Mass Extinctions

[Billwaa]

I just learned this ideas a couple days ago:

 

There are about 5 mass extinctions in Earth's history according to fossil record. According to the pattern, it seems like we are due for one.

 

My Bio teacher told me that the extinctions already began, but not directly apply to human becaues human are the one who caused it. We are destorying rain forests, every week, there are 40+ spieces becoming extinct. We don't have a chance to study those spieces before they become extinct, therefore, we might destory the cure to cancer and other 'uncurable' dieseases. We going to end up making ourself extinct.

 

Do you agree?

[herpguy]

If we do not act quickly enough, then yes, I agree. But I don't think that there is really a pattern with the mass extinctions, just more of a coincidence.

 

You are right, though. We are destroying the rainforests, and we are polluting the heck out of the planet. We need to do something about this, or we will hurt ourselves.

[AzurePhoenix]

We're very resourceful. If anything can survive an ecological breakdown, we're ranked among them. Will society collpase? Perhaps, but I see that as beneficial to us as a species; get us out there, back under the influence of real nature, albeit with a more precarious perch in the world.

[Daecon]

Maybe humanity is nature's way of ensuring the next mass extinction.

[Billwaa]

I felt guilty for our speices. I believe we will the last speices to survive because we are human and we will do anything to ensure us living. For example, if there is another asteriod strike Earth, there will probably another ice age. We will probably gather all the organisms on Earth and burn them up for heat to keep us living. Or we will move to another planet and take over. Remember we might not know what's on moon. Maybe there are organisms so small there we can't even see. Or maybe organism that don't have cells or DNA.

[starbug1]

Maybe humanity is nature's way of ensuring the next mass extinction.

 

or, UN-sure way. No species has lasted up past 1,000,000 years, and assuming we don't kill ourselves, the adverse affects that we have inflicted on nature will. And cosidering that dinosaurs never ruined the environment, we aren't exactly clean living. Even still, humanity may have a way, because of intelligence, to circumvent those problems. Everything so far has run a sort-of pattern for extinction, and we may be, more or less, done with before the next big one. I kinda doubt it though.

[Daecon]

I was kinda making a sardonic comment about how humanity has directly caused loads of ecological disasters and species to become extinct than nature has, over the last several hundred years.

 

People are executing nature's extiction agenda instead of nature.

[starbug1]

I was kinda making a sardonic comment about how humanity has directly caused loads of ecological disasters and species to become extinct than nature has' date=' over the last several hundred years.

 

People are executing nature's extiction agenda instead of nature.[/quote']

 

Gotcha. I fully agree.

[AzurePhoenix]

No species has lasted up past 1,000,000 years, and assuming we don't kill ourselves, the adverse affects that we have inflicted on nature will.

Not really true, just consider that the human Homo Erectus itself lasted more than 1.5 million years, and plenty of species are scarcely different from their most ancient ancestors from before the time of the dinosaurs. Also keep in mind that while many do go extinct in the traditional sense, many other species don't die out so much as evolve into something else.

 

I do agree that we may not be prone to the same circumstances that other species are vulnerable to; the old rules don't seem to apply to us.

[starbug1]

Not really true' date=' just consider that the human [i']Homo Erectus[/i] itself lasted more than 1.5 million years, and plenty of species are scarcely different from their most ancient ancestors from before the time of the dinosaurs.

 

I do agree that we may not be prone to the same circumstances that other species are vulnerable to; the old rules don't seem to apply to us.

 

I think it was dinosaurs that never went past one million. It's three million that supposed to be a long time for a species, very few have lived longer...I think.

 

Also keep in mind that while many do go extinct in the traditional sense, many other species don't die out so much as evolve into something else.

 

yes, and while the evolved form of the species..evolves, the old dies, or becomes extinct...I'm sure you already knew that.

[AzurePhoenix]

I think it was dinosaurs that never went past one million. It's three[/i'] million that supposed to be a long time for a species, very few have lived longer...I think.

That'd be a very hard thing to say considering the rarity of dinosaur fossils and how few of the species we actually have. Tyrannosaurus rex supposedly survived for a known 3 million, and I don't believe that that was unsual.

 

yes, and while the evolved form of the species..evolves, the old dies, or becomes extinct...I'm sure you already knew that.

Indeed it goes extinct in the traditional sense, but for many I wouldn't say it necessarily "dies out" especially regarding isolated species with small populations. I know what you're saying and you're not wrong, it's just that I see a minor variation that I think warrents a different term. It's a slight matter of semantics, gah, I can't word it right

[Dark Photon]

I think it was dinosaurs that never went past one million. It's three million that supposed to be a long time for a species' date=' very few have lived longer...I think.

 

 

 

yes, and while the evolved form of the species..evolves, the old dies, or becomes extinct...I'm sure you already knew that.[/quote']

 

 

dinosaurs made it well past 1 million years.

 

 

sharks have made it 400million years, algae have made it 3000+ million

 

 

turkeys have survives for 10 million

[RyanJ]

Bacteria were the first single cell life forms to evolve (Maybe its debatable though) and they are still here - even after we are gone they probably will be

 

Cheers,

 

Ryan Jones

[sunspot]

Mass extinctions are sad, but it always seems to be followed by something that is new and improved. Human influence is sort of interesting. We create all sorts of natural manmade disasters all over the world making some species go extinct. But we are also leading the charge toward new and improved food and domestic animals.

[pink_trike]

We're currently faced with the greatest rate of species extinction worldwide since the disappearance of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. More than 50,000 species become extinct worldwide each year. Given this rapid decline, within 50 years one quarter of the world's species could be lost forever.

 

The ecosytem is like a web, with each species as a strand of the interdependency that keeps the web intact. The unknown factors are:

 

- At what point does the interdependent net collapse from too many broken

strands resulting in a complete or nearly complete species die-off?

 

- The die-off is a combination of reoccuring processes in the natural world,

and excessive amounts of heat-producing toxic human waste. We don't

know at what rate our waste is pushing us toward the breaking of the

web of life.

[The Peon]

Mass extinction is good for evolution.

[RyanJ]

Its odd, the extinctions seem to occur at regular intervals...

 

Look at this.

 

If I remember correctly those dates match up exactly with the time that the solar system passes through the dense part of the Milky Way's arm.

 

 

Also looks like less and less species are getting wiped out each time (better evolved or there we less to wipe out?)

 

Cheers,

 

Ryan Jones