How Will Animals Look 250 Million Years From Now? 418
angkor writes "'How will Earth look 5 million, 100 million, even 200 million years from now?' Fantasic and fun speculation from Animal Planet. It's the work of Dougal Adams, who started this idea years ago in the out-of-print After Man: A Zoology of the Future."
like a big mac (Score:2, Funny)
See Singularity. (Score:4, Interesting)
Planet P Blog [planetp.cc] - Liberty with Technology.
My guess: (Score:5, Funny)
Re:My guess: (Score:5, Funny)
Will probably taste like chicken.
Re:My guess: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I don't think so, actually. (Score:3, Insightful)
1. In a capitalist, industrialized society, slavery is less than useless. A slave's consumption of goods and services is limited by the resources and desires of his/her owner and with few exceptions--most notably, traficking in women in the southern parts of Eastern Europe--it is pretty much absent from anywhere where there is an industrial base.
2. Sympathy for animals and for one's enemies can be seen as related to the level of material comfort that a society offers.
Contrast the levels of development.
Hunter-gatherer societies often revere their pray in religious rites, while Judaism, Islam and Hinduism have extensive rules governing what animals can be eaten (if any) and how the animal is to be slaughtered, dressed and otherwise prepared if its flesh is to be ritually pure.
The followers of the ancient religions that have survived to the present did not proscribe meat-eating but they did regulate everything that surrounded it--even Hindus can be carnivores.
It is only now, however, that we find ourselves in societies so rich that they give rise to psychologies where people are so filled with sympathy for animals that they adopt that part of foreign religious traditions.
Re:My guess: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Not Tasty my friend (Score:3, Informative)
There are other benefits to selective farm breeding. Farm-raised pigs have sweeter, more pleasant flesh than wild pigs, and are virtually free of Trichinella nematodes. Farm-raised veal results in a meat that is simply unavailable in free-range animals. And, of course, farm-raised seafood is almost universally superior to wild seafood.
5 millon years we will be in an ice-age? (Score:5, Interesting)
I am still a staunch believer in the fact that "global warming" is something that the Earth will fix on it's own.
Whether or not we are part of that process is of no concesquence.
Animal Planet agrees!
Re:5 millon years we will be in an ice-age? (Score:5, Funny)
And I am a staunch believer in the fact that the Earth will "fix" global warming by getting rid of us.
Re:5 millon years we will be in an ice-age? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:5 millon years we will be in an ice-age? (Score:2)
Re:5 millon years we will be in an ice-age? (Score:4, Interesting)
Life survives, but any drastic changes are of course going to wreak havoc on all things we are now accustomed to and most depend on, man's position may seem stable, but it's not really very hard to imagine how easily we could be knocked back to stone age. Thus, better be carefully monitoring whichever way change is going, and be damn careful not to accelerate it in any way, and if possible, even try to brake.
Re:5 millon years we will be in an ice-age? (Score:3, Insightful)
SAVE THE PLANET!
Yeah, right, like it's not big enough to look after itself.
Re:5 millon years we will be in an ice-age? (Score:2)
Interesting! (Score:3, Informative)
I do think he got carried away with the carnivorous monkeys and all that, but it was still an interesting exploration.
The author was Dougal Dixon, not Dougal Adams (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Interesting! (Score:2)
Re:Interesting! (Score:4, Informative)
Apologies for the shameless plug but I guessed that the out-of-print status of this book might cause a lot of frustration to anyone who finds this discussion interesting.
Anyone who's interesting can contact me via the PristineBooks.com site, cheers.
Re:Interesting! (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course when you boil it right down, I think it's pretty presumptuous to think you can predict what the future will be like. If we can't even predict what the short term effects of global warming are going to be, how can we determine that squids will become super muscular, grow lungs, and swing through the trees basically acting like modern day monkeys? Some of those beasties would make a nice addition to a Dungeons and Dragons world, but I really don't see how we can even venture a remote guess as to what life will look like in 200 Million years and expect it to be at all accurate.
Besdies the natural events that could occur that we can't even predict, none of this really takes into account the human factor. I am one of those "the planet's not going any where, we are" people, but we DO have the ability to drastically (some might say "traumatically") alter the environment in a very short amount of time.
Plus the idea of whats left of my mortal remains being sucked out of the ground to fill the gas tank of some land squids car is just something I would rather not think about
Re:Interesting! (Score:5, Funny)
(Fortunately it sounds like we have plenty of time to stockpile garlic and olive oil.)
Re:Interesting! (Score:2)
Re:Interesting! (Score:2)
Re:Interesting! (Score:2)
Re:Interesting! (Score:2, Informative)
Just one very small glimpse into one of countless potential futures. Nothing bad in that as long as it's acknowledged instead of 'em trying to claim that this and only this is exactly how it will be.
Re:Interesting! (Score:3, Interesting)
However, it was fairly well-grounded speculation, for the most part. One of the author's main recurring themes was that given the extinction of many larger ungulate herbivores, rodents and rabbits would evolve to fill the niche. He cited that since mankind had a pretty hard time getting rid of rabbits, they should be able to survive and thrive in the future world. So he listed quite a number of rabbit-descended grazers called "rabbucks", who had evolved hooves for running instead of feet for jumping. Much cooler than llamas, I'd say.
However, some of the animals were pretty ridiculous. One such example was a sloth-descended creature called a "Slobber", which had evolved to feed solely by dripping its long, stringy slobber in front of the mouths of nearby flowers, and waiting for dumb insects to fly into the drool, so it could slurp them up for a snack. The clincher was that its eyes had evolved away, so it was completely blind, crawling through the trees and vines of a jungle with absolutely no vision whatsoever. Sorry, but any smart predator would have made quick and easy meals of these things.
So, yeah, creative and interesting, but not necessarily realistic. The large, predatory weasels were also really fun to see.
What will animals look like? (Score:5, Funny)
This is all very assuming. (Score:2)
they say scientists came up with this... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:they say scientists came up with this... (Score:2, Insightful)
It would have bee better if theyld never made any claims about "scientists" saying these things and letting it just be pure speculation.
I did dig the squid with the biolumenesence (sp?) to attract its mate as well as lure prey. Too cool
Not all that spectatcualar (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Not all that spectatcualar (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Not all that spectatcualar (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Not all that spectatcualar (Score:2)
Seriously, human 'technology' has existed for one thousandth of the time spans being mentioned, and for 99% of that, the tech consisted of rocks.
Given that by that time there will be new mountain ranges and seas, I don't think laser eye surgery and linux will be a hot topic for cockroaches or squids.
Re:Not all that spectatcualar (Score:2)
Dude, what's with this "no evidence for evolution" slant? God's going to do it. After all, the bible mentions floods and drought, but no ice. God's got to be itching to try that one next. Have faith.
Well I know what humans will look like... (Score:4, Funny)
As for animals, they will be genetically developed to grow human faces and replacement butts. We're already growing human ears on rats, so you just know we're going to be growing full blown cosmetic replacements for every starlet in Hollywood.
Re:Well I know what humans will look like... (Score:2)
Donkeys on you can veg out on. Cool. But where would you stick the remote?
And wheels. Evolution will finally come up with wheels.
Miguel Icaza's head in a jar finally adds the ultimate feature that Outlook Express doesn't have. Of course, by that time, Microsoft will have added wheels *and* brakes to Outlook Express. The battle for more featureful mail clients will never end.
As for animals, they will be genetically developed to grow human faces and replacement butts.
I never thought of Matt Stone and Trey Parker as futurists, but a 4-assed monkey is starting to seem a little less ridiculous.
We're already growing human ears on rats, so you just know we're going to be growing full blown cosmetic replacements for every starlet in Hollywood.
But audiences of the future might pay far more to see starlets growing rat ears.
Earth has been here a while.... (Score:2, Insightful)
And when you give it more thought, humans could have existed long long ago - after all, it has only taken a half million years for humans to come to be where the dino's had hundreds of millions of years.
I believe that something really big came across the earths path - beit metor, virus, name your poison - that totally disrupted things on this earth.
And this will be offtopic, but I also believe there is life on this planet that probably came from others. So with that all said, I don't belive there will be much on this earth that hasn't had a similar clone way back in the past.
Re:Earth has been here a while.... (Score:3, Funny)
Great, now slashdot is being invaded by Raelians. Fuck this, I'm outta here.
I saw it and wasn't impressed... (Score:5, Insightful)
It also seemed to think that the same Classes (Amphibian, Fish, etc) would exist 200 million years from now, which seems a bit off.
Also, the show was filled with horrible names (like the Flish and the Terrabyte).
Re:I saw it and wasn't impressed... (Score:2)
Like slugs, snails, and worms? Land animals, no skeleton, there you go.
It also seemed to think that the same Classes (Amphibian, Fish, etc) would exist 200 million years from now, which seems a bit off.
Well, considering both amphibians and fishes have existed far longer than that already, I don't think it's way off.
Re:I saw it and wasn't impressed... (Score:2)
From what I understand, an exoskeleton puts an upper limit on size. On the other hand, I don't want to short change calamari's future.
Re:I saw it and wasn't impressed... (Score:3, Informative)
but most important is their open circulatory system is not capable of delivering oxygen and removing toxins from a large body
OTOH squids have some amazingly diverse evolved traits, little would surprise me
Re:I saw it and wasn't impressed... (Score:4, Insightful)
First, who is to say what course evolution will take? Kakos' criticism regarding the one 'possible' evolutionary course is well-warranted. Even a cursory review of the evolutionary history laid out in the fossil record shows that evolution moves in fits and starts, and not necessarily headed in one direction. Certainly, evolution at least covers all the bases, in case one chess move doesn't work as expected.
Second, I felt that too much was made of very few individual species and how they eat each other. Spiders eating the last mammal species. 'Sharkopath' creatures eating giant squid (forget that the largest whales today show battle scars from their assumed feasting on giant squids, showing that there is some fight in squids that might drive that species evolution).
Third, it took a shallow view of the wide world of animals--the only animals represented were those living within a narrow ecological band, basically several meters above/below ground and below sea level. One was begged to accept that life on Future Earth hinges on 'flish' being blown inland by Super typhoons, to feed 'bumblebeetles' that live for only a matter of hours/days.
Where were the crustaceans? The plankton? Single-celled life? I'd like to think that the question of possible futures requires a deeper exploration of evolutionary forces, and, as Kakos indicated, a discussion of the many possibilities of evolution, rather than the narrow picture presented.
A longer, episodic treatment is more appropriate to this subject, and personally, I'd love to see it. First episode: whoops, the Earth gets really cold! Second Episode: Eek, what if it gets really hot? Third episode: Zounds, rebellion of the sea creatures!
Unfortunately, we'll never see such a treatment.
squid fetish uncovered (Score:2, Funny)
The author must have a squid fetish. Will Part 2 have "intelligent" squid that build tools and talk? The author can then use this as an excuse to put on the show he really wants: squid prostitutes, or Hosquid. The only TV sqid I know is Sponge Bob's neighbor. Sounds like a pretty good unexplored niche for news scripts and material to me. "Squid Trek: To slosh where no squid has sloshed before!"
Re:I saw it and wasn't impressed... (Score:4, Interesting)
My problems:
Every single animal they had was just a slight modifcation of current specimens. Ok, so maybe things wouldn't change that much for the first part (5 million years), but in 100 million years, the best they could come up with is babookari? (The baboon is allegdly extinct, and that bald, redfaced monkey is all that's left of the primates.)
Disregarding Cope's rule: The idea is that as things evolve, they get bigger. Bigger animals tend to win fights over mates, get more food, have fewer predators. It just makes sense. The last of the mammals being herded by spiders bigger than it? Nope.
Disregarding Dollo's law: Evolution is a one-way path. Dinosaurs evolve into birds which evolve into dinosaurs?
Stupid-ass names: snowstalker. deathgleaner. buttpicker. assgoblin.
The awful subplot: Humans are gone and are sending probes back to check out the earth (but clearly not recolonizing it, even if it has gotten past any environmental damage and is just chock full of raw natural resources) Don't forget the bad tech.: 95 million years of technological progress, and the new space probe not only is just slightly larger and silver, it also can't operate without first attaching to the ancient probe.
Just generally weird ideas:
The spiders are silver to avoid UV radiation.
The birds are blue to avoid UV radiation.
The birds sleep in midair.
One gopher-sized spink is enough to feed an entire flock of deathgleaners.
Bad writing:
The deathgleaners (highly evolved bats) exit their cave "like bats out of hell"
I especially like the egotism that intelligence never really returns to the earth (I've only made it 2/3rds through, so it might).
-transiit
Frankly, I didn't like it (Score:5, Informative)
I also disliked the concept that most animals will get bigger. That seems contrary to what we've observed in the last million years. Animals like Sharks and Alligators have survived millenia without many changes. What makes one think the radical changes proposed in the program would occur?
Funny thing is that I had my nephew (11 years old) watching the program with me. He laughed most of the time and thought the ideas were mostly ludicrous. And see, he's 11...
Re:Frankly, I didn't like it (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Frankly, I didn't like it (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Frankly, I didn't like it (Score:2, Insightful)
Flying fish. Yes, I have seen them, and they do propel themselves through the air quite impressively.
According to the program, to "guide the other sharks and hunt in packs". C'mon... We all know light gets filtered rather rapidly by water. Wouldn't sound be a better choice?
Evolution works with what it's got. Titanium would make a great skeleton, but calcium was the best that natural selection could do.
He laughed most of the time and thought the ideas were mostly ludicrous.
Did he laugh through Star Wars and Lord of the Rings too over their implausibility? Nobody involved really thinks this is what life's going to look like 200 million years from now; it's an intellectual exercise.
Re:Frankly, I didn't like it (Score:2)
The earliest birds (thought to be descended from dinosaurs) very likely started off as gliders. I don't see any particular reason why a fish couldn't evolve into something that could fly.
After all, if you accept that evolution is what produced us, your ultimate mammalian anscestor is most likely a shrew-like creature from way back in the dim and misty. Hardly an auspicious beginning. Who knew they'd get opposable thumbs? ;)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Frankly, I didn't like it (Score:2)
[nitpick]
Actually, a wide range of squid and cuttlefish species use rapid color changes to communicate with each other. Visit any aquarium of decent size, or camp the science channels on TV. You're bound to see quite a bit of impressive footage, complete with smarty-man voiceover. Sound may be a better choice, but boy do these squid sure love the color-changing method!
[/nitpick]
Re:Frankly, I didn't like it (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Frankly, I didn't like it (Score:2)
Re:Frankly, I didn't like it (Score:2)
As other posts pointed out, yes there are such things as 'flying fish'. The problem is they don't fly. They glide. This is why you don't see them flitting from tree to tree. Your post pointed out that this would very caloricly expensive for a cold blooded creature.
Giant squid live in the ocean. They have for a very long time. I'm assuming the show postulated an earth devoid of land fauna, that the squid would be all into exploiting. I don't think so. There would be many reef/shoreline type animals that would be better placed than a creature that evolved to live in the deep ocean.
Sharks have been what they are for a long time. I don't see any pressure on them to dress up.
I'm not going to comment on the chrome spider.
Re:Frankly, I didn't like it (Score:3, Informative)
You might not understand evolution.
First of all, 200 years is a long time. Look at your ancesters 200 years ago, they weren't winning any prizes.
Second, once a species becomes successful, it faces competition from itself. One solution to this self-induced competition is to radiate into new niches. Another problem is that climates do change as well, and all of a sudden, the successful forest creature doesn't have a lot of forests to live in. This is why, in relatively recent years (according to how geologists see the world), several purely carnivorous species turned into several species, including grass eaters. Take yourself. You are decended from tree-dwelling primates, which were decended from insect eaters. Just because your ancesters were damn efficient at eating flies all day doesn't mean you do.
Oh, btw, Dougal Douglas has a book out by the same theme, released 10 or so years ago. Title was "After Man, a Biology of the Future". The book is a little grim though in predicting that the amount of damage humans have done to certain species is irreplaceable, which leads to such things as rats becoming wolflike preditors and rabbits becoming antelopelike creatures.
Re:Frankly, I didn't like it (Score:2)
Tsk, tsk! I would have thought that a
Also, animals getting bigger over time isn't necessarily contrary to what's been observed over the last million years. It's fairly well known that larger animals do have a chance to survive in very hot temperatures. In all reality, though, evolution is rather unpredictable.
Works like car models (Score:2)
Cars usually get bigger, come in more colors, and have more chrome with each new model year, until the model is retired after 10 years.
My prediction... (Score:5, Funny)
Also, the platypus evolves to look like a perfectly normal duck.
Re:My prediction... (Score:2)
+1 Funny
Thats sort of funny... (Score:3, Insightful)
Animal planet is proposing that animals get bigger, turn into reptiles, and finally go back into the sea from wence they came. IS it just me or is that somehow ironic, stange and possibly WRONG.
I find it hard to believe that life on earth will DE-evolve... thats sort of a depressing thought though isn't it.
Course what do I know... I'm not a biologist.
Re:Thats sort of funny... (Score:5, Insightful)
It is veryy likelt that humans are just a blip on the scope. We have a tendency to think we're the ultimate creature, or the peak of evolution, when really we are just one of many creature that will exist until the end of time.
do while not EOT
Evolve
loop
"After Man" (Score:2)
Land-going squids, eh? Cool!
The New Dinosaurs: An Alternative Evolution (Score:2, Interesting)
Unfortunately, it is also out of print. I have a copy sitting on my shelf next to "After Man". I haven't dusted either off in years, but perhaps it's time.
Easy (Score:2)
a much more relevant question (Score:3, Interesting)
will humanity survive another 10,000 years?
i think not.
Re:a much more relevant question (Score:2)
"But not a drop to drink". Sound familiar? Fresh water supply is the hidden spectre behind the (coming?) global energy crisis. If we don't manage our population and our needs well, nature will do it for us - but we may not live through it. At least not without returning to cave dwellings, and from our extremely small genetic variance across the globe, I'd say we're on our second chance already. We all descended from just a few 'survivors'
http://www.renaissancealliance.org/issact/isspe
(The world bank knows this)
A long time ago, (Score:2)
It was a series of full color plates like you would find in a Victorian biology book decepting an alien flora and fauna. I only had a short look at it, but was impressed, and would like to know the title and author. Anyone know what I'm talking about??
Re:A long time ago, (Score:3, Interesting)
mahlen
Re:A long time ago, (Score:2)
Re:A long time ago, (Score:2)
Though the name isn't similar, the book you describe sounds a lot like Expedition by Wanye Douglas Barlowe.
One thing they seemed to leave out... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:One thing they seemed to leave out... (Score:2)
Re:One thing they seemed to leave out... (Score:4, Funny)
Dolphins Evolve Opposable Thumbs: 'Oh, Shit,' Says Humanity [theonion.com]
Re:One thing they seemed to leave out... (Score:2)
I think that in order to evolve into a "civilization" as we understand it, a species would have to be able to produce fire, then machines... Kind of hard to do in an aquatic environment with limited ability to affect it (no opposable thumbs or even digits).
I'm not saying dolphins aren't smart, but I don't see how they can make the next step up that ladder without leaving the sea. And growing digits of some type.
In 250 Years... (Score:5, Funny)
Speculation, not Science (Score:5, Insightful)
We are not talking about predicting what kinds of particles will pop out of a high-energy collision of heavy ions, we are talking about what life will look like in 200 million years. The former is good science, the latter is not. Did anyone notice that the DC's productions on Neanderthals, Dinosaurs, and Prehistoric Beasts were full of the exact same type of pseudoscience speculation? Worst of all, they had the animals doing such things as looking at the camera repeatedly, and even spitting out water towards the TV screen!!! I mean, come on! This makes for great ratings (maybe), but pisspoor science, AFAIAC. They had the Neanderthals going around stealing women and raping them without a shred of evidence that such things occurred, save that in our modern human society they do. Baboons that make fish nets? It seems that there is an overanthromorphization of just about every creature that is CG-rendered by these programs.
Please, when you watch these programs, don't be afraid to enjoy them- but make sure you take them with a grain of salt. To a certain extent, I believe that these programs work against getting the American public to accept evolution as scientists do, instead encouraging misconceptions about basic principles of evolution, as well as providing fodder to anti-evolutionists. Hopefully, in the future, these will be done a bit more professionaly, with less emphasis on the art, and more on the science.
Re:Speculation, not Science (Score:2)
Your point has actually been widely discussed in scientific circles, and there are two camps. You are basically presenting the argument of the conservative camp: these shows contain so much speculation that they should not be broadcast to the public.
I basically belong to the other camp. I think that these shows can generate huge interest in Dinosaurs and Neandertals, and that is a good thing. It bothers me less that the producers take a lot of liberties in making up details beause they don't know how it really was or because they want to make it more interesting. Of course, this assumes that the basics are presented correctly, which they have been in the shows that I have seen.
Based on what I read in other posts though, this program about future animals seemed to be a bunch of BS.
Tor
A lot of the ideas are pretty silly (Score:5, Interesting)
Additionally, it seems to suggest that no other sapient/sentient being will come around after humans. I realize that part of the reason they sidestepped this issue is to keep the fundies off their back too much, but hell, we're talking about evolution here. I have no doubt that another species will come along on earth that's at least as smart as we are.
Yeah, the what if game is fun, but I don't think that the producers of this show were particularly brilliant. The entire thing left we with the feeling of alternating between "and, so", and disbelief. Personally, I feel that the next 200 or so years are going to determine what exactly goes on for a very, very long time in evolution. If humanity manages to survive, which I am optimistic about, I feel that genetic engineering, etc, are going to sculpt the animal kingdom in much more interesting ways. Better luck next time.
Re:A lot of the ideas are pretty silly (Score:2)
The problem with predicting evolution is that it doesn't usually happen gradually, but in short bursts in response to rapid changes in the environment. You might be able to predict the evolution for thousands of years (maybe), but certainly not on the order of millions of years. You might even get lucky and predict what happens with certain events -- an increase in hibernating species if an ice age comes up, for example. Think of the computer world as an analogy. Before the 1980s, nobody even considered "personal computing." Before the mid-90's, few people had heard of the internet. Both are equivalent to a major event on the Earth, and an abrupt evolution of products occurred, just as it would with species.
Genetic engineering is good. But it's bad. And I don't mean ethically either. The little things will get better -- few people will need glasses or contacts, people will be better looking, who knows, maybe even breasts could get larger and nicer. But we'll all have the same genes, or very similar ones. Part of the whole nature thing is that we've all got different mutations in our genetic code, and on the whole, they help our species survive. If a virus wipes out a million people tomorrow, that's bad. But if we all shared the same genetic code, it'd wipe out at least a billion. Besides, it's more fun to watch two mooses humping on the discovery channel than it is to watch a bioengineer in some lab with a syringe and a test tube.
Re:A lot of the ideas are pretty silly (Score:2, Insightful)
Why I said that the next 200 years are going to be the determining factor is because humanity is pretty much on the knife edge. A lot is going to happen in that time period. Either humanity is going to have to escape earth, humanity is going to die out, or we're going to get our shit together, one way or another, and figure out how to control technology without screwing ourselves, and the world, over.
Though I do agree with you that the old fashioned way of reproducing is much more fun. I feel it'll remain around, and will probably be the way most people do decide to have kids. I jsut feel that occasionally, someone will want to go in, and be genetically tweaked a bit.
Dinosaurs. (Score:4, Informative)
Didnt see it but (Score:4, Insightful)
After the last E.L.E. that killed off all the dinosaurs the animals that survived tended to shrink in size because of the lack of food. Cock roaches used to be quite large, something the size of say a football. Crocodiles were enormous and so were sea turtles. But since the larger animals require more food, evolution kicked in and the species naturally shrunk for survival.
Considering the abundance of life on this planet and likewise food. It seems reasonable that species will continue to grow larger, that is unless insects take over which is quite possible considering they out number us greatly and carry some really nasty diseases.
Humankinds downfall wont be global warming or nuclear war. We will be killed off by the only thing that is higher on the food chain than us, virii. We still can't cure virii, not even the common flu has a cure, and given it's yearly mutation (evolution) there is virtually no hope of curing viruses. We can postpone but not stop them i.e. AIDS. Biowarfare is happening today, but not from Iraq, mother nature has found our supierior.
We may develop the technology to fight off the bugs, but thats a long shot and could be worse than the buggers themselves. Time will only tell.
Aditionally, someone correct me if I'm wrong but isn't the moon supposed to leave our orbit in the next 60 thousand years? It's orbit is degenerating at a certain rate, meaning it will eventually leave us altogether. What impact will this have on life here? The moon is responsible for the tides correct?
Re:Didnt see it but (Score:5, Insightful)
Er, Viri aren't on the food chain. They're a parasitical life form that simply won't survive if they kill off all of the hosts. (And AIDS is a particularly bad example. The "simple" act of killing, neuturing, or ostracizing every HIV+ individual & blood sample would eliminate the virus in a way that, oh, killing TB infections wouldn't.)
Plus, don't forget that humans aren't the only ones to suffer from virii. EVERY animal has its parasites; we just happen to know more about ours, AND we've got enough tech to beat back even the nastiest of them.
Re:Didnt see it but (Score:2)
I didn't forget virii kill other species, mamals in particular. I just see it becoming more of an issue for our species than others, but that may have more to do with human intervention in curing animal disease, or at the least controlling it.
I don't see AIDS as a bad example considering 80% of the population in Africa is now infected. No one will ever commit genocide by killing off all the AIDS patients, we are far to politically correct these days and neuturing would have no effect on it. Say 100 years from now AIDS becomes air borne? Doubtful but who knows. Doesn't mean a new bugger wont come around either.
Anyway......... off to form some new conspiracy theories and doomsday predictions.
Re:Didnt see it but (Score:2)
Do I Ever Feel Sheepish... (Score:2)
Tru they [viruses] wont survive if we don't, but they don't know that. What's to stop the process?
In one word: evolution. The fact that viruses aren't sentient isn't at all important. No one but humans are sentient: is every species but us just lucky that they don't all decide that it might be fun to stop breathing? Viruses that act in unfit ways, that is, contrary to their survival's best interest, become extinct. It's called "survival of the fittest"; I'm sure you've heard that phrase, but you clearly don't understand it.
I don't see AIDS as a bad example considering 80% of the population in Africa is now infected.
Uhh... 80%? According to the United Nations AIDs Program [unaids.org], there are 42 million people in the entire world currently infected with Aids. The population [geohive.com] of Africa is around 800 million. Even if every single person infected with AIDs in the world happened to live in Africa, only 5% of the population would be infected. Not exactly 80%.
Re:Didnt see it but (Score:3, Informative)
BTW, the OED only gives 'viruses' for the plural of 'virus'. this [perl.com] article has far too much information on the subject. :-)
Going totally off topic, it was funny finding that link on perl.com, knowing Larry Wall's liguistic background. I'll save my opinion on perl for another forum.
Totally Disagree (Score:5, Insightful)
And it's not like there are, or can be, incredibly deadly viruses. The worst in the world (arguably) is AIDs, and it is hardly threatening mankind's survival. Far less than one percent are infected and even fewer die from it. Furthermore, no virus will survive if it is really good at killing. Viruses exist not to kill, as you seem to imply, but rather to propagate. Evolutionarily, a virus wants to hurt its host as little as possible. A virus that kills its host super-fast would burn itself out. Why do you think smallpox was so easy to eradicate? It was one of the most deadly viruses known to man, yet it was one of the easiest to kill off. Same with Ebola: it is incredibly lethal and contagious, yet far fewer than one hundred people die from it a year.
In fact, there's no reason at all that man will ever become extinct. We will eventually colonize other planets and galaxies, exponentially reducing any threat to the species. Our technology will speed evolution up a million fold, eventually making humans effectively immortal. Nothing short of a Borg-like sentient race hell-bent on our destruction (or a planet-killing disaster in the next few hundred years) could kill us off. Sorry, universe, you're stuck with us.
Was I the only one... (Score:4, Interesting)
Only 200 years it takes for death to die.
Re:Was I the only one... (Score:3, Insightful)
Heh. While my wife and I were watching this show, they cut to commercial after showing a short teaser segment of the squids. My wife's comment was something like "So they're saying that Cthulhu gets the planet in 200 million years?"
My response- "If the stars are right."
I did find the HPL connection amusing, though.
That's easy (Score:4, Insightful)
Having said that, consider what organisms have been around for the previous 250 million years, and why:
Tube worms, mosquitos, reptiles, dragonflies, and my faves, the octopus and cockroach [xnewswire.com], to name but a few.
That's how animals will look 250 million years from now.
Hah! (Score:2)
mmm-mmm-mmm-mm-petroleum (Score:2)
Sharks (Score:3, Funny)
Evolution requires mutation, not predictable (Score:5, Interesting)
That Darwin's theory explains why things are the way they are, with regards to survival, it doesn't explain the HOW, which is mutation. Mutations occur and natural selection drives the duplication of the mutated genes 'til a new species is differentiated from the old.
However, the nature of how mutations really happen, and how "good" ones that are "prefered" arrive (as we're very keyed in to hating anything "different" ourselves and often shun it in humans or kill it in animals) is what we as humans have not been able to truly see or test. Its hard to test, as mammals have too long a breeding period, and colonial insects (ants and bees) are usually dominated by the queen's genes. Most genes that change behaviours tended to have already been on the planet somewhere, and are only spreading now because we're accidentally spreading them (e.g., "africanized/killer" bees).
The show did a good job of suggesting what natural selection might do, given a set of mutations over X million years to produce said animals, but the fact is that the mutations themselves are what's utterly unpredictable...and truth be told, rather boring by comparison to the end-results we saw.
I consider evolution a fact, but not a law in the Newton/Einstein sense, because evolution can't be used to predict the future with any accuracy since evolution doesn't explain mutations; it only relies on them. It would be like trying to use Einstein to predict something in electrons without the use of calculus.
--
There's more of my commentary on the show in my journal @ slashdot [slashdot.org], most of it influenced by talk from the same boards.
Accuracy may not be the point (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think that's the point. If a show like this can get people to think beyond their own lifespans, to think for even a minute that the planet will be here and building strange and wonderful things not only after they're gone but after their SPECIES is gone, that can't be bad.
I personally can't believe the number of people that I talk to that, when some kind of calamity is talked about, if you say "It may happen in about 1000 years" they say "Well, who the fuck cares then?" - Damn, man, don't you have aspirations for your species?
The number of people living for themselves, and BARELY even for their children let alone their grandchildren, and fuck all the rest is very disturbing to me. If anyone can introduce even a flicker of a long view to them, more power to them.
"After Man" was by Dougal Dixon (Score:3, Informative)
First published in Great Britain by Granada Publishing, 1981.
ISBN 0 586 05750 1
Don't they watch today's nature documentaries? (Score:4, Informative)
- A focus. While they couldn't give us a mother and cubs, they could've given us the evolutionary equivalent. Take a couple of classes or orders and get us to care what happens to them over then next 200 million years. Introduce the squids early on. The only continuity TFIW had was "location of former cities"
- Drama- rather than suddenly show the last mammal, they should've shown 100 million years of decreasing diversity.
- Digressions. TFIW had few animals per time zone. If TFIW didn't have the computational budget to animate more they at least could have had more still shots. Documentaries tend to be filled with side loops, constantly showing local diversity- while the predator waits, we take five minutes to check out a cute symbiotic relationship, or a flock of colorful birds, or the prey's prey, or a dung beetle (which also is part of my next point...)
- Humor. Let's see some baby spiders falling off the web before going into the extinction of mammals next time.
A few random points relating to other threads in the comments: