Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!caip!think!husc6!cmcl2!seismo!ll-xn!mit-amt!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh From: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz) Newsgroups: net.sci Subject: Costs of extinction Message-ID: <1166@cybvax0.UUCP> Date: Mon, 29-Sep-86 15:48:22 EDT Article-I.D.: cybvax0.1166 Posted: Mon Sep 29 15:48:22 1986 Date-Received: Wed, 1-Oct-86 01:32:39 EDT References: <26500079@inmet> <26500106@inmet> Reply-To: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz) Organization: Cybermation, Inc., Cambridge, MA Lines: 82 Karl Heuer and Jan weep crocodile tears over past and future extinctions.... In article <26500106@inmet> janw@inmet.UUCP writes: > ... the mammoth's exit does sadden me somewhat... > But it would be foolish to blame our ancestors - too much was at > stake for them with a giant store of protein like that, and an ex- > cellent tool material, to boot. Had they been advanced enough, > they might have tamed the mammoth - and have meat and tusks in > abundance, plus a magnificent beast of burden. It's hard to blame pre-scientific, pre-world community peoples for their extermination of some species. But what is our excuse? Our descendents in the next 5 generations might well look back at us and say: "they threw away 95% of the world's genetic diversity, just before they got to the point where they could understand it well enough to record and utilize it." Genetic diversity represents the solutions to problems faced by each species. Solutions arrived at over thousands to millions of years of evolution: working solutions selected from irreproducible numbers of natural experiments, selected because they WORK. We need these solutions, because we can use them NOW. Our agriculture benefits from genes for disease resistance, from biological control organisms, etc. Our pharmacology is largely a ripoff of naturally evolved biologically active compounds, and that is still the largest source of new drugs. Many of our process industries (food, waste, and some materials) are based on discovered organisms. But it's a well known fact that what we're using now is only the tip of the iceberg. Only a tiny fraction of the potentially useful organisms have been well studied, and none well enough that we can justify allowing its extinction on the grounds that it has nothing to offer. We need these evolved solutions, because we can use them in new ways in the near future. Between recombinant DNA technology and sequencing technology, we will soon be able to build a whole new biochemical (rather than or in addition to petrochemical) economy. We will be able to identify and synthesize enzymes long before we can adequately design them: until then, we really need natural enzymes for models. Eventually, perhaps, we might be able to learn enough about organisms that we can recreate them from their sequences and cultures of related organisms. Maybe we could even start preserving organisms in liquid nitrogen, so that their chromosomes stay intact, in hope that future technology will allow recovery of that information. Perhaps then we could better afford to allow extinctions. Another question needs to be asked. What are we really gaining from these extinctions? If we're selling our genetic birthrights, we ought to get more than a mess of pottage for them. But in the world's rainforests, where the major extinctions are taking place right now, all we are getting is a one-time harvest of timber (mostly for pulp) and non-sustainable systems of agriculture (either grazing or slash-and burn subsistance farming). This at a time when there is a world glut of food: the products of the forests' destruction aren't really needed. > Will the universe as known 300 years > from now be at all like the universe we know? No, if past experi- > ence is any guide. Let us therefore not plan that far at all - > but expand our knowledge and our resources - including our > numbers. And then, using these assets, cross each bridge as we > come to it. The future is *open*. Human numbers are only assets in competition between groups of humans. If you assume wealth per capita is the measure of quality of life, then increasing human numbers can only result in less wealth per capita because of the finite resources on earth and diseconomies of scale. In addition, there is a direct conflict between expanding knowledge and expanding population when the result of the expanding population is to reduce the diversity of information represented in life. -- "To save the world requires faith and courage: faith in reason, and courage to proclaim what reason shows to be true." Bertrand Russell in "The Prospects of Industrial Civilization". -- Mike Huybensz ...decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh