The 6th Mass Extinction

[rowan]

Scientists warn we are on the verge of a sixth mass extinction and this time the culprit is not a collision of continents or a giant meteorite striking the earth. The culprit is, of course, us. Humans have actually been killing off other species for an awfully long time; since they first wandered out of Africa about 100,000 years ago, in fact. The extinction of mastadons, woolly rhinos and saber-toothed tigers, for example, can all be traced to within several millenia of man's arrival on the Eurasian continent; and these species had existed for millions of years before. The same actually applies to earlier species of man who had already reached those environs. Neanderthals and Dinosovians had existed in Eurasia for hundreds of thousands of years before the arrival of modern man, but were gone within several millenia after. Actually, both were absorbed to some degree, with Europeans considered to hold about 2.5% Neanderthal DNA on average, and Asians, Native Americans and Austronesians up to 5% Dinosovian. This is considered to be the key to the emergence of the four major ethnic groups, in fact. But scientists believe hybridization was highly unusual and had low success rates due to chromosomal factors. The Neanderthals and Dinosovians were small-game hunters and did not threaten larger species of mammals. Modern man were big game hunters, however, and left a path of destructon from the outset. And this has reached a crescendo in modern times with the population explosion of the past century and a half. Humans have not only built huge metropoles and destroyed much of the environment for resources, we have required vast amounts of farmland for the untold billions of livestock kept to feed off, and predators which threaten them have duly been wiped out. Since 1900 around 70 species of mammal and several hundred more varieties of vertebrates have gone extinct, while more than 3000 more are currently on the endangered list. Numbers of wild animas not in parks or zoos, etc, are generally very low and will have gone extinct entirely within the next few centuries at the current rate. In fact, the current extinction is considered to be among the fastest of the 'Big Six.' The Permian Exctinction of 250 million years ago, which wiped out an estimated 98% of the earth's species as the continents came together and formed Pangaea (aka Gwondanaland) actually occurred over 600,000 years. A much quicker extinction occurred 65 million years ago when a giant meteorite struck the earth just off the Yucatan Pensinsula in Mexico, wiping out dinosaurs completely, along with many other species. It was the absence of dinosaurs which allowed mammals to evolve beyond a variety of furry, shrew-liked creatures, however; just as the end of the Permian Extinction gave rise to the age of the dinosaurs. The question is whether we are going to find a way to reverse the current mass exctinction before it reaches its conclusion.

http://www.truth-out.org/buzzflash/comm ... ator-is-us

[Donny osmond]

Puts Syria in perspective tho, no?

[rowan]

Hopefully that truce holds up. They were starting to look like part of the process

[Len]

Come at me bro

[morepork]

Come over me bro

First hilarious "fix" for these sparsely populated austere boards.

[Lizard]

It's great isn't it, clearing the way for the next big evolutionary explosion. I wonder what will rise in mammals' place?


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[rowan]

Some variety of insect(s) no doubt. They and the reptiles have been around since even before the Permian extinction, while jellyfish predate them all. But whereas humans have severely impacted on both reptiles and jellyfish, some varieties of insects are actually thriving on human existence.

[Vengeful Glutton]

Ugh, it's depressing isn't it? Ultimately I think strong AI will replace most of us (and perhaps that's the next big evolutionary step?).

I really don't see what humans bring to the party that is planet earth. Bacteria, viruses, cockroaches, maggots all play a crucial role. All we seem to do is....



http://www.vhemt.org/

[rowan]

It's certainly not beyond the realms of possibility that humans will inadvertently bring about their own destruction and give rise to the reign of artificial intelligence . . .

[kk67]

It's certainly not beyond the realms of possibility that humans will inadvertently bring about their own destruction and give rise to the reign of artificial intelligence . . .

Hmmm. Hawkin and Gates certainly seem to think so.

I think watching Gates say out loud: 'I don't know why people aren't more terrified of AI'....is one of the most frightening things I've ever seen.

[Vengeful Glutton]

https://www.wired.com/2000/04/joy-2/

[rowan]

If humans do not wipe themselves out, that will be interesting. Within a few centuries we may have dispensed with our biological bodies almost entirely and become all-powerful, controlling every aspect of our environment with our brainwaves. Eventually humans would become god-like.

[WaspInWales]

If humans do not wipe themselves out, that will be interesting. Within a few centuries we may have dispensed with our biological bodies almost entirely and become all-powerful, controlling every aspect of our environment with our brainwaves. Eventually humans would become god-like.

Ok.

[cashead]

[rowan]

If we don't wipe ourselves out, there's no reason to think that we would disappear any time soon, however. We've still only been the dominant species for about half as long as the Neanderthals were before us - and for only a fraction of a percent (0.6) as long as the dinosaurs roamed the earth. Indeed, physically we remain in the infancy of our evolution, being fairly ill-equipped for our modern day lifestyles. Dinosaurs, by the time they became extinct, had reached the apex of their evolution, and even had perforated bones, for example, to reduce their massive body-weight. We can only wonder what modern humans might look like if we managed to stick around for 165 million years... Is it possible we might learn to travel back in time, as sort of holographs, and be mistaken for aliens?

[Lizard]

If we don't wipe ourselves out, there's no reason to think that we would disappear any time soon, however. We've still only been the dominant species for about half as long as the Neanderthals were before us - and for only a fraction of a percent (0.6) as long as the dinosaurs roamed the earth. Indeed, physically we remain in the infancy of our evolution, being fairly ill-equipped for our modern day lifestyles. Dinosaurs, by the time they became extinct, had reached the apex of their evolution, and even had perforated bones, for example, to reduce their massive body-weight. We can only wonder what modern humans might look like if we managed to stick around for 165 million years... Is it possible we might learn to travel back in time, as sort of holographs, and be mistaken for aliens?

Although I take your general point, your comparisons are a bit unfair.

Homo neanderthalensis was never a globally dominant species, being limited to Europe and the near east. Further, although identifying the "start" of a biologically defined species is often fraught, Neanderthals were around for about 200,000 years, which is within the range for the "lifespan" of H. sapiens to date.

Your dinosaurs comparison is even more unfair. Dinosaurs were a vast range of reptile species, none of which endured for the whole "reign." There was more time between Stegosaurus and Tyrannosaurus rex than there was between Tyrannosaurus rex and you! A quick google suggests that no one dinosaur genus is known to have lasted more than 10 million years - still much longer than the homo genus. (Although that is a matter of definition. Arguably, chimpanzees, humans and their common ancestor should all be in the same genus given genetic similarities.)

A better comparison might be between dinosaurs and primates (which I would accept have not been dominant mammals other than our own species) or even higher taxonomic clades such as Boreoeutheria which includes primates, rodents, hooved mammals and pawed carnivores (and I would argue has been dominant for a considerable period of time).

The fact that the dinosaurs' reign was longer than the period of time from the end of that reign to today makes it a truism that no extant group has been dominant for as long.


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[Coco]

I really don't see what humans bring to the party that is planet earth.

small_8426-huge-tits-jiggling-and-bouncing-while-offroading.gif

They're called boobs, VG.

[rowan]

If we don't wipe ourselves out, there's no reason to think that we would disappear any time soon, however. We've still only been the dominant species for about half as long as the Neanderthals were before us - and for only a fraction of a percent (0.6) as long as the dinosaurs roamed the earth. Indeed, physically we remain in the infancy of our evolution, being fairly ill-equipped for our modern day lifestyles. Dinosaurs, by the time they became extinct, had reached the apex of their evolution, and even had perforated bones, for example, to reduce their massive body-weight. We can only wonder what modern humans might look like if we managed to stick around for 165 million years... Is it possible we might learn to travel back in time, as sort of holographs, and be mistaken for aliens?

Although I take your general point, your comparisons are a bit unfair.

Homo neanderthalensis was never a globally dominant species, being limited to Europe and the near east. Further, although identifying the "start" of a biologically defined species is often fraught, Neanderthals were around for about 200,000 years, which is within the range for the "lifespan" of H. sapiens to date.

Your dinosaurs comparison is even more unfair. Dinosaurs were a vast range of reptile species, none of which endured for the whole "reign." There was more time between Stegosaurus and Tyrannosaurus rex than there was between Tyrannosaurus rex and you! A quick google suggests that no one dinosaur genus is known to have lasted more than 10 million years - still much longer than the homo genus. (Although that is a matter of definition. Arguably, chimpanzees, humans and their common ancestor should all be in the same genus given genetic similarities.)

A better comparison might be between dinosaurs and primates (which I would accept have not been dominant mammals other than our own species) or even higher taxonomic clades such as Boreoeutheria which includes primates, rodents, hooved mammals and pawed carnivores (and I would argue has been dominant for a considerable period of time).

The fact that the dinosaurs' reign was longer than the period of time from the end of that reign to today makes it a truism that no extant group has been dominant for as long.


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You may have taken the comparisons a little too literally there. Re the dinosaurs it was only to present some kind of scale that would give an indication of the brevity of our dominance, which now goes back about 100 K, although our species goes back a million years and the evolution of apes many millions (and the evolution of mammals back to the extinction of the dinosaurs). So I certainly see your point, which actually occurred to me at the time. Yes, the Neanderthals were confined to West Eurasia but were believe to have been the dominant species at the time, if only because of their intelligence (they had a slightly larger brain capacity than modern man, in fact). But the discovery of Denisovian man and others further eastward has certainly complicated that particular issue, with scientists still knowing relatively little about them. I think it would be reasonable to assume they were of similar intelligence and ability to both Neanderthals and modern man, therefore rendering the comment I made about Neanderthals erroneous, but again the comparison was only provided as a sort of simplistic scale. The main point being that modern man remains a very young species, and it would be a pretty sad indictment on our nature if we wiped ourselves out somehow barely an instant (on the grand scale of time) after showing up...

[Lizard]

To the nearest reasonable approximation, all species are extinct.


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[Vengeful Glutton]

I really don't see what humans bring to the party that is planet earth.

small_8426-huge-tits-jiggling-and-bouncing-while-offroading.gif

They're called boobs, VG.

Meh.

Get my kicks above the waistline sweety.

[WaspInWales]

I really don't see what humans bring to the party that is planet earth.

small_8426-huge-tits-jiggling-and-bouncing-while-offroading.gif

They're called boobs, VG.

Meh.

Get my kicks above the waistline sweety.

If you're looking at boobs below the waistline, you need to look elsewhere!

[Coco]

small_8426-huge-tits-jiggling-and-bouncing-while-offroading.gif

They're called boobs, VG.

Meh.

Get my kicks above the waistline sweety.

If you're looking at boobs below the waistline, you need to look elsewhere!

[Vengeful Glutton]

OT, but thought I'd post anyway. Quite fascinating. Super intelligent humans?

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/5356 ... fect-baby/

[morepork]

OT, but thought I'd post anyway. Quite fascinating. Super intelligent humans?

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/5356 ... fect-baby/

If only it were that simple....."intelligence" is an epigenetic construct and notions of engineering such a trait are fantasy. The CRISPR technology is however very real, and surprisingly practical. The most immediate clinical application would be to edit out an inborn genetic error out of the germline (i.e. a single genetic defect), but that is still a way off. It can be combined with gene therapy technology to target specific cell populations to alter/fix function. Neuroscience is currentl all aflutter with this possibility. It is used fairly commonly to manipulate specific genes in pathways that model disease and/or development.

[Vengeful Glutton]

Thanks MP. Intriguing.

Do you have any thoughts about the consequences - if any (designer babies etc.) - of this technology?