Extinction is Natural

Behold above the Panamanian Golden Frog (Atelopus zeteki), which has one advantage and two disadvantages as a species. It's one advantage is a major one: it is an attractive creature in the eyes of most members of the world's dominant species - Homo sapiens (human beings). One of it's disadvantages is a relatively minor one: human beings usually refer to it as a 'Frog', when in reality it is a 'Toad', and therefore a member of a slightly less desirable (or less attractive) family of amphibians - according to humans. The Panamanian Golden Frog's other disadvantage is a vastly more important problem: it is one of the world's many frog and toad species that are susceptible to the attack of a recently-evolved strain of fungus - and therefore it's numbers are being decimated to the point of extinction. Here's is one naturalist's description in Mongabay.com (and be sure to read the comment section at the end of his short article).

Human beings are striving mightily to rescue the Golden Frog - and the other endangered amphibians - from the ravages of the destructive 'chytrid frog fungus'. I have no issues with humanity trying to save these endangered species, but we have to be a little realistic about our efforts to save all species from extinction. We are not God, Gaia, Mother Nature or even Darwin's Evolutionary Engine. Human beings do not have unlimited scientific, societal, political or economic resources.

Welcome to the confusing world of extremely complex interactions between the 'unnatural' / human world and the 'natural' / non-human world. Human beings are constantly berating (or congratulating) ourselves for the negative (or positive) effects we have on the natural world and the creatures that inhabit it. But, reality is frequently different than the impression we have of ourselves and our powers to do good or evil. Our positive feelings for this cute frog did not help it to avoid the harm its species is receiving from the chytrid fungus. Our negative feelings against this unpleasant frog fungus did not cure the fungus of its appetite for the flesh of the Golden Frog.

Round and around and around we go, swing your partner dozey-doe!

The natural world's square dance goes on every day, everywhere, within and between species, conflicting the living world against the non-living, the human versus the non-human, the largest creatures interacting with the microscopic, and billions of changes, deaths and movements occurring inside the time of one full revolution of this planet Earth. Human beings affect the rest of nature at the rate of millions of times per day. The rest of nature affect human beings at the rate of millions of times per day. But, the most important point is this: All of the non-human natural world affects all the rest of the non-human natural world at the rate of trillions (or practically an infinite number) of times per day.

We humans like to refer to ourselves as the dominant species on the planet Earth. But, we truly understand only a fraction of everything that happens on our small planet. For example, even now in the 21st Century, we still discover many hundreds or thousands of new living species every year. These new species didn't just magically appear here, or instantly evolve, rather all of them have been on this planet for hundreds of thousands (probably millions) of years! For another example: if you took a hundred meteorologists out to a park on a cloudless, sunny morning and asked them precisely how many clouds (if any) will appear directly above your head at any time before sunset, you would get many different answers and some of these expert opinions would be proven wrong. If our best scientists cannot agree on the appearance of such a common natural object as a cloud in the sky, how accurate can human experts be about the nature of multi-dimensional worm-holes, the existence of living dinosaurs or when the next stock market crash will occur?

So, how does it feel to be the current dominant species on Earth?

525 million years ago, during the Age of Invertebrates, we would have been a 40-inch long Anomalocaris in order to be the dominant species on Earth:

360 million years ago, during the Age of Fish, we would have been a 33-foot long Dunkleostus in order to be the dominant species on Earth:

270 million years ago, during the Age of Amphibians, we would have been the 30-foot long Prionosuchus in order to be the dominant species on Earth:

 70 million years ago, during the Age of Reptiles (sometimes split into the Age of Reptiles and the Age of Dinosaurs), we would have been the 42-foot long Tyrannosaurus rex in order to be the dominant species on Earth:

60 million years ago, during the brief Age of Birds (soon after the extinction of the dinosaurs), we would have been one of the 8-foot tall terror birds such as Titanis in order to be the dominant species on Earth:

35 million years ago, during the earlier half of the Age of Mammals, we would have been the 39-foot long Indricotherium in order to be the dominant species on Earth:

Today in the 21st Century, during the latter half of the Age of Mammals, we would have to be employed as an astronaut, political leader, millionaire, famous actor or neurosurgeon, just to have a chance of impressing the other 5 - 7-foot tall human beings (Homo sapiens) who share our status as the dominant species on Earth:

According to the Earth's geological and paleontological record, dominant species come and go every 5 to 50 million years. Homo sapiens is approximately 200,000 years old, as a species, and we have no special tools for having become the dominant species - except our brains. Our special advantage is not our size or bodily weapons. For the first time in Earth's natural history, a dominant species has arisen due to intelligence, rather than due to size, speed or weaponry.

Round and around and around we go, where we stop: know one knows!

In Part II, I will discuss our attitudes toward the natural world and the extinction of species ... CLICK HERE