Hypothetical Situation: Playing Around With Species

Tanasinn · Post by **Tanasinn** » 2007-05-23 04:11pm

It's no secret that for a lot of people, unless something touches their lives, it's meaningless. This tends to be a problem for the various species of the world, who have to deal with habitat encroachment, near-extinction brought on by hunting, and the introduction of life from foreign ecosystems. Some of these things could be argued to have elements of simple ignorance or apathy rather than outright malice towards other life. I have something of a situation, however, that I'm curious about.

Let us suppose that some brief time in the future, various scientific fields have advanced far enough to let us produce highly controlled, species-specific diseases. Let us also suppose that the computers of this time are able to reasonably calculate the rough impact on the ecosystems a given species elimination would have. With the ability to destroy species and to calculate the effect beforehand, is it within the realm of decency to put this kind of technology to use? What about eliminating parasites? Where does one draw the line on what can and cannot be eliminated, even if the impact would be minimal?

Darth Servo · Post by **Darth Servo** » 2007-05-23 04:29pm

Um, been there, done that. They already did eliminate Small Pox.

Tanasinn · Post by **Tanasinn** » 2007-05-23 05:33pm

I imagine there's a difference of some sort in people between eliminating infectious disease and eliminating a more complex organism, but I'm not sure. Hence the question.

Tasoth · Post by **Tasoth** » 2007-05-23 05:36pm

I'd go about as far as removing internal parasites, but that's about it. Removing external parasites, insects and whatever other species is going to have a serious and immediate effect on the ecosystem as other animals begin running out of food. Internal parasites typically make the host organism weaker and therefore more susceptible to predation instead of being eaten by something like an Ox Pecker.

Tanasinn · Post by **Tanasinn** » 2007-05-23 05:56pm

Sorry for the rogue emote there, used the wrong one.

Erik von Nein · Post by **Erik von Nein** » 2007-05-23 06:31pm

Is your question "What would happen if we removed pest species/parasites?" If it is, the effects would depend greatly on which species it was you extinct'd. Any way you look at it, though, it'd cause a negative impact on the environment it was in, though probably less so if it was a human-specific parasite.

Darth Raptor · Post by **Darth Raptor** » 2007-05-23 06:40pm

A parasite or an infectious microbe is just as much a predator as a lion or crocodile is. You may not realize that in the wild, disease brought on by such organisms constitutes an extremely significant portion of a given species' mortality rate. What would happen? The same thing that happens whenever you remove a selector from an ecosystem: The prey population begins balooning out of control and they begin dying of starvation instead of sickness.

Dark Flame · Post by **Dark Flame** » 2007-05-23 10:03pm

I say leave it all as is. Everything is so interconnected that killing off one species would have adverse effects on a bunch of others.

Singular Intellect · Post by **Singular Intellect** » 2007-05-23 10:20pm

Dark Flame wrote:I say leave it all as is. Everything is so interconnected that killing off one species would have adverse effects on a bunch of others.

Yes, and nature's been doing this for as long as life has existed on this planet.

Please, do explain why random disasters and other factors that result in the natural extinction of species is okay but humans delibrately using this system to try and inprove conditions for our own species is bad.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2007-05-23 10:22pm

What about an invasive foreign species that is introduced to a local ecosystem and promptly begins to dominate it? Can anyone think of a reason not to wipe out such a species? Presumably, the die-off would not affect the original species in a geographically isolated location, but you'd want to engineer the virus so that mortality is fairly quick.

Singular Intellect · Post by **Singular Intellect** » 2007-05-23 10:34pm

What about competing with other predatory species as a justifcation for wiping some out? If our species is harvesting a very large number of a target species for consumption, it makes sense we'd want to ensure the renewable supply of food. Which could mean (unfortunately, for the other predatory species) that we determined there isn't enough to supply both us and other predators.

Would that consitute a valid reason for employing such methods?

Tanasinn · Post by **Tanasinn** » 2007-05-24 12:03am

Is your question "What would happen if we removed pest species/parasites?"

Not exactly. I'm curious whether people think it's justifiable to eliminate complex organisms for any reason. I'm also curious where the line should be drawn: is it "wrong" to eliminate an inconvenient species of little importance, but "right" to eliminate one which is hazardous to us or a well-liked/important species?

Kuroneko · Post by **Kuroneko** » 2007-05-24 01:34am

Darth Wong wrote:What about an invasive foreign species that is introduced to a local ecosystem and promptly begins to dominate it? Can anyone think of a reason not to wipe out such a species? Presumably, the die-off would not affect the original species in a geographically isolated location, but you'd want to engineer the virus so that mortality is fairly quick.

It depends. Ideally, what one would want is to have the die-off localized to a certain geographical location, rather than some isolated places being exempt. It's not quite the same thing simply because what constitutes geographical isolation for one species may not for another, and there may be unaffected carriers of the virus. If the "highly controlled" clause actually allows for such fine-tuning (this is not clear, but given the original poster's subsequent comments, unlikely), then there doesn't seem to be any general reason to make it unethical. The specifics of some individual species may make it so, however. (You know, at first glance I thought this was a trick question in regards possible extermination of mankind.)

Singular Intellect · Post by **Singular Intellect** » 2007-05-24 09:45am

Kuroneko wrote:(You know, at first glance I thought this was a trick question in regards possible extermination of mankind.)

I'm kinda sorta sure Mike would seriously advocate the destruction of mankind...fundies, maybe.

Singular Intellect · Post by **Singular Intellect** » 2007-05-24 09:46am

Bubble Boy wrote:I'm kinda sorta sure Mike would seriously advocate the destruction of mankind...fundies, maybe.

That was supposed to be "wouldn't".

The_Saint · Post by **The_Saint** » 2007-05-24 09:50am

Whoever did the creation and release of the 'disease' would have to be very trustful of the computer program that worked out the resulting effect.

For instance I find many humble insects to be annoying and therefore that should be a legitimate reason to rid the world of such pests, yet many insects are at the foundation of the ecosystem by helping to pollinate flowers/plants. TO rid the world of many insect varieties would be to kill off a large selection of flowering plants and the ripple effect goes on from there.

On the other hand the person who perpetrates the destruction of Cane Toads in Australia would probably earn that person a free life here forever and on

(Other pest niches being rabbits < tricky considering everyone agrees the wild ones need to go but how do you avoid the 'pets' and foxes < especially the so-called Tasmanian population).