janw@inmet.UUCP (10/29/86)
[From: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz)] [Newsgroups: net.sci Subject: Costs of extinction] [Date: 29 Sep 86 19:48:22 GMT] [This article has reached me by e-mail, courtesy of the author] >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? Only that our civilisation works that way, and we can't do without it. We ought to moderate this effect, within reason. >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." It *would* be wasteful to let it go that far. 95% sounds aufully high. If we collect, each year, the seeds, or eggs & sperm, or frozen but revivable specimens, of (e.g.) as many species or varieties as become extinct that year - then that figure cannot rise above 50%. Setting aside natural reserves also helps, as well as collect- ing live, breeding creatures in artificial conditions. We can't save *all* species - even if we go extinct immediately (some species are moribund without our help; also our extinction would be a major ecological change that could trigger a lot of other extinctions). But we might be able to save *most* of them, without limiting our own growth. Who will do the preservation? Both non-profit *and* business groups. If your prognosis is true, and genetic diversity is likely to be at a premium some generations from now - collecting genetic material should be a profitable investment. Some of it *is* going on already. >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 irreproduci- >ble numbers of natural experiments, selected because they WORK. Eloquent and (I believe) true. >We need these solutions, because we can use them NOW. Not *all* of them - there's just too many to study right 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 pro- >cess 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 use- >ful 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. That's the point: there are too many to study any time soon. >We need these evolved solutions, because we can use them in new ways in >the near future. Yes, but only a small fraction of them. >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 or- >ganisms that we can recreate them from their sequences and cul- >tures of related organisms. Maybe we could even start preserving >organisms in liquid nitrogen, so that their chromosomes stay in- >tact, in hope that future technology will allow recovery of that >information. Perhaps then we could better afford to allow extinc- >tions. Seeds can be preserved right now. Many cold-blooded animals can also be preserved frozen or dried, and then revive. >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. Yes, that sounds reasonable. At least a large part of the rain- forests probably ought to be saved. >> 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. No, of course that's not true. On the same lines, you could argue that numbers are only assets in competition between sub-groups of a group. First of all, for any species, numbers and diversity give it stability against disasters - such as epidemics. For a civilized, world-community species, this is especially important. In a civilized species, cooperation of its members is a source of strength, and this is just as important in the conquest of nature as in inter-group competition. Surely, with 1% of its popula- tion, the USA wouldn't have achieved a Moon landing in this cen- tury... On the same level of development, wealth and power are proportional to numbers. But the level itself depends on numbers, too. The more people, the more (potentially) discoveries, inventions, points of view etc. >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. The opposite is true. Resources (counting each resource with all its possible substitutes) - resources are not finite. In general, they grow more abundant and less expensive all the time. Resources are discovered by people, and so are their uses and so are the methods of their extraction. The more people, the more resources. Diseconomies of scale have nothing to do with total numbers - for any given enterprise, the optimal numbers of humans can come together. But economies of scale are limited by numbers: an un- dertaking requiring 10 billion people would be impossible today. >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. Expanding population is not what is destroying the rainforests. Most of the destruction is done by large-scale developers under the control of governments. Jan Wasilewsky
janw@inmet.UUCP (10/29/86)
[From: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz)] [Newsgroups: net.sci] [Subject: Re: Population control & Freedom] [Date: 30 Sep 86 14:56:30 GMT] [References: <564@gargoyle.UUCP> <26500108@inmet>] >>Genetic diversity can be increased very fast by creating >>*artificial* habitats, by genetic engineering and cross-breeding. >>[janw] >The kind of genetic diversity that we are destroying now (through extinction) >cannot be "increased very fast" by any of the methods Jan lists, nor any >methods I know of. Here's why. >Cross breeding: Very simply, cross breeding reassorts genes; it doesn't >produce any new ones. The benefits of cross breeding are only possible >if you have genetic diversity of parent stocks. Here Jan has put the >cart in front of the horse. Cross-breeding creates, not new genes, but new genotypes. In the absence of genetic diversity of the parent stocks, it is, of course, impossible. In its presence, it increases the diversity. A new book can add diversity to literature, even if all its words are already in the dictionary. So with genes and genotypes. >Artificial habitats: No habitat creates genetic diversity: a habitat can >only select among diversity from parent stock or mutation. While we might >be able to speed mutation and selection rates artificially, it's not >likely either that the results will be qualitatively comparable to those >of millions of years of natural evolution, or that the process can be speeded >enough to be economically feasible. A new habitat starts new genetic trends. It is true that, left to nature, they don't create new variations soon. (But they can create many of them in parallel). In case of an *artificial* organism, however, one could work both ways - adapt the habitat to the organism, and the organism to the habitat. Mutation rate can indeed be increases enormously - nor need the many versions of the organism be tried one by one: they can all be thrown into the habitat to compete. We breed drug-resistant strains of germs, pesticide-resistant strains of pests only too fast - even without mutating them intentionally... There's no need to duplicate the results of millions years of evolution, if one does not start from scratch but changes exist- ing organisms. (Increasingly, one can vary existing *artificial* organisms, building on preceding results. Thus the process would accelerate). Also, most of nature's attempts need not be made be- cause their results are predictably fatal. People can see that, blind nature doesn't. Here, too, the process accelerates with experience and knowledge. >Genetic engineering: We're not there yet, and it's not clear that we'll >be there in the next 100 years. What's "there"? Being able to redesign the >development of an organism. Being able to create a suite of adaptations >that work together to fit an organism into a special habitat. New organisms, fit for special habitats, and special functions in them, are *already* being marketed. The chief hurdles aren't technical difficulties but regulatory agencies. If the purpose were not to achieve a particular economic effect but simply to increase genetic diversity - then surely the task would be easier. >Being able to design enzymes to perform important biochemical >functions. There are several million different sets of solutions >to these problems, different in ways we're only beginning to >understand. But they are being destroyed before we have the tools >and knowledge to understand how they work: from that standpoint >alone, extinctions will retard or prevent whole fields of genetic >engineering from developing. Many biochemical phenomena will nev- >er be studied because the organisms died out first. There are far more species and variations than can be studied in a foreseeable future. Those that exist but are not studied might as well not exist as far as the information in them is concerned. However, it *is* desirable to save as many as possible. There's no disagreement on this. Jan Wasilewsky
rathmann@brahms.berkeley.EDU (Michael Ellis such as he is) (10/31/86)
>>> > Janw >> Mike H >>> Genetic diversity can be increased very fast by creating >>> *artificial* habitats, by genetic engineering and cross-breeding. [much omitted] The entire "genetic diversity" issue has missed a major point: futuristic, engineered, ersatz genetic diversity, interesting though it may ultimately be, is simply no replacement for the actual history of this planet as encoded in the existing species and in the interdepencies still present in the ecosystems remaining today. >> Being able to design enzymes to perform important biochemical >> functions. There are several million different sets of solutions >> to these problems, different in ways we're only beginning to >> understand. But they are being destroyed before we have the tools >> and knowledge to understand how they work: from that standpoint >> alone, extinctions will retard or prevent whole fields of genetic >> engineering from developing. Many biochemical phenomena will nev- >> er be studied because the organisms died out first. > There are far more species and variations than can be studied in a > foreseeable future. Those that exist but are not studied might as > well not exist as far as the information in them is concerned. I don't believe that. And I doubt that Mike believes that. It's clear to me that EVERY species and ecosystem is intrinsically interesting and of scientific value; consequently, provided we can avoid planetary nuclear or environmental catastrophe, "in the foreseeable future" science will attempt to understand EVERY form of life. > However, it *is* desirable to save as many as possible. There's no > disagreement on this. No disagreement here. -michael
mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz) (11/03/86)
In article <121200006@inmet> janw@inmet.UUCP writes: > >It's hard to blame pre-scientific, pre-world community peoples for their > >extermination of some species. But what is our excuse? > > Only that our civilisation works that way, and we can't do without > it. We ought to moderate this effect, within reason. "People always HAVE eaten people; people always WILL eat people. You can't change human nature!" (From "The Reluctant Cannibal" on the Flanders and Swann album "At The Drop Of A Hat".) Our civilization does not depend upon the extermination of species. Extinctions tend to be accidental byproducts of our development. We would not have had to give up our civilization to save any of the species that have gone extinct on this continent, or all of them. Yes, there would have been and will be economic costs for protecting species and their habitats. But there are also benefits and profits to be made. > >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." > > It *would* be wasteful to let it go that far. 95% sounds aufully > high. If we collect, each year, the seeds, or eggs & sperm, or > frozen but revivable specimens, of (e.g.) as many species or > varieties as become extinct that year - then that figure cannot > rise above 50%. First, this is not happening. Second, it is not really practical yet for anything much besides a few kinds of organisms that we have worked with extensively: such as mammals, birds, and plants. Third, the most divergent organisms (which probably are the most interesting) are also the most difficult to preserve, precisely because they need different methods of culture. Fourth, we can only preserve this way what we can discover in time to preserve: estimates of discovered species range from 5 to 50%. I side with the lower figure, because I know firsthand how poorly the smaller organisms are known. > Setting aside natural reserves also helps, as well as collect- > ing live, breeding creatures in artificial conditions. The first is the most important. It is vastly more cost effective than the second, and preserves more than just the species we know: it preserves entire ecosystems, ready for study, complete with coevolved interactions. The second is being done to some extent. It's fairly expensive. I know the actual cost per species of American plants is about $5000 in the independant program run by Dr Thibidoux. When I talked to him last week, he told me that he was collecting and cultivating about 150 endangered species per year, which he says is just barely keeping up with "progress". The aspect you'd like, Jan, is that his funding is mostly private: he tries to find 150 individuals per year who are willing to contribute $5000 or more to save a species. While Dr. Thibidoux's program is admirable, he loudly proclaims that it is still triage. He collects small populations of about 50, and says that should represent 95% of the genetic variability of the species. I don't believe the figure is that good on the average, let alone for specific cases. He admits that he is unable to collect and culture any associated organisms: he says that his only hope for them is sloppy [his word, meaning non-sterile] culture techniques. > We can't save *all* species - even if we go extinct immediately > (some species are moribund without our help; also our extinction > would be a major ecological change that could trigger a lot of > other extinctions). But we might be able to save *most* of them, > without limiting our own growth. I approve of this sentiment. I think we can save most of them if we set up enough preserves and guard them effectively. Will that affect growth? It need not in the near future (30 years, my speculation.) > Who will do the preservation? Both non-profit *and* business > groups. If your prognosis is true, and genetic diversity is > likely to be at a premium some generations from now - collecting > genetic material should be a profitable investment. Some of it > *is* going on already. This approach has some other faults. First is the free market short- sightedness. Hardly any money is invested in anything which is expected to take ten years or more to increase in value. Most American R+D is heavily subsidized by government through tax breaks. Second, is the problem of gaps. People will only select that which is MOST profitable in the nearest future. Groups where profit can't be predicted will be ignored. The problem is that the free market consumes resources, it doesn't protect them. The vast majority of protected parks, preserves, and forests in the world are there because the free market was inhibited (usually by governments, sometimes by private vestiges of governments such as feudal lands.) > >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 irreproduci- > >ble numbers of natural experiments, selected because they WORK. > > Eloquent and (I believe) true. Thank you. > >We need these solutions, because we can use them NOW. > > Not *all* of them - there's just too many to study right now. As many as we can possibly preserve: because we don't know WHICH we will want to study. > >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 pro- > >cess 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 use- > >ful 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. > > That's the point: there are too many to study any time soon. If a library has too many books for you to read in your lifetime, does that justify burning a percentage of them? Say then you find a reference you need to track down, and you've burnt the book? > >We need these evolved solutions, because we can use them in new ways in > >the near future. > > Yes, but only a small fraction of them. Again, we can't know which fraction ahead of time. > >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. > > Yes, that sounds reasonable. At least a large part of the rain- > forests probably ought to be saved. I agree. But you probably won't like the solution, which is government supported preserves. You can't depend on privately owned preserves, because you must have public accountability. For example, Dr Thibidoux tried to collect some seeds from the last colony of one Hawaiian plant. The landowner closed off his land and bulldozed it. All legal: it's his property, etc. > ... for any species, numbers and diversity > give it stability against disasters - such as epidemics. For a > civilized, world-community species, this is especially important. You need to read about Koch's (pronounced "Coke's") postulates about the transmission of disease, Jan. Numbers do not protect against very many kinds of disasters, and certainly not against epidemics. Indeed, numbers generally make it easier for epidemics to spread. Try to name one disaster that increased human numbers would alleviate. Increasing human population does not increase human diversity. It might actually decrease it as small populations are destroyed (such as various tribes in Africa, South America, and the Pacific basin), except that humans are already incredibly homogenous. > In a civilized species, cooperation of its members is a source of > strength, and this is just as important in the conquest of nature > as in inter-group competition. Surely, with 1% of its popula- > tion, the USA wouldn't have achieved a Moon landing in this cen- > tury... On the same level of development, wealth and power are > proportional to numbers. It depends. If the rest of the world had only 1% of its population also, perhaps the effort that goes into military spending might have gone into the space program or other scientific efforts. But of course, it depends whether landing on trhe moon this century is an important goal. How do you measure its importance? Are we in some sort of a race? If so, is it against other people? I think scientific discovery is very important: sooner or later. The moon will be there a thousand years from now, but our population growth is forcing issues NOW. We HAVE to learn certain things NOW because we have painted ourselves into a corner with our population. That's why I feel our numbers are a handicap: they restrict our choices. As our numbers increase, our choices will dwindle. > But the level itself depends on numbers, too. The more people, > the more (potentially) discoveries, inventions, points of view > etc. The people don't have to coexist simultaneously. If it takes X man years to progress so much in the sciences, arts, etc., then it doesn't matter whether it's in one generation or ten: the progress will occur. And I'm not even taking into account diseconomies of scale. But the numbers do affect extinctions, pollution, wars, etc. in non-linear ways. > >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. > > The opposite is true. Resources (counting each resource with all > its possible substitutes) - resources are not finite. In general, > they grow more abundant and less expensive all the time. > Resources are discovered by people, and so are their uses and so > are the methods of their extraction. The more people, the more > resources. Discovery doesn't create resources. They've been there all along. Discovery is just when we start using them. And not all resources cost the same: there are increasing marginal costs (in efficiency, in quality, in cost, etc.). You're just playing a pyramid game, and future generations will be the losers on a resource-exhausted earth. > Diseconomies of scale have nothing to do with total numbers - > for any given enterprise, the optimal numbers of humans can come > together. But economies of scale are limited by numbers: an un- > dertaking requiring 10 billion people would be impossible today. Numbers determine demand, which is an important factor in how much production occurs. The greater the demand, the higher the prices, and the greater the marginal costs of producing those last units. Not just marginal costs in dollars, but also in pollution, despoilation, and extinction. > >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. > > Expanding population is not what is destroying the rainforests. > Most of the destruction is done by large-scale developers under > the control of governments. Expanding population is destroying the rainforests indirectly by demand for wood and beef, and directly by increased local populations which are desperate to grow food and harvest fuel. -- Mike Huybensz ...decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh
throopw@dg_rtp.UUCP (Wayne Throop) (11/09/86)
> janw@inmet.UUCP (Jan Wasilewsky) > Cross-breeding creates, not new genes, but new genotypes. In the > absence of genetic diversity of the parent stocks, it is, of > course, impossible. In its presence, it increases the diversity. > A new book can add diversity to literature, even if all its words > are already in the dictionary. So with genes and genotypes. Wrong. Flat wrong. *NO* new genotypes are created by sexual reproduction, cross breeding or not. New phenotypes may possibly be, but not likely. New genotypes are created *ONLY* by mutation. Your analogy to a new book created out of words in the dictionary is totally misleading. Who arranges the words/genes in your scenario? Sexual reproduction is a random selection from the parents. A more accurate analogy would be the random selection of half of the short stories from each of two anthologies to form a new anthology. > A new habitat starts new genetic trends. It is true that, left to > nature, they don't create new variations soon. (But they can > create many of them in parallel). But even in parallel we could only acheive rates far lower than those at which species are currently being destroyed in parallel. Plus destroying 50% of the present diversity while creating a similar quantity of genuinely new species and variants does *NOT* mean we haven't lost anything. We've still lost 33% of diversity that might have existed without the destruction. > We breed drug-resistant strains of germs, pesticide-resistant > strains of pests only too fast - even without mutating them > intentionally... We do *NOT*. This occurs primarily by further *DECREASING* the diversity of an existing pest species by killing all the non-resistant members. A mutation in a pest species to gain resistance is very rare indeed, and I haven't heard of an unambiguous case of it. These and similarly mistaken points raised by Jan have convinced me that he vastly overestimates the current state of knowlege in genetic fields, and vastly underestimates the remaining work to be done before we can either preserve or engineer viable living species. The most we have done so far is shuffle what is already present in nature. -- Nature abhors a hero. --- Solomon Short {quoted by David Gerrold} -- Wayne Throop <the-known-world>!mcnc!rti-sel!dg_rtp!throopw
throopw@dg_rtp.UUCP (Wayne Throop) (11/09/86)
> mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz) >> janw@inmet.UUCP (Jan Wasilewsky) >> That's the point: there are too many to study any time soon. > If a library has too many books for you to read in your lifetime, does > that justify burning a percentage of them? The more I think about it, the more I think that the analogy of books here is a good one. (I think Jan first brought it up, saying that the Library of Congress catalogs and retains rare and common books alike.) Consider the analogy in some detail. Some illiterate savages are let loose in a library. It is cold. So some of them start to burn the books for warmth. Eventually, some of the savages learn to read, and try to convince the others to not burn so much, so that more of the books may be preserved. The others jeer, saying that "we'll eventually learn to write, and print new books so it won't matter if we burn *THESE* books... we'll just create others. And anyhow, you've already read some of these books, so they are preserved in your memory. Surely you can't object to burning *THOSE*?" (I know someone who pulls that last one on me with my magazines... :-) Now, are the book-readers justified in coercing the book-burners to let the temperature in the library stay at a lower level, to preserve more of the books? Are they justified in unilaterally preventing the book-burners from using books as heating fuel? What about if the burners claimed some of the books as "property" because when they first occupied the library, they took to sleeping in the stacks where these books were stored? What should readers who sleep in other stacks do? The mapping to the genetic diversity debate is clear, and can be taken to a quite detailed level. Folks who want to legislate a limit to population expansion to preserve species are analogous to the readers who want to limit the temperature of the library. Folks who want to set aside preserves are analogous to those who want to burn only tables and chairs (and perhaps material brought in from outside), and not books. The savages can't produce books *NOW*, but the burners say they eventually will... perhaps even before the entire library is bookless, analogous to the current state of the art in genetic engineering. Their current methods of book "preservation" are also quite analogous to the imperfect preservation techniques we now have for genetic material. There are even many more subtle analogies to be drawn. Natural extinction rates analogous to the eventual crumbling of even archival quality paper, for example. Cast in terms of book-readers and book-burners, who is justified? -- The best book on programming for the layman is "Alice in Wonderland"; but that's because it's the best book on anything for the layman. --- Alan J. Perlis -- Wayne Throop <the-known-world>!mcnc!rti-sel!dg_rtp!throopw