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Could vaccinating these animals effect evolution in some way? Species have to die out for new species to come to the forefront; is it right for us to try and ch
by joshuapants 12y ago
Could vaccinating these animals effect evolution in some way? Species have to die out for new species to come to the forefront; is it right for us to try and change that? My impulse is to say, "Yes, vaccinate them and hopefully eradicate this virus," but there is always that second thought.
- SapphireSun 12y agoWhat do you think is the downside? Affecting evolution is kind of the point (we don't want them to go extinct).
- joshuapants 12y agoWhat would be the downside of having dinosaurs around? What would be the downside of me being a Homo habilis and carving this message into the side of a large rock? Whenever humans meddle with the environment there are drastic unintended consequences. I get it, they're charismatic animals and that's probably why I'm being downvoted, but I don't think this is a particularly unreasonable dissenting opinion.
- Mz 12y agoWhat would be the downside of having dinosaurs around? Dinosaurs couldn't possibly still be around. They existed in an era with a much more dense atmosphere and a much higher concentration of oxygen (30% vs 16%, iirc). The type of lung they had and the size of body they had -- they would suffocate here in our current atmosphere. It would be like a really bad case of altitude sickness. I think that's a very different scenario from what this article talks about, where humans have basically created this virus by domesticating dogs and having a fairly homogenous population of domesticated animals globally and now there are several billion humans...etc....and it is killing wild animals that shouldn't be all getting exposed to the same illness. I really think this is a very different thing from natural extinction of dinosaurs.