Raving about some issues
After I wrote the article on the toxic venomous and the retracing of the evolutionary tree of reptiles to include the relationship between the toxic serpentes and toxic lizards within the new clade of Toxicofera, I got some email questioning the 200 million years at which they estimate the Toxicofera branch diverted.
I just can't have the young earth theory. It's not only incorrect, it's silly. I'm not going to go into some great debate about this. I'll leave that to people like Richard Dawkins and Jay Gould, who, while they may disagree on some aspects, still agree on the fundamentals of evolutionary theory. If you are a lay person but are interested in evolution and adaption and also like a well written and very interesting read then I suggest you read either "The Blind Watchmaker" or "The Selfish Gene". I just purchased Dawkin's "The Ancestor's Tale" but haven't read it yet. I think that will be my Christmas treat if I can find the time.
I really feel like having a rave about this but I know I'll just get a bunch of annoyed comments and such so I'll leave it alone. What I will say is that creationist ideas, I wont give them the cudos of theory, should be in philosophy classes, not science.
What's more important and what I really get concerned about is the rate of deforestation, the immediacy of global warming issues and the lack of foresight of the world's political leaders. There is a lot of chest puffing and wind-baggery but very few have attacked the issues head-on. Australia's Prime Minister, John Howard, is a perfect example. He refused to sign Kyoto and Australia has one of the highest carbon emissions per head in the world. We export coal in enormous quantities and use it to power large sectors of our industry. It's cheap and we have massive supplies of the stuff. But we also have only about 15% of our original forests so we cannot absorb what we produce. We do nowhere near enough research into alternative energies. We have sunlight and hence solar energy in abundance but do little to harness it.
We also use one of our most precious resources, water, in ridiculous and inefficient ways. I'll give you an example. We farm rice (yes, large paddocks of water) in some of the hotest and driest parts of the country. Most of the water evaporates and our major river systems, which irrigate these shallow paddocks of water, are choking as a result. We also have some of our biggest dams on some of our biggest rivers near their headwaters. The biggest of these is used to farm cotton. Downstream, the water flow is reduced to a trickle and the farmers who depend on it below can barely scratch a together living. And the mouth of our largest river system, the Murray River, is closed for extended periods of time. Can you imagine the Mississippi being allowed to close? What about the Nile? Yet we do with ours. It's a national disgrace.
I remember the morning after my first daughter was born. I remember going to the front porch of my house, sitting down and wondering whether I had done the right thing, to bring someone into a world where, 50 years on, the world could be in serious economic and ecological decline. I hope those predictions do not happen but I become fearful more and more as decisions, like the drilling for oil in the Alskan Arctic National Wildlife Refuge area for perhaps 6 months of oil supply, are taken for what I percieve as reasons of greed rather than genuine need. Expand capacity rather than reduce demand. It's insanity.
I know this has nothing to do with reptiles but I just felt like venting some steam. BTW, the Keeping Reptiles ezine is free from here.
I just can't have the young earth theory. It's not only incorrect, it's silly. I'm not going to go into some great debate about this. I'll leave that to people like Richard Dawkins and Jay Gould, who, while they may disagree on some aspects, still agree on the fundamentals of evolutionary theory. If you are a lay person but are interested in evolution and adaption and also like a well written and very interesting read then I suggest you read either "The Blind Watchmaker" or "The Selfish Gene". I just purchased Dawkin's "The Ancestor's Tale" but haven't read it yet. I think that will be my Christmas treat if I can find the time.
I really feel like having a rave about this but I know I'll just get a bunch of annoyed comments and such so I'll leave it alone. What I will say is that creationist ideas, I wont give them the cudos of theory, should be in philosophy classes, not science.
What's more important and what I really get concerned about is the rate of deforestation, the immediacy of global warming issues and the lack of foresight of the world's political leaders. There is a lot of chest puffing and wind-baggery but very few have attacked the issues head-on. Australia's Prime Minister, John Howard, is a perfect example. He refused to sign Kyoto and Australia has one of the highest carbon emissions per head in the world. We export coal in enormous quantities and use it to power large sectors of our industry. It's cheap and we have massive supplies of the stuff. But we also have only about 15% of our original forests so we cannot absorb what we produce. We do nowhere near enough research into alternative energies. We have sunlight and hence solar energy in abundance but do little to harness it.
We also use one of our most precious resources, water, in ridiculous and inefficient ways. I'll give you an example. We farm rice (yes, large paddocks of water) in some of the hotest and driest parts of the country. Most of the water evaporates and our major river systems, which irrigate these shallow paddocks of water, are choking as a result. We also have some of our biggest dams on some of our biggest rivers near their headwaters. The biggest of these is used to farm cotton. Downstream, the water flow is reduced to a trickle and the farmers who depend on it below can barely scratch a together living. And the mouth of our largest river system, the Murray River, is closed for extended periods of time. Can you imagine the Mississippi being allowed to close? What about the Nile? Yet we do with ours. It's a national disgrace.
I remember the morning after my first daughter was born. I remember going to the front porch of my house, sitting down and wondering whether I had done the right thing, to bring someone into a world where, 50 years on, the world could be in serious economic and ecological decline. I hope those predictions do not happen but I become fearful more and more as decisions, like the drilling for oil in the Alskan Arctic National Wildlife Refuge area for perhaps 6 months of oil supply, are taken for what I percieve as reasons of greed rather than genuine need. Expand capacity rather than reduce demand. It's insanity.
I know this has nothing to do with reptiles but I just felt like venting some steam. BTW, the Keeping Reptiles ezine is free from here.
posted by Mark Chapple at 3:46 AM
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