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Wednesday, December 22, 2004Hobbits, Menehune and BiodiversityGuytak, who is also found on the gbarto.com server, has an interesting post on the "hobbits" found on Indonesia, the Menehune of Hawaii and New Zealand and the possibility of actual hobbits roaming the hills of Merry Olde England. While his questions about little people provide the same sort of fun as the Charlie Rose interview with Paul Nurse that started his thought process, a bigger question is raised - of the sort that eco-liberals probably don't want people thinking about: Does natural selection really lead to (bio)diversity? Here is my theory: perhaps the range of humanity in terms of height was greater in the past than it is today. Perhaps "Natural Selection" weeded out the "unfit" extremes and left the middle to survive.If so, are we helping mother nature by promoting biodiversity when we try to repopulate eco-systems with locally endangered species? Or are we throwing her off kilter by creating an artificial pocket of life that consumes resources needed by other species but that can no longer use them efficiently enough to contribute to the balance on its own? Save the whales? Certainly. Save the Southern Tallahassee County dribbling snail lest we only have Northern Tallahassee County dribbling snails left? A tougher call. (The snail varieties are made up for rhetorical effect; no need to look them up for societies to contribue to.) 
posted by gbarto at 6:05 PM |
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