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For the vast majority of the history of our kind we were in some ways no more sophisticated than crows, which use sticks to poke around in promising holes. Eventually, of course, we discovered fire and invented stone tools, which then led to guns, pesticides and antibiotics. Using these tools, we encouraged the survival of favorable species such as wheat and yeast needed for beer and cows for meat and milk—a garden of delights.
But we also encouraged a garden of neglect—a surprising number of resilient pests that have been able to survive in spite of our weapons. These species are now coming back to haunt us as toxins, pathogens or worse. Here are ten ways we have helped this garden of neglect prosper.
1. SHARP ROCKS, SOFT FLESH. In the beginning someone held aloft a sharpened rock. "Progress!," he screamed out, or maybe, "Ouch!," depending on which end he grabbed. With that first stone weapon and its many pointy descendants, life changed. Our initial impact would have been small. However, by 10,000 years ago we had extinguished many of the largest species on Earth—mastodons, mammoths, American cheetahs, giant kangaroos and many more. In our wake, we left behind smaller species more able to reproduce rapidly or escape detection in the first place.
As humans came to rely on tools to survive, those with hands better able to make and wield those tools were more likely to pass their genes to the next generation. Mary Marzke at Arizona Sate University in Tempe argues that hand bones of humans are quite different from those of other primates because of our use of tools. Our hands are better able to manage the subtle grips necessary for making and using tools to maim or kill other species. In response to our first tools the animals around us changed. So did we.
2. BIG FISH, LITTLE FISH. Not only have we altered the course of big game evolution on land but we've also effectively reduced the size of fishes in the sea. Fishermen prefer to catch big fishes, and fishing regulations tend to prohibit the harvest of the smallest individuals of a species. In response, fishes have evolved the ability to reproduce at a smaller size and/or younger age. If they can breed before they get big enough to be harvested their genes stand a much higher chance of being passed on. American plaice, Atlantic cod, Atlantic herring, Atlantic salmon, brook trout, and chinook salmon all have appeared to grow more slowly and/or to reproduce at smaller sizes where and when they are heavily fished (Jorgenson et al., 2007; Palcovacs, 2011) Once, a large cod could eat a small boy. Now, a small boy could almost eat an entire cod.
3. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE. Bacteria have been evolving in response to threats from other species, including fungi, for hundreds of millions of years. Bacteria and fungi compete for food and often do so using chemical warfare. A fungus evolves an antibiotic and bacteria evolve resistance, so fungi evolve a new antibiotic. Recently, though, things changed. We invented (or rather stole from fungi) antibiotics, which allowed us to kill bacteria—and, importantly, treat bacterial infections. However, by using them too much, too incompletely or too indiscriminately we cause bacterial strains resistant to our drugs to evolve. Unlike fungi, we cannot retaliate by simply evolving new antibiotics. Hundreds of bacterial lineages have evolved resistance to more than a dozen of our antibiotics. In response, we are forced to discover new antibiotics, an endeavor that has proved ever more difficult.
4. GOING (ANTI)VIRAL. Viruses generally evolve even more quickly than bacteria. For example, multiple drugs for HIV infection are taken together as a cocktail for one reason: the HIV virus evolves quickly. The cocktail slows the evolution of full resistance. Even if HIV evolves resistance to one drug, the odds it will evolve complete resistance to all three are far lower. Similarly, the flu that usually starts each year in Asia is different by the time it reaches North America. The flu virus evolves to get by not only as a function of how we respond to it but also in response to our population size and patterns of movement. It, and other viruses, even evolve within our bodies. The virus that makes you sick is almost inevitably different than the one you give someone else.
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16 Comments
Add CommentGaea is annoyed at her naughty children, and she will have the last word or whimper as the case may be.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMan is not exempt from the Laws of Nature. What we will become in the future is at stake. We have introduced mutagens in our food and water supplies not to mention totally polluting the environment. Add to that the fact we go to extraordinary lengths to preserve defective genes in our own species. If a animal's body rejects a fetus, I believe the body knows more than any doctor about what genes should be carried into the future. Yes, it's cruel but Mother Nature is a bitch and as we all Mother knows best.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHumanity no longer relies on Darwinian biological evolution for our greatest adaption. Culture - an external resevoir of language, technology, art and science adapts and presrves change and mutates at a rate thousands of times faster than biology. Some culrures evolve faster where they are more responsive to environmental challenge. Democracy and consumer economies are clearly among those,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou'd think that the rats with resistance to the anticoagulant poison, warfarin, would now be vulnerable to a pro-coagulant poison.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHere's a thought: unless and until we destroy ourselves, a very real possibility, we are in an evolutionary race as always against diseases that see us as food and lodging but at maniac speeds. Viri, prions, anti-biotic resistant bacteria, similar fungi, adapt at remarkable speeds basically exploiting the adaptive properties of DNA/RNA transmission, not all of it sexual, some of it literally percolating through the ground and water. Against that we have our neural/artificial information systems that must try to stay ahead of the biological responses. If we do, we win, if we don't, the plagues win. Game on.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn the context of the evolution of life, what is a 'harmful result'? Is it one in which almost all life becomes extinct but recovers, or not? Perhaps we are not the intended ultimate product of evolution...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnother "add" to this list is the adaption of ant hill locations next to the freeways. They are there because that's where the food source is: soda cans, food wrappers, fast food leftovers, and the like.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd yet another one is the apparent adaptation of the blackbirds sitting on the fog line...they are waiting for the same food source and what would have sent them into flight a few decades ago -- large, noisy object moving at speed towards them -- is not a concern. It's a catering delivery vehicle.
Одна часть природы стала доминировать над остальной частью что бы сделать их своим придатком.Это примерно как одна клетка организма решила доминировать над всем организмом.Человечество прибавляя ум теряет разум.Сон разума рождает чудовищ.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSure, that's easy for you to say.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe author neglects the BY-FAR-AND-AWAY most important impact humans could have on terrestrial life or biota. That is the TERRAFORMING of MARS, something well within our present technological capability. The greatest and most Responsible Endeavor Human Civilization can undertake is to carry Terrestrial Life to other planets & moons in this Solar System. The #1 goal of Life is to expand to new environments. In order for Life on Earth to expand it needs the help of humans, who can Terraform other planets to make them suitable for Terrestrial life. If you look at Mother Earth as a Living Organism, often called Gaia, then one can consider that the SOLE PURPOSE of humans is to take the PROGENY OF GAIA to other worlds. Thus Humans are the agents of reproduction for GIA. A truly NOBLE goal, to bond all people of Earth together in a singular quest. Humans may come & go, but we could create a wonderful legacy that would last BILLIONS OF YEARS. An achievement that would be the greatest event in the history of Terrestrial life since the Precambrian explosion.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMars is actually an easy planet to Terraform, and can be done in a trivial one hundred years. Expanding Terrestrial Eco-systems to another World, makes up for all the damage humans have done to the Earth by a billion-fold. We have abandoned our duty to Mother Earth by our failure to embrace Space Colonization. A run-of-the-mill, Nuclear Powered Transport would get to Mars in 39 days. There is NO as in ZERO other Environmentally Responsible Act Humans have EVER Undertaken that even remotely compares to our SOLEMN DUTY to Terraform Mars.
Robert Zubrin shows how we can Terraform Mars in a few decades:
www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~mfogg/zubrin.htm
"...In a matter of several decades, using such an approach Mars could be transformed from its current dry and frozen state into a warm and slightly moist planet capable of supporting life. Humans could not breath the air of the thus transformed Mars, but they would no longer require space suits and instead could travel freely in the open wearing ordinary clothes and a simple SCUBA type breathing gear. However because the outside atmospheric pressure will have been raised to human tolerable levels, it will be possible to have large habitable areas for humans ..simple hardy plants could thrive in the CO2 rich outside environment, and spread rapidly across the planets surface. In the course of centuries, these plants would introduce oxygen into Mars's atmosphere in increasingly breathable quantities.."
What makes you think the singularity circa 2045 does not mean that we will have helped launch the spread of the next leap in intelligence outward into deep space rather than spewing self replicating nucleic acid around the near solar system? What in the end is so inherently sacred about biologic intelligence other than it is really slow and apparently self destructive?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat could well be, maybe - or maybe more like 2245. But what does that have to do with Terraforming Mars and Greenie-ism. The big International Globalist push is this "Green Agenda" and "Sustainability" and "Low Impact", so what I have shown is if you believe in those things, they are trivial and insignificant compared with building a New Earth, an entire World Ecosystem - well within our ability, on Mars and maybe some other planets or moons. Our failure to pursue this goal is the greatest act of Eco-destruction in the history of human civilization.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs the saying goes, "Don't worry about the planet. The planet will be fine. People, on the other hand will be... " uh, in trouble. Possibly not strictly true, we could trigger a final extinction event. Whether or not that's so is beside the point, however.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA commenter said: "Perhaps we are not the intended ultimate product of evolution..."
There is no intended product of evolution/natural selection. It's just a description of how and why life alters over time.
The greatest and most Responsible Endeavor Human Civilization can undertake is to carry Terrestrial Life to other planets & moons in this Solar System.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOH YEAH and turn the whole universe into a toxic dump! Nice one dude!
Stupidest comment EVER! The whole universe is already a toxic dump by your greenie standards - know what extreme radiation is? heavy metals? toxic, poisonous atmosphere? runaway global warming? no life whatsoever? acid rain extraordinaire? smog like nothing that has ever been seen ANYWHERE on the Earth?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell all of that and more is the STANDARD in the universe, apart from our little green oasis called the Earth. And yep, humans and only humans can move that little green oasis to the planet Mars and someday even beyond that. A real treasure, that destroys Greenie Cultists sicko view of the Earth's environment.
Humans are different from other animals because they are intelligent. They are so intelligent they use tools, not only to get food, but also to go far places and not work so hard. Thus, they exploited the fossil fuel they found on or near the ground. And, intelligent as we are, these fuels were pursued in the ground. And we developed fertilizer from these fossils, and cut down trees to farm more land. This allowed the human population to increase. So intelligent. We use even more fossil fuels, for electricity, for cars, for trucks, for combines, for air conditioners, and many other things. So intelligent that we have put enough carbon in our atmosphere, with not enough trees or other plants to absorb a significant amount of it, that temperature will steadily increase. Droughts will spread, coastal areas will be flooded. This intelligent species will not survive beyond another 500 years.
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