Sunday, April 11, 2010
Foes to Friends
The human relationship with animals has been one of radical change. What started as a predator-prey relationship (with the humans often as prey) has dynamically evolved as now animals are studied by humans, even thought of as material comforts in some case. Obviously humans have gotten smarter over the decades but, over time, what do you believe the evolutionary complications of such a quick radical shift in the power dynamic? Also do you think that there will be further change in these relationships such as Mr. Erdmann suggested (with the use of natural selection to cause peaceful coexsistance of bacteria and humans)?
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Early humanoids were prey rather than being the top of the food chain like they are today. National Geographic says that the early humanoids such as the Australopithecus afarensis were hunted by large predators. This species of hominids was much smaller than modern humans and did not use tools.This species based its survival on avoiding and escaping the predators through the use of the social interactions within the species. With no physical defense mechanism, the predators did not adapt to protect themselves. With the sudden invention of tools, the humanoid species were able to triumph over the larger predators by cooperating with one another to take down the predator. With cooperation and attack tactics involving tools, the head of the food chain shifted from the large carnivores to the humans.
ReplyDeleteThe humans being on top of the food chain has caused some serious complications in the worldwide environment. The rapid shift of power did not give the other species time to adapt to survive. As a result, since the evolution of humans, it is believed 20,000 to 2,000,000 species have become extinct. Known as the Holocene extinction, there are 875 document extinctions between the 16th and 21st century. These extinctions have come from a variety of different reasons all brought forth by humans. The smallest percentage of these extinctions are due to direct predication by humans. A much larger percentage is due to the fact that humans, without predators, expanded into many of the environments through out the world. When humans come into an environment previously untouched, they either take or destroy the resources used by the organisms. The IUCN (World Conservation Union), as of 2007, believes that humans are putting over 40,000 species at risk currently and over 16,000 species could become extinct very soon. However, as human intelligence develops, they begin to recognize the negative impact their presence is having on the worldwide ecosystem. As a result, today, there are programs, both government and private, devoted to protecting the species that are endangered of becoming extinct. This shows that, even now, the relationship between humans and other species are changing towards a peaceful coexistance. However, this aid that humans are giving to species to allow for their survival is solely directed at multicellular organisms. It is less likely to come about a peaceful coexistance with bacteria (as discussed in class) because this drive for cooperation is supported by human morals. It is much easier for the average person to feel sympathetic for a helpless animal being wiped of the planet compared to a helpless bacteria. Therefore, people will continue to repair the damage done to animal species done by this rapid change in the food chain, but the relationship between bacteria and people is less likely to change.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/03/0307_060307_human_prey_2.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction
http://www.enviroliteracy.org/article.php/33.html
There is always a risk in steppping outside of the usual process of evolution. For one thing, the people responsible for such changes are often not those who are most concerned with the future of mankind and its evolution. Take, for example, the food industry, which uses many forms of technology to achieve its number one goal to get huge amounts of money from the huge amounts of food it produces, without worrying about how much of this food has become very artificial to where any unknown facts about nutrition will take a toll on human health, as we have not evolved with food of this kind, and without knowing to correct a nutritional problem, we of course cannot correct it. I suppose I should also mention the effects of Hitler's attempt at artificial selection of humans through genocide and world war.
ReplyDeleteHumans may have gotten too smart for their own good. We have become aware of our origins, but are we aware enough of all the implications of trying to manipulate or step outside of the process of evolution? I doubt it. The ways technology have helped us may seem very attractive and benevolent, but we are already having trouble dealing with things like overpopulation because of our tendency to think of our intelligence this way. If a wolf is too well adapted to kill, it will eat all its prey and then starve to death, which is why equilibrium should evolve between predator and prey. Likewise, as humans we have become shockingly well adapted to survive, so much so that what used to be a bunch of tiny tribes has basically taken over the world; we have far surpassed what naturally should have been the carrying capacity of the earth for humans, but we have artifically extended this carrying capacity. Who is to say how far this can go? Any time we see a change that happens faster than or in a different way from how it should due to just natural selection, it is because humans stepped outside their place in the evolutionary process.
So, to answer Mehul's question, it is hard to say. Something like artificial selection of pets is probably not a huge deal in comparison to some other things, but you never know. There always could be unseen problems. Maybe someday the worldwide spread of dogs in close proximity to humans will enable the spread of a terrible disease that affects both dogs and humans, to give one example. On the other hand, there could also be benefits, such as Mr. Erdmann's suggestion of causing the coexistence of bacteria or viruses in humans through artificial selection. But again, it is hard to say where this could lead, because what if such a pathogen turns out to be deadly to an important food source, and this costs the world many lives because of starvation? There are an extremely large number of ideas like this that we could come up with, and even then, it is impossible to become totally aware of every single possible gain or loss that could arise from lingering around evolution's bounds.
Specifically to Mehul's prompt, we have many different relationships with animals, including pet breeding, harvesting, genetic engineering, and harmful pollution. Each of these could possibly have a completely different set of costs and benefits we can never entirely discover. I do believe we will have further such changes in human-animal relationships in the future, since we have shown on many occasions our eagerly and ingeniously expansive nature.
There is always a risk in steppping outside of the usual process of evolution. For one thing, the people responsible for such changes are often not those who are most concerned with the future of mankind and its evolution. Take, for example, the food industry, which uses many forms of technology to achieve its number one goal to get huge amounts of money from the huge amounts of food it produces, without worrying about how much of this food has become very artificial to where any unknown facts about nutrition will take a toll on human health, as we have not evolved with food of this kind, and without knowing to correct a nutritional problem, we of course cannot correct it. I suppose I should also mention the effects of Hitler's attempt at artificial selection of humans through genocide and world war.
ReplyDeleteHumans may have gotten too smart for their own good. We have become aware of our origins, but are we aware enough of all the implications of trying to manipulate or step outside of the process of evolution? I doubt it. The ways technology have helped us may seem very attractive and benevolent, but we are already having trouble dealing with things like overpopulation because of our tendency to think of our intelligence this way. If a wolf is too well adapted to kill, it will eat all its prey and then starve to death, which is why equilibrium should evolve between predator and prey. Likewise, as humans we have become shockingly well adapted to survive, so much so that what used to be a bunch of tiny tribes has basically taken over the world; we have far surpassed what naturally should have been the carrying capacity of the earth for humans, but we have artifically extended this carrying capacity. Who is to say how far this can go? Any time we see a change that happens faster than or in a different way from how it should due to just natural selection, it is because humans stepped outside their place in the evolutionary process.
So, to answer Mehul's question, it is hard to say. Something like artificial selection of pets is probably not a huge deal in comparison to some other things, but you never know. There always could be unseen problems. Maybe someday the worldwide spread of dogs in close proximity to humans will enable the spread of a terrible disease that affects both dogs and humans, to give one example. On the other hand, there could also be benefits, such as Mr. Erdmann's suggestion of causing the coexistence of bacteria or viruses in humans through artificial selection. But again, it is hard to say where this could lead, because what if such a pathogen turns out to be deadly to an important food source, and this costs the world many lives because of starvation? There are an extremely large number of ideas like this that we could come up with, and even then, it is impossible to become totally aware of every single possible gain or loss that could arise from lingering around evolution's bounds.
Specifically to Mehul's prompt, we have many different relationships with animals, including pet breeding, harvesting, genetic engineering, and harmful pollution. Each of these could possibly have a completely different set of costs and benefits we can never entirely discover. I do believe we will have further such changes in human-animal relationships in the future, since we have shown on many occasions our eagerly and ingeniously expansive nature.
I was only going to answer one question today, but this question to me is very interesting, so I decided to give it a go. Great question, Mehul!
ReplyDeleteOver time as technological advancements have taken place, human beings have become increasingly dominant over animals. In my opinion this began about 790,000 years ago when human beings, or cavemen, discovered/created the first fire (http://archaeology.about.com/od/ancientdailylife/qt/fire_control.htm). Another extremely important phenomenon was the first firearm which began to appear in the mid 1400s (http://wiki.answers.com/Q/When_was_the_first_gun_invented). It is because of these technological advancements that I do not believe it is as much of an evolutionary change on the human being part (as humans did not form stronger body parts but rather created stronger technologies), but that the human beings controlled and still control the adaptations of the species of animals.
Coyne has an entire section of his book called “Animal and Plant Breeding” (Coyne, 125). It is artificial selection that occurred with several animals that changed the dynamic from a more aggressive relationship between animals and humans as opposed to the current more peaceful relationship. The word that comes to mind when describing such a process is domestication, which can be defined as the process where a population of animals or plants becomes accustomed to human provision and control (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestication). An important example of this is farmers grazing cattle on their farms in a controlled environment to be slaughtered for food production. Human beings no longer have to hunt for animals in the wild as the grocery store, butchers, and farmers produce food that is available to everyone quickly while reducing the amount of energy used to obtain the food.
In response to the last part of the question, I do believe that there will be further change in the relationships, specifically with the use of natural selection to cause peaceful coexistence of bacteria and humans. 8th Edition AP Biology by Campbell describes E.O. Wilson’s idea of biophilia. Biophilia is our sense of connection to nature and other forms of life (Campbell, 1247). It is because of this strong connections with other forms of life, such as bacteria, that I believe human beings will do everything we can to coexists and coevolve with other forms of life.
Besides biophilia, and perhaps more of a practical reason, I believe humans will develop a way to live peacefully with bacteria out of necessity. Currently, human beings use antibiotics to kill bacteria that cause infections in the body, or pathogens. Because bacteria mutate much more rapidly than human beings, it is dangerous to kill of bacteria using antibiotics. The bacteria will become harder to kill as they adapt through natural selection to be able to survive in the presence of the antibiotic (http://www.education.com/reference/article/Ref_Danger_Antibiotic/). The result of this is the need for us to create new antibiotics to kill the new, stronger bacteria. This is very difficult to do, and if we do not find a way to do it, the human race could be extremely affected by a “super bacteria”. The result of this can be an epidemic.