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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbatt!ihnp4!qantel!lll-lcc!lll-crg!caip!think!ima!haddock!karl
From: karl@haddock
Newsgroups: net.sci
Subject: Re: A Modest Proposal
Message-ID: <94100002@haddock>
Date: Tue, 23-Sep-86 23:43:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: haddock.94100002
Posted: Tue Sep 23 23:43:00 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 29-Sep-86 06:21:52 EDT
References: <26500079@inmet>
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Nf-ID: #R:inmet:26500079:haddock:94100002:000:1258
Nf-From: haddock!karl    Sep 23 23:43:00 1986


inmet!janw (Jan Wasilewsky) writes:
>And if eventually we become a *major* factor in the evolution of species -
>what is wrong with that?  All air-breathing vertebrates are apparently
>descended from one fish species.  If, some day, most of them are descended
>either from humans or from human-bred animals - need we wring our hands in
>advance?  Maybe the change is for the better - whatever *that* means...

Bravo!  It's been estimated that 90% or more of all species that ever lived
on Earth are now extinct (I suspect the true figure is higher).  I'm not
crying over the demise of the passenger pigeon or dodo; it doesn't bother me
that my ancestors may have hunted the woolly mammoth to extinction; and good
riddance to T. Rex!  The whales do get my sympathy, since there's a chance
they may be intelligent (whatever *that* means).

On the flip side, I'd like to mention an extrapolation I saw once to compute
an upper bound on human population, even assuming that (as I hope) we expand
into space.  Using the current rate of exponential growth, how long would it
take before the entire mass of the galaxy is converted into human flesh?
Would you believe a mere 6000 years?

Karl W. Z. Heuer (ima!haddock!karl or karl@haddock.isc.com), The Walking Lint