Re: Intriguing new concept regarding human origins

Gregory A Greenman wrote:
In article <e3mcsr$1a2l$2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, John Wilkins <john@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> declared...
Gregory A Greenman wrote:
In article <1146910820.683509.97750
@v46g2000cwv.googlegroups.com>, hugheaston01@xxxxxxxxxxx <hugheaston01@xxxxxxxxxxx> declared...
Desertphile wrote:

1) Many organisms destroy their environments;
2) Other organisms move into those destroyed environments and live
perfectly happy and healthy
Example please? AFAIK, most if not all cases of organisms damaging
their environments are foreign species introduced by humans. Hardly
relevant to the more general case of life throughout Earth's history.

How about a disease or parasite that kills its host?
It doesn't matter so long as the host species is numerous and able to replace the lost "resources" (from the pathogen's POV). Once host numbers get too low, there is selection for less virulence. I doubt there have been many pathogens that extinguish all their hosts.


It matters to the disease or parasite in that host. Their relatives live on, but they die. Those particular germs, bacteria, parasites or whatnot have destroyed their environment, thus they are examples of #1 above.

You are equivocating between the type and the token. That *population* will go extinct, but the species/strain won't.

--
John S. Wilkins, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Biohumanities Project
University of Queensland - Blog: evolvethought.blogspot.com
"He used... sarcasm. He knew all the tricks, dramatic irony, metaphor, bathos, puns, parody, litotes and... satire. He was vicious."

.

Relevant Pages

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