 01-14-2004 02:08 PM |
"Off-stage" events in the novel that will be on the screen | IronParrot | Lord of the Rings Movies | 0 | 02-23-2002 02:18 AM |
Entmoot Calender for Other Important Events | gdl96 | General Messages | 6 | 12-12-2000 04:30 AM |