6 ms·
Color me skeptical. The article is correct; other species would rise to fill the niche emptied by mosquitoes, and the world would achieve a stable equilibrium,
by presidentender 16y ago
Color me skeptical. The article is correct; other species would rise to fill the niche emptied by mosquitoes, and the world would achieve a stable equilibrium, but the same could be said for eliminating eagles or horseshoe crabs or wheat. Just because we'd be less itchy and never catch malaria doesn't mean our lives wouldn't be negatively impacted in unforeseen ways.
- nimai 16y agoWhy not extend that logic to malaria itself? Or cholera, HIV, or any other pathogen? Perhaps start selling "Save the plague!" bumper stickers?
- Qz 16y agoIf we exterminate the plague, how will we know when the end times are upon us?
- alanh 16y agoThe End Times are why True Believers are not only Pro-Life but also Pro-’liferation (of nukes). At least, according to that Maher movie, and the Left Behind series.
- Qz 16y agoDon't forget the christian organizations that pay to send Jews to Israel since that's also a pre-requisite for the End Times...
- ithkuil 16y agoas the Italian comedian Corrado Guzzanti pointed out, True Believers are not only Pro-Life but also Pro-After-Life http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hg5pSwsHni0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hg5pSwsHni0
- presidentender 16y agoHell, for all we know, polio is the cure to HIV and HIV is the cure for cancer. I'm not saying "Oh god save the mosquitoes," I'm saying there could be negative impacts beyond the consideration of the scientists performing the study.
- AngryParsley 16y agoMalaria kills 1-3 million people a year, most of them children. Unless you think the lack of mosquitoes is going to kill millions of children every year, you should heavily favor exterminating mosquitos.
- ab9 16y agoNo. That's only part of the analysis. Mosquitoes may benefit, as well as harm, humans. For example, they may be keeping more dangerous animals or diseases in check in extremely subtle ways.
- extension 16y agoBut what if the more dangerous things that Mosquitos are keeping in check would rid us of even more dangerous things, if there were more of them?
- AngryParsley 16y agoWe can always keep some mosquitoes in a cage in the CDC in the unlikely event that they do turn out to be useful. Of course, I would be very interested to know what kind of benefits mosquitos provide to humans. Remember that while malaria's death toll is 1-3 million, there are 350–500 million infections per year. The cost of these infections is immense, both economically and in terms of human suffering.
- Scriptor 16y ago>I would be very interested to know what kind of benefits mosquitos provide to humans. As ab9 said, they could be outcompeting other pests that host far, far worse parasites. If mosquitoes were to disappear, these other pests would multiply to take over the niche and we would have something worse than malaria on our hands. Of course, I'm not sure if there's anything like this. There certainly are other parasites, but I haven't heard of any where the hosts compete directly with mosquitoes. Then again, with something as huge as nature, there is always something waiting to be discovered. For example, we have been in contact with the host species for ebola for millions of years. Yet, ebola first appeared as late as 1976.