Biologist argues that we don’t need to save endangered species because extinction is “natural”

December 1, 2017 • 11:30 am

UPDATE: Apparently Pyron has rethought his position, saying that he “failed to make his views sufficiently clear and coherent” and “succumbed to a temptation to sensationalize parts of my argument.” He also faults himself for not running the piece by his George Washington University colleagues, which is pretty much inexcusable given its message. His mea culpa, “Biodiversity conservation is urgent and important,  now and in the future“, appears on his GWU lab page, and pretty much takes back what he said in the Post—well, sorta. In the end, he claims that he was misunderstood, that the title and subtitle weren’t chosen by him (that’s surely true), and that his intentions should now “be judged by pointing to his scientific research”, which is “steeped in biodiversity discovery and analysis, with many publications on direct conservation topics and many more to come on the global threats affecting reptiles and amphibians.” Well, we didn’t have his c.v. in hand when we read his piece.

The thing is, the title and subtitle accurately mirror the content of Pyron’s original article, whose point is pretty damn clear. To say that he didn’t accurately express what he thought is either disingenuous or bespeaks a totally disordered viewpoint. I suspect that he just got so much flak from his colleagues at GWU and everywhere else that he decided he’d better back down. But then why did the Post publish this misguided piece in the first place, forcing me, and I suspect hundreds of others, to rebut it?

(Thanks to Grania and others for alerting me to Pyron’s walk-back.)

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The Washington Post “perspective” article below, by associate professor of biology R. Alexander Pyron at George Washington University (click on screenshot to read), has everyone’s knickers in a twist—as well it should. (There are now 3790 comments after the article, though I haven’t read any; the reaction I’ve seen has been on other online sites.)

Pyron’s argument is simple: extinction has been going on ever since the beginning of life, 99% or more of species that ever existed have gone extinct without leaving descendants, and even more have evolved into something very different; there have been lots of “natural” extinctions due to changes in earth’s climate, snowpack, and continental drift; the Earth always recovers from extinctions to produce a new crop of species; it will likewise recover from the latest anthropogenic “Sixth Extinction”; and even if the endangered species—or other species—go extinct, we’ll get some nifty new ones. The only species worth caring about, says Pyron, are those whose welfare impacts our own, like trees, food fish, and so on. And this is from a biologist.  I’ll give just a few quotes to show the tenor of his argument:

But the impulse to conserve for conservation’s sake has taken on an unthinking, unsupported, unnecessary urgency. Extinction is the engine of evolution, the mechanism by which natural selection prunes the poorly adapted and allows the hardiest to flourish. Species constantly go extinct, and every species that is alive today will one day follow suit. There is no such thing as an “endangered species,” except for all species. The only reason we should conserve biodiversity is for ourselves, to create a stable future for human beings. Yes, we have altered the environment and, in doing so, hurt other species. This seems artificial because we, unlike other life forms, use sentience and agriculture and industry. But we are a part of the biosphere just like every other creature, and our actions are just as volitional, their consequences just as natural. Conserving a species we have helped to kill off, but on which we are not directly dependent, serves to discharge our own guilt, but little else.

. . . Our concern, in other words, should not be protecting the animal kingdom, which will be just fine. Within a few million years of the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs, the post-apocalyptic void had been filled by an explosion of diversity — modern mammals, birds and amphibians of all shapes and sizes.

This is how evolution proceeds: through extinction. The inevitability of death is the only constant in life, and 99.9 percent of all species that have ever lived, as many as 50 billion, have already gone extinct. In 50 million years, Europe will collide with Africa and form a new supercontinent, destroying species (think of birds, fish and anything vulnerable to invasive life forms from another landmass) by irrevocably altering their habitats. Extinctions of individual species, entire lineages and even complete ecosystems are common occurrences in the history of life. The world is no better or worse for the absence of saber-toothed tigers and dodo birds and our Neanderthal cousins, who died off as Homo sapiens evolved. (According to some studies, it’s not even clear that biodiversity is suffering. The authors of another recent National Academy of Sciences paper point out that species richness has shown no net decline among plants over 100 years across 16,000 sites examined around the world.)

Pyron has a remarkably anthropocentric view, but justifies it by saying that “we are a part of the biosphere”, and thus our actions are natural and therefore not to be criticized:

There is no return to a pre-human Eden; the goals of species conservation have to be aligned with the acceptance that large numbers of animals will go extinct. Thirty to 40 percent of species may be threatenedwith extinction in the near future, and their loss may be inevitable. But both the planet and humanity can probably survive or even thrive in a world with fewer species. We don’t depend on polar bears for our survival, and even if their eradication has a domino effect that eventually affects us, we will find a way to adapt. The species that we rely on for food and shelter are a tiny proportion of total biodiversity, and most humans live in — and rely on — areas of only moderate biodiversity, not the Amazon or the Congo Basin.

He makes other arguments as well: introduced species sometimes do reduce “native diversity”, but “productivity—the cycling of nutrients through the ecosystem—frequently increases”.  About 140 new reptile species have been introduced in Florida, but they haven’t driven any old species extinct.  He even argues that we don’t try to conserve the “biodiversity” that includes Ebola virus, and yellow fever, so we’re being hypocritical!

Well, as I always say, we can’t simply dismiss people like this by simply saying they’re wrong. We have to muster counterarguments. I will muster a few, since I haven’t paid much attention (on purpose) to the arguments of others.  Here’s my view of why Pyron is misguided:

1.) There is no guarantee that the Earth will recover from this new anthropogenic extinction in a way that guarantees the return of biodiversity. As we chop down the rain forests and convert forests and diverse ecosystems into farms and pastures, the resulting monocultures may be productive, but they’ll be boring. Why is productivity (and I don’t mean just food productivity) privileged over diversity (see below)? Further, destroying natural ecosystems, if you take Pyron’s anthropocentric view (it’s not my view), can drive to extinction animals and plants that are of potential aid to humans: plants that provide medical cures, clues about animals that can help us live longer and healthier lives, and so on.

2.) With the present destruction of natural habitat, and the possibilities of nuclear war and a big change in Earth’s climate due to global warming, we are making it much less likely that Earth will recover its previous biodiversity. Yes, we’re a species, but we’re the only species on the planet with the capacity to not just destroy every other species, but denude the entire planet itself.

3.) Biodiversity should be valued for two reasons other than human welfare: its intrinsic interest and beauty, and its scientific value exclusive of how it could help H. sapiens.  There’s simply something more enthralling and moving about a pristine rain forest than there is in a logged-over pasture. Which would you rather look at: a field of corn growing away, or a sea full of interesting creatures and a forest full of insects, plants, birds, and monkeys? Which would you rather look at: a blank canvas, or an all-black canvas, or a Leonardo?  Further, driving species extinct is like going through a library, destroying half the books and saying, “Yes, but new books will be written to replace them.” That is, each species is an evolutionary palimpsest of its past, telling us something about ecology and evolution, and buttressing our sense of wonder and our knowledge. That knowledge is good in and of itself, for we are a species of curiosity and wonder. And each time a species goes extinct, we lose a chance to learn about it, its ecology, and its evolutionary past. We may be able to recover its ancestry if we save its DNA, but we’ll still irrevocably lose a lot of other stuff. At least right now, we couldn’t suss out the remarkable courtship behavior of the birds of paradise simply from their DNA sequence.

4.) Our actions that drive species extinct often cause suffering of animals; why is human suffering so privileged that we can injure other species with complete impunity? Yes, some species may go extinct simply because they can’t find a mate, and the population becomes so small it dies out from demographic fluctuations. That kind of extinction doesn’t cause much suffering. But other extinctions cause pain and suffering as animals’ homes are destroyed, they are killed by humans (fires, bullets, etc.), or the climate becomes intolerable.

Yes, mass extinctions have happened before, and extinction often causes pain, regardless of whether it’s caused by our own species or physical forces. But if we abet it, we’re increasing the amount of suffering among sentient beings, and that is a net bad. How much increase in human well being does it take to offset, say, the death of hundreds of giraffes, gorillas, and elephants shot by hunters? What is the calculus here? According to Pyron, animals have no value re suffering, and humans have infinite value in comparison.

I think Pyron fails to realize that the depredations of humans aren’t equivalent to the ice sheets that once covered the world. Ice sheets go away; we won’t—unless we manage to drive ourselves extinct first.

In the end, the whole planet will be burnt to a crisp when the Sun expands in about five billion years. But until then, and assuming we’re here for a while, we should do our best to preserve those features of the world that give us not just joy but knowledge that is an intrinsic good. In one way, destroying species is like burning every work of art in the world.  Yes, there will be new art—there always is—but isn’t it nice to go see an exhibit of van Gogh or Rembrandt?

I’m sure readers can come up with other counterarguments (or support of Pyron, if that’s the way you feel).

Another beef from Grania: UK ministers pray for Prince George to either be gay or straight

December 1, 2017 • 9:45 am

Grania says this about a new Guardian article: “Here’s a facepalm of the day. Hard to say which one of these fine religious leaders needs their head smacked hardest.” Here’s that article:

Prince George (of Cambridge), of course, is the only son of Prince William and Kate Middleton, now “Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge,” and he’s third in line for the throne after Prince Charles and Prince William. That, of course, makes him terribly important to those without a life who follow the royals.

But I sympathize with him because the Church of England is already on him like white on rice, with some praying he’ll be gay and others straight. WTF? Why don’t they leave him alone. As the Guardian reports:

Christians should pray for Prince George to be gay to force support for same-sex marriage in the Church of England, a senior Scottish Episcopal church minister and LGBTQ campaigner has said.

The Very Rev Kelvin Holdsworth, provost of St Mary’s Cathedral in Glasgow, made the comments in a blog he reposted about LGBTQ inclusion in the Church of England following the announcement of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s engagement.

In the post, he writes that Christians should pray “for the Lord to bless Prince George with a love, when he grows up, of a fine young gentleman”.

But of course that won’t wash, because should George become king, there won’t be an heir. Not to mention that these idiots think that prayers have any influence on someone’s sexual proclivities, or that God should intervene to promote LGBT rights. But, of course, there are CoE ministers who are appalled:

A former chaplain to the Queen, the Rev Gavin Ashenden, has described the comments as “unkind” and “profoundly un-Christian”, and said the prayer was the “theological equivalent of the curse of the wicked fairy in one of the fairytales”.

Speaking to Christian Today, Ashenden said: “To pray for Prince George to grow up in that way, particularly when part of the expectation he will inherit is to produce a biological heir with a woman he loves, is to pray in a way that would disable and undermine his constitutional and personal role.

“It is an unkind and destabilising prayer. It is the theological equivalent of the curse of the wicked fairy in one of the fairytales. It is un-Christian as well as being anti-constitutional. It is a very long way from being a blessing for Prince George.”

These people have their own delusions: that the monarchy needs to persist and needs male heirs to do so. And of course Reverend Ashenden also thinks that prayer will have some effect on George’s sexual proclivities. Really, I thought that Anglican clerics were smarter than the thick-headed snake-handlers of the American South, but it doesn’t seem so.

And so it begins: Flynn charged with lying to the FBI, expected to plead guilty

December 1, 2017 • 9:00 am

The first Trump administration official has gone down, barely a year after the election. According to many sites, including CNBC, Special Counsel Robert Mueller has charged Michael Flynn, Trump’s ex national security advisor, with one count of lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russian officials.  He’s pleading guilty, I suspect as part of some deal in which he’ll implicate others. The CNBC report:

Flynn is expected to plead guilty to a criminal information charging him with knowingly making materially false, fictitious and fraudulent statements to FBI agents.

Specifically, Flynn is accused of falsely claiming that he had not asked Russia’s ambassador to the United States last Dec. 29 “to refrain from escalating the situation in response to sanctions that the United States had imposed against Russia that same day.”

Flynn also allegedly lied by telling the FBI “he did not recall the Russian Ambassador subsequently telling him that Russia had chosen to moderate its response to those sanctions as a result of his request,” the information says.

That didn’t take long. Every time I travel, I have to emphasize that I despise Trump and his administration, for everywhere I go people are baffled that we elected such a moron. So far, the Republicans haven’t accomplished anything despite a year of controlling Congress and the Presidency (as well as the Supreme Court), and our governance is in shambles. This is why they’re so desperate to pass a misguided and harmful tax bill: simply to demonstrate that they can do something besides talk.

Republican tax bill opens up drilling in Arctic National Wildlife refuge, lets ministers endorse candidates from the pulpit, eliminates tax deductions for student loan interest, and imposes taxes on grad-student tuition waivers

December 1, 2017 • 8:30 am

I guess I haven’t been paying much attention to the finer points of Republican perfidy, and so discovered three things only last night:

1.) The Republican tax bill in the House (if it passes, it still has to be reconciled with a Senate bill), has a provision that will allow parts of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to be opened for oil and gas drilling. The state of Alaska has been trying to get this done for years, but Congress has stood in its way. Now they’re caving. There is no amount of damage to wildlife or the environment that the Trump administration won’t tolerate in the name of capitalism. They’ve already proposed allowing imports of big-game hunting trophies, like elephant heads (though that’s on hold), and have passed a measure allowing hunters to shoot hibernating bears and their cubs, or wolves in their dens. These people have no respect for the lives or suffering of animals. And what does this have to do with taxes? It’s a sneaky add-on!

2.) The new bill will allow ministers to endorse political candidates from their pulpits, though churches still won’t be able to make contributions to political candidates. I agree with these humanists who claim that this now creates an entanglement between church and state (ministers are still allowed to express their private opinion in other places):

The Rev. Barry Lynn, the executive director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, said in an email, “The House GOP leadership and President Trump want to turn America’s houses of worship into centers of partisan politics. It’s a reckless scheme that may please Trump’s allies in the religious right, but could spark a blowback since the vast majority of Americans, faith leaders and houses of worship are firmly opposed to it. This is a bad idea that should be immediately dropped.”

Larry T. Decker, the executive director of the Secular Coalition for America, called the proposal in a statement “a brazen attack on the separation of church and state.” And the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty argued in a statement that inviting politics into the sanctuary is bad for churches, saying the House proposal “threatens to destroy our congregations from within over disagreements on partisan campaigns. … This change has been pushed by a tiny minority and is opposed by the vast majority of Americans and churchgoers, across party lines and faith traditions.”

If they’re gonna do that, then let’s eliminate the tax exemption for churches and pastors. This, too, is a sneaky add-on

3.) Finally, the Congress’s own joint committee on taxation admits that the new tax bill will increase the federal deficit by a trillion dollars over the next decade.

The bill will, of course, drastically slash the corporate tax rate, almost halving it from 35% to 20%, while it’s likely that the tax bill for middle-class Americans will rise. Mortage interest deductions are being slashed, students will no longer be able to deduct the interest on their educational loans from their taxes, and graduate students will have to pay taxes on the tuition waiver they get. Since grad student tuition is often high, but waived for many students, this will hit them with a tax bill that they may not be able to afford. I had such a waiver at Harvard, and I’m not at all sure I could have afforded to pay taxes on that. In the net, this bill is going to hurt American undergraduate education in many ways.

It’s hard to avoid seeing this bill as one aimed at helping the rich at the expense of the poor. I wonder if those poor schlemiels who voted for Trump might start to dimly realize that they didn’t act in their own interest.

Readers’ wildlife photos

December 1, 2017 • 7:30 am

Karen Bartelt is back with some lovely bird photos; her text and IDs are indented:

In early November, my husband and I took a birding/”lepping” trip to the southern tip of Texas, travelling from S. Padre island through Brownsville, and along the border to just south of Laredo.  It’s a surreal region, with many miles of border wall, and it would not be an exaggeration to say we saw 100 Border Patrol vehicles in the space of a week.  And it was over 90 degrees every day. I’ve been trying to figure out how to organize these photos, and decided to start with the eastern end of the trip and go west.  Here are some photos from the South Padre Island Birding Center.
This green jay (Cyanocorax yncas) was at our B&B.  They were common throughout this part of Texas:
White ibis (Eudocimus albus) at the Briding center boardwalk:
American wigeon (Anas americana):
Northern pintail couple (Anas acuta):
Roseate spoonbill (Platalea ajaja) with a jealous common gallinule (Gallinula galeata) looking on:
Mottled duck (Anas fulvigula).  Mottled ducks have a black spot at the base of the beak, but they also interbreed with mallards, so this may possibly be a “muddled duck”, a hybrid.
Snowy egret (Egretta thula):

Friday: Hili dialogue

December 1, 2017 • 6:30 am

It’s December now! December 1, 2017, Friday, and the day of our department’s Christmas party, where I will stuff myself with Middle Eastern food and get somewhat buzzed on wines I picked out for the occasion. It’s also National Fried Pie Day, something that might well be unique to the U.S.  A small fried peach pie is a good finish to a BBQ dinner. It’s also World AIDS Day, in existence since 1988. Finally, Cook County’s ill-advised and much hated soda tax expires today, allowing me to purchase my diet sodas without the stupid 2¢-per-ounce tax that was touted as a health-improving measure but was really intended to raise revenue. (The tell was that diet sodas were also taxed.)

People have been sniping at each other on the posts lately, and I urge new readers to have a look at the Da Roolz, or posting rools, to the left of this post, or here. Please be civil, and no name-calling or suggestions that another commenter is ignorant or brainwashed.

On this day in 1824, and for the only time in American history, the U.S. Congress had to decide the winner of the Presidential election, as none of the four candidates (William Crawford, Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay, and John Quincy Adams)  received a majority of the electoral vote. This was according to the Constitution’s Twelfth Amendment, and Adams became the winner. On this day in 1913, the Ford Motor Company introduced the assembly line: a moving belt on which cars were assembled, with each worker specializing in a single task. On December 1, 1919, Lady Astor became the first woman member of Parliament in the House of Commons (she was elected on November 28). It was on this day in 1955 that Rosa Parks, riding a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, refused to give up her seat to a white man, was arrested for violating the city’s segregation laws, and the rest is history. It was a pivotal moment in the U.S. Civil Right movement.  Finally, on this day in 1990, the two ends of the Channel Tunnel, dug from England on one side and France on the other, met—40 m below the seabed.

Notables born on this day include Marie Tussaud of the wax museum (1761), the “poet” Julia A. Moore of Michigan, perhaps the worst poet who ever lived (1847), Lou Rawls (1933), Woody Allen (1935), Richard Pryor (1940), Bette Midler (1945), and Pablo Escobar (1949).

Here’s one of my favorite Julia A. Moore poems (her sarcastic nickname was “The Sweet Singer of Michigan”), honoring a little girl who choked to death. The third verse from the end is sheer genius.

LITTLE LIBBIE

One more little spirit to Heaven has flown,
To dwell in that mansion above,
Where dear little angels, together roam,
In God’s everlasting love.

One little flower has withered and died,
A bud near ready to bloom,
Its life on earth is marked with pride;
Oh, sad it should die so soon.

Sweet little Libbie, that precious flower
Was a pride in her parents’ home,
They miss their little girl every hour,
Those friends that are left to mourn.

Her sweet silvery voice no more is heard
In the home where she once roamed;
Her place is vacant around the hearth,
Where her friends are mourning lone.

They are mourning the loss of a little girl,
With black eyes and auburn hair,
She was a treasure to them in this world,
This beautiful child so fair.

One morning in April, a short time ago,
Libbie was active and gay;
Her Saviour called her, she had to go,
E’re the close of that pleasant day.

While eating dinner, this dear little child
Was choked on a piece of beef.
Doctors came, tried their skill awhile,
But none could give relief.

She was ten years of age, I am told,
And in school stood very high.
Her little form now the earth enfolds,
In her embrace it must ever lie.

Her friends and schoolmates will not forget
Little Libbie that is no more;
She is waiting on the shining step,
To welcome home friends once more.

Only William McGonagall comes close in the sheer awfulness of his poetry. If you want a good anthology of the world’s worst poetry, get The Stuffed Owl: An Anthology of Bad Verse.

Those who bought the farm on this day include George Everest (1866), Aleister Crowley and G. H. Hardy (1947), J. B. S. Haldane (1964), David Ben-Gurion (1973), James Baldwin (1987), Alvin Ailey (1989), and Stéphane Grappelli (1997). Grappelli, of course was most famous for his jazz violin played with guitarist Django Reinhardt. Who would have thought that a fiddle player and a gypsy guitarist missing two fingers on his fretting hand could make musical history? Here’a rare video of them playing; the hot stuff starts at 1:30:

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn: Hili is housebound and grumpy:

Hili: It’s snowing.
A: But you are inside.
Hili: I feel aggrieved anyhow.
In Poliah:
Hili: Śnieg pada.
Ja: Ale ty jesteś pod dachem.
Hili: I tak mam pretensje.

From reader Taskin in Winnipeg, who constitutes half of Gus’s staff:

A couple of Gus pics for you. Gus spent the morning on the Katzenbaum and the afternoon in the sunny front window. It’s been a good day.

 

From Matthew Cobb—the world’s bravest (or craziest) goose:

https://twitter.com/AMAZlNGNATURE/status/936262493751492608

This woman got a bobcat stuck in her car grille on Thanksgiving. It was a bit shook up, but it’s all right now (see story here):

Two tweets stolen from Heather Hastie:

https://twitter.com/invisibleman_17/status/935807586867335169

And a black kitten in a nice nest:

And from reader Chris:

New Zealand PM vets Ed Sheeran’s request for citizenship

November 30, 2017 • 2:30 pm

I am of course deeply smitten with Jacinda Ardern, the new Prime Minister of New Zealand, as she is smart, funny, has a good sense of humor, and is Labour! Here, according to the Guardian, she’s recorded an answer to Ed Sheeran, an English singer, songwrite, and producer, who, anticipating his tour in New Zealand, broached the idea of becoming a citizen. Ardern recorded an answer, which is great. The Guardian:

This week Sheeran recorded a video message for New Zealanders before his much-anticipated March concerts there. “Hey New Zealand I can’t wait to see you very soon, I’m not yet a citizen of New Zealand but I’m working on it – hook me up prime minister, please,” said Sheeran, in the video for local radio station ZM.

New Zealand’s leader, 37-year-old Jacinda Ardern – a well-known music fan and occasional DJ – responded to the singer’s request with a 35-second video of her own, recorded in her parliamentary office in Wellington.

Her citizenship test actually included two questions that I couldn’t answer, which surprised me as I’d absorbed as much as I could of Kiwi culture when I was there (I’ve now been dubbed an Honorary Kiwi™ and a little bird told me I’m getting a genuine replica of an All Blacks jersey for my birthday). At any rate, looking up the answers to the first two questions, I found photos to go with the Guardian‘s answers:

“Hello Ed, my name is Jacinda Ardern, I’m the prime minister of New Zealand and I understand you’ve put through a very informal request for citizenship,” says Ardern, mock-serious.

“Before we’re able to think about that a little bit more I’ve got some very important questions for you; the first, do you like pineapple lumps? Do you even know what they are?”

Pineapple lumps are a distinctly nostalgic New Zealand treat, a chewy chocolate-covered sweet with a sweet pineapple-flavoured soft centre, which New Zealanders often keep in the freezer.

[JAC: I didn’t have these or see these in NZ!]

Ardern continues: “Two, are you willing to wear jandals in semi-inappropriate situations, and also, do you know what jandals are?”

Jandals – also known as flip-flops or thongs – are often worn by New Zealanders throughout the year, including winter, and sometimes with suits or dresses to formal events (for comfort’s sake). It is thought to be a derivation of “Japanese sandals”.

[JAC: I would have no problem with this as I wear flip-flops during the summer.]

I think I know where Ardern got the “semi-inappropriate situations” thing, for this is on her Facebook page. They aren’t jandals, I think, but come close. . .