"Willi" wrote in message
...


Wolfgang wrote:


Definitions are beautiful and terrible things.

A definition of anything as "native" or "natural" that takes human
intervention into account may seem simple at a glance, but it ain't so.
Looking at North America (with which I am most familiar) for example,
the
hasty will be willing enough to declare anything that predates Columbus
as
native. Aside from the obvious introduction of humans anywhere from
about
20,000 to 100,000 years ago.....I think that pretty much covers the
spectrum
of estimates.....there is also the problem of whatever microflora and
microfauna they brought with them, in addition to the possibility of
larger
species. While this may seem like a niggling detail as compared to the
wholesale introductions that occurred in the 15th through the 20th
centuries, anyone familiar the basic principles of epidemiology will
understand its significance.


Man has been around for awhile but his impact on the world's environment
has been anything but constant during that time. Man has made more
changes to the world's environment in the last 200 years than the rest
of the time he has been on this planet.

Well, maybe. I mean, I guess it depends, at least in part, on how you
define "more changes".....or who does the defining, for that matter. I've
been meaning to ask that very question of the Pleistocene megafauna......but
they never return my calls.

Then too, there's that distressing business of grazing animals and deserts
and all that ****.

You go back a few thousand years
and man's impact was much more in balance with the impact of other
animals.

I'm going to go way out on a limb here and guess that you're not a
gomphothere.

Language is always fraught with slippery and often hard to detect
biases.
"Genetic engineering", as the term is generally understood today,
typically
refers to various techniques...recombinant DNA being the most
familiar...developed over the past few decades. IF the term is used
with
that in mind, some of the obstacles to understanding and agreement may
be
removed, but others remain in place, and most stubbornly so. In fact,
humans have been actively and very busily engaged in genetic engineering
of
another sort for thousands of years.....compare teosinte with modern
hybrid
corn (aka maize) for one of the classic examples. Human induced
selective
pressures are so pervasive, in fact, that virtually NO important
vegetative
food crops can be considered "natural" in the sense that they are free
of
human meddling.


I agree.

Probably a mistake.

Basmati rice, apples, sweet corn, cauliflower, Carpathian
walnuts, Peruvian purple potatoes, tomatoes, wax beans, Bing cherries,
and a
host of other things we take for granted simply didn't exist 50,000
years
ago. Animal species, for reasons that should be obvious (think
motility,
for instance) have been somewhat less tractable than plants, in the
main,
but the principle holds nevertheless.


Animals as well as plants have changed dramatically through selective
breeding.

True, but to nowhere near the same extent either in terms of number species
or, generally, degree of change. There are very good....and very well
understood....reasons for this. There are also extensive and readily
available resources explaining these reasons.

I see selective breeding and genetic engineering as two very
different things.

So do I.......in some limited contexts having to do mainly with more or less
current legal, ethical, and public health issues. However, if the ancient
Mesoamericans had worked within the same cultural framework as we (a
substantial stretch, I admit) "genetic engineering" would have a pedigree
roughly equal to that of monotheism or historiography and considerably more
impressive than that of say, the existential dilemma.

However, I don't think either method can produce
native plants or animals.

Human chauvinism, no different than that which informs the biblical
imperative to subjugate the Earth and its multifarious inhabitants. From a
geological perspective the difference between natives and invaders doesn't
amount to half a jar of cold ****. Or, to put it another way, what
you....or I....think is less than irrelevant absent a consensus....or....to
put it yet another way, see the paragraph immediately below.


The best we can hope for, and it really isn't too complicated (which is
not
at all the same thing as not too difficult), is to find a definition for
terms that is simple enough to work with within a given context and for
a
specific purpose. Unfortunately, and as is virtually always the case,
the
best we can hope for is always more than we can reasonably hope for.
The
barrier to fruitful discussion is not a matter of a dearth of useful
definitions, but rather a plentitude of agendas to which mutually
acceptable
definitions are anathema.

So, the by now bored reader might wonder, what does all this pompous
pedantry lead to? Well, the CAREFUL reader will have noted that the
terms
"understanding" and "agreement" were used above in a manner that
suggests
they go hand in hand but, more often than not, people looking for one
are
working at cross purposes to those interested in the other. For people
striving toward agreement, understanding is a gross impediment, while
those
for whom understanding is the goal must eventually come to the
conclusion
that agreement is a chimera.



I think that definitions in math and science play a different role.

Yes, to a large extent. The successes enjoyed by the sciences (and they are
considerable successes) reflect, among other things, the degree of consensus
concerning what is being explored and debated.

The
language of the sciences is much "tighter." Even though there is not
always total agreement about definitions and sometimes definitions are
proven "wrong" or not useful, accepted definitions are a necessary part
of the sciences.

Wolfgang
who would be happy enough to supply useful definitions......if it
weren't so
much fun to watch people thrash each other over things that are
comprehensible to none of them.


Don't think there will be many takers. Most Roffians find more amusement
in toying around with Mr. Outdoor Magazine!

Not surprising. After all, ROFF is what it is.

Wolfgang
who really wouldn't want it to be anything else.