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We're going to rue the day we started doing this. As they say 'Nature abhors a vacuum' - Once the diamondback moth numbers have declined significantly, another

We're going to rue the day we started doing this. As they say 'Nature abhors a vacuum' - Once the diamondback moth numbers have declined significantly, another (probably more invasive) species will rise to take it's place. The planet's ecosystem has had billions of years to balance itself out, who are we to assume we can do it better?

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
ben_w 7y ago
> We're going to rue the day we started doing this. Perhaps. > As they say 'Nature abhors a vacuum' - Once the diamondback moth numbers have declined significantly, another (probably more invasive) species will rise to take it's place. Eventually, but evolution is slow. Why would the replacement be “probably” more invasive? > The planet's ecosystem has had billions of years to balance itself out, who are we to assume we can do it better? It’s not balanced. From one point of view, humans are a product of evolution and our errors are evolution’s errors, though even without counting humans other predator populations do sometimes wipe out their prey and then starve into their own extinction. From a different perspective, we can do better because while evolution is limited to the gradient descent local minima of natural selection, we can do extreme long-term planning — which is how we’re even physically capable of having this conversation, let alone perform the genetic modifications that this article is talking about.
- mapcars 7y ago
  >From a different perspective, we can do better But how do you decide what is better? Maybe evolution goes with a perfect speed in relation to all other forces? It's like you may want the planet to spin faster to get more birthday presents but this will ruin nature's processes in so many ways.
  - ben_w 7y ago
    Evolution isn’t a force. As I was replying to someone who already has a goal in mind, I’m referring to that goal: balance. Of course, evolution also doesn’t have real goals, only local optimisations, so that makes it rather easy to beat at whatever goal we set for ourselves.
    - mapcars 7y ago
      >Evolution isn’t a force. In a way it is, it goes towards more complicated ways of perception. I wounder if there is any example where some species became less complicated compared to it's ancestors? >so that makes it rather easy to beat at whatever goal we set for ourselves Since worked wonderfully for billions of years without "real" goals, wouldn't it be a mistake to try to set goals by ourselves?
      - ben_w 7y ago
        > is any example where some species became less complicated compared to it's ancestors? Malaria, apparently. (I’m not a biologist, that claim just happened to be on the Wikipedia page I read). > Since worked wonderfully If you’re going to criticise me for saying “better”, please define what you mean by “wonderfully”. > wouldn't it be a mistake to try to set goals by ourselves? Given evolution produced us, if it was a mistake, it would be evolution’s mistake by creating entities capable of such.
- mr__y 7y ago
  >Eventually, but evolution is slow. Why would the replacement be “probably” more invasive? You don't have to wait for the evolution. There were already cases when a species from other country/continent was accidentally introduced to a new environment due to "parasite passengers" in shipping containers. While this problem exists independently of genetically engineered moths, since this already happened before[0], creating a void in an ecosystem might make this process easier. [0] the first thing that pops in my head would be chinese mitten crabs in Germany https://cutt.ly/1rTUHN3 https://cutt.ly/1rTUHN3
  - ben_w 7y ago
    Hmm. I would argue that because what you describe is a problem that exists independently, that isn’t a convincing argument for not modifying these moths. I accept I could be wrong though. I do have the feeling that this is straying outside my confidence zone.
    - mr__y 7y ago
      I was commenting on this from parent posts: >>another (probably more invasive) species will rise to take it's place. >Eventually, but evolution is slow. While the evolution is indeed slow, I was trying to point out that there are other ways to introduce new species, that are not slow. >problem that exists independently yes, of course, but... if new species in small amounts are introduced to an ecosystem there is relatively high probability that they might not survive in that ecosystem. Now if there was some void in that ecostystem, the chances of that new species could be higher since their competition was removed/reduced. This of course requires some kind of coincidence - when the species accidentally introduced to the ecosystem can take over the place of moths being reduced. Since there are so many variables I believe it is close to impossible to asses the probability of such coincidence. I assume that this probability is very close to "unlikely" but still non-zero.
ryan_j_naughton 7y ago
> The planet's ecosystem has had billions of years to balance itself out. Yeah, and that system wasn't built for all the rapid ecological changes humanity is throwing at it. Or at least when it encountered events of our magnitude -- e.g. a comet impact or a super volcano erupting for an extended period of time -- it resulted in very rapid ecosystem change, most things died, and it took the planet millions of years to recover comparable levels of biodiversity. Definitionally, we are causing the 6th mass extinction event since the Cambrian explosion. The planet's ecosystem isn't going to "balance itself out" on timescales that matter to us (i.e. less than a million years) when we're putting the planet through vast habitat destruction, pollution, climate change, etc. Even the population explosion of the moth and other pests are due to us. The planet won't naturally work something out because we keep creating all of this easy to eat surplus with our monoculture crops. Thus, we need to come up with a solution to this problem. Ideally one of the least harmful ones possible. And it appears that lots of pesticides are really harmful to the ecosystem and us -- who would have thought, things with -cide in the name, kill/harm more things than we expected. And while the moth might be thriving bc it's resistant to our pesticides, many other insect species are collapsing, potentially due to pesticide use. It's part of the reason Rachel Carson was in favor of this approach. Sure, genes will get out into wild population, which is definitely bad for biodiversity. But I'm skeptical anyone has done the cost benefit analysis of this versus pesticide use on biodiversity.
mapcars 7y ago
+1, this can go wrong in so many ways

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

ben_w 7y ago

> We're going to rue the day we started doing this. Perhaps. > As they say 'Nature abhors a vacuum' - Once the diamondback moth numbers have declined significantly, another (probably more invasive) species will rise to take it's place. Eventually, but evolution is slow. Why would the replacement be “probably” more invasive? > The planet's ecosystem has had billions of years to balance itself out, who are we to assume we can do it better? It’s not balanced. From one point of view, humans are a product of evolution and our errors are evolution’s errors, though even without counting humans other predator populations do sometimes wipe out their prey and then starve into their own extinction. From a different perspective, we can do better because while evolution is limited to the gradient descent local minima of natural selection, we can do extreme long-term planning — which is how we’re even physically capable of having this conversation, let alone perform the genetic modifications that this article is talking about.

mapcars 7y ago
>From a different perspective, we can do better But how do you decide what is better? Maybe evolution goes with a perfect speed in relation to all other forces? It's like you may want the planet to spin faster to get more birthday presents but this will ruin nature's processes in so many ways.
- ben_w 7y ago
  Evolution isn’t a force. As I was replying to someone who already has a goal in mind, I’m referring to that goal: balance. Of course, evolution also doesn’t have real goals, only local optimisations, so that makes it rather easy to beat at whatever goal we set for ourselves.
  - mapcars 7y ago
    >Evolution isn’t a force. In a way it is, it goes towards more complicated ways of perception. I wounder if there is any example where some species became less complicated compared to it's ancestors? >so that makes it rather easy to beat at whatever goal we set for ourselves Since worked wonderfully for billions of years without "real" goals, wouldn't it be a mistake to try to set goals by ourselves?
    - ben_w 7y ago
      > is any example where some species became less complicated compared to it's ancestors? Malaria, apparently. (I’m not a biologist, that claim just happened to be on the Wikipedia page I read). > Since worked wonderfully If you’re going to criticise me for saying “better”, please define what you mean by “wonderfully”. > wouldn't it be a mistake to try to set goals by ourselves? Given evolution produced us, if it was a mistake, it would be evolution’s mistake by creating entities capable of such.
mr__y 7y ago
>Eventually, but evolution is slow. Why would the replacement be “probably” more invasive? You don't have to wait for the evolution. There were already cases when a species from other country/continent was accidentally introduced to a new environment due to "parasite passengers" in shipping containers. While this problem exists independently of genetically engineered moths, since this already happened before[0], creating a void in an ecosystem might make this process easier. [0] the first thing that pops in my head would be chinese mitten crabs in Germany https://cutt.ly/1rTUHN3 https://cutt.ly/1rTUHN3
- ben_w 7y ago
  Hmm. I would argue that because what you describe is a problem that exists independently, that isn’t a convincing argument for not modifying these moths. I accept I could be wrong though. I do have the feeling that this is straying outside my confidence zone.
  - mr__y 7y ago
    I was commenting on this from parent posts: >>another (probably more invasive) species will rise to take it's place. >Eventually, but evolution is slow. While the evolution is indeed slow, I was trying to point out that there are other ways to introduce new species, that are not slow. >problem that exists independently yes, of course, but... if new species in small amounts are introduced to an ecosystem there is relatively high probability that they might not survive in that ecosystem. Now if there was some void in that ecostystem, the chances of that new species could be higher since their competition was removed/reduced. This of course requires some kind of coincidence - when the species accidentally introduced to the ecosystem can take over the place of moths being reduced. Since there are so many variables I believe it is close to impossible to asses the probability of such coincidence. I assume that this probability is very close to "unlikely" but still non-zero.

ryan_j_naughton 7y ago

> The planet's ecosystem has had billions of years to balance itself out. Yeah, and that system wasn't built for all the rapid ecological changes humanity is throwing at it. Or at least when it encountered events of our magnitude -- e.g. a comet impact or a super volcano erupting for an extended period of time -- it resulted in very rapid ecosystem change, most things died, and it took the planet millions of years to recover comparable levels of biodiversity. Definitionally, we are causing the 6th mass extinction event since the Cambrian explosion. The planet's ecosystem isn't going to "balance itself out" on timescales that matter to us (i.e. less than a million years) when we're putting the planet through vast habitat destruction, pollution, climate change, etc. Even the population explosion of the moth and other pests are due to us. The planet won't naturally work something out because we keep creating all of this easy to eat surplus with our monoculture crops. Thus, we need to come up with a solution to this problem. Ideally one of the least harmful ones possible. And it appears that lots of pesticides are really harmful to the ecosystem and us -- who would have thought, things with -cide in the name, kill/harm more things than we expected. And while the moth might be thriving bc it's resistant to our pesticides, many other insect species are collapsing, potentially due to pesticide use. It's part of the reason Rachel Carson was in favor of this approach. Sure, genes will get out into wild population, which is definitely bad for biodiversity. But I'm skeptical anyone has done the cost benefit analysis of this versus pesticide use on biodiversity.

mapcars 7y ago

+1, this can go wrong in so many ways