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The site could do more to address the concern of meddling in ecological systems that humans don't fully understand. There's enough evidence in the world of the

The site could do more to address the concern of meddling in ecological systems that humans don't fully understand. There's enough evidence in the world of the negative consequences of such a hubristic attitude to nature - especially in the UK. Specimen trees in public areas can be wonderful things, but the idea that humans can simply aesthetically rejig the natural world whenever it suits them deserves to die.

ben_w 5y ago
“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” - George Bernard Shaw
helloworld11 5y ago
Sure we can. Nature already does it endlessly. Your claim presupposes idea that there's some sort of conscious natural order that's ideally aligned, and that we humans only muck it up with ignorance. The reality (unless ever proven otherwise) is that nature's own balanced world is nothing more than the transient product of constant and highly random destructive processes finally settling into something stable at times. Nothing we do sits outside of that and nature itself has brought far more equilibrium-destroying events to bear upon itself than we have.
- ivanbakel 5y ago
  >Nothing we do sits outside of that This is untrue. While it's correct to say that nature is involved in its own destructive churn, human interference in the natural world operates on a much faster timescale, over much greater distances, and with much more consistency. That's why humans are able to cause much more devastating ecological disasters than a natural process would - and why those disasters are qualitatively different from naturally-induced ones, since especially their speed means there is less "bounce back" to a new and equally active equilibrium.
  - helloworld11 5y ago
    Don't you mean the human component of the natural world? I fail to see a single thing humans do as being outside of nature, seeing as how we come from the same system along with the ingredients of all our creations.. That aside, many natural destructive events easily cause vast destruction very quickly. Large asteroid impacts are an obvious example. So too are large volcanic eruptions. Humans have not yet come close to causing the kind of extinctions both of these events have rapidly caused extremely quickly whenever they occur.

ben_w 5y ago

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” - George Bernard Shaw

helloworld11 5y ago

Sure we can. Nature already does it endlessly. Your claim presupposes idea that there's some sort of conscious natural order that's ideally aligned, and that we humans only muck it up with ignorance. The reality (unless ever proven otherwise) is that nature's own balanced world is nothing more than the transient product of constant and highly random destructive processes finally settling into something stable at times. Nothing we do sits outside of that and nature itself has brought far more equilibrium-destroying events to bear upon itself than we have.

ivanbakel 5y ago
>Nothing we do sits outside of that This is untrue. While it's correct to say that nature is involved in its own destructive churn, human interference in the natural world operates on a much faster timescale, over much greater distances, and with much more consistency. That's why humans are able to cause much more devastating ecological disasters than a natural process would - and why those disasters are qualitatively different from naturally-induced ones, since especially their speed means there is less "bounce back" to a new and equally active equilibrium.
- helloworld11 5y ago
  Don't you mean the human component of the natural world? I fail to see a single thing humans do as being outside of nature, seeing as how we come from the same system along with the ingredients of all our creations.. That aside, many natural destructive events easily cause vast destruction very quickly. Large asteroid impacts are an obvious example. So too are large volcanic eruptions. Humans have not yet come close to causing the kind of extinctions both of these events have rapidly caused extremely quickly whenever they occur.