Before getting to the meat of this article (sorry I just couldn't resist) I should add that this article raises questions that make it appropriate to post in this tribe under the Orwellian Threat and an aspect of inherent Environmental Economics.
I also want to address an aspect of nature that should be understood has been at work for millions of years but the results of it may be interesting.
The paradigm of predation can be viewed as a meme governing behavior from an adaptation model for evolutionary biology.
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Super-predator is regular visitor
Thursday June 2, 2005
The Guardian
Fossil records show that around every 26m years, a mass extinction occurs on Earth, wiping out millions of species and leaving only a few hardy survivors.
Many scientists have blamed these regular catastrophic culls on meteorite bombardments. But now a paper in Physical Review E suggests that the cause could lie much closer to home.
Adam Lipowski, a physicist from the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poland, has developed a computer model which shows that periodic mass extinctions could be caused by the evolution of a "super-predator". Most of the time, the model is populated by medium efficiency predators, but every so often genetic mutations lead to the evolution of a highly efficient beast.
"This super-predator is a fast-consuming species and it quickly decimates the population of preys, which in turn leads to its own decline," he explains. Any creatures that survive this destruction gradually mutate to fill the new ecological niches and the cycle starts afresh.
So are humans the latest super-predator? "It is the feeling that we have, but our model is too abstract to say this for sure," says Lipowski.
www.guardian.co.uk/life/dis...3,00.html
It is very intriguing from the perspective of evolutionary psychology.
Is there a paradigm of predator mentality that is logically selected for by evolution but also self limiting by virtue of its behavior?
Sentience by itself cannot necessarily be considered anything more than a degree of sophistication for the predator paradigm and it follows that the species would compete on a relatively level playing field against itself thus mitigating some of the benefits of sentience.
However there is also an alternative idea that humans are coming late (as a species) to the adoption of the paradigm of being a predator and because of their more socialized roots as an pack omnivore may offer a slight alteration on previous adapted evolutionary models. Nevertheless modern extreme forms of social capitalism could be viewed as inherently predatory in their memetic structure.
It will be interesting to see how the computer model plays into compounding risk of extinction with climactic, volcanic, and extraterrestrial hazard. The mass extinctions have occurred more frequently than specifically identified events and there are gaps in the models for such events that have never really been reconciled. The combination of the two could answer a lot of questions.
I also want to address an aspect of nature that should be understood has been at work for millions of years but the results of it may be interesting.
The paradigm of predation can be viewed as a meme governing behavior from an adaptation model for evolutionary biology.
********
Super-predator is regular visitor
Thursday June 2, 2005
The Guardian
Fossil records show that around every 26m years, a mass extinction occurs on Earth, wiping out millions of species and leaving only a few hardy survivors.
Many scientists have blamed these regular catastrophic culls on meteorite bombardments. But now a paper in Physical Review E suggests that the cause could lie much closer to home.
Adam Lipowski, a physicist from the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poland, has developed a computer model which shows that periodic mass extinctions could be caused by the evolution of a "super-predator". Most of the time, the model is populated by medium efficiency predators, but every so often genetic mutations lead to the evolution of a highly efficient beast.
"This super-predator is a fast-consuming species and it quickly decimates the population of preys, which in turn leads to its own decline," he explains. Any creatures that survive this destruction gradually mutate to fill the new ecological niches and the cycle starts afresh.
So are humans the latest super-predator? "It is the feeling that we have, but our model is too abstract to say this for sure," says Lipowski.
www.guardian.co.uk/life/dis...3,00.html
It is very intriguing from the perspective of evolutionary psychology.
Is there a paradigm of predator mentality that is logically selected for by evolution but also self limiting by virtue of its behavior?
Sentience by itself cannot necessarily be considered anything more than a degree of sophistication for the predator paradigm and it follows that the species would compete on a relatively level playing field against itself thus mitigating some of the benefits of sentience.
However there is also an alternative idea that humans are coming late (as a species) to the adoption of the paradigm of being a predator and because of their more socialized roots as an pack omnivore may offer a slight alteration on previous adapted evolutionary models. Nevertheless modern extreme forms of social capitalism could be viewed as inherently predatory in their memetic structure.
It will be interesting to see how the computer model plays into compounding risk of extinction with climactic, volcanic, and extraterrestrial hazard. The mass extinctions have occurred more frequently than specifically identified events and there are gaps in the models for such events that have never really been reconciled. The combination of the two could answer a lot of questions.
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