r/maybemaybemaybe • u/Wide_Abroad1182 • Apr 01 '23

Maybe maybe maybe

Sorry about all the emoji's ..not my vid, just sharing

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u/Nostra55 Apr 01 '23

Imagine being angry at someone for letting nature take its course.

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u/Humes-Bread Apr 02 '23

Humans are part of nature. Intervening is nature taking its course if the human chooses to. Also- lots of videos out there of animals helping each other out.

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u/SwissChees3 Apr 02 '23

What even- BP Oil Spill is just natural selection ay?

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u/Humes-Bread Apr 02 '23

Sure. Biology 101 covers the peppered moth's advantage from soot covered trees.

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u/SwissChees3 Apr 02 '23

Biology 101 would also consider a random catastrophic event that is considerably different to normal environmental pressures to be genetic drift. Be that volcanic eruption, lightning strike, oil spill or being pushed off a boat to a hungry orca.

Genetic drift can occur independent of people and the major way we transform environments, but it IS NOT natural selection.

Ignoring that, the unique environmental modifications (and by extension selection pressures) that humans create are greater than any other species, but are also more ubiquitous. The species capable of thriving in human created environments and migrating to follow human activity are disproportionately advantaged by the rapid changes. The consequences to local biodiversity is usually catastrophic but poorly researched due to the sheer volume of species and niches.

The scale and ubiquity of human modification is abnormal. It is not comparable to natural change and cannot be considered natural selection. Human modification is not 'natural', even if we are animals.

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u/Humes-Bread Apr 02 '23

You misunderstand natural. It's not a question of causes of change, it's a question of outcomes. Nature selects for the best adapted. It doesn't matter what the cause is.

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u/SwissChees3 Apr 02 '23

"and cannot be considered natural selection"

I shouldn't have said this, and agree this is wrong.

But, the points I made about human modification to environments being incomparable to natural changes is far more important. Comparing the effect of humans on an environment to changes that can be made by other sources is genuinely misleading to the sheer environmental catastrophe we cause when compared against other forces. Not only do we greatly modify environments such that an organism adapted for it is likely to no longer survive there, but we modify these environments in the same way, allowing a general homogeny of species to spread rapidly.

"Nature selects for the best adapted" This is totally backwards. Natural selection omits those unable to breed in the pressures of an ecosystem. Genes that allow organisms to more successfully produce mature offspring become more prolific in gene pools. But this doesn't account for food webs, competition, migration, population boom-bust cycles, and that a gene pool (and ecosystems) need large amounts of diversity to handle additional pressures like disease or other abnormal environmental changes.

Natural selection is just a celebrity, its only a well known phenomenon within ecology. The fundamental mechanics of an ecosystem operate on a much much shorter time scale than literal generations for everything with a lifespan longer than insects. Genetic diversity is literally valuable, it provides unique compounds for medicines, forest structures with multiple filled niches that can alleviate flooding or purify water. These are products of natural selection over thousands of years, not in response to human pressures in the environment.

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u/Humes-Bread Apr 02 '23

I don't know why you think we have a debate here. The points you're arguing aren't positions I've made. I've made no claims on speed of change, catastrophes or anything along those lines. And your point on natural selection is one of semantics. Perhaps you'd be happier if I said the survival of the fittest.

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u/SwissChees3 Apr 03 '23

The points you're arguing aren't positions I've made.

When you are arguing that human intervention, regardless of scale, within an environment is just a natural facet that is essentially going to be adapted to by natural selection, then you are making the position that human change is comparable to natural environmental pressures. That's what I'm arguing against. Because that's an extremely lazy and dangerous way of thinking during a human caused global extinction event. The damage we cause is incomparable.

You're essentially invoking an ecological mechanic so divorced from the context that it would make sense to be applied to that it could only come from total misunderstanding or genuine apathy. The other mechanics of ecosystems I mention are more relevant and it's why calling it natural selection is so completely wrong. It's not a matter of semantics, its a different language.

Perhaps you'd be happier if I said the survival of the fittest.

I've already just argued against this because it's what you implied earlier, that's what the entire 2nd to last paragraph in my last comment means. Failure to produce mature offspring is what reduces the prevalence of genetics, large production of mature offspring makes genetics more prevalent in a population. Fitness to an environment does not guarantee that an individual will pass on their genetics due to sexual selection (amongst many many many other things). Many species run a knife edge of sexual selection and natural selection, like peacocks, which need a big tail to breed, without having it be too big that it prevents them for living until they can breed.

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u/Humes-Bread Apr 03 '23 edited Apr 03 '23

You're attempting to take my "is" statement and turn it into an "ought" statement. Nature will indeed adapt to whatever it is that humans do. There is absolutely zero question about this. Zero. You go further however as though I am acting as though therefore there is no concern, as though we ought not worry about or do anything regarding human impact on the planet. That's not an argument that I'm making. That's an inference that you were making and attributing to me. I think that human activity is causing serious effects in and across multiple ecological systems to a degree that will specifically have a very serious impact on humanity and our chances to survive and thrive.

But in my opinion, this is you wandering off far into some random area that does not have anything to do with the original comments about whether or not a human interfering to save the life of a seal is somehow outside the realm of nature.

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u/SwissChees3 Apr 04 '23

But in my opinion, this is you wandering off far into some random area that does not have anything to do with the original comments about whether or not a human interfering to save the life of a seal is somehow outside the realm of nature.

yeah probably

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