Chicken or the egg?

[Audie]

Imagine how good that first chicken and egg would have tasted.
Definitely no added hormones. Truly free range.
It's lucky I didn't exist when it came into being.
There might not be any chickens today.

Just remember, the sooner all the animals are extinct
the sooner we will find out where their money is hidden.

That can happen -- all the animals become extinct?
Wouldn't they just adapt. According to environmental pressures, selected mutations, all that.

So I wouldn't be to concerned.
It's not like we're above the natural order.
Nature has a way of keeping a balance it seems.

Obviously, not all animals could be extirpated by people. Very large and ever increasing
numbers are going extinct tho, as a direct or indirect consequence of human activity. Where this is going, how bad it will
get, who knows.

Some few are finding ways to benefit from people. Cats, rats, dogs, cockroaches, starlings,
cows..actually there are a lot of plants and animals that have greatly extended their range and numbers,
often at the expense of local species that are exterminated.

Your cane toads, say.

If you are not concerned, it is definitely not because there is nothing to
be concerned about. The adaptation you speak of is the rarest of exceptions.

As for balance, "balance of nature" is essentially about limiting factors that prevent any
species or group of same from exponential growth at the expense of others.

See cactus and rabbits in Oz, for that. You got lucky with the cactus.

Over time, the feral cats and the toads will cease to extend their
range and cease to exterminate. Eventually people will too.

The new balance will be in a vastly depleted, impoverished landscape.

[B. W.]

For some odd reason this thread makes me feel a bit Hen Pecked
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[RickD]

For some odd reason this thread makes me feel a bit Hen Pecked
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Henpecked? I warned you not to let your wife out of the kitchen!

Henpecked-
browbeaten, bullied, or intimidated by one's wife, girlfriend, etc.:

You have to show them who's boss. You can't let them walk all over...OH CRAP!! I FORGOT TO WASH THE DISHES AND SHE JUST GOT HOME! She's gonna kill me...gotta go...

[Kurieuo]

Thanks Audie for your serious response.
My points were actually serious so I appreciate your words back.

Despite what I say, I think this is an important issue. Because our beliefs here also affect perhaps that way we should look after Earth and other creatures in it.

Again, like with the evolutionary beliefs that I believe are best supported by Theistic foundations,
I also believe the idea that we ought to be good stewards of the Earth and creatures is best founded upon Theism.

Imagine how good that first chicken and egg would have tasted.
Definitely no added hormones. Truly free range.
It's lucky I didn't exist when it came into being.
There might not be any chickens today.

Just remember, the sooner all the animals are extinct
the sooner we will find out where their money is hidden.

That can happen -- all the animals become extinct?
Wouldn't they just adapt. According to environmental pressures, selected mutations, all that.

So I wouldn't be to concerned.
It's not like we're above the natural order.
Nature has a way of keeping a balance it seems.

Obviously, not all animals could be extirpated by people. Very large and ever increasing numbers are going extinct tho, as a direct or indirect consequence of human activity. Where this is going, how bad it will get, who knows.

Discarding my current theistic beliefs for a moment, I'm not sure that is "bad".
That is, nature always manages to take care of itself. Life always manages to find a way.
Many species have gone extinct over time, always to be replaced by something better (intelligent?), even more complex.
We can no more rise above nature than a fish. We're a product of nature just the same after all.
Unless humanity is somehow more significant in that we can transcend nature, I just don't see anything bad.
If we destroy most other life on earth, well such is just nature taking its course.
We're obviously the most fit, then so be it. There's nothing bad in that for us to really get emotional about.

Some few are finding ways to benefit from people. Cats, rats, dogs, cockroaches, starlings, cows..actually there are a lot of plants and animals that have greatly extended their range and numbers, often at the expense of local species that are exterminated.

Your cane toads, say.

And that's just nature following its course.
You might find it distasteful, but there's nothing inherently bad about these things.
Nature has just used us as a mechanism for change throughout the world, that's all.

If you are not concerned, it is definitely not because there is nothing to be concerned about. The adaptation you speak of is the rarest of exceptions.

Naturally speaking, I'm not sure I understand your concern.

I'm not trying to be dense here, but seriously, unless we can somehow rise above nature, then it's just nature.
There's nothing really wrong or to be concerned over with a lions eating wildebeest, zebra, giraffe, buffalo and wild hogs to sometimes rhinos and hippos.
They're just fulfilling their role as set by nature. Likewise, there's nothing really wrong with fulfilling our role as set by nature.

As for balance, "balance of nature" is essentially about limiting factors that prevent any
species or group of same from exponential growth at the expense of others.

See cactus and rabbits in Oz, for that. You got lucky with the cactus.

Over time, the feral cats and the toads will cease to extend their
range and cease to exterminate. Eventually people will too.

The new balance will be in a vastly depleted, impoverished landscape.

And then new growth will just re-occur again, right?
It's not like nature really cares that it might take a few million more years.

Like bushfire burns all old shrubbery, plants and trees to see re-growth,
well then maybe nature will burn all life to the ground only to see it replaced with something fresh and new.

We might be a more dominant species now, but perhaps nature will keep us in check and restore a balance through a more advanced species or even killing us all off, or maybe we'll blow ourselves all up and everything with us.

While I'm sentient enough to think, "oh, no" and I have some kind of speciesism feelings, again there's nothing really wrong with us all dying off.
The only way such can really be tragic is if there is something more than nature.

[Mrs K]

Let me try to put myself into the mind of the "rational atheist"...

Maybe one might argue that our causing the extinction of animals/plants is not "natural". But since humans are part of nature, then what we do would be natural. How is it any different to a cat eating a rat? Oh, we are killing too many... how about a typhoon wiping out a city - that kills many, that's natural... but because we have larger brains, we have some sort of obligation to the planet's inhabitants? Are human's somehow above nature? Have we reached the limit of our evolution to the point that we are in control of our own destiny now?

While it may seem tragic if our species were to be wiped out because of the extinction we caused in other animals/plants/eco-systems... that is obviously just an emotional position. Rationally - this life right now is the only life I will live and when I die nothing for me to care about, my brain is gone. If I may die in the next hour (car crash, choke on my dinner, cat trips me down the stairs, etc.), what does it _really_ matter to me if the planet will be unliveable for humans in 20 years time. If it works best for me right now to tip the oil from my cooking down the sink, not to recycle my glass jars (can't be bother rinsing them), kill the possums that keep crawling in my floorboards (even though they are a protected species), etc... why should I care about them, why should I care about the future of humanity???

This emotionally "care factor" appears to be some kind of "Evolutionary Baggage" - but an instinctual kind rather than a genetic one. Maybe it was advantageous to care about our species and others in order to ensure we would flourish. But there is more than enough of us now... rationally, the planet is already over-populated with humans so my care for them is unnecessary. And knowing how ecosystems work - even if we manage to wipe out most of what is living on the planet today, the Earth will survive, and new species will take over... it's all just part of a bigger cycle... we are but a tiny tiny tiny speck in an enormous universe that is also going through cycles.

Nothing really matters - does it? Really?

[Audie]

I dont have time for this now, but in partial response, it seems to me that Christians ought by
rights be the last to care.

It was easily made, in a flash; then all was made corrupt and debased.
Still, it ALL is specified to be for mans use. No conditions just go forth and do
exponential growth.

Then too, a rain of destruction is to come down, after which its to all be remade anyhow.

Its ungrateful by that not to harpoon the last whale or turn the amazon basin to barren scrubland
its like leaving good food on your plate.

Christians have been good at the distinction between splash-splash vs whole body baptism
or the morality of dancing, but I dont see any notion at all of ethical considerations concerning
how we share the space with other living things.

[Kurieuo]

Red herrings are a popular fish today.

[Audie]

Red herrings are a popular fish today.

you been readin' too much jac lately and think, consequentemente, that labeling so, at your whimsy.
is somehow anything other than a rather disrespectful hand wave.

It wasnt even addressed to you.

Its in partial response to the posited position of a atheist, posted previously

[Kurieuo]

Just tell me to take a hike or maybe go fly a kite.

[Audie]

Just tell me to take a hike or maybe go fly a kite.

Now you KNOW where your kite would end up!

[Danieltwotwenty]

Found this article interesting on the subject of chicken v egg.

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2006/may/26/uknews

[Danieltwotwenty]

I am resurrecting this because I read something awhile ago that I thought was interesting.

To answer the question, we have to first ask ourselves what is a chicken, what characteristics makes a chicken a chicken, but the problem with this is that evolution is not a binary system, it is a sliding scale from one animal to the next over millions of years and millions of mutations. The analogy I read was to imagine a colour wheel like the attached at the bottom of this post (albiet even more gradients than this one), now if we pick the colour dark red as being the chickens ancestor and the colour dark blue as the modern day chicken, at what point on the colour gradient from dark red to dark blue would you consider the colour is no longer red and is now blue (ancestor to modern chicken), if you can answer this then you can begin to answer the chicken or egg question. My answer is still that none came first, as we cannot clearly define exactly when a chicken is a chicken.

[Kurieuo]

Welcome back D220!

[Jac3510]

Neither. The waffle comes first.

[B. W.]

I am resurrecting this because I read something awhile ago that I thought was interesting.

To answer the question, we have to first ask ourselves what is a chicken, what characteristics makes a chicken a chicken, but the problem with this is that evolution is not a binary system, it is a sliding scale from one animal to the next over millions of years and millions of mutations. The analogy I read was to imagine a colour wheel like the attached at the bottom of this post (albiet even more gradients than this one), now if we pick the colour dark red as being the chickens ancestor and the colour dark blue as the modern day chicken, at what point on the colour gradient from dark red to dark blue would you consider the colour is no longer red and is now blue (ancestor to modern chicken), if you can answer this then you can begin to answer the chicken or egg question. My answer is still that none came first, as we cannot clearly define exactly when a chicken is a chicken.

Well... look this thread over....

//discussions.godandscience.org/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=41295

There is sure a lot about chickens lately!
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