Quotations and Literature Forum

After a mass extinction all kinds of animals can evolve even if they are not brilliantly suited to their rnvironment as there is little pressyre on then. Often theese animals undergo a massive population explosion but then their inherent problems cuase them to collapse back again and dissappear.

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"The Truth may be out there but the lies are in your head"
"I tend to think if God wanted us to believe in him he'd exist."

I thought evolution was the process of adapting to the enviroment?



Do you have any examples of the problems? Were they social in nature or more enviromental? So your saying, when the going is easy, these creatures dont evolve properly to the enviroment? And then when things get a little harder, they cant cope and die off?

Evolutionary pressure is all about getting better than the competition with limited competitioin as there is after a mass extinction there is little evoltuionary pressure.

The inherent problems can be anything but range from weaker immune system (especially problematic to thoose who end up dominating the area) to not being strong enough and efficent enough to cope with new species in the area.

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"The Truth may be out there but the lies are in your head"
"I tend to think if God wanted us to believe in him he'd exist."

These two statements interconnect with one another. When first a species is born into a certain area they are not adapted to their environment. They must learn to adapt, and get a feeling for there surroundings. What they can eat, and what they can't. What animals are their enemies, and which ones they can be around without being harmed. It is all a learning expierience in the begining. Sometimes they fail and are wiped out early due to weaknesses in their genetic code. A native species can be wiped out if an Invasive species (foreign) is brought into the habitat, and then the native species will have to adapt to the intruder.

If the species is strong enough, or has a greater population than that of the intruder there is the possiblity of survival.

When we (humans) started to evolve more and become more intelligent, animals and plant had to learn to adapt to the new things we were placing in their environment. These things that I speak of are roads, buildings, cutting down trees, using certain pollutants. We have killed off certain species that weren't strong enough to survive do to what we have done.

HIPPO:

Habitat Destruction
Invasive Species
Population
Pollution
Over Consumption

Raven

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"You must learn there is a time to speak all of the truth, and a time to govern your tongue."
~Verin (The Wheel of Time)

I remember hearing somewhere about a moth that was in Britain somewhere. It was usually coloured white (i'm an aussie, so your not allowed to pick me up on my spelling of colour hear. ), with the odd mutation of a black one. When humans came, they polluted the air ( ithink there was a coal plant or something along the lines of that in the area). Anyways, the pollutants caused the tree bark to turn black, and as you can guess, the white moths became 'easy money' for hawks and other predetors. Eventually the few black moths became most adapt for survival, bred and created a new population of black moths, with the odd white moth still alive.

The story continues, however. After the people in the area learnt of pollution and all that, they stopped the pollution entering the air. Eventually the tree bark turned back to being white, and the reverse happened. Just thought id share that with you.

Look at this HIPPO thing (yeah, it is pretty cool, Raven), it doesnt look like humans have too much to fear. Except maybe Invasive Species (But if there smart enough to get hear, there probably smart enough not to start a war. But then thats a big assumption) and Over Consuption. Does anyone know when where due to reach the carrying capacity of the earth? I know its meant to peak around 10 billlion people, or so i heard.

HIPPO is a term used in Environmental Science. Just last year I was taking a class in it. The term itself explains the effect that humans have on the environment. Just thought I would explain that a little better.

Raven

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"You must learn there is a time to speak all of the truth, and a time to govern your tongue."
~Verin (The Wheel of Time)

That HIPPO thing to me appears to be an oversimplification just like in biology when your taught about MRS. something or over (the 7 things living organisims all do) then later on you learn it wasn't true.

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"The Truth may be out there but the lies are in your head"
"I tend to think if God wanted us to believe in him he'd exist."

Nemesis21
(that was on my science final, wherd)
anywhay, i think that over comsupon will kill most of us off

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yeah, ur probably right, bright-shadow. Cool name by the way.

Thats why we probably need to colanize other planets. Ohhh. I just thought of a new topic. Lets say that the planet reaches its carrying capacity, of whatever it is, and we cant sustain any more people. What sort of birth control do you think will occur? What will governments do to help?

I'm guessing we'll reach a point where we will only be allowed to have enough children to replace the dead.

On the general topic, what happens to a population when it reaches maximine size? Do some of its numbers just die off, and then when they peak again, more die?

Nemesis,
Not trying to be mean, but can we stick with the topic? If you want your question answered why don't you just post another forum on it.

Raven

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"You must learn there is a time to speak all of the truth, and a time to govern your tongue."
~Verin (The Wheel of Time)

Yeah I love how these forums can go from trying to decifer the meaning to people's lives to what would happen in the case the world reached maximum capacity... I love it! But I want to know (To get back on track) Does everyone have a purpose in life?
Yin

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We hold these truths to be selve evident, but evidence is not ownership. Those words are not a decree that we have life, liberty, happiness. Only an iron clad statement that it is ours if we are willing to do all that is necessary to take it.

lol. Your absolutly right about that, Raven. Didnt even realise til you pointed it out. Thanx for the nudge.

Right, back on track.. .



Whether they have a purpose, or whether they feel they have a purpose could be considered to be two different things.

I am asking whether everyone HAS a purpose in your guy's opinions.

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We hold these truths to be selve evident, but evidence is not ownership. Those words are not a decree that we have life, liberty, happiness. Only an iron clad statement that it is ours if we are willing to do all that is necessary to take it.

K. Thanx for specifying.

Well, I suppose it depends on whether your asking whether they have a purpose in a larger design, or whether they create their own purpose (such as the examples that were given at the start of this post)

Do I think that people have a purpose in a larger design? No. I do think, however, that we create our own purpose for being here, whether to gain as much as we can with what the've been given or purhaps as little.