Tuesday, April 13, 2010
It's good to be sensitive
In this day and age many people are concerned with the loss of habitat of other organisms or extinction of the organisms themselves. Do you believe that this concern for other life on earth is a selective advantage to humans, or do you believe that helping save other organisms is just a good thing to do, not necessarily a selective advantage? Be sure to relate your response to previously discussed topics and to the biological themes. Try to focus on the themes of Interdependence in Nature, Regulation, or maybe even Energy Transfer.
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I think that human concern for other life on Earth is not necessarily a "selective advantage" for humans but definitely an advantage. Human concern for other life is not really a "selective advantage" because the trait of humans having concern over other life doesn't help increase the fitness of humans, the benefits derived from the other life themselves provide the benefits for humans.
ReplyDeleteHelping to keep other life from going extinct is a benefit because each species carries different genes. When a species goes extinct, those genes of the species are lost forever. The genes of different species may contain the key to some cures for human diseases as well the key to constructing certain proteins usable by human industries such as biotechnology. The genetic code of foreign species contains the "instructions" for generating different proteins. In fact, many foreign genes are used today in biotechnology. For example, when creating a crop that is pesticide resistant, a gene from a bacteria is inserted into the plant. If the organism species which the gene was taken from to insert into the plant was extinct, humans would not be able to derive the benefits brought by the extinct species.
Also, different species may carry different resistances to certain antigens and toxins in the form of antibodies. Currently, many antivenin treatments for snake bites and such are derives by injecting the poisonous organism's venom into a certain organism which will develop an immune response to produce antibodies against the toxin. The antibodies can be taken from the organism which have produced them and injected into humans to save lives. Without organisms with an immune system able to neutralize certain toxins, certain toxins entering into the human body would be fatal.
Sources:
http://science.jrank.org/pages/6914/Transgenics.html
http://www.rpi.edu/dept/chem-eng/Biotech-Environ/Projects00/rdna/rdna.html
http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/168828-overview
I think what Frank mentioned as just advantages are pretty much actually selective advantages, because when we study other organisms, the data that we get could potentially increase our chances of survival, like in Frank's mention of biotechnology research and venom research.
ReplyDeleteI think that humans having a concern for the habitat or extinction of other organisms does have a selective advantage for humans, and that it does indirectly 'increase the fitness' of the human race.
This is because if we ensure the survival of certain species, for example, cows, then we are maintaining a food and material source, which therefore is a selective advantage to us because we will have beef to eat as well as strips of cow skin to keep our pants up in order to keep our pants from falling and tripping us and potentially hitting our heads extremely hard on the floor. Which is not a selective advantage. Therefore if cows survive, then we too have increased our chances of survival.
Another example could be trees. What if a tree-devouring insect were going around destroying every tree in sight? It would be to our selective advantage to ensure the survival of trees and stopping the insect because if we did nothing and let all the trees die, then we wouldn't have air to breathe.
OH WAIT.
ReplyDeleteAnd this could potentially relate to the theme of interdependence in nature, because us as humans rely heavily on the resources and the benefits that other organisms can provide us. Because we predate on other organisms in order to survive. We also help maintain the balance of the food web by making sure that certain predators do not overeat and obliterate the population of the prey, or have the prey population completely engulf that of the predators. This again, can be a selective advantage because humans sometimes need the resources that certain organisms can provide in order to survive.