From: htoaster@yabbs
To: Pinochet@yabbs
Subject: re: forced evolution
Date: Wed Aug 17 11:41:28 1994

In message forced evolution, Pinochet said:
> Okay, I've got a scenario for you.  Nature comes along and produces a 
> super-cow.  We are talking a veritable lawn-mower of herbivores.  Grows 10 
> feet tall, weighs a few tons...elephant sized here.  It could possibly 
> solve the third world's protein and dairy problem forever.  But it only 
> likes to eat a certain kind of plant.  In fact, it eats all of these 
> plants. The super-cows, even though they are bovine stupid, have changed 
> the environment.  They have caused the extinction of another specie.  

first of all, meat will never solve the worlds food problems.  no matter what
kind it is meat takes a lot more resources (water, food, etc) to create than
a similar amount of plant matter...i've heard ratios from 1:10 to 1:40 or so...

also, if a cow is twice the size of a current cow, it would probably require
twice the amount of resources to stay alive, so a bigger cow is not necessarily
a win over a current cow...

> Is the cow guilty.  It couldn't reason that it was killing off all of 
> plant "A", but it did it anyway.  

at this point in time humans have control over most such evolution (through
controlled breeding and stuff).  so man would probably make this super-cow,
and man would be responsible...

the cow would also kill itself by eating all of these plants, since these
plants are its only food source...

> Evolution kicks some species to the curb.  Weather shifts kick some 
> species to the curb.  The shifting of tectonic plates have caused more 
> extinctions through the ages than one would dream about.  And lets not 
> forget disease.  Man is not very efficient at extinction, it should take 
> lessons from nature.

Man tends to accelarate natural progression.  At our current rate we will 
pretty much make exticent any animal that needs its own land to live in...
we'll end up with a world of parasites and rodents...

yumm...rats for dinner...

alex