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From: prs@oliveb.UUCP (Phil Stephens)
Newsgroups: net.sci
Subject: Re: Costs of extinction
Message-ID: <44@oliveb.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 30-Sep-86 22:12:14 EDT
Article-I.D.: oliveb.44
Posted: Tue Sep 30 22:12:14 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 3-Oct-86 08:20:35 EDT
References: <26500079@inmet> <26500106@inmet> <1166@cybvax0.UUCP>
Reply-To: prs@oliven.UUCP (Philip Stephens)
Organization: Olivetti ATC; Cupertino, Ca
Lines: 53

In article <1166@cybvax0.UUCP> mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz) writes:
>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.

Yes, this is a very exciting possibility/probability.  And it can best be
done, as you indicate, by building on the base of natural-selection's
millions of years of experimenting.  The best reason for us to seek to
preserve *at least* the genes, preferably *in addition* to conserving
the areas in question, ie rainforests.

>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.

Good idea, if workable.  Can you (or anyone else on this group) confirm the
practicality of this preservation technique for later use, in terms of
present technoloy?  And for the sake of planning, how much material (ie, 
grams? milligrams?) is needed in each sample?  

I do *not* mean this question as an implicite criticism; I really want to
know how practical this aspect of the idea is, how large the storage 
facility would have to be, how expensive.  If it costs on the order of the
Apollo program, but not on the order of Star Wars, I could see doing it.

>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.

No, increasing human numbers *rapidly* results in lower standard of living.
Wealth as one's share of precious metals is less important.  Advancing
technology faster than the population allows for greater efficiencies,
better healing techniques, improved communication, and ways of "in effect"
increasing the available resourses.  In the next century this can include
asteroid mining for minerals, but food will have to be grown here mostly,
so we'd better not double the population faster than we can manage the
food supply for them.

And we'd better not bankrupt ourselves before we get a space-going 
economy working, or we'll be much more limited for non-renewable 
resources.

>Mike Huybensz		...decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh


						- Phil
Reply-To: prs@oliven.UUCP (Phil Stephens)