It has been said that humans will eventually be as gods in our knowledge of the universe and life itself. However, I find this increasingly difficult to believe and I have the uneasy feeling that our hubris is taking us down a road that will lead to no good. However, it is at least equally alarming that a fair number of people, mostly ultra-conservatives , believe that empirical data is totally made up opinion and that their gut feeling is better than a research-derived result acquired by, in their opinion, smart-alecky academics. This is also hubris and we would, in my opinion, be wise to latch on to neither concept. In essence we need a bit more humility when we question the natural world, but that is not an excuse to avoid the questions, only an honest appraisal of our limitations as jumped-up savanna apes. The evolution of ecosystems and their component biota is certainly a case in point. Ecosystems may have evolved from simple beginnings, but they have become mind-boggling complex and are decidedly difficult, if not impossible, even to model fully, although models are useful, as long as we realize that they are not literally accurate. Ecosystems are based on and/or heavily influenced by weather and geological structures and soil composition, and are thus chaotic in nature. If there is a deity behind all this complexity, then it is one beyond our abilities to comprehend it. Empirical evidence is unsurpassed in solving proximate problems and should not be assailed as a “fake” method in this area. One can criticize individual research on the application or misapplication of methodology and on the interpretation or misinterpretation of the results, but the basic premise of the scientific method is sound.
I have spent much of my life as a researcher in field biology, especially applied ecology involving biological control utilizing natural enemies of a given pest species. These included both native and introduced biological agents and involved both plants and pest insects. I also worked on the biology, evolution, ethology and taxonomy of spiders and did some other research on insects. As a field biologist I have been aware of the ups and downs of arthropod populations and the complexity of ecosystems. My fellow researchers and I found evidence that spider species complexes even in several similar habitats can differ radically in the species composition, although similar niches are involved. This is undoubtedly a result of microclimates, differences in soil and geological structure, as well as plant communities and other associated biota. For example in four different Chihuahuan Desert sites scattered from Texas to mid New Mexico, only a few species of spiders were common to all locations. Thus a wild area preserved in a park, monument, forest or reserve will not conserve all species associated with that gross ecosystem. Individual ecosystems are, in fact, unique and unbelievably complex. But then they have had millions of years of evolution and selection pressures, and this should thus come as no surprise.
Ants are a example of a complex microcosm within an ecosystem, varying from harvesters, carnivores, honey-makers, mushroom-growers, raiders, and slave keepers who cannot even feed themselves. In addition to the ants themselves, their colonies provide homes and food for a number of “guests” within the colony. Ant biodiversity is great and they make up a goodly percentage of animal life in the soil and leaf litter. And these are just a part of a system that includes a myriad of tiny to microscopic life forms. In essence it is the tiny organisms- bacteria, fungi, diatoms, algae, ants, springtails, spiders, mites, and planktonic life, that determine much of our existence. However we just do not see them easily and most of us are totally unaware of the majority of these creatures.
For an example of a series of ecosystems, I am going to arbitrarily use the Gulf of California (otherwise known as the Sea of Cortez and the Vermillion Sea.) I published a diary on the Gulf earlier — See: www.dailykos.com/...) It is a place where I have spent some, but not enough, time. When I first camped with a group of fellow zoology students south of San Felipe the sea was still producing huge totoaba (I knew them as totuava), a gigantic fish that often reached two meters in length and was for years harvested by the ton (2000 metric tons in 1943 according to Wikipedia.) A group of fisherman stopped by our camp and offered to sell us some of their fresh caught fish, which filled their boat. We did not buy. The totoaba is now totally protected by CITES and the Mexican government. The upper part of the Gulf is home to the smallest of the porpoises, the vaquita, which is also endangered. The Gulf has thousands of species of invertebrates, hundreds of species of birds, numerous species of fish, and a host of marine mammals — a multitude of living things, while still not counting the microorganisms, some of which produce oxygen, an element that we need to sustain our life. The evolution of the system, which is slowly collapsing from over fishing, poaching, lack of a real estuary at the mouth of the Colorado River, and some indifference, is tragic. There are some efforts underway to restore the estuary (See: sonoraninstitute.org/...) and perhaps it can yet be restructured. It took millions of years to produce the complex ecosystems in the Gulf, from the deep water to the shore, but it may take only a few centuries for humans to destroy it, if they do. We can hope that we will be wiser than that, but I am skeptical.
As near as we can tell complexity is a hallmark of life, which apparently began on earth probably about 3.5 billion years ago (the exact date is elusive) and was heavily challenged by the release of oxygen after the development of photosynthesis. As the millennia wore on it became more and more complex, to a large degree because of the adaptability of the Carbon-based molecules. As eon followed eon, the relatively simple early bacteria combined into one another to form more and more complex organisms. Examples of this process include one becoming the mitochondria and another the chloroplasts within the cells, which are the basis of multicellular life, such as ourselves. The remarkable ability of DNA and RNA molecules to produce a highly diverse collection of organisms that then formed into continuous gradations of ecosystems boggles the mind. Certainly, while life must be common in the universe, it must also be scattered and thus not easily found. We have taken 3.5 billion years to reach this point and I expect that because of contingency other planets may have quite different results unless we can find one that has nearly the same history as earth.
It is this complexity and in fact the whole concept of evolution that I find to be under attack from the far right (and sometimes from the far left!) Some people just do not like the idea of complexity (or contingency for that matter) as it interferes with their nice neat little world where god originates and man dominates and reaps profit based on merit, even if daddy handed the cash to them on his death bed. This is, indeed, an unfortunate tendency but perhaps we cannot help it — at least we cannot if we are unwilling to educate ourselves. I am convinced that it is a lack of critical thinking on these issues (and the lack of a reasonable skepticism or self-examination) that leads to the simple-minded idea that “I know more than all the experts, who are educated fools.” Some may be so, but I really do not think that over 90% of climate scientists, for examples, are educated fools.
What to do? Well, it is certainly a dark period for science at present but eventually the folly will either be rejected or our species will pay a high price for it. We are already paying the price of inaction, or perhaps I should say too little action. It is, as things stand now, an experiment with a replication of one, determining if we can survive as a species. Otherwise we are no better than paramecia in a culture- multiplying, using up resources, and then dying in our own polluted earth. Nature is resilient though and I doubt that our demise will be the end of life. Only the end of life as we know it. Perhaps there is little or nothing we can do, but follow out the historic line to its end. Certainly our leadership is currently working at speeding our species and many others into the abyss at a faster rate than they were traveling before. Perhaps we should hope that God exists, because we may sure need divine intervention now!
References:
Hirsh, Aaron. 2013. Telling Our Way to the Sea. Farrar, Straus and Giroix, New York,394 p.
Ward, Peter, and Joe Kirschvink. 2015. A New History of Life. Bloomsbury Press, New York, 391 p.