Howdy folks- The assertion that affiliation with university-level research renders a finding suspect or an opinion dubious should interest members of this list.
We can compose effectively endless lists of cases where human agency has redistributed biota and thereby affected pre-existing populations, ecological relationships and traditional or potential economic opportunities. Those are indisputable facts. But what those facts mean is disputable. At the most fundamental level I can think of, the dispute is about human identity. Are we part of nature or separate from it? And I think that matters here, even 'on the ground' (which is where the questions occurred to me). The facts of biotic redistribution suggest to me that humans (however unique) are inextricably part of nature. The same facts suggest to others that we are irreconcilably separate from nature, and that our separateness is contagious to some biota via transportation. I see effects; they see impacts. I see change; they see damage. I see population dynamics; they see invasions, enemies, wars, explosions, conspiracies, meltdowns-- and espouse a doctrine of original sin disallowing any 'alien' population or its progeny from 'belonging', no matter how much co-evolution and ecological integration with the 'natives' ensues. Unwanted change is one major 'kind' of problem. Inability to effect desired change is another. Because we are limited and self-interested organisms, we engineer narrowly effective solutions. As a result, the changes that made it possible for you to read this were accompanied by changes you didn't expect. There is, for example, no "free shipping". How we go about addressing those problems depends on how we are able to conceive them. Declaring the existence of an 'un-nature' requiring war on human-associated biota generates fear and loathing and supports another(?) military industrial complex. Blaming and demonizing the biota promotes a particular set of narrow engineering responses benefiting an identifiable sector of technologists and associated bureaucracies. It maintains, at best, a gradually deteriorating but locally and temporarily profitable arms race. We are all nobly despairing knights of the Red Queen. But that's what the science of ecology is all about, right? I look forward to your responses, on or off list. But either way, please take a moment to delete unneeded quoting of previous messages in the thread. Preventing unintended "invasions" starts at home. Matthew K Chew Assistant Research Professor Arizona State University School of Life Sciences ASU Center for Biology & Society PO Box 873301 Tempe, AZ 85287-3301 USA Tel 480.965.8422 Fax 480.965.8330 [email protected] or [email protected] http://cbs.asu.edu/people/profiles/chew.php http://asu.academia.edu/MattChew
