Spiders are amazingly beneficial to us even if they do make grown men scream like little girls. So are some types of insects.Voulan said:
This kind of argument generally fails to consider humans as part of the ecosystem too. We are just one animal waging war on our opponents. Just because we're more efficient at killing them doesn't make our actions any less part of evolution. It really depends on which insects we attempt to wipe out. Could we wipe out a single species and leave it at that or would any viable pesticide inevitably extinct other less harmful types?Deathfish15 said:
We have to be somewhat careful not to wipe out a significant amount of the food supply for animals like birds and bats. Some insets in particular, like ants, would be horrible to wipe out.Tiamat666 said:
Even if it's ontly wasps, moths and mosquitoes, it's going to be extremely dangerous. Even those species have a place in the natural balance of things, as food for other animals, as pollinators, to help with the disposal of dead material, or even just to keep the population of other creatures (including humans) in check.Tiamat666 said:
No you are not.GenGenners said:
The article said it affects arthropods, which include not only insects but also crustaceans and arachnids. Did I also mention that arthropods make up roughly 80% of all described animal species on the planet? Really, how do you expect to participate in a scientific discussion and not only be ignorant of what the primary classification means, but not even bother to look it up?BlackStar42 said:
That may all be true, but it's a pretty damn good bet that wiping out 80% of all described species on the planet will have a negative impact on the environment. Am I the only one in this thread that knows what arthropod means? It's a phylum including insects, arachnids, and crustaceans and it includes roughly 80% of all described species on the planet.Simca said:
Brah... this is probably the worst idea I have seen in this forums in quite a while (and have just come from the thread about a killed girl in Harlem where someone posted "good, one tranny less" or something along the lines), it's probably just due misinformation tough, so here we go:Redlin5 said:
The safety valve would be the vector, not the modification. You see, AFAIK to mess with the RNA of some creep on the field you usually infect it with a designed virus to do whatever you want, virus are usually highly specific and unless they mutate in exactly the correct way they should stick with their targets.spartan231490 said:
The ecosystem(s) is/are already messed up, and this is a way to unmess it up. Modern agriculture causes an abundance of insects, because they now have a new and abundant source of food. In other words, we've already inadvertently interfered in natural selection. To combat this, we use pesticides, which not only kills billions of insects, but also harms other wildlife. Applying this new method may not be 'natural', but the methods we use now are even worse. If we reduce their breeding rate, we don't need to use as much pesticides, so less harm is caused to the ecosystem, and we get more yield off our harvests.Deathfish15 said:
When I say "Killer Bees" I refer to the Africanized Honey Bees that are killing off all the native bees and have dangerous, aggressive behaviors that regular Honey Bees here do not have. As the grandson of a harvester, I know the importance of bees.Tanakh said:
I read the guy's more as getting rid of an insect that was introduced into an ecosystem that it's not supposed to be in. That seems to be the only positive use for this spray.Deathfish15 said:Nsecretkeeper12 said:It's easy to see how this might harm ecosystems, but that's glossing over how this technology could, properly used, save people's lives. Mosquitos in particular are much more than a pest; they're responsible for malaria outbreaks in over 100 countries [http://www.cdc.gov/malaria/about/facts.html] which claimed a cumulative 660,000 lives in 2010 alone. If this research kicks off, this can be reduced to a much less severe number. True, we will be "messing with nature", but I think that kind of romantic thinking can go take a hike when it will literally cost lives to follow.So long as this is only used against harmful species (and no, being annoying doesn't count as "harmful") and only in the proper environments (meaning African mosquitos would be sterilized, but those in the U.S. would be mostly left alone), there really isn't much downside. Sure, we would be tampering with the ecosystem, but when mother nature's sanctity results in otherwise preventable deaths, I think we can make an exceptionemeraldrafael said:
a
t
u
r
a
l
S
e
l
e
c
t
i
o
n
!
I'm sorry (I really am) that people are dying to disease and what not, but it's the natural order of things. What you're basically asking for is that we kill of millions..nay, probably billions of insects that are essential parts of the ecosystem.
The worse part is that you have no concept of what would happen of those 600,000 a year that normally die actually live and prosper. Here's an idea: 3 meals a day, procreation (sex), and extended population within already congested sections of the world. It doesn't take a brain surgeon to know that there's a reason these people are dying by disease and famine.
I'd completely be 100% with your mindset if there were two requirements fulfilled: 1) everyone who would have died from these diseases become sterile and 2) a 100% guarantee that nothing else in the ecosystem is effected (no frogs/fish go hungry, no effect on the animals killed by snakes that eat the lizards that eat these bugs, etc.) If, and ONLY if, those two things can be fulfilled will I agree to this lunatic way of thinking. But I don't see that happening, so no.
