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Nope you are wrong. Cats are brought by humans everywhere where they are not native. Humans already destroyed ecosystem by many ways. This was just trying to re
by birksherty 2y ago
Nope you are wrong. Cats are brought by humans everywhere where they are not native. Humans already destroyed ecosystem by many ways. This was just trying to reducing that harm.
- Euphorbium 2y agoThis is going to blow your mind, but humans are part of nature. The view that are not nature is religious.
- h0l0cube 2y agoSpecies purposely introduced by humans would be considered artificial not 'natural' selection. If the cats swam over to the island of their own volition as a survival strategy though, that would blow my mind.
- elzbardico 2y agoSo, would ticks brought to a new prairie by bisons. So, would seed brough by the feces of migrant birds. Yes, we can CHOOSE any moral framework, including one where we introduce this arbitrary notion of artificiality to treat the impact of homo sapiens as a distinct category. But let's not treat this as science. I wouldn't go so far to call it as a religion, but it is still on the realm of ethics and philosophy. We can even have pragmatical reasons for choosing so, like the need for a particular eco-system to stay in a given state for our own confort, health and economic reasons. But it is still an arbitrary choice. Species migrate by themselves in the nature, sometimes they play havoc on the existing biome they migrate themselves into. This was, it is, and it will be a significant driver of evolution long after we are gone from earth. And on this particular case, it is not even like we are restoring the island to some idealized, pristine steady state. Cats are not the only species that piggyback on our civilization to spread, we also have the domestic mouse. If anything, completely eliminating the cat from those islands will serve only to ensure that the domestic mouse will be the dominant species there.
- Dylan16807 2y agoSure, "we broke it so we should try to help maintain it" is entirely an ethical question and not a scientific one. Are you satisfied now? Can we go back to talking about the problem instead of arguing about the definition of "natural"? ...but wait, you're the one that introduced the word "natural" to this conversation, using it as a reason to do nothing. That's ridiculous. If everything is natural, then your argument would say we should never do anything ever. You can't have it both ways. If you want to use such a wide-reaching definition of natural, then you can't also use "natural" as a motivation to not intervene.
- h0l0cube 2y ago> So, would ticks brought to a new prairie by bisons Ah, no. Nature is specifically what has unadulterated by humans. If humans are involved, it's not natural. I didn't make up the words, but that's exactly what it is. At least if you're talking about nature as being distinct from something else. If you're talking about nature writ large, then there is no distinction, but we're not talking cosmology here. > we can CHOOSE any moral framework I was only making clear the distinction between natural and unnatural. But, to take on this argument, cats and mice are exotic pest species in many places. You might object to them being called pest, but their existence is usually at the extinction risk of native species. It's fair to say there'll be enough cats and mice around the world. You could say that we should just let whatever thrives to thrive, but I'd argue the world would be a more boring place without native species, and indeed ecosystems can collapse from the introduction of exotic species, potentially even causing existential risk to the introduced species (including us humans).
- earthling8118 2y agoNatural disasters are also part of nature. It doesn't follow that I should want to be hit by a tsunami because of this. It doesn't matter if we're part of nature. The negative affects are enough to justify not allowing it to happen when possible.