If evolution is true, why do we, as creatures like any other, have to tread lightly on this planet?

Question

It seems to me that a huge portion of our population pollutes and destroys...how are they doing something wrong? How can there be wrong when it comes to human action, period?
I do not look at a Siberian Tiger and say he is doing something wrong when he deficates where he wants or leaves carcasses of dead animals around. I do not look at a Chimpanzee when he cannibilizes another Chimpanzee and say he is doing something wrong?

This is exactly my point in my question....WHY is everything in this planet doing what it is supposed to...but, we have changed the rules by creating cures for diseases, chemicals, depleting resources, etc....does it not seem weird that everything else that has evolved lives in harmony with nature, but , WE DON'T??
What is wrong all of a sudden with evolution?

Answer 1

Evolution is just a theory.
So first of all we have to see if it is true or not.

Answer 2

you're quite mistaken

if you have, say, bacteria in some favourable milieu, the population will not "tread lightly", and plan ahead. The bacteria will develop and develop until suddenly the resources run out - and then, at once, most of the population will be wiped out.

most living beings would behave the same, if they had the opportunity.

the reason we do not observe this too often, is that normally there is enough predators, or not enough food, or animals fight each other, or they don't breed that much. Tigers, well, need a huge territory for each (or else they fight, sometimes to death).

human beings are a bit like rats, or like ants. Fairly resistant to a lot of ****. You can pile a lot of them together, and they'll destroy a lot of the environment.


of course you would have hoped that we would one day be able to think about such things. But look around you, the US consumes, per unit of GDP, over 2x as much energy as any other rich country. And what can the other citizens of the planet do about it? Nothing.

anyway, this has nothing to do with evolution.

Answer 3

Regardless of how you view the origin of our species, we should tread lightly. We have reached a point where we are depleting resources in a few hundred years that took thousands or millions of years to develop. At this rate, there will be a severe drop some time in the capacity of the planet to support life.

Personally, I think the best way to prevent this is to reduce the population of the planet. If we could just cause a 1% reduction in the total population each year, for a period of about 30 years, we might reach a point where we might have a stable, viable sized population. The slow rate of change would give people and economies a chance to adapt, but (hopefully) not deplete any critical resources just yet.

Answer 4

Good question... let me try and explain by analogy.

Staphylococcus aureus is a common infectious bacterium You can carry it around all your life and have no illnesses, or you can be unlucky and have it give you a fatal disease such as meningitis or toxic shock syndrome. In an environment where it has enough to eat, it can divides every twenty minutes. It divides, and eats, and divides, and eats, until finally there are so many staph bacteria that the host organism either gets sick and takes an antibiotic, or dies. Either of these outcomes will kill off all the staph bacteria. This is not a desirable thing for the staphylococcus aureus, but it does it anyway.

Despite what Agent Smith in "The Matrix" says, all organisms do this... if they can. Other competing organisms make it impossible for them to do so. If a lion could catch as many wildebeests as it wanted, soon enough the wildebeests would die out and the lions would starve. The wildebeests would eat all the grass in the savannah and then starve to death, but the lions keep them in check.

The difference between humans and animals is this... we know better than to consume and multiply until all our resources are exhausted. Our particular evolution has given us the ability to dominate our environment... and also the ability to know when our actions are going to make it harder for our species to continue to exist. So a farmer, rather than growing three crops a year for five years and exhausting his soil for the next several decades, rotates his plants and sometimes lets the field lie fallow. His "knowing better" allows him to trade immediate profit, lots of food, for future profit (enough food, and for a much longer time).

This is a lot more complicated on a large level. It's easy to predict that, if you kill all the wolves in Yellowstone, the elk population will surge. It's a lot harder to predict if damming the Yangtzee will benefit humans (by making cheap hydroelectric power available to a very poor and heavily polluted nation) or hurt humans (by altering the floodpatterns, catastrophic accident, or damaging the fishery). So it benefits us to be careful, and consider our actions thoroughly.

Answer 5

Because in nature there is a balance. If an animal defecates it is contributing to the eco system. The feces is feeding bugs, it is decomposing and nourishing the earth, etc. What humans have done is they have thrown out natural selection. Through medical advances we have given people an opportunity to live and breed that would not otherwise (I am not saying this isn't a good thing I'm just trying to be objective). This means that the most adaptive genes may not be passed down. Also we create synthetic properties that do not have anyplace in nature. They do not break down or benefit anything else. We kill off whole species and large areas of land to suit our purposes without any thought as to how we are effecting the natural cycle of things. We have basically removed ourselves from the cycle of life and that puts everything else off balance. There's a lot more to it but there really isn't space to get into it all.

Answer 6

The fact of the matter is we are the only animal that is drastically changing many aspects of the planet. For example a tiger does not make plastics, drill for oil, or tear down forests for globalization. While much of our usage is necessary, we should try and limit our use because we simply do not know how much the planet can take. I am really far from being some hippy liberal, but I do believe that some moderation is necessary if we are going to be able to survive as a species.

Answer 7

I think humans forget that we are a part of nature and not better than nature. The planet will survive regardless of human intervention. There have been major holocausts and so-called catastrophes over the ages including impacts by meteors and asteroids, and major volcanic eruptions that changed the earths atmosphere and climate for decades, The magnetic pole has switched from north to south. The earth has survived all this and can still be considered a living organism.

The human being does not want to see ecological changes because they put our existence in jeopardy.

guess what? It is not our choice to make!

Answer 8

No life has ever, or will ever, outlive its ecological niche.
All present life, and humans, will become extinct.

This happens because either nature changes the niche too quickly, or because the animal, or plant, changes the niche too quickly for the animal, or plant, to adapt to the new situation.

This is what homosapiens is doing. He is no wiser than any other.

When our sun passes through the dense portion of one of our galaxy's arms in thousandsof years time, we must be prepared, if we still exist, to leave our aging sun and find a younger star. We will be like spawn set free in the ocean as only very few of those who set out will find a habitable world!

Answer 9

Somehow I don't understand your confusion. We do the things that you mentioned because that's the way our brain evolved. Each specie developed differently. Nothing says that because one specie's brain developed in a certain way, that all species must do the same.
Even though we are animals, no better or no worse than the others, we are different. In fact, each specie is different from the others. You might ask, why can bats fly but we can't ? The answer is simple - - - we're different.

Answer 10

Evolution is not about morality although morality has been an important part of evolution at the societal level. Molding your environment is important. Sanitation is a major factor in the improvement of life expectancy in too few generations to see its evolutionary impact.

Answer 11

We should to minimize the environmental impact of our civilization for the simple reason that we are going to wipe ourselves out if we do not. At the rate we're going, we're going to start running out of various resources in about 50 years. Eventually, we're going to run out of clean air and water. The toxins we produce will eventually kill us.

All animals produce waste. However, most don't also live in their waste. They'll defecate outside their den or nest, away from their colony, or in some particular designated area. When their current living space becomes too dirty or low in resources, they'll move elsewhere. Animals have come up with various ways to deal the waste they produce, and it usually involves putting their waste in one place and living someplace else.

Now for humans. Our evolutionary survival strategy has been to put our waste in one place, away from where we live, and to use up the resources in one place and then move one. However, the human population has become far too large to support that lifestyle. Were can we put our waste, and where can we go to? Our waste now isn't just stuff we can burry in a whole somewhere behind the tent, and leave it behind when we move to the next campsite. We can't get rid of toxic gasses. Our waste is filling up our living space, and the current campsite is the entire globe. There's no where for us to put our waste, and no where for us to move on to.

You could argue that over time, the only people who survive will be the ones who are adapted to the changing environment. However, what you fail to consider is that everyone else dies. People in general don't like it when most of the human race dies off. Yes, the human race might continue, but not without mass casualties. That's generally considered a bad thing.

Simply put, we have to reduce our impact on the environment because we can't survive if we don't.