> > Keep on dreaming, the laws and rules of Nature do
> > not change! What evidence do you have that they do change!?
>
> Uh, the fact that YOU (a human) are citing HUMAN conceptions of "the laws and
> rules of Nature?" You're anthropomorphizing.... and you have the ability to
> ACT on this anthropomorphization, and impact the world accordingly.

That is just standard action/reaction and I/we are not really changing the laws of nature...This is basic stuff!

> Simply by existing, by being consious of our existance & impact, we have changed
> the "rules" that existed before.....

No we haven't! We do not have the power to change the laws of nature!!!

> we have human motivations sometimes acting counter to strictly "natural" processes
> such as exist in the "natural" world.

Like what!? We can for example maintain anti-matter artificially semi-stable in EM chambers/containers, but those containers still have to obey all the laws of nature...

> > Well, it is all part of the natural food chain.
> > The strong survive and you either evolve or you die...
>
> Nope, see my other reply to you in this thread. PARASITES evolve as well,
> even parasites on their own species..... it's NOT always the strong or
> superior types that survive.

Strength to survive is a relative term to one's ability to quickly adapt to all aspects of Earth changes. So, the parasites that can survive also have to quickly adapt...

> There is a strong countercurrent to this, in fact, in that superior types often end
> up reproducing at lower levels (too busy being superior), while socially parasitic
> inferior types reproduce at higher levels. Our species level of biological fitness has
> gone downhill over the last 30,000+ years.

Not exactly, olympic records continue to get broken...

IMHO you are confusing survival with social degeneration! All that is really needed is a few couples (male-female) for any animal species to survive...

> Heh, 90% or better of the Native American population died because it wasn't immune
> to Old World diseases AND was being massively invaded by Europeans at the time.

..but if 10% survived, then the Native American population survived...

> These people were as "strong" or stronger than Europeans, as "smart" or smarter, and
> Europeans were similarly NOT immune to various "foreign" diseases (ebola, marbourg,
> etc).... & hadn't always been immune to most of what they were sorta immune to
> (smallpox, cholera, chickenpox, etc) at the time of contact.

Obviously you still can't grasp the basic concept of the survival of the species! It is almost like you really think and/or believe that the laws of survival are different now!!!

ALL natural reality is programmed via action/reaction and, therefore, any survival has to be seen within that context! If one cannot quickly adapt to changes and evolve to survive one will just simply die...

> This wasn't a case of strong surviving, nor of evolving, it was largely random
> happenstance...

Nothing is random!!!

> of a combination of factors that just happened to work out a certain way.

it is called action-reaction which obeys specific energy transfer rules. This is also how balance gets re-established in Nature...

> I can name dozens or hundreds of trivial points of history that could easily have
> gone another way,

No way! That is just your imagination!!!

> which would have resulted in radically different historical outcomes... including
> ones in which you ended up speaking Muskogee Creek, or Nahuatl, or Quechua..... or
> Bantu.

Absolutely not! You simply cannot change reality in such an idealistic way!!!

> No, it's what YOU want to call survival of the fittest.... it's what *I* call human
> action, oftimes flying in the face of common sense reality.

There is a huge gap right now between common reality and natural reality!

Essential, common reality is degenerating and becoming less and less significant now...

Action/reaction is always how all natural reality is programmed...

> > That is exactly how Nature will re-balance itself...The viruses attack...
>
> So nature decides this? So viruses act IN ORDER TO REBALANCE? You are
> anthropomorphizing, & seeing things in human terms.

I don't think so! It is always an issue of how energy is or is not in balance and harmony...Also, why do you say that I am seeing things in human terms? What are human terms?

> Besides, it WASN'T a virus that hit the potatoes... it was a fungus (Phytophthora
> infestans).

Virus, fungus, bacteria, it is all basically the same thing from a system perspective when the micro and macro meet at great times of change...

> And just how do viruses act to recreate or replace extinct species?

Well, extinct species and civilizations essentially have no place at certain time/spaces...

> To repair ecosystems ruined by pollution and invasive exotics? To clean up stockpiles
> of highly toxic chemicals (herbicides, pesticides, industrial solvents, chemical
> intermediaries used in synthesis of this or that, etc)?

Well, for example, look at the area around the Mount St.Helens that was devastated by the Volcano. Most of it has been re-growing for several years now...

Nature always finds a way...

> Neh, Nature "might" rebalance itself.... but not unless humans are removed from the
> equation and only AFTER something like a million years or so (better hope that chimps
> don't evolve intelligence meanwhile)..... OR unless humans are actively involved
> in the rebalancing process.

Well, IMHO humans are just another species! No big deal...

What's a million years anyway...in a billion or trillion years...

> > > The convienience of the potato crop had allowed the English to get away with grain
> > > exports & foreign landlords using much of the best land for commercial or even
> > > frivolous (like raising race horses) usages, without overmuch protest from the
> > > subjugated Irish, who could still "get by" via potatoes. But eliminate potatoes,
> > > and you had massive famine.
> >
> > Indeed, you are stuck between a rock and a hard
> > place...
>
> No me. I wasn't there, nor were any of my ancestors.

How do you know? Do you have any evidence of that!? Maybe your monkey ancestor was there!

> And.... I'm a landowner, with other landowning family members to fall back on
> (all gun owners). And I have a LARGE heirloom seed collection encompassing
> many hundreds of traditional cultivars (& many dozens of species), and an even
> larger reference library. And my land has a large wildlife population,
> fertile soil, a good water table, enough rainfall that even a drought
> year allows decent crops, AND a location relatively unaffected by such
> conditions as global warming (or even another ice age) might bring on.

Then let's all hope that you and your family can quickly adapt and survive...

> And.... I'm conscious of the dangers of situations such as represented by
> the Irish potato monoculture. Even the Irish & the English were not really
> "stuck".... they both mismanaged the crisis.

..and what makes you think that you can "manage a crisis" better!?

> > > This same thing happened elsewhere, sudden European introduction of New World crops
> > > & medicines & European technologies allowed massive population increases....
> >
> > Where?
>
> All over Europe, most of Africa, large parts of Asia, etc. (Crops such as maize,
> phaseolus beans, squash, peanuts, manioc, potatoes, sweet potatoes, etc. etc.)

The largest populations are in Asia (China, India) and I thought that they ate rise rather than potatoes!

..and in many places throughout Africa they still keep on killing each other with or without food!

> > > shorcircuiting social checks & balances (what did European overlords care...
> > > or know.... given their OWN unchecked population increase & king of the hill
> > > status?). Introduction of new diseases (plant, animal, human) made systems
> > > more unstable.
> >
> > Well, Nature knows how to re-balance it-self.
> > Humans have really no control over it...
>
> Unless you're advocating some metaphysical conciousness controlling life on earth
> (not an ID proponant, are you?)..... no.

I have no idea what you are asking me here!

> Nature doesn't "know" how to do any such thing,

WOW! Of course it does...Nature has survived very well thank you for millions and millions of years before human beings and will continue to do so with or without human beings...

> or we'd not have ecological collapse & massive extinctions even on unpopulated (by
> humans) islands.... after visiting sailors introduced rats & goats & the like.

Ecological collapse & massive extinctions are an integral part of Nature, otherwise there would still be a bunch of Dinos walking and flying around everywhere!!!

> What usually happens is simply a systemic meltdown, that "eventually" stabilizes
> (after a period of hundreds of years or more)....

..based on what theory!? The real evidence shows that great Earth changes come in short time periods (macro cyclic changes) and then there are very long periods of general stability...

> at a lower level of productivity & diversity. Oh, it'll "eventually" recover
> (after a period ranging from tens of thousands to tens of millions of years,
> depending on the degree of damage).... but only if it's left alone long enough
> to do so.

Recover into what!? Do you mean new civilizations and socio-economic systems rise!? IMHO
AGE/ERA changes will continue to go on forever and ever in cycles...

> Humans ARE part of nature.... but a concious part, that supercedes Darwinian style
> interactions in favor of everything our fertile imaginations can devise.

So you have your own 21st century evolution theory now! LOL

> Suddenly, instead of "wolves, a natural part of the food chain that MAINTAINS species
> fitness & diversity", we get "wolves, influenced by satan, to be killed on sight". And
> so on.

..and so on what!? Humans also get killed on sight in many different ways...

-wirelessguru1