From: kevin@nuchat.sccsi.com (Kevin Brown)
Subject: Re: The Human Niche
Organization: I can't see any in the immediate vicinity...
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1992 04:17:33 GMT

In article <1466601757@igc.apc.org> Alan McGowen <alanm@igc.apc.org> writes:

[an argument which, in essence, says that we can choose either to destroy
nature or to support it, and that other animal forms do the latter, deleted]

Alan, as a biologist, you should know better than this.  Evolution is
primarily about the propogation of gene lines, and the only thing of
any real importance is whether or not a gene or gene set will be
reproduced.  As such, if a given animal "supports nature" *and* is
enabled to reproduce as a result, it is only because the environment
(which includes such things as the laws of physics) is arranged such
that it is advantageous or, at least, not detrimental, to "support
nature".  Further, the considerations upon which this mechanism is based
are primarily short-term.  Whether or not a given trait is advantageous
is determined *only* by the immediate environment.  Evolution has no
"foresight" to speak of.

Humans have hundreds of thousands of years of experience that says that,
in essence, it is *better* for them to modify their environment to suit
themselves than to live in the environment as it is.  Better, that is,
for the humans, and better in the short term.  A human that is very good
at modifying his own environment to suit himself stands a better chance
of surviving and reproducing than one that is not as good.   The proof
of this is that the human population is orders of magnitude larger than
it was thousands, to say nothing of millions, of years ago.  The primary
reason that agriculture has become the predominant source of food is that
it was advantageous (more reliable, higher yield, less dangerous, and
perhaps even easier) in most places to grow food rather than to hunt it.

Technology as we have it today is the culmination of this experience.
And few can deny that it is our drive to modify our environment to suit
ourselves that has increased our life expectancy, our overall health
during our lives (particularly with respect to disease), and how well-
fed we are.  Nature didn't *help* us to do this at all.  Rather, we
learned how nature works so that we could exploit it.  *WE* did the
work, and we receive the benefits as a result.  If other species benefit
or are harmed as a result, it is only incidental.  Rarely do we actually
go out of our way to harm other species, unless it is to *our* advantage
to do so.

These are the facts, at least as I understand them.

Now, you may argue that we *should* "work with nature" instead of
exploiting it, but unless your arguments are based on the idea that
the consequences of exploiting nature are nastier TO HUMANS than the
consequences of working with nature, then I think your arguments are
primarily religious/subjective in nature.

Even if your argument *is* that humans will suffer nastier consequences
by exploiting nature than by working with nature, it will still be an
essentially religious argument *unless* you can provide convincing
evidence that working with nature *does* yield a greater benefit to
cost ratio than exploiting nature does.  And here I think you are at
a severe disadvantage, for (as I say above) humans have HUNDREDS OF
THOUSANDS OF YEARS of experience that says that exploiting nature works
much better (we discovered this when we started using tools).

>The answer to that question, and your understanding of it, 
>determines where you stand in the war against nature. To side 
>with nature, you must choose to give her the room to work. That 
>inevitably means a restriction on human expansion. And many 
>humans will oppose any such restriction. They will call you a 
>Nazi, a Pagan, a Materialist Marxist -- whatever newspaper term 
>is damaging at the moment. Count on it.
>
>Are you ready to choose?

It turns out that this is actually a false dichotomy.  One needn't be
entirely "for nature" or "against nature".  One may pick and choose
when to be one or the other.  As far as I'm concerned, the "right" choice
is whatever happens to be advantageous at the time, provided that the
distant consequences of that choice aren't too severe.

But then, all this is assuming that your idea about what is nature and
what is not is true.  However, I think that this idea is false as well.
Why?  Because EVERYTHING WE DO IS THROUGH COOPERATION WITH THE LAWS OF
THE UNIVERSE.  

Thus, everything we produce is "natural", and just as much a part of the
universe as anything "nature" produces.  The only difference is the
agent responsible.  For the things we produce, the initiating agent is
ourselves.  For the things we do *not* produce, the initiating agent is
some other species, or at the very least some set of circumstances which
does not involve humans.  Either way, the laws of the universe determine
what results.

Some people, like yourself, have this bizarre tendency to place greater
value on the things whose production was initiated by a non-human agent.
You place greater value, I think, on the dam manufactured by a beaver than
the dam manufactured by a human.  Why is this?  Both have environmental
consequences, after all.  Both will affect the survivability of other
organisms.  Both will benefit their constructor.  The difference is only
one of degree.

I don't have this problem.  The *only* reason I place greater value on
the things humans produce than the things that other agents cause to be
produced is that the things humans produce tend to be more useful to me
and to others of my kind, i.e. other humans.  I place more importance on
myself and on others of my kind than I do on members of other species
because evolution has wired me that way.  If your priority scheme is
different, then perhaps that is because nature has wired you differently
from me in this regard.  But if this is so, I can tell you this:  many
more people are wired like me than like you in this regard.

>Alan McGowen   


-- 
				Kevin Brown

			    kevin@nuchat.sccsi.com
			    kevin@taronga.taronga.com
Newsgroups: sci.environment,sci.geo.geology,comp.infosystems.gis