Lake Ontario

On Sun, 30 Nov 2003 13:11:07 -0700, Willi wrote:



Tom Littleton wrote:
Jim E asks:

At point in history do we decide is the demarcation
point between native and non?


exactly my point

Tom



The preservation of native species is something that is important to me
as is the preservation of natural environments.

The definitions of what constitutes a native species and natural
environments are basic foundations for preservation. I've given this
quite a bit of thought and it seems to me that both definitions need to
be based on the absence of man's influence. There seems to be a problem
with some people on ROFF accepting these definitions. For native, I
think I'll start using indigenous hoping that will be more understood.
But for a "natural" environment, I don't have another word to substitute.

The reason I bring this up is that it's fruitless to discuss an issue if
there aren't commonly held definitions. Without common definitions, the
essence of the discussion becomes lost.

Here's a challenge to you guys that have a problem with the definitions
of native and natural being based on mans' intervention:

Come up with a meaningful definition for either that doesn't specify an
arbitrary, specific time. I don't think you can do it without your
definition logically leading to accepting genetically engineered animals
as native or a nuclear wasteland as natural. Maybe for some of you a
genetically engineered animal could be native and a nuclear wasteland is
a natural environment. If so, we're on different planets when we're
having discussions using these words.

Willi




Many species are invaders without having been introduced by humans.
Indigenous can simply mean (in reference to humans) the original
inhabitants or those who have been there the longest, considering that
the original inhabitants may be long gone. I don't think it is a term
that works well in the non-human world. Humans are part of the
natural world and they have been shaping it even at the prehistoric
level. The indigenous populations of North America were shaping the
flora and fauna well before Columbus showed up. Perhaps some brought
animals (dogs?) across Beringia -- we don't know. We can't just look
at human intervention as a recent, Western thing, though obviously the
rate of extinction and introduction has greatly accelerated with the
spread of Western industrialized society. But it is just that, an
acceleration, not a beginning.

For the sake of conservation, we can adopted the label of "native" --
meaning not introduced by humans. It was there before human arrival
and intervention (or more popularly, before the coming of the white
man). We can choose to focus on the time span after the start of the
Industrial Revolution as before that period, human intervention
happened at a much slower rate. For example, the development of corn
from its tiny, original wild state to the large, domesticated cob
today, took the indigenous peoples of North America centuries to
accomplish. Modern genetic manipulation today could achieve the same
thing over a decade or so.

That said, it is a worthwhile thing to preserve native species just
from the diversity aspect alone. While some would try to place value
on some native species and not others (favouring brookies over an
endangered sucker), we should not do so. It is ironic to read the
whining that recently introduced species are harming other introduced
species that we happen to like.

Peter

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Visit The Streamer Page at http://www.mountaincable.net/~pcharl...ers/index.html

"Willi" wrote in message
...

...Here's a challenge to you guys that have a problem with the definitions
of native and natural being based on mans' intervention:

Come up with a meaningful definition for either that doesn't specify an
arbitrary, specific time. I don't think you can do it without your
definition logically leading to accepting genetically engineered animals
as native or a nuclear wasteland as natural. Maybe for some of you a
genetically engineered animal could be native and a nuclear wasteland is
a natural environment. If so, we're on different planets when we're
having discussions using these words.

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.

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. 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.

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.

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.

"Ken Fortenberry" wrote in message
.com...

....Wolfie would never forgive me if I
chased your stupid ass out of here before he had a chance to
join in the fun.

I will never forgive you if you chase this one out of here AT ALL! I mean,
how long has it been since we got a clown in here capable of driving such a
diverse crowd to so high a degree of consensus?

Wolfgang
who, as a long time collector of abysmally stupid, realizes how infrequently
such an exquisite specimen falls into one's lap.

Okay, Mr. Fortenberry.

--
James Ehlers

Outdoors Magazine
www.outdoorsmagazine.net


"JR" wrote in message
...
Outdoors Magazine wrote:

JR,
Seems Fortenberry is amusing enough for me. Not you?

That's Mr. JR to you, Magazine Boy.

JR
--Not surprised to find this one doesn't read English any better than it
writes it.

Mr. Fortenberry,
Thank you. I won't argue with you. I will just tell you: you are wrong.
You big, bad newsgroup bully. You are too funny. Surely, you can't be
serious.

--
James Ehlers

Outdoors Magazine
www.outdoorsmagazine.net




"Ken Fortenberry" wrote in message
.com...
Outdoors Magazine wrote:

Mr. Fortenberry,
The only thing you have caught is a case of bad manners. As usual you
have
nothing constructive to offer.

What do I have to do, draw you a ****in' picture ?

Posting an entire copyrighted article to a Usenet newsgroup is a
copyright violation. If you want us to read an article post ONLY
the URL, or if it's over 70 characters long do as I did and post
the output from http://tinyurl.com Remember this ?

http://tinyurl.com/x2u0

That's the way to do it, you feebleminded moron, and adding a
sentence or two, in your own words, telling us why this article
is of interest to us is good form also.

Now was that "constructive" enough for you ? I would be even
more "constructive", but Wolfie would never forgive me if I
chased your stupid ass out of here before he had a chance to
join in the fun.

--
Ken Fortenberry

Here just for your entertainment, Mr. Wolfie. After all, all the world is;
is it not?

Diverse? Nah, the more you post, the more you all sound the same. Take a
read sometime.

--
James Ehlers

Outdoors Magazine
www.outdoorsmagazine.net



"Wolfgang" wrote in message
...

"Ken Fortenberry" wrote in message
.com...

....Wolfie would never forgive me if I
chased your stupid ass out of here before he had a chance to
join in the fun.

I will never forgive you if you chase this one out of here AT ALL! I
mean,
how long has it been since we got a clown in here capable of driving such
a
diverse crowd to so high a degree of consensus?

Wolfgang
who, as a long time collector of abysmally stupid, realizes how
infrequently
such an exquisite specimen falls into one's lap.

Wolfgang wrote:

"Ken Fortenberry" wrote:

....Wolfie would never forgive me if I
chased your stupid ass out of here before he had a chance to
join in the fun.

I will never forgive you if you chase this one out of here AT ALL! I mean,
how long has it been since we got a clown in here capable of driving such a
diverse crowd to so high a degree of consensus?

Wolfgang
who, as a long time collector of abysmally stupid, realizes how infrequently
such an exquisite specimen falls into one's lap.

When the raving loon finally realizes that several hundred sportsmen
who might have been tempted to browse through his magazine will now
guffaw at the mere sight of it in a fly shop, and tell their friends
why they're laughing, he will disappear in big hurry. I wasn't going
to be THAT "constructive" until I grew tired of toying with the nitwit,
but 'tripper has already let that cat out of the bag so I fear the
end of our fun and games with this most exquisite specimen of Usenet
stupidity is drawing nigh.

--
Ken Fortenberry

"Ken Fortenberry" wrote in message
.com...
Wolfgang wrote:

"Ken Fortenberry" wrote:

....Wolfie would never forgive me if I
chased your stupid ass out of here before he had a chance to
join in the fun.

I will never forgive you if you chase this one out of here AT ALL! I
mean,
how long has it been since we got a clown in here capable of driving
such a
diverse crowd to so high a degree of consensus?

Wolfgang
who, as a long time collector of abysmally stupid, realizes how
infrequently
such an exquisite specimen falls into one's lap.

When the raving loon finally realizes that several hundred sportsmen
who might have been tempted to browse through his magazine will now
guffaw at the mere sight of it in a fly shop, and tell their friends
why they're laughing, he will disappear in big hurry. I wasn't going
to be THAT "constructive" until I grew tired of toying with the nitwit,
but 'tripper has already let that cat out of the bag so I fear the
end of our fun and games with this most exquisite specimen of Usenet
stupidity is drawing nigh.

No, no, no, all wrong! WHEN it leaves.....or whether or not it EVER does,
for whatever inscrutable reasons of its own, for that matter.....are
absolutely irrelevant. Pause a while.....and sniff.......that's right,
sniff. Familiar? I should think so! Redolence of tetherball, or I am no
judge of aroma. Whether or not it is the same old tetherball is, of course,
immaterial.....one is very much like the next. The point is that it STILL
doesn't have a clue.....Tripper can wear himself out with the bat....and the
bat.....AND the tetherball....and it STILL won't have a clue. It saddens me
a bit....not much, but just a bit....that so many fail to recognize a gift
from God when it smacks them upside the head. It isn't every day that Isaac
offers himself up without the intervention of Abraham.

Wolfgang

Peter Charles wrote:



Many species are invaders without having been introduced by humans.
Indigenous can simply mean (in reference to humans) the original
inhabitants or those who have been there the longest, considering that
the original inhabitants may be long gone. I don't think it is a term
that works well in the non-human world. Humans are part of the
natural world and they have been shaping it even at the prehistoric
level. The indigenous populations of North America were shaping the
flora and fauna well before Columbus showed up. Perhaps some brought
animals (dogs?) across Beringia -- we don't know. We can't just look
at human intervention as a recent, Western thing, though obviously the
rate of extinction and introduction has greatly accelerated with the
spread of Western industrialized society. But it is just that, an
acceleration, not a beginning.


But that acceleration is overwhelming.

I also think it is a recent thing. The amount of time that man has made
any significant impact on the world's environment is just a mote in
god's eye compared to the evolutionary process as a whole. However, in
that short period of time, man has had more impact on the world's
environment than any other species throughout time.



For the sake of conservation, we can adopted the label of "native" --
meaning not introduced by humans. It was there before human arrival
and intervention (or more popularly, before the coming of the white
man). We can choose to focus on the time span after the start of the
Industrial Revolution as before that period, human intervention
happened at a much slower rate. For example, the development of corn
from its tiny, original wild state to the large, domesticated cob
today, took the indigenous peoples of North America centuries to
accomplish. Modern genetic manipulation today could achieve the same
thing over a decade or so.

Or much less.



That said, it is a worthwhile thing to preserve native species just
from the diversity aspect alone. While some would try to place value
on some native species and not others (favouring brookies over an
endangered sucker), we should not do so.

We're in agreement on that.


It is ironic to read the
whining that recently introduced species are harming other introduced
species that we happen to like.


Yeah and that "liking" changes over time. Carp were widely stocked in
the States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. And now?? Tough to
turn back the clock.

Willi

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



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.


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. I see selective breeding and genetic engineering as two very
different things. However, I don't think either method can produce
native plants or animals.



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. 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!

Willi