Of course, any kind of classification can be
proposed, even the distinction between "nature" and "humans".
To me, it sounds as appealing as a distinction
between "elephants" and "all the rest of the
planet", but I guess that any kind of similar distinction is quite possible.
Should ecologists say something about it?
In my opinion, the first question is: "how
perfect or complete is this distinction"? Would
it include anthropogenic objects, structures,
chemical compounds, or only the collection of H.
sapiens individuals? Would it include also
organisms that are presently inextricably
connected to humans by close mutualistic
relationships (e.g. Escherichia coli), or also
those linked by more loose mutualistic
connections (e.g. dogs, kettle, beans, ornamental
fish and plants)? In this latter case, would it
include also the organisms that are connected to
these latter organisms, and so on? Would it also
include those species which successfully adapted
to thrive in urban ecosystems (rats, mosquitos, pigeons)?
Would it include only purely antrhopogenic
structures, or also the geological structures
that are part of them? For instance, would a
hydroelectric central include the river? Would a
geothermal installation include the magmatic
chamber which heats up the water? All
anthropogenic structures ultimately are
modifications of pre-existing non-anthropogenic structures...
Up to this point, such a complex ecological
analysis would have probably depicted a quite
intricate and extended network, with the result
that the starting dichotomy would have lost much
of its strength. Nonetheless, this network would
be still limited by our present knowledge of the
ecological connections and interactions between
the considered biotic and abiotic entities.
Presumably, at the end of this complex analysis,
some organism or abiotic structure or process
might be considered as complementary.
Yet the next question that an ecologist should
pose is: "why making this distinction"?
Is there any scientifically relevant attribute
that humans have relative to all other known
biotic or abiotic elements and processes on Earth?
The biomass and numbers of human beings of Earth
are certainly impressive... among primates.
What if we take into consideration rats or some
fish species among vertebrates, or several
species of insects and crustaceans among arthropods, or bacteria?
The impact that humans have on their habitats and
the diversity of their habitats are, again,
impressive. But also here, this is a relative concept.
Someone talked about Gaia in a previous post. Is
any human activity able to induce the profound
global biogeochemical alterations in the
atmosphere, hydrosphere and biosphere induced by
some species of bacteria? With all our technology
and resources, we were unable to cause the
extinction of most of our parasites (plasmodia,
flat worms, etc.). Even in the case of a global
nuclear war and our complete extinction, we would
be probably unable to cause the extinction of life on Earth.
In my opinion, the reality is that our influence
on the planet is less and less impressive as we
increase the observation distance between the
"human world" and the global ecosystem.
Recently many discuss on human-induced global
changes... yet it is very well known that similar
changes are induced by several other species on
Earth since billions of years, from cyanobacteria
to zooxanthellae. And these latter changes
ultimately allow life on the Earth surface, not
more or less rapid temperature or sea-level rises of a few units.
I recently watched a documentary on a simulation
of how much time would be necessary to eliminate
al traces of human life on Earth after a
hypothetical sudden and complete extinction of
man. Human traces on the planet would almost
completely disappear after a few hundreds of years.
At the end of the day, the distinction of man and
nature sounds to me to be something extremely
anthropomorphic and anthropocentric,
scientifically false and useless, and ethically twisted and dangerous.
The recognition of the tight connections between
the so called natural environment and human
economic and cultural activity is maybe one of
the most important issues of this time (e.g.
Doody P.J. 2005. History, coastal ecology. In:
Schwartz M.L. (ed.) Encyclopedia of Coastal
Science. Springer, The Netherlands, p. 515-519).
A new pragmatic ecological synthesis of natural
processes and human activities is urgently
needed, envisioning mans activities as an organic part of the whole biosphere.
G
Gianluca Polgar
Ph.D. in Ecological Sciences
University of Rome "La Sapienza"
00185, Rome (RM), Italy
tel. 3488851198
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
www.themudskipper.org
skype: gianluca.polgar
O___!||||__/////__
{__)_\
At 02.37 09/08/2009, you wrote:
That does seem very strange to me that an
ecologist would say that. Many scientists may
have historically held those assumptions based
on religious and cultural indoctrination but it seems pretty antiquated now.
Humans are just like other animals in most ways.
We compete with many organisms for resources and
have mutually beneficial relationships with
others. Ecologically as a species, we probably
have a unique and unprecedented impact in the
kinds of ecosystems we create and the degree to
which we alter and organize them. A plane ride
from the ESA conference really drove that point
home. It staggering. An outside observer would
think we were obsessed with Euclidean geometry
if looking down on our human dominated landscapes.
Serge Farinas
My music: www.myspace.com/simbelmynemusic
Serge Alexander Fariñas
ESA SEEDS Fellowship Alumni
University of Michigan
Frontier Master's
Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
[email protected]
678) 925-4473
--- On Sat, 8/8/09, elkmantom <[email protected]> wrote:
From: elkmantom <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] Are humans part of nature?
To: [email protected]
Date: Saturday, August 8, 2009, 1:01 PM
Bill,
How could Humans not be part of nature? Are we
not living organisms? I feel as though this
conversation is better suited for a Sunday school class. Sorry...
Tom
In a message dated 08/08/09 10:17:36 Mountain
Daylight Time, [email protected] writes:
An anthropologist writing on another mailing list wrtoe that "... human
beings, and indeed human cultures, have developed as a part of evolutionary
processes. This is something that a fair proportion of ecologists do not
acknowledge. At my Ph.D. institution, I have had ecologists tell me that
humans ARE NOT part of nature!" I find this statement remarkable, and would
like to know whether it is indeed true that "a fair proportion of
ecologists" feel that "humans ARE NOT part of nature". Comments on this
would be welcome.
Bill Silvert
