There is a point: knowledge.
If no one in history had ever researched or developed anything other than things with a practical application, we’d be nowhere right now.
Dinosaurs are extinct because a fucking meteor fell on Earth, Mammoths are extinct because humans killed them mercilessly. Sometimes natural selection doesn’t work for the best, it is not sacred. But, actually, that is not the point. The point in bringing back extinct species is to study them, not because they are better than current species.
Arg, :ninja:, damn you burb 
I don’t believe humans are entirely to blame for mammoth extinction. Their weapons weren’t powerful enough to really damage them, for starters. I think it was ultimately a general warming trend that killed them off.
So what if humans were the primary cause of their extinction? I’m not happy many species are facing extinction within 100 years because of human presence but in the end it’s just how nature works.
That too.
Humans are Viruses
What is the problem? Animals with the highest rate of success in reproduction are favoured by evolution and become more abundant. Our species gained the upper hand thanks to our large brains, hands etc.
Imagine you have two islands, one island has a large population of Elephants, the other has a small population of Tyrannosaurus rex (yeah I know it’s rather unrealistic, just use your imagination here). Over the course of a few thousand years the sea level in between the island drops, thus connecting the two islands. Now the T.rex population can migrate to the second island where they will find large and easy prey (the Elephants). Because of the arrival of the T.rex’s the elephants are less likely to survive long and therefor they will not have much reproductive success. The T.rex on the other hand has a good source of food ensuring its survival and thus they are very likely to reproduce. This increases their population until at one point the Elephants either adapt or go extinct (in this case the Elephants would most likely go extinct because of their large size). It’s possible that the very smallest but fastest Elephants can escape the giant T.rex’s. This means the only Elephants that get to reproduce are the small but fast ones. Over time that would mean the Elephants would become much smaller as evolution favours them due to those specific traits that give them the highest rate of success in reproduction.
This is just a small example, it happens ALL the time, EVERYWHERE, with every organism. Whether it’s human intervention, natural disasters, or simply nature going about its business (movement of the continents and so on) it doesn’t matter. Dinosaurs went extinct because a giant asteroid crashed into the Earth. This drastically changed the Earth’s environment in a very short time span. It was impossible for the large non-avian dinosaurs, marine reptiles and pterosaurs to adapt and because they require such large amounts of food they quickly died and eventually went extinct. Smaller animals like mammals at that time (they were no larger than rats on average) managed to survive because they require little food. Their reproductive success increased a lot now that the dinosaurs were gone. This eventually led to all life we see today including humans.
No no. Humans are a disease.
Smith said virus AND disease in the movie.
Humans are part of nature.
…
Death is a disease.
…
You are wrong. You are forgetting about the most powerful weapon of cavemen: fire. And, of course, intelligence. Animals have instinct fear of fire, they run away from it. Cavemen could use that fear to push mammoths to the edge of abysses and make them fall. They pushed entire herds of mammoths, most of the meat would rot before the human tribe could eat it. IIRC, one mammoth would be sufficient to feed the entire tribe.
That is how humans invented greed. And mammoths paid the price.
Oh, all right, let’s just let thousands of species go extinct and do nothing about it, then.
I guess I failed to see your point.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammoth#Extinction
“Whether the general mammoth population died out for climatic reasons or due to overhunting by humans is controversial.[26] Another theory suggests that mammoths may have fallen victim to an infectious disease. A combination of climate change and hunting by humans has been suggested[by whom?] as the most likely explanation for their extinction.”
Natural selection is inevitable with or with out human intervention. Specific traits from the last generation will carry over to the next generation. The cycle continues till you have a drastically different population of animals (or people) than today.
It’s been proven time and again through out history.
A good example is compare the 1950s America to now; not gene-wise, but mentally, it’s much quicker to give an example in terms of years like that. 1950s; Racism was abundant, tech isn’t what it is today, and the civil rights movement was going on.
Now; Less Racial violence, tech is advancing at an accelerated rate, there are civil rights in place. It’s a simple comparison, but that’s 2 drastically different generations.
It’s the same in terms of animals. Overtime critters with specific traits I.E. a mini-elephant as Jeannotvb explained will survive long enough to pass their genes on to the next generation.
I know it’s a wall of text, but please read:
Or read this:
99% of all life in Earth’s history is extinct. You can’t do anything about it. This is nature.
edit:
Turns out my Elephant example wasn’t so crazy after all, there is a species of Mammoth that gradually became smaller, scientists believe it has to do with the fact that food was available only higher up the mountains. This made it impossible for the large and heavy Mammoths to reach there and thus they died. The smaller, lighter ones on the other hand could easily reach up and get the food. They survived and reproduced, passing on their genes to the next generation which gradually decreased the average size of the Mammoths in that area.
Yes, yes I know, you don’t need to explain this to me again. And, yes, I read the entire post.
However, as I said, this does not mean we should lead species to extinction. That is actually against evolution. And nature is not sacred. If you think nature is sacred, you should stop using computers, televisions, condoms and go to live in the forest so you would be subject to natural selection.
What nature does and what we should or can do or not do are two separate things. Why? Because nature is not sacred. We need to do what is best for us, humans, and that means:
- allowing nature to continue instead of vanquishing it from the face of the world;
- clone extinct species so we could study them and (why not) entertain ourselves in zoos of extinct species.
I already had read this because I’m a cool guy and doesn’t afraid of wall of texts :3. Although that is not exactly right, as I said above, this has nothing to do with the point in question.
The actual sequence of events is this:
- T-rexes eat a lot of elephants and procriate, leading T-rexes to increase their population and elephants to decrease theirs;
- as there are few elephants, T-rexes begin to starve to death, therefore leading the population of T-rexes to decrease and the population of elephants to increase.
With time and genetic mutation, the elephants that are (slightly) faster have a higher chance of surviving and procreating, therefore leading the population of elephants to have faster and faster elephants.
All I saw in Jeannotvb’s self-quoted post was “abdunant”.
Fixed just for you!
If we can bring back Mammoths…then we can bring back hitler
Yeah, then put him into a trial and sentence him to death…
Or give him ironic punishments, everytime we bring him back